Disclaimer: Nothing here is mine and it never will be.
A/N: sorry that it took soooooo long to get this chapter out. It's just that I've had so much homework and stuff. And I just totally bombed my english test on the crucible. Soooo…yeah….life is great. (sarc).
This chapter is sooooo boring that it could be used as a cure for insomnia, seriously. It took me like, a whole month to write it because I just couldn't keep writing cuz I'd fall asleep after a few sentences.
Anyhow, a bunch of thanks to everyone who reviewed: Just to be me, AlyBaby, Merusa/RedVixen, Escritora, Tweetgurl, Blimey411, Rosa, blank/no name, Rebecca, Akuma Canadian Angel, BoOtYbAbY, bloody raven, Danny, rei, another no name/blank, dracosrockstar, kumiko, depth, katy, hermiolil malfoy, Qrackie, Kiara, Staci, Andrea, Moontrail
And I think (I'm not quite sure cuz I can't remember, it was so long ago) that there was someone who email me about my story. I read the email, but like, aol deleted it after 7 days, cuz it has this stupid thing that deletes your mail automatically after 7 days, which really pisses me off. Soooo, if you sent that email, I'm sorry I dunno who you are, due to aol's stupdity, but thanks!
Oh yeah, and sorry, this is unbeta'd cuz I didn't have time to send it to her cuz this was the only time like in a week that I could post it, and I didn't wanna wait a week to post it cuz it's already been like, more than a month. (that was a really long run on sentence, hahaha).
~
Forever Never Ends
Chapter 18
Flashback
"Ron! That's absolutely disgusting! Really, just leave it alone!" Hermione exclaimed as she knelt down on the dirt path next to Ron.
"Wait a minute, won't you? I want to see if it's alive."
"Ron, stop prodding at it, will you? You're making me sick," Hermione said, exasperated, frowning down at the small animal that was lying in a pool of blood on the road. "Harry, you tell him!"
Harry, who was also kneeling down, grabbed a stick and then proceeded to help Ron try to turn it over.
"Harry, I really can't believe you! Honestly, you two, grow up!"
Harry and Ron, pretending as if they couldn't hear her, used their sticks as chopsticks, and were able to finally turn the mutilated animal around.
"Oh, my God!" Hermione's eyes grew wide as she studied the small creature carefully. "I-It's a revola!"
Harry raised one of his eyebrows. "And…that would be?"
"They're really rare. Actually, they're almost extinct!" Hermione said with an air of authority. "Ron, Harry, you have got to take it to Madame Pomfrey! I think it's still alive, you've got to save it!"
Ron and Harry looked at each other quizzically and then turned to face Hermione with a questioning look.
"Right, so you want us to walk all the way back to the castle, just to save this?"
Hermione sighed with frustration. "It's a called a revola! And no, I don't want you to walk all the way back to the castle. I want you to run all the way back to the castle! It's almost dead!"
"So why don't we just leave it to die?"
"You two have absolutely no feelings, do you? I told you, it's a revola!" Hermione glared at her two best friends. "They're going extinct!"
"Okay, fine, Hermione, Ron and I will take it back to the castle, alright?" Harry said, after seeing the determined look on her face.
Hermione smiled defiantly at her best friend. "You're the best, Harry!"
"Hey, what about me?"
Hermione turned her nose up into the air smugly and ignored him.
"Here, I'll pick it up."
"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed, snapping out of her snobbery. "You can't just pick it up!"
"Why not?"
"What if it has a disease?" she asked, as if that was totally obvious. She reached into her black robes and pulled out her nicely polished wand. "Mobilius!"
Slowly, the small creature floated up into the air, wobbling a little bit.
"There! Now you can take it!"
"Alright," said Harry as he stood up. He beckoned for Ron to follow him. "Come on."
"Aren't you coming with us, Hermione?" asked Ron.
Hermione shook her head. "I'll just wait here for you guys, okay? There's this book I've been wanting to finish reading that I've brought. Hurry up."
The two boys nodded and then began to walk away on the narrow dirt path that they had originally come from, towards the castle.
"Leave it to Hermione to ruin such a good Hogsmeade weekend," Ron whispered quietly to Harry when they were quite a distance away.
"Aww, Ron. You don't mean that!
Ron turned his head around and snuck a look at her, sitting on a large gray rock on the side of the road, her eyes boring into the open pages of the book that she had brought. Seeing her sitting there so peacefully, he realized how much he loved her.
~
"Draco!"
He let out a deep breath as he watched a very pretty blond haired girl rush out of the corridor to the side and place herself in front of him.
Oh fuck.
"Draco! I was thinking that maybe you and I could walk to Hogsmeade together and-"
"Do I know you?" he cut in, putting on a very agitated look.
The girl's cheery face fell as she realized what he had just said. "W-What? Draco?"
"Are you done?"
"But, Draco!" The girl said, looking confused. "I'm Alison!"
"Al- what? If you're done, would kindly step out of my way?"
She glanced into his eyes, hoping to find some comfort, but all she could see was his coldness. Her eyes welled up slowly and her tears threatened to fall.
"You don't mean that!" she exclaimed, almost as if she was trying to reassure herself. There was no answer and her face twisted up in an excruciatingly painful way. "But I love you!"
"Oh, how sweet," he replied, showing absolutely no remorse. In fact, it looked as if he was enjoying it. "Maybe if you had been a little bit better in bed I might have remembered you."
"I thought you said you loved me," she said, her voice barely a whisper. She swallowed hard and forced her tears back.
He shook his head and scoffed. "And I thought you had a brain."
She stood speechless in front of him, and her tears began to fall like rain drops.
"Is it possible that you could move aside?" he asked, sounding as if nothing had happened.
The girl covered her face in her hands and ran past him, brushing the side of his robe as she darted down the dark hallway, her sobs echoing down the hall.
He looked absolutely unperturbed as he listened to her footsteps fade in the distance. The only thing did he do, however, was to study the sleeve of his black robe where she had touched as him as she ran by. He had a disgusted look on his face as he brushed the sleeve with his hand, as if trying to get something dirty off.
~
The dirt path in front of him was covered with freshly made shoeprints, he noticed, as he strolled along. He was already more than three quarters the way there, he knew, because he had just passed the great oak tree, and this being his seventh year at Hogwarts, he knew well that the tree meant he was almost to the small village of Hogsmeade.
He was alone on the road. No one was within visual distance either in front or behind him. He knew that he was one of the last people to leave the school because Snape had wanted to talk to him about submitting one of his experiments to a potions fair. All of his fellow Slytherin friends had already left the school probably a half an hour before. Although Pansy said that she could wait for him, if that was his wish, he informed her that that was absolutely unnecessary.
In all truth, he actually liked it this way. It was nice to just be by himself once in a while, without all the chitchat and the giggling all around him. It gave him a nice sense of…calmness.
As he rounded the corner, he noticed that there was a person on a large rock on the left side of the road. A small smile formed on his lips as he took the in the view.
The large rock was in the middle of a small meadow to the side of the road. The grass was a radiant green color and behind the meadow, there was a dense forest. The green of the grass and the green of the trees contrasted beautifully. The girl was laying on the large rock on her side, with her knees slightly bent. One arm supported her head as the other held a thick book open. The sunlight shone on her and she looked as if she was glowing. The light reflected off her golden brown hair, and it seemed as though there was a golden halo on her head.
The picture he was seeing now reminded him of a fairytale princess - one of those princesses who were enchantingly beautiful, but always had some terrible curse cast upon them or some terrible flaw. He stared dreamily at the fair maiden on the rock and imagined what possibly could be her flaw because there evidently wasn't one.
He began to carefully approach the girl, as if he didn't want to stir her from her tranquil state. Not noticing where he was stepping, he lost his footing, which caused as a small rock to roll down the small decline in the path. The maiden sensed that there was movement near, and her eyes shot up from the book.
The first thing that came into his mind was that she had very pretty eyes - a peaceful blue color, surrounded by dark lashes. However, his thoughts were soon interrupted.
"Malfoy, now really, are you stalking me?"
He head made a small jerk as he snapped out of his reverie.
"Really, it doesn't quite suit you." The girl put her book down on the rock, which uncovered the half of her face that was hidden behind it.
It was at that moment that he realized what her flaw was. Her name was Hermione Granger - that was her flaw.
"You have quite an imagination, Granger."
Hermione used her arms to prop herself into a sitting position on the gray rock and flipped her brown hair back in a frustrated way.
"Has Potter and Weasley left you all alone here? What a pity. I almost thought they were your friends."
"You know, Malfoy, something seems really different about you today," she said, ignoring his previous comment, and pretending to frown in thought. "Oh, yes, it must be the absence of your usual crowd of whores."
"Look here, Granger, I didn't come to pick a fight."
"Oh, really? How silly of me to think that of you," she said, her tone dripping with sarcasm.
"Can I buy you a butterbeer?" he blurted out suddenly, figuring that it was worth a try.
A frown began to form on Hermione's face as she pondered this. On one hand, she thought that maybe Draco Malfoy had a sudden metamorphosis that was changed from the arrogant jerk that he was, and that she should give him a chance. She abruptly dismissed that thought on the basis that she knew that a Malfoy being friendly would be about as likely as McGonagall not assigning any homework on weekends.
"No," she answered flatly.
"There's no harm in getting a drink with me."
"Actually, I'm in the process of waiting for Harry and Ron to get here."
"If they see that you're not here, they'll think you've gotten bored and walked to Hogsmeade already and sooner or later, they'll find you in the Three Broomsticks."
"No, they won't. If they don't find me here, they'll think I've been dragged off into the forest by one of Hagrid's pets and been eaten, and all that's left of me is a pile of bones and cartilage."
"You're too smart for that," he said, knowing that this statement would please her.
Hermione had to try hard not to let the corners of her mouth twist up into the smile that they threatened to form.
"Well…" she began.
"Well what? It'll be fun. If you get really bored, we could always talk about how we're going to do our project."
This idea was rather tempting. Although they had spent a few hours at the library researching the curse, they hadn't ever gotten around to actually start the project, which she so desperately wanted to do.
"Alright, fine."
Draco's face broke into a wide grin. "Good."
Hermione picked up the book that she had put on the rock and slid off the cool gray stone. She began to follow behind Draco as he started off onto the path. Once in a while, he'd look back to check and see if she was coming with him. Every time he checked, he saw her just a few feet behind him, her nose stuck into the book that she was reading. He reminded himself to ask her about it once they got to the Three Broomsticks.
~
"What's that?"
"What's what?" Hermione asked, puzzled, as she pulled out a wooden stool and sat upon it.
"That," he said, pointing to the book that she was holding in her hand.
"Oh!" she said, as she finally realized what he was talking about. "It's a book? Ever heard of it?"
"I know it's a book, Granger," he replied impatiently, waving his hand as if he was dismissing a servant. "I meant, what book?"
She laid the book down in front of him, with the title facing up.
"Romeo and Juliet," he read out loud. "Never heard of it."
"It's a muggle book."
"Oh," he said, with a bit of disgust in his voice.
"It's one of my favorites, actually. Shakespeare uses such beautiful language, you know. I wish I could write as well as him."
"What's it about?"
"It's about Romeo and Juliet."
"I sort of had that figured out."
"Okay, so Romeo is a Montague and Juliet is a Capulet and their two families have been enemies for ages. But it's so romantic because they fall in love…" she explained with a dreamy, far away look in her eyes.
"How pointless," he said, bringing her out of her dreamy state.
"It's very very good," she corrected him. "You can borrow it if you want. Once you read it, you'll change your mind."
"I don't think so."
"Try it," she urged, as she pushed the book closer to him.
Draco was feeling terribly uncomfortable. Of course, he didn't want to read the book. After all, he hated romance novels. They were so…meaningless. But he wanted to please her, so he knew there was only one thing he could do.
"Alright."
Her face broke into a delighted smile and she took a sip of her butterbeer. "We should really start on the project, you know. The curse requires the use of the anima vine. We should probably go to find some of it."
"Where would we find it?"
"Well, I did do some research. I'm pretty sure that it grows in the forbidden forest and we can get Dumbledore's permission to go into it."
"Alright, when shall we go?"
"Well," she said, thinking on it. "We could go this afternoon after Hogsmeade. I'll run by Dumbledore's office and ask for his permission and I'll meet you by Hagrid's hut at 5 o'clock and - "
"Oi! Hermione!"
Hermione immediately turned around and searched for the two familiar faces of her best friends.
"Hey, Ron, Harry! Over here!" she yelled after she spotted them near the entrance.
The two boys hurried over to her, but stopped once they realized that she was sitting next to none other than Draco Malfoy.
"What's he doing here?" asked Ron, eyeing him with venom.
"I have other matters to attend to. I must be leaving now," said Draco, not wanting to start a fight in front of Hermione. But, he couldn't help adding in a loud voice, "So, I'll see you at five?"
He hoped that it was loud enough for Ron to hear, and sure enough, it created an extremely angry expression on him. Draco turned to leave, wearing a smirk on his face, and seeing Ron's glare out of the corner of his eye.
"Yes," Hermione answered, nodding, oblivious to Ron's anger and resentment.
"Why are you meeting with him?" Ron questioned her after Draco had left the place.
"It's that project we have to do, Ron. We've decided to get a head start on it," she replied, as if nothing was the matter. Ron was still frowning.
From the other side of the table, Harry laughed. "Ron, it's just a project!"
"Yes, but...but…" he started uneasily, "I'd be careful of Malfoy, Hermione. He's…rather…"
Hermione sighed and rolled her eyes at him. "I know, Ron. You don't have to keep reminding me."
She returned to reading her book, shrugging off all thoughts of Ron's warnings.
~
"Late again," she informed him as she glanced down at her watch.
"I'm perfectly on time."
"You're exactly three minutes and forty one seconds late," she said, as a matter of factly.
"Your watch is wrong," he said. "My watch is right and it says I'm thirteen seconds early."
"Alright, who really cares," she exclaimed, agitated. "We'd better get started. Follow me."
She pulled a small flashlight out of her pocket and held it in her hand as she slowly began to make her way into the thick forest. Although Draco usually liked to be the one in charge, he let her lead the way. This was due to the fact that he had absolutely no idea where they were going to find this vine, whatever it was called, and Hermione seemed to know exactly what she was doing.
"What exactly are we looking for?" he asked, brushing aside a tree branch to get through.
"I'm trying to find a big muddy spot, sort of swampy. You know what I mean?"
"Yeah, swampy wet area with lots of mud."
They were already deep into the forest and Draco noticed that it seemed like it was night already, because of the lack of light. The giant trees blocked out almost all the sunlight, and it was now that Draco realized why Hermione had brought her flashlight. It came in rather handy for her and he wished he had brought one too.
Finally, after what seemed like hours of crawling through branches and bushes on the cold soil, the ground seemed to become wetter and wetter.
"I do believe we are approaching a rather muddy area," Hermione said, as she tested the ground for firmness. "Come on."
She began to make her way swiftly through the mud, which Draco had a hard time doing because he was wearing tennis shoes and they suck about a foot into the mud every time he took a step. He discovered that she was wearing big boots and silently cursed to himself for not having thought of doing that. The mud sank into his shoes, and every step he took felt like stepping on a wet slug.
He was hoping that it would get better, but much to his dismay, the mud only got muddier. Now, with every step he took, the mud sank up to his knees. Finally, Hermione stopped, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
"We'll start here," she said.
"You could have told me to bring boots!"
"I'm sorry," she replied, although not looking very sorry at all. "I figured you would have had more sense in you."
"So what do we do here?"
"We're looking for the anima vine. It lives under thick mud. That's just about all the books tell about it."
"Do you mean to tell me, that we're going to have to bury ourselves in the mud trying to look for it? Are you crazy?"
"If you really don't want to do this, feel free to leave," she said coldly.
Hermione started to unbutton her black Hogwarts robes, and soon removed them from her body. Inside, she was wearing the usual Hogwarts uniform - a small white button-up blouse, and a navy blue miniskirt. The sleeves of her blouse were three quarter lengths and she rolled them up farther in an attempt to try to keep them clean from the mud. She didn't notice how short her skirt was until she caught Draco staring at it, in which she blushed and tried to pull it down a bit. It wasn't her fault, anyhow, that it was so short. The Hogwarts uniform store sold the skirts in different waist sizes, but only in one length. And considering that she had long legs, it made the skirt look even shorter. It was for this reason that Hermione liked to keep her black robe on at all times.
She reached her arms down into the mud, looking at it as if it were some sort of diseased slime. After searching with her arms for about a minute, she stood up to wipe the sweat off her forehead and saw Draco undressing himself also.
She couldn't help but stare as he eased off his black robe to reveal gray shirt that just had to be a muggle creation. It matched his eyes well, she thought. Underneath, she couldn't exactly tell what he was wearing because it was so covered in mud, but it looked like khaki pants. Although it was dark, she could tell that he was very toned, and for the first time in her life, she just had to admit that he was very good looking.
"Like what you see?" he asked arrogantly, the infamous smirk hanging on his face.
She blushed and looked away. "You're violating the Hogwarts School Dress Code, you know."
"Oh, really? How so?"
"Let's see. Number one, you're not wearing a white button-up shirt with a collar, but instead you're wearing a muggle shirt! I never thought I'd see the day when you'd go near anything muggle product, much less wear it!" she said, with a tone of authority. "And then there's those pants of yours which are so covered in mud now that they could possibly pass for navy blue, but I doubt that they really are."
"So what are you going to do about it?" he asked toying with her.
"I think I'm going to have to report you," she teased, and then out of the blue, she scooped up a handful of mud and threw it at him. He didn't have time to dodge it and it hit him directly in the face.
They proceeded to have a nice little mud flight in which they both became very much covered in mud. It was Hermione who finally suggested that they stop and start trying to find the vine. Working together, they were able to locate some of it about three feet under the mud and use a small pocket knife to cut a piece of it off.
By the time they stepped out of the forest, every inch of their bodies were layered with mud. The two of them ran quickly to the nearest shower they could find and began to rinse themselves down with hot water. It was a terribly tiring and frustrating job considering that the mud had dried onto their skin and clothes and was near impossible to get off. After showering with their clothes on, the two of them retreated to their own rooms to clean up and get ready for dinner.
Hermione knew that her friends would be worried about her, especially Ron. It was approaching eight o'clock and she knew that dinner was almost over. She put on some fresh clothes and raced down to the Great Hall, her stomach grumbling with hunger, and the day's event still playing in her mind.
TBC
~
A/N: well, if you got this far, then I totally commend you cuz I totally would not be able to. Yeah, I kno the chapter ending is stupid and stupid and stupider, but I was just sooooo bored I just wanted to end it, so I didn't even bother trying to make it decent.
Ahhhh!!!!!!!! Well, now I hafta go do my mountains of hw, so…ciao everyone!
Oh yeah, please review, even if you're just gonna say "this is boring." I just like reading reviews cuz I think they're fun! =)
~meg~
