Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter blah blah blah blah.
I'll be sure to get the books on tape! Oh and I read the books in Polish (and 1 in Czechoslovakian)! I dunno if I got all the questions answered from the reviews… anyway keep reading and reviewing! That's the ticket!
~* 6 *~
Hermione's fingertips skimmed the cold, hard parapet of the window, and she considered her choices. She could go right ahead or not go at all. Draco was watching her, and she knew that he'd laugh at her with his friends once this was all over. She hated being humiliated.
'Here goes nothing' she thought, firmly, slowly pulling herself up. She reached into the room – and her hand went right through the image of a classroom. It seemed as if the little window view was only a deceptive, clever picture, made of a material that felt very much like water spray, as her hand went right through it.
Draco's mouth fell open.
" Holy shit!" He murmured.
Hermione ignored the swear, deciding that giving a lecture on it was the least of her worries. She drew her hand out, staring at it. The picture of the classroom next door quivered and then slowly came back to normal. As she looked at it now, it looked perfect, as if it really was there, an amazing hologram.
" Hermione, what's taking so long? Are you okay?" Harry's voice rang in alarm.
" I'm fine." She said in a rushed voice. " Oh, wow…"
" What? What is it?"
Hermione drowned Harry's voice out as she yelled: " Harry – this room – the window had an illusion in it, the room next door is truly something secret." Hermione stuck her head in, but just as she felt the shimmering feeling of the image on her eyelids, a sudden force pushed her back.
Her body hit the floor with a thump.
" Ow!" She grimaced, rubbing her elbow with a confused expression.
" What happened?" Harry sounded frustrated.
" I can't get in. It keeps pushing me back."
" Try and throw something inside."
Hermione looked around wildly. Draco, in his own confusion and curiosity, handed her his wand. Just as he realized the senseless, brain-less thing he did, Hermione whipped the wand at the window. It flew right through the image of the classroom and disappeared.
" Goodness." Hermione shuddered. " Harry, I threw a wand in, and…"
Suddenly, it hit her.
" Draco, you idiot, your wand!" Hermione exclaimed.
Draco looked furious enough with himself. He bit his tongue, trying to keep the flood of words back, but he finally said: " Well, sorry, but I wanted to see what would happen, okay? Leave me alone!" Then, he shut his mouth again, turning his flushed face away from her.
" You're kidding me. You threw Draco's wand in there?" Harry laughed.
" It's not funny, Potter." Draco looked sick to the stomach. "Father's not going to like this, that wand was an old one, passed down in the family. It seems my grandfather had the same wand as me." He said the last bit to nobody in particular, or perhaps to remind himself of how priceless the wand was, and how stupid of a mistake he made.
" Well? Get it back!" Harry said.
" We can't get in! The window won't let us." Hermione shouted back, exasperated.
" Stop yelling! McGonagall will be down here in seconds!" Draco said, using a raised voice himself.
" I don't believe this." Harry sounded tired.
" I'll try again." Hermione walked up to the window, her hands clasping tightly on the cold windowpane. She decided to push her way in, and if the force of whatever was in the room would try to push her back, Hermione wouldn't let it by pushing on the windowpane. With all her strength, she lunged onto the windowpane, her head bursting through the image. Her entire head, up to her shoulder blades, was through, and she heard the distinctive pop sound of a punctured balloon. She felt a suction pulling her back into the room.
Struggling desperately, her knees pushing down at the wooden parapet, trying to balance herself so that her feet would be holding her back, Hermione looked around the mysterious room she was half-way in now. It was so very dark that she wondered if she'd be able to see anything. What was odd about this room was that light seemed to flood through the image of the classroom and into Hermione and Draco's room. Inside this dark, humid room, though, the light of the other room did not penetrate through the image.
Hermione couldn't hear anything going on in the other room. She blinked in awe as her eyes adjusted to the pitch-black. Soon she could make out dark outlines of objects in the room. The suction was getting worse, she felt her body getting sucked back. Her knees trembled, and her bruised elbow hurt so incredibly now that she could barely hold onto the frame of the window.
" Ouch!" She grimaced, as one knee finally let go. Her body went through a jerking movement and she was being pulled back. " No, no…" She fought hard, the darkness easier to see through. There was a bookcase close by, and she could see the glimmer of Draco's wand, slightly damaged by the throw and now sending off sparks. The rest of the room seemed too dark to make out still.
Her entire body vibrated and she pushed forwards once more. The secret of getting in was to try and plunge as much of oneself into the room at once. The wand flew in easily for it went at a quick speed, too fast for the suction to react.
Hermione felt her heartbeat in her ears, a pulsating and excruciating pain.
Finally, she couldn't hold on any longer. The window was too small for Hermione to simply lunge through. She let go of the windowpanes and the sound of a trampoline bounce rattled the room. Hermione flew backwards and hit the desk hard.
" Hermione, are you okay?" Harry shouted.
Hermione felt weak. Her eyes closed. Her entire body hurt so much… the blow to her head from hitting the desk was too much… the room slipped into a sudden, familiar darkness.
~*~
" My, my. How did this happen?"
The voice split through Hermione's blank mind. She felt a sensation in the back of her head. Her eyes slowly opened and she found Professor McGonagall standing over her, and Draco Malfoy on the other side of her. She was lying on her cot. Someone must have put her there. Whoever put her there wasn't considerate enough to cover her, though, or to provide her with a blanket.
" I didn't do it. I'm telling you, Professor, she tripped and fell, hitting her head on the corner of the desk. Just wait until she wakes up, she'll tell you I didn't do it." Draco said, angrily. " The nerve to accuse me!"
" Draco, what could she possibly trip on?" Professor McGonagall looked around the room accusingly. The floor was devoid of any items. The area around the desk was also uncluttered. The dust on the desk, right where Hermione hit her head on, had an obvious imprint of her hair and her forehead, and just the tip of her nose.
" I don't know!" Draco grimaced, staring down hatefully onto Hermione's face. She squinted to appear asleep. " Maybe she's clumsy."
" I doubt it." Professor McGonagall shook her head. " Draco, one more incident like this, and I will have you pulled from our school. Your violent outbursts cannot be tolerated on school grounds, and furthermore…"
Draco looked very bored as she said this.
Hermione suddenly sat up, trying to yawn a bit as if she were awakening from a long, deep sleep. Her eyes went from Professor McGonagall's displeased frown to Draco's bored sulk. She opened her mouth to speak, almost to justify Draco's case, but suddenly thought better of it. Her essay, ruined completely, lay on the desk still. The chunks of mud that she had to painfully peel from her skin, wincing as it pulled on the fine hair on her arms, caused enough pain to hold a grudge on Draco for years.
Yet, she had thrown his wand into the other room, and she had begun to realize that perhaps the whole mud-pit incident was a big accident.
" Hermione!" Professor McGonagall exclaimed. " Thank goodness you're alright. Should I notify Madame Pomfrey? If you feel dizzy, we might have to remove you from here."
Hermione wished to leave the room, but she didn't want to lie. Besides, she was intrigued in the secret of the adjoined room. Hermione looked back at Draco. His eyes suddenly softened as her eyes met his icy ones. There was a look of humanly hope, and almost a look of pleading, that seemed to float among the abyss of icy-blue and gray tangles. The color of his eyes always reminded her of two silk scarves, bundled up together – one ice blue and one gray.
" I'm fine." She said, finally. " Professor, it was entirely an accident. I banged my knee on the edge of Draco's cot, and I fell." Her stomach sunk as she said this. Her opportunity to get Draco in trouble was over. Hermione then added: " Can I leave to go to the girl's room?"
Professor McGonagall nodded curtly. " I'll have to escort you, wait in the corridor."
Hermione saw this as a cue to leave.
When she found herself standing in the hallway, enjoying a brief few moments of freedom from the confines of the room, Hermione let out a breath of relief. Then, she looked to see if Harry was right about there being no door leading to the other room.
The wall she was leaning on was indeed devoid of any doors, windows, pictures, or torch-holders. In fact, the door to the room she and Draco were in was the only one in the corridor in general. This was odd to her, but she shrugged it off. The only unusual thing was the room with the incredible suction-force, the indescribably powerful field around it. What could possibly lie in there that could require such impossibly strict confines?
McGonagall's voice rang sharply from the room as she said, simply: " I am very sorry for my accusations, Mr. Malfoy, but I'm sure you understand?"
There was no reply.
" Do you need to… to step out of the room?" Professor McGonagall sounded guiltier by the moment.
The reply didn't come for this question as well.
" Hermione will be right back. I'll keep the door closed." Professor McGonagall walked out and then closed the door. She looked at Hermione and then sighed. " That boy – his entire family for the matter." She lowered her voice so Draco wouldn't hear from inside the room: " I do wonder why he and his family are so concerned with honor and pride if there is so much wrongdoing and dishonor associated with them."
Hermione's eyes widened. She had never expected Minerva McGonagall, possibly the most secretive and uptight teacher at Hogwarts other then Snape, to say these words.
" Ah, Miss Granger, do not be so surprised that I see certain things." Professor McGonagall shook her head sadly. " I taught for a long time, and it brought me the joy of seeing marvelous witches and wizards grow up. And yet, there will always be a wormy apple in each barrel." She stopped. They were in front of the girl's room.
" Do you really think Draco's all that bad?" Hermione asked.
" I don't know yet. He has shown many tendencies to favor Dark Arts, and the Dark Side for the matter. I worry he will more then willingly follow his father's footsteps. Lucius Malfoy is well-known for his associations with You-Know-Who." Professor McGonagall's facial expression changed to that of a very strict, frightened one. " Miss Granger, you do know I hold you as one of my trusted students. Despite how it pains me to punish you this way, I know what must be done."
" I understand." Hermione said. She did somewhat understand why Professor McGonagall wouldn't want Draco to get away with being mean to students. There was only so much that a student can do without crossing the threshold into where it is simply too much. Perhaps Draco had crossed the line already, or he was dancing right on the edge of the line. Professor McGonagall clearly cared about her students, even Draco. Hermione knew that Professor McGonagall would suffer along with each loss her students felt.
It was a sad and comforting feeling at the same time. Hermione gave the Professor a brave grin, and she added: " I really don't think Draco would be all too bad."
" Everyone hopes so. With the power his father is achieving among various types of people, the worst blow – and greatest achievement for You-Know-Who - would be if Draco took Lucius's position. I'm sure you know that Draco could be easily tempted in it just for the power. I can see he likes power." Professor McGonagall shook her head. " I won't fill your head with worries, child, it's enough that I worry Dumbledore constantly with my premonitions."
" It's alright, Professor. At least you speak honestly to me about what's going on." Hermione then slowly walked into the bathroom. She turned the sink on and then let her hands soak under increasingly hot water. Soon it was scalding and she had to remove her hands, but she didn't feel the burn of the water much. Her mind was full with frightful ideas.
Hermione knew that a lot of pressure was already on Draco's shoulders from Lucius. For some reason, though, hearing McGonagall tell Hermione things that she'd known for a while was worse then if Hermione had thought of them alone.
She couldn't explain it, but through her distaste to Draco, she hoped he didn't take Lucius's footsteps. Hermione knew that Draco could turn back. He could make a complete one-hundred and eighty degree turn and turn good. Or he could just take the moderate path, the happy medium in between good and evil. And yet, how would Lucius react? What would Lucius do to Draco if Draco didn't acknowledge the importance of him being able to uphold the Malfoy power and influence?
Hermione was still worried as she fell asleep that night.
~*~
A/N: Okay, sorry, I had to add all that about Draco. I mean, that's more of my opinion on the way things are in the Harry Potter world, and I do think Draco joining the Dark Side would be very important, because I think Lucius has set up a lot of power and followers and stuff, and… okay I dunno if I am even making sense. Does anyone else think this? Will Draco turn Good? What is the mystery of the room? Why do my fingers hurt despite this was only 2,500 words (about a thousand more then the other chapters, but still!)
~*~
Oh and thank you for the reviews! I went from 27 reviews to 46, for just one chapter. At this rate, by the time I'm done with this story, I'd have many, many reviews. I am so happy!
