A/N- Thank you to all the people that have reviewed my story !!! 19 REVIEWS !!!! Lolz. I love getting reviews 'kuz it tells me what you peepz out there want to happen and what I should write. So anywayz, for all of you peepz who did have a stab at the mystery letter giver, you can all find out in this chapter ~_^ [ lolz ... I don't know why I used that face again ]. And also, the last chapter was called 'True Friends are like Diamonds, Rich and Rare' and this chapter is going to be 'False Friends are like Pebbles, Found Everywhere'. I just used them 'kuz I liked the rhyme; it symbolizes what Hermione's going through.
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Chapter Seven: False Friends are like Pebbles, Found Everywhere
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Love is like quicksand, the deeper you fall in, the harder it is to come out …
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Hermione had slept early last night, falling into a deep slumber. She had many dreams but she could remember one vividly.
In the dream, she was in class, doing her work when suddenly an owl landed in front of her. She looked up, expecting to see Professor McGonagall's fierce glare or Snape's look of disapproval or even a few turned heads of her fellow classmates in her direction when she realized that instead of a teacher at the front, Draco Malfoy was up there, writing on the blackboard.
She glanced at the owl but it was gone, instead, Harry was sitting on her desk. She put her hands up to cover her mouth and block out a scream.
Harry just looked at her grimly and said, "I hope you know what you're doing, Hermione," and hopped off her desk, walking towards Parvati who awaited him with open arms. Utterly confused, Hermione looked around to see Draco walking up to her, looking worried.
"Hurry up, Hermione," he said, and vanished.
Hermione reached out towards him but all she got was air.
What was going on? What was everyone talking about?
Then everyone else around her disappeared and she looked around to find herself in the dark. A second later, she felt herself falling … falling … falling into the darkness … falling …
*THUMP*
She woke up, on the carpeted floor, with her sheets tangled around her legs. She pulled herself free and climbed back in bed, pulling her blankets up to her chin. What was that dream about? It was, without a doubt, one of the weirdest dreams Hermione ever had. She thought about what Harry had said and then she remembered where she had heard it before.
He had said those exact words to her right after Ron accused her of ditching them. But why was he saying that for in her dream? And why on earth did he change from an owl into a human? Perhaps it was the future and Harry had become Animagus? But he only looked one or two years older.
And what was Draco Malfoy doing there???
Thinking about the dream made Hermione more tired so she just threw her covers aside and had a quick shower. She controlled her hair and threw her books and quills and inkpots [ A/N- I don't know if that's what they're called ] into her backpack. She was about to leave for the Great Hall when she saw a piece of parchment, lying on her table. She picked it up and realized it was the note that someone had given her yesterday. She quickly slipped it into her pocket and ran into the common room.
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While Hermione was having her weird dream, Draco was having one of his own. But this dream wasn't weird to him, he had it almost every night after his return to Hogwarts this year.
In his dream, it always started with him walking in a forest. He apparently knew where he was going because he was traveling at a very fast pace and didn't pause at all. He would then all of a sudden stop and turn to his left, facing a tall and gnarly tree.
He pulled out his wand and muttered, "Revilius," and the tree would lean over to the right a bit and Draco would squeeze in between the gap in between the tall and gnarly tree and the tree next to it.
Behind the ugly tree was something a bit unexpected. It was a beautiful scene. The forest which Draco had started from was dark but the place he was right now was the total opposite. The sky was a wonderful dark blue colour and there were a few clouds, drifting here and there. There was a mini waterfall on some rocks with water trickling slowly into the small lake below. The grass was a luscious green and bright and colorful flowers littered the grass area. Butterflies flocked along the grass and in the distance, he could make out a castle. There was a single rock, next to the lake and there was a women sitting on it. She seemed to have fit in with the landscape.
Her wavy hair was a chestnut color, and reached half way down her back. She was wearing a robe, sky blue in colour and when he walked towards her, she turned around. Her eyes were the most spectacular shade of blue and when he drew nearer, she smiled.
"Hello, Draco," she said, her voice light and sweet.
"Hello, dear," he said pleasantly, leaning down to kiss her on her forehead.
She smiled up at him and Draco felt something weird in his stomach. Like butterflies fluttering around.
He then sat down next to her and wrapped his arms around her.
"Did you know that you mean more than the world to me?" he whispered to her.
She laughed.
"Every time we come here, you always say that to me."
"That's because every time I do say that, you reward me."
She turned towards him and smiled again. Draco got that strange feeling in his stomach yet again.
She leaned towards him and pressed her lips softly against his. What Draco was feeling earlier was nothing compared to how he was feeling now. It felt as though a million butterflies were set free in his stomach, and he had the weirdest temptation to giggle.
She released him and put her head against his chest, closing her eyes and breathing in his scent.
And then, that was the end of the bliss.
Just a few seconds after that, Draco heard something burst into the secluded area. He turned and saw a middle-aged man, with silver blonde hair and grey eyes, so much like his own.
"Father," Draco said smoothly.
"How dare you 'Father' me?!? Draco!!! I am ashamed of you!!! You put love before the Dark Lord!!!"
Draco stood up as the woman leaning on him shuddered.
Lucius averted his gaze to her for a second and then turned back to Draco.
"Father, you have no right to tell me what to do. I am a grown man now, I can make my own decisions," Draco said quietly.
"Draco, my son, have you forgotten what I have done for you? All the training and effort I put into making you the perfect deatheater. And you still defy me. Even after all those warnings I gave you about her?"
Lucius nodded his head towards Hermione, who looked at the verge of crying.
"Father, you cannot harm her, I will not let you!" said Draco, and for the first time since the beginning of this conversation, his voice showed some emotion.
But Lucius smiled.
"I shall do whatever I want with that Mudblood."
He raised his wand and said, "Crucio."
She withered and squirmed on the rock and she tumbled off, falling onto the soft grass.
"Noooooooo!" [ A/N- yes, I know, very corny ] Draco shouted.
But her screams continued, echoing in his head, mixed with his father's cruel laugh.
And that was usually when Draco woke up, sweating as though he had just run a mile as fast as he could.
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The rest of the day was quite uneventful, nothing out of the ordinary happened. Hermione received a lot of homework, R&H and their girlfriends were ignoring her and no one mentioned her hair (to her personally at least).
So during dinner, when Hermione was feeling really grumpy, Sabrina approached her.
"Hermione?"
Hermione snapped out of her dream-state and glanced up at Sabrina.
"Yeah?" she asked.
"I forgot to tell you during last prefect's meeting, but we're going to start Hall Duties from today onwards."
"Oh," said Hermione, but then asked, "why do we all of a sudden have them now? Shouldn't we have started this from the beginning of the year?"
"Yeah, well," Sabrina smiled, "According to Dumbledore, this will be the time that all those pranksters start roaming around after dark. Don't ask me how he knows but these are his orders."
"Alright then," said Hermione.
"Okay, here are the timetables for the two week period. You are again paired off with your dorm-mate, which is … Draco Malfoy, I believe?" asked Sabrina, looking up from the timetable.
"Yeah, unfortunately," said Hermione.
Sabrina smiled at her and handed the timetable to her.
"Yeah, well who said becoming Head Girl was going to be easy? I had pretty bad experiences too when I first started. But just try to make it work with him, Hermione, it will work to your benefit."
Hermione smiled back at Sabrina.
"I'll try my best."
"We'll see …" Sabrina said, before turning away.
We'll see??? Who's we? And why are they 'seeing'? , Hermione thought.
Hermione just assumed it was something to with becoming a good prefect so she didn't give that, nor the Hall Duties timetable, a second thought.
She finished her dinner quickly and stuffed her timetable into her bag, thinking about who the mystery letter giver was. What if it was just a joke that R&H played on her?
But Hermione got rid of that thought, no matter how mad R&H were, they couldn't do something as cruel as setting her up like that, could they?
And the letter did say 'I' and not 'we'.
As soon as she finished her dinner, she almost ran out of the Great Hall, getting her weird looks from people still eating. She rushed to the broken Girls' Toilets on the second floor, the one that had Moaning Myrtle in it.
There was no one there yet so she went inside, thinking that the person might be inside the toilets. There was no one in there either.
She went out quickly, feeling lucky to have avoided one of Moaning Myrtle's tantrums when someone spoke to her.
"Hello, Hermione."
She quickly spun around and saw none other than Draco Malfoy.
"Draco???" she spluttered, "what are you doing here???"
Draco looked and felt thoroughly confused.
"Uh, didn't Sabrina talk to you at dinner?"
"Wha- oh, yeah, she did," said Hermione, remembering the Hall Duties.
"Well, unless you haven't looked at the timetable, which I assume you didn't, we're patrolling tonight."
"Really?" said Hermione, checking her own timetable and saw her name and Draco's under tonight.
"Yes, really," he said, watching her with a weird expression on his face.
There's something weird about her, he thought, but I just can't figure out what.
Hermione looked up to see him staring at her and his stomach felt like it was being flipped over.
"Do we have to start now?" she complained.
Draco was a little taken aback. He thought that Hermione above all people would be excited with new prefect duties.
"Er, but, why?"
"Well," Hermione started but then stopped herself. She felt weird telling Draco about that note as it was sort of personal.
"Erm, I need to … er …"
She looked around.
" … go to the toilet! Yeah, and you should go on without me for a few floors. I'll catch up later. And I'll do –"
She checked her Hall Duties timetable.
"-Thursday's duties by myself if you want."
Draco just stared at her. She obviously wanted him to leave, but why? Should he stay and annoy her or leave and get on her good side?
"Alright then, if you insist," he said.
But before he turned around, he added, "And if you do need to go to the toilet, don't use that one; it's out of order."
He turned around walked to the end of the corridor (which was just a few doors down) and turned right. But he did not keep walking. He stopped and stood against the wall, determined to figure out what Hermione was so jittery about.
Hermione just stared after him and quickly looked away. That person better get here soon or Draco would get …
"About time he left, I didn't know how much longer I would have to wait."
Hermione quickly spun around for the second time that night.
"Ginny!!!"
Ginny smiled at Hermione.
"Hermione, I'm so sorry about the past few days. Ron and Harry told me about what happened and to tell you the truth, they're not happy," she said sadly.
"I know that," said Hermione, "but do you know anything else?"
"Well," said Ginny slowly, "Ron seems especially unhappy about you being a 'traitor' and Harry, well, I think Harry is pretending to be pissed. Whenever Ron sees you, he starts talking about Malfoy and you in the library but Harry doesn't seem to be as angry as Ron."
Hermione sighed with relief. One not angry at her was better then none.
"Yeah," said Ginny, "I hope you can find yourself out of this one, Hermione."
Hermione nodded.
"Yeah, well, I'd better get going, I told them I would only be gone for a few minutes and thanks to Malfoy, I was already late when I started talking to you," said Ginny.
"Alright then," sighed Hermione, "but do you want to meet here again?"
"No, here's too risky, Malfoy already saw and he might get suspicious. We'll meet next to the statue of Connery the Comedian, on the sixth floor," replies Ginny.
"Okay then," said Hermione, "but why are we keeping this a secret?"
"Because if anyone found out and told Ron or Harry, I would be dead," said Ginny hastily.
"Oh," said Hermione. R&H hated her so much, they didn't even allow anyone close to them to talk to her?
"See you, Hermione," said Ginny quickly as she ran down the corridor.
"Bye," said Hermione, more to herself than anyone else.
But that's what she thought. She didn't know Malfoy was hiding nearby and just heard everything between the two girls.
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A/N- The end of another chapter!!! Please review, even flames are accepted, I could do with a lil bit of constructive criticism!!! And to all my readers, I'm sorry if there wasn't a lot of Hermione and Draco stuff. I'm working on it right now.
Thanks to my reviewers:
victoriafan882003 – Thanks!
Amy – Lolz!!! I guess Hermione does have good self control, I would probably be the same as you!!! And congrats for guessing that Ginny sent the note!!! *pats Amy on the back*
eth – Thank you for your positive feedback!!! [ lolz, my teacher says that! ]
Ellie (XxSweetAngelz@aol.com) – Yeah, I'll email you and thanks for the review!!!
t baby – Sorry for putting you in misery!!! *pats t baby on the back*
hazel-leaf – Thanks for your point, I don't think your suggestion was rude at all and I'm trying to put in two POVs.
Draco is the man – I will update soon!!!
