Rescue
Disclaimer: J.K. owns Draco, Hermione and the mysterious attacker, also Hogwarts and related things. Latin belongs to the Ancient Romans.
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Replies: Anyone who missed the canary cream incident, it was in Fire and Ice, to which this is the sequel. Go. Read. Review *grins* Also, when Voldemort said that it was 'someone who would not normally be suspected' he was really, really accurate. None of you are anywhere near correct!
A/N: Very very hectic time this week. I have a 3 page report on an obscure poet for whom I can only find 3 paragraphs of information, Maths coursework, parents evening, regular homework… I actually wrote part of this chapter in my Physics lesson!
On top of all this, some inconsiderate people threw a rock the size of my fist through our bus window today. It hit one of my friends on the back of the head. So, all in all, not a good week. I hope all of yours are better, and also that you enjoy this chapter!
~*~
Draco leaned against the wall outside the Potions corridor, feeling the rough stone dig into his back. He tried to ignore the ceaseless chatter going on around him. Once he would have taken an interest in the gossip, even joined in, but at the moment it seemed rather… meaningless.
Which worried him, because Slytherins were supposed to listen to gossip and rumour. There was always a chance that it might be true, and could be twisted to personal advantage. But really, what did it matter? There was nothing he had to gain… except for Hermione. And the banal conversation of his fellow classmates was hardly likely to magically restore her memory.
By habit, he glanced towards the Gryffindor side of the corridor to where she usually stood with Harry and Ron, directly under the torch furthest from the door. He could hardly miss the red beacon of Ron's hair, and spotted Harry directly beside him. But, with a sudden strange twist of his stomach, he realise that Hermione was nowhere to be seen.
He glanced at his watch. The lesson was supposed to start any minute, and still she wasn't here? That wasn't like her. She'd rather have all her fingernails pulled off than miss a lesson…
Frowning, he took a step in the Gryffindors' direction. But before he could ask them where she was, Snape swept along the corridor, glaring at the Gryffindors as he passed them.
Draco was pulled along in the crowd as everyone tried to get in at once, hoping for the best seats at the back. To his annoyance, he couldn't speak to Harry or Ron before he was swept into the classroom. He did, however, manage to grab a desk that was a respectable way towards the back.
He took out parchment and a quill, unable to keep himself from glancing towards the door and hoping Hermione would come in. Trying to deny his nervousness, he smoothed the parchment. If Hermione were in danger, Harry and Ron wouldn't have left her. And what about this Pericuscia thing? Shouldn't he know if she was in danger?
Not much reassured by this logic, he kept glancing at the door. Apparently, he wasn't the only one to notice her absence: Snape was eyeing the class with an evil glare.
'And will Miss Granger be joining us today?' he asked Harry and Ron with sarcasm.
'She's just gone to get her homework.' Harry muttered. 'She'll be here in a minute.'
'A minute? I think, when she finally decides to grace us with her presence, I shall remove points from Gryffindor house for her tardiness. One point per minute.'
He turned to the blackboard. 'Today, class, we are learning to make an incredibly difficult potion. I doubt most of you will be able to perform it correctly, however, for the few of you with any talent…'
Draco let Snape's words drift away. The instructions for making the potions were included in detail in their Potions textbook. Most of the others didn't realise that and just relied on their notes. The textbook was extremely comprehensive and ensured that Draco never went wrong.
Idly, he began to doodle on a corner of his parchment. An eye appeared slowly in the corner of his page, yet for all its detail it was blank and emotionless. Like he once had been. Had he changed so very much? He began, almost without paying attention, to add a thick eyebrow above it.
Without any warning, a sudden pain spread through his arm, a tingling and a burning. The only sign he showed outwardly was a puzzled frown as he glanced at his arm, which seemed uninjured. It was. But then, what could the cause of the pain be…?
His eyes flicked to the empty seat by Harry and Ron. No. It couldn't be… Hermione.
He thrust his arm into the air, wincing as he used his painful hand. Damn it… she was being hurt, and he had to get there…damn Snape, why couldn't he notice he had his hand up faster? There was no time…
Snape eventually broke from his long-winded lecture to ask, 'Yes, Malfoy?'
'Please, Professor,' Draco began, putting a hand to his stomach. 'I feel sick. Could I please be excused?'
'Sick?' Snape queried with a sharp glance.
'I think it might be food poisoning.' Draco said, trying to sound convincing.
Snape looked suspicious. 'I was not aware that any of the food at breakfast was not properly cooked?'
Draco pretended to clutch his stomach in pain. It wasn't difficult: new areas of pain were cropping up, and it was driving him nearly frantic with worry for Hermione. 'I was up early and asked the house elves to make me some bacon. I think that mightn't have been properly done.' He assumed a pained expression. 'Can I please go, Professor? I think I might be sick.'
'Go, go.' Snape looked irritated. Draco had to restrain himself from leaping from his seat; instead, he stood calmly and made his way towards the door slowly. To his credit, he managed to get halfway down the corridor before breaking into a run.
~*~
Damn, damn, damn. Why were there so many corridors?
Draco ran blindly through the passageways, trying to keep on a path that would lead to Gryffindor tower in the hope that Hermione would be somewhere on it. But the staircases kept changing, and the doors moved and the paintings were misleading and driving him mad with their suspicious glances.
This was pointless. He came to a stop in the middle of one long passage: no different to any other passageway in Hogwarts. The paintings around him were whispering, gossiping viciously just out of his hearing.
One of them, a picture of a fat and red-cheeked man sitting on a pure white horse, had the audacity to address him. 'What are you doing here, boy? You ought to be in your lessons.'
'I'm looking for someone.' Draco hissed back. Hadn't Dumbledore said he should be able to tell where she was? All he could feel was the echoing pain, a new burst of which erupted every few moments. So much for that theory.
'Have you seen a girl? Her name's Hermione, she's got brown hair…'
The man regarded Draco in a manner that put him very much in mind of a peacock ruffling its feathers. 'I pay no attention to the silly pupils of this school. Children today do not know how to respect their betters.'
Draco could not help muttering 'Git.' under his breath as he turned away from the painting. Another echo of Hermione's pain spread up his leg. Damn it, where was she…?
'Did you say you were looking for Hermione?' asked a childish voice from his left. He turned to see a silver-framed picture of a little girl, starting at him with abnormally large green eyes that reminded him of a house elf. The eyes were framed by a tangle of messy hair which he suspected hadn't been brushed in a while.
'Yes…' Draco replied, hardly daring to let himself hope. 'Do you know where she is?'
The little girl, never moving those unnerving eyes away from him, nodded slowly. 'I saw her running from the Gryffindor common room five minutes ago. She was in an awful hurry.'
'Can you show me where?' Draco asked urgently.
The girl nodded, smiling suddenly. 'Follow me!' she shouted, grabbing two handfuls of white dress and tugging it above her ankles, before breaking into a run, ducking through the crowds of smartly dressed ladies in the next picture along. Draco had no choice but to follow, racing down the corridor to keep up with his guide as she flitted in and out of the pictures, stumbling in her excitement and occasionally disappearing from view only to reappear a few portraits along.
Eventually, she came to a stop in the middle of a picture of a vase of lavender. Something was wrong with the perspective, as the child barely reached the top of the vase, and had to push aside a purple-headed sprig to speak to him.
'It was here I saw her.' the girl informed him, face flushed from the running. Raising an arm, she pointed down the corridor. 'She was going that way.'
'Thank you.' Draco said, and he meant it. Turning, he set off down the corridor, instinctively drawing his wand from the inside pocket of his cloak and gripping it tightly. He could hear the blood rushing through him, hear his heartbeat resound in his skull. The only other noise was the hollow sound of his footsteps on the stone.
And then came a distant cry, between a scream and a plea for help, sending another pain echo twanging through his arm…
Without even thinking about it, he broke into a run, racing through the corridors. His blood had turned to ice at the cry: it felt frozen solid, almost, and barely moving in his veins.
Where was she? He had only that weak cry to guide him, and blindly he ran in that direction, hoping that fate would lead him right. Every corner could be the one that led to Hermione; every corner he took left other possibilities behind. Was he going the right way? Where was she?
By sheer fortune, another shout came, closer this time, on his right. He skidded to a stop, eyes desperately searching out the way to go. There was only one turning leading right. He ran through it, turned a few corners…
And was faced with the sight of Hermione, injured on the floor but still fighting back bravely, while a hooded figure laughed maliciously and raised its wand for another attack…
Draco was quicker. 'Testaevitri!' he shouted, sending lethal shards of glass towards the figure, which raised an arm to shield its face. A piece gouged a long thin tear down the fabric, and a trickle of blood showed that an arm had been cut as well.
The shadowed face turned towards him, raising an arm to attack. Draco raised his wand, prepares to counter-curse, but Hermione was already there.
'Cruor!' she shouted, and the wound of the figure opened wider and deeper, causing it to gasp in pain.
Draco, seeing his moment, raised his wand to cast the full body-bind and discover who the figure was. But, seeming to sense his intent, the figure backed away.
'You have not won yet.' it hissed in a feminine though unfamiliar voice. Then it turned and fled. Draco tried to send a spell after it, but the figure dodged, and vanished round a corner.
He rejected the idea of giving pursuit. After all, Hermione was injured: how could he leave her here? Turning back, he saw her pale-faced, obviously in pain. He bent down to kneel beside her, searching for the right thing to ask. 'Are you okay?' was rather pointless as it she obviously was not.
It was Hermione, however, who spoke first. 'I guess that's four, then.'
'Four what?' asked Draco, puzzled.
'Four times you've saved my life.' Hermione said, paling even more.
Draco shook his head. 'Whoever it was, they wouldn't have risked killing you in Hogwarts. Do you want to go to Madam Pomfrey?'
'No, I've already missed fifteen minutes of Potions. Snape's going to be furious. I won't even ask how you managed to get here.' she said, trying to get to her feet.
'Don't try to get up.' Draco told her, and surprisingly she listened to his advice. 'And you can't just walk into Snape's classroom bleeding. Let me help…
He pointed his wand at her, trying to aim for the largest wound. 'Sanare.' he said, and the wounds began to heal themselves. Hermione looked impressed.
'Healing spells are extremely advanced magic!' she said. 'How on earth did you learn those?'
'Came in handy when I was younger.' Draco said without expression. Hermione hadn't remembered about that particular aspect, but from her face Draco could see that she'd put two and two together.
Hermione tried to stand again, but managed to get her feet tangled and fall back down. 'Dratted curse…' she muttered, pointing the wand at her eyes. 'Finite Incantatem.' she said, and blinked.
'She used a spell to attack your eyes?' Draco asked.
'Some sort of mirror-vision spell, I think.' Hermione replied. She clambered to her feet and went to pick up her schoolbag, which was lying in a corner.
'Hey, look at this!' she exclaimed, turning to Draco and holding out a single quill. It was made from a pure white feather, in such a pristine shade that Draco wondered at first if it was real. The nib was unusual, made from silver and covered in intricate swirls and engravings. In the centre of the design were two single letters:
'M.B.' read Draco. 'Who's that?'
Hermione looked pensive. 'I don't know, but I know how we can find out…' She glanced at her watch, suddenly nervous. 'We've missed almost twenty minutes of Potions!' she exclaimed with horror.
Draco couldn't help but smile at Hermione's rather predictable reaction.
~*~
As usual, lots of Latin spells used… 'Testaevitri' from 'testae' meaning 'shards' and 'vitri' meaning 'of glass'. 'Cruor' is a nice little word meaning 'gore', and 'Sanare' is simply 'to heal'.
So, the mysterious M.B… And you get to find out all about her sometime in the future.
Do I even need to say the last thing? Oh, well, I'll say it anyway…
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