A Walk to Remember – Chapter 3

Author's Notes: Thank you for your reviews. Hopefully, there won't be any flames in this story (hopefully). Remember that this is not the real book/movie. I am not planning to steal Nicholas Spark's work. Thank you so much for understanding. No, I don't have any beta-readers right now, so if you happen to be good at English grammar, please e-mail me at mercurybottle@hotmail.com to help me out. Thank you!

* * *

He smiled at the Dark Lord, and laughed an unmerciful laugh. "My Lord, she has been terminated," he whispered. Lord Voldemort looked at his new servant and said, "Has she? Very good," He looked at Voldemort and said, "I think I've figured out who is the second Lady of Eden,"

"There's only three, right? The first one is dead, she has the Wisdom Ashes' power or whatever it's called anyway." Voldemort stated. Then, he smiled at him. "Thank you for murdering her. I should've thought it would be such an easy job for you to take care of,"

"It was pretty hard, she's rather powerful," he muttered. Voldemort laughed, and said, "We must not underestimate the Ladies of Eden's power. We must kill all of them. If one is alive, she can still summon Eden—the Princess of Lodomheal, (a/n: I don't know anything about Eden' so don't sue me)" He looked at him and asked, puzzled, "My Lord, what does Lodomheal' means? Is there such place as that? Isn't that just a legend? A myth?"

"No, it is not a legend, or a myth. Now, who is that second Lady of Eden?" Voldemort asked. He looked at the Dark Lord and answered, "She will die anyway. She has the sacred Healing Sapphire power. I read that she will die if she cures the one she loves,"

"Whom is it?" Voldemort asked.

"Hermione Granger," he replied, smiling.

* * *

Hermione walked towards Julian, and saw that there were lots of people crowding the place. She wondered what was going on, and went inside. What she saw made her gasp—Christina was lying on the floor, covered with blood.

"Oh, my goodness," she muttered and hurried inside. Joe was knelt beside Christina's body, tears rolling down from his eyes. "Joe—I am so sorry," she muttered. Joe looked up at her and smiled faintly. "It's okay, Hermione—It's okay." But she knew it wasn't okay.

"What's going on here?" she heard Draco's voice from behind her. She turned around to see him staring at Christina's body, his face was pale and he was apparently shocked. "Granger—what—happened—to her?" he stuttered.

"I don't know," she replied, then tears began to well up in her eyes too. Draco knelt down beside her, apparently too wordless to say anything. Without thinking, she hugged him. "She doesn't deserve this at all, she really doesn't," she choked.

"No, of course not," Draco mumbled. "Um, Granger—can you get off me?" Realizing what she was doing, she let go of him. "Sorry," she murmured. "I guess—I'm rather—upset," she wiped her eyes. Was it her imagination, or did Draco's eyes just glinted?

She looked at him suspiciously, and he didn't notice that she was looking at him. Draco realized what she was doing and asked, "What's your problem?" Hermione looked away and wondered if there was something she didn't know about Draco.

* * *

"Hey, Hermione, would you like to take a walk?" Draco asked. Their soup kitchen duties were cut short that day, because of Christina's death. Hermione shrugged. "Okay, I guess," she replied. Together, they walked aimlessly, and Draco found himself heading for the Poor Lane.

Indeed, the lane was for beggars to crowd around, hopefully waiting for rich people to come and give them food or money. Draco saw them, and was a bit uncomfortable. They all looked so pale, their lips were blue, and apparently, they were hungry.

Hermione looked at them sympathetically and drew out the bag of buns she took from the soup kitchen and gave the buns to the poor people. They took it and a little girl said, "Are you an angel?" Hermione smiled at her and said, "No, I'm not,"

Draco snickered a little and she glared at him. "Oops—sorry," he muttered. Hermione put her hands on her hips and said, "Malfoy, aren't you going to donate them some of your galleons?" He stared at her, flabbergasted.

"A Malfoy never—

"Look, when are you going to make decisions for your own self? You know you want to give them some money, why don't you? Are you too proud to give them money, just because you're a Malfoy?" Hermione said sternly.

"All right, all right," he muttered. He went up to them and gave them some of his galleons. "Thank you so much! You are kind, sir!" said a boy, who was about ten years old. "Now I can give buy my mother some food!"

"Where is your mother?" Hermione asked.

"We live in a dirty ol' shack," the boy said, looking rather guilty. "You wouldn't want to see it,"

"We would love to see it, and we would like to visit your mother. How about this, we'll take you to Honeydukes and buy you some sweets?" she said. Draco stared at Hermione, and she glared at him, mouthing "You have to come!"

And so, they went to Honeydukes and bought lots of sweets, not just for the boy, but for other poor kids as well. "I can just imagine Harry's cousin eating all this," Hermione chuckled. Draco arched his eyebrows. "Are you in love with Harry's cousin?" he asked.

"What? Of course not! Dudley's a fat pig," she replied, laughing. The boy pulled her robes a little and said, "My name is Matt, by the way." he said. Hermione smiled at him, and said, "My name is Hermione Granger, and—

"I'm Draco Malfoy," Draco said.

"Isn't the name Draco actually means dragon'?" Matt asked.

"Well, yes," Draco replied.

"See how clever I am at Latin!" Matt said proudly, his childish face lighting up. They walked for a while and came by a small and nearly collapsed shack. "Matt—honey, where did you went? I was worried to death!" they heard a woman's voice coming from inside the shack.

"Mum, don't die yet!" Matt cried, looking worried and ran into the shack. Hermione and Draco look at each other and entered the shack too. They saw an old, sickly woman, sitting with a little girl who had brown curly hair.

"You didn't tell us you have a sister, Matt," Hermione said.

"Yeah! You know, her name's Hermione too!" Matt said.

"Hello," the woman said, smiling at them. "Were you the ones who found Matt? God bless you two," Draco shifted uncomfortably and the woman said, "Please, sit down," but there was hardly any room in the little shack, that she stood up for them to sit at her seat.

"Please, we would rather stand," Hermione said immediately.

The woman looked rather startled and sat back on her seat. "Well, actually, we want to give you all some sweets we brought for Honeydukes, and we hope that you can give away some of the sweets to the other kids," Hermione said.

"Yeah," Draco muttered.

"Oh, thank you very much!" the woman cried. She jumped up and hugged Hermione tightly. "No problem," Draco said. The woman tried to hug Draco but he shifted away slightly. She looked rather puzzled and a bit hurt and she sat back down again.

"Well, thank you again for the sweets," the little Hermione said, smiling at them both. "Brother! I want some of the Chocolate Frogs!" Matt looked at her and said, "Nu-uh! There are some that are for the other kids, don't be too greedy, Hermione!"

Draco snickered, looking at her. Hermione blushed furiously and said, "Well, I guess we'd better go now,"

The little Hermione ran towards Hermione and hugged her. "Would you come again?" she asked. Hermione smiled, and said, "Of course. It was nice meeting you all," then, she and Draco made their way out of Poor Lane.

"You were very rude, Malfoy," Hermione said suddenly.

"Huh? Me?" Draco exclaimed, startled.

"Yeah, you. You didn't have to shift away like that. That was just so plain rude. What is wrong with that woman hugging you? She just wants to show her act of friendliness and thankfulness towards us," she said, rolling her eyes.

"She was dirty, and sick, and smelly," Draco said, losing his temper. Hermione narrowed her eyes and said, "So if a beautiful girl appears in front of you that's nice, but smelly, dirty and sick, you won't be nice to her then?"

"I will, since she is pretty," he replied.

"You are so horrible, Malfoy. You judge people by their looks!" Hermione said angrily.

"Get over it," he said.

"Don't you speak to me like that!" she said warningly.

"Don't you order me around. You know I hate people who do that," he said.

"I am not ordering you, all right?" she said frustratingly. "I want you to see the truth. I want you to see what you've wasted all of your life. I want you to see—

"Shut up," he said coldly. "I don't need any of this, especially from you."

"What about Chris? Are you happy she's dead?" Hermione yelled. Draco looked away from her and he felt a pang of sadness in his heart. "Shove off, Granger," he said coldly. Hermione folded her arms. "You know, it won't help if you keep on acting like this. It won't help if you keep covering up your feelings."

"Tell it to Potter," Draco said sneeringly.

"Harry doesn't have anything to do with this, all right?" Hermione cried.

"Potter likes to cover his feelings—he feels restless, pre-occupied, and he knows he needs to keep a distance from you and Weasley. Voldemort is hunting him, and he's going to kill Potter, and he knows that if he's too close with you and Weasley, Voldemort is going to kill you both!" Draco yelled.

Hermione slapped him on the cheek. "That's the second time I've done it to you, Malfoy." she said. She turned away from him and ran off. Draco put his hand on his forehead.

"Shit," he muttered.

* * *

It was only seven thirty when Harry saw Hermione entering the castle, teary-eyed. He hurried up to her and asked, "Hermione, what's wrong? What happened? Did Malfoy acted like a jerk towards you?" Hermione looked at him, and said, "No—Christina died,"

"What?" Harry exclaimed. "That girl we met at the soup kitchen? How..?

"I really don't know. It was so awful, Harry. I saw her body in the soup kitchen, on the floor, covered with blood," Hermione sobbed. Harry hugged her and said, in a brotherly manner, "Look, it's okay. Everything's going to be okay,"

"Where's Ron?" Hermione asked, sniffing. Harry frowned a little. Ron was hardly to be seen lately. It was very puzzling. "I don't know, Hermione. We went separate ways after dinner." he answered. "So, Malfoy didn't act horrible towards you today?"

"He's a jerk! I hate him!" Hermione said angrily. "Everytime I try to give him an advice, he keeps giving me reasons and stuff—I just hate him!" Harry had never seen her looking so angry and said soothingly, "Look, he's a jerk. He'll always be a jerk, and there's no need for you to advice him on anything. It's up to him to change himself."

"I guess," she mumbled.

* * *

That night, Ginny Weasley walked towards the Gryffindor common room and saw Harry lurking outside. She smiled a little and made her way towards him. "Hi, Harry. What are you doing here? It's nearly eleven o'clock," she said.

He smiled at her, and said, "What are you doing up late like this?" Ginny blushed a little, and replied, "I just did my History of Magic homework in my library. I hope that's not against the school rules?" Harry laughed a little, and said, "You'll be happy to know—I've broke that rule a couple of times already,"

She smiled at him and said, "So—what are you doing here? Lurking around finding people who are staying up late like me?" He laughed and said, "Not really. Actually, I was—um—I was waiting for you." she stared at him, feeling her face heating up.

"Erm—would you like to talk about something?" she asked.

"Yeah, it's about Hermione," he said.

"What about her?" Ginny asked.

"Well, since she trusts you and everything. Do you think she's acting rather weird lately?" Harry said. Ginny looked thoughtfully at him and said, "I suppose so. And I think—well—I don't really mean to speak against my brother, but—Ron's neglecting her."

Harry arched his eyebrows. "They are very close, Ginny. I don't think so." He said.

"See? I'm useless. So ignore me, Harry," she said frustratingly. She opened her mouth to inform the Fat Lady the password, until Harry said, "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to point out that you're wrong."

"I can be wrong, Harry. Stop thinking I am over-sensitive," Ginny said, smiling.

"Well, okay," he said quietly.

"You're too solemn sometimes. Cheer up," she said.

The portrait of the Fat Lady swung open, and Harry grinned. "I suppose that's the new password."