a/n-You're right it has been WAY too long and every day I yell at myself b/c of it. Half a chapter got deleted in this stupid rush to clean my email b/c my group in school was sending everything to me
And I'm leaving November 8th and not coming back till Thanksgiving so I need to get this done
Actually, where I'll be will have internet and I won't have school, then again I'll have homework and relatives so I might as well get it done
"…I can't believe it."
"I can. It was bound to happen sooner or later with the way you've been acting."
"…How can you say that?"
"Hermione, it's fine."
"Fine?"
"Yes, fine. Everyone fails once and a while."
Hermione looked back at her paper on the Golden Snidget. Her eyes seemed to close up, as if she was trying to see invisible ink, and then pop open like she had discovered something.
"What is it Hermione?"
"This paper is horrible."
"Oh, it's not that bad. You're still top in the class-"
"No, Harry. This is horrible. I've never written anything like this. Why-How-I-"
Harry, while trying to make out her babbling, noticed Hermione's had beginning to shake. "Geez, Hermione. You-"
"Mmm? What?" Hermione snapped, suddenly just as stern and awake as she'd always been. Harry faltered, not really knowing how to react to this. Hermione didn't wait. "Yes, well, I have to go the libr-the-er-yes, well, bye!"
"MALFOY!"
Draco snapped up from his sleep, disorientated and stuttering uncharacteristically. "What?" he hissed at the fourth year boy who woke him up in the dark, sixth-year Slytherin dormitory.
"Parkinson wanted you."
Draco glared at the door leading to the common room where Pansy sat impatiently. "So? Tell her to fuck off." He made to go back to sleep but the boy cleared his thought.
"She's waiting."
"That's nice," Draco sneered as he pulled the sheets back over him. He had been sleeping in his uniform which was now damp with sweat. He tried to cover himself from the boy who insisted on staying.
"Should I tell Pansy you're not coming? She'll come up."
"No. Tell her I'm asleep. Which I was and now am going to be."
"But she told me to wake you up."
Draco didn't answer. His face flushed, which at least brought some blood back to his face. "Go away," he growled in a dangerous voice. Perhaps the boy heard the tone too, because he suddenly changed his stubbornness and quickly left.
The room was quiet. None of the other sixth years were in here except Crabbe who was fast asleep. Draco pushed off the suffocating sheets and let the frosty air cut softly into his warm skin. He sighed. His hair was damp with sweat and his body was shaking from all the lost energy and sudden shock of being woken up.
His shaky breath rose before him in a chilly cloud and disappeared above his head. He looked disheveled, and he was. He couldn't keep his thoughts on anything and the word 'mess' kept revolving in his mind. He was a mess. Everything was a mess.
Something from his dreams started to surface. The red paint. He saw it so clearly, as if it had happened in real life. Pansy had been standing by the Gryffindor passage way when suddenly she was covered…
Hermione, Hermione had been hit with the paint. But for some reason he couldn't get the image of Pansy dripping in red, standing in the hall so quiet and defenseless without a look of determination on her face.
Hermione breathed quietly in Myrtle's lavatory. She was standing with her back against on the stalls, hoping no one else was in toilet. She felt the weird implosion inside of her chest slowly acting itself out over and over again. She couldn't seem to position her arms or legs just right and kept shifting them. Finally she ended with arms pinned behind her back and her legs as far away as they could get from her, just so she could stop thinking about how uncomfortable she was and staring asking herself why was she in a girl's toilet.
She must have had some thought because soon she was preparing to leave but just before she opened her stall she heard sharp shoes striking the floor. She tried to hear for who it was, like that would work somehow.
All of a sudden in an instant of fear she propped her feat onto the rim on toilet and pressed her hands softly against the walls.
The girl outside was obviously doing something because Hermione could see her shins coming around to check if anyone was in her. She did it again, coughed loudly, and waited around a bit.
Now Hermione's heart was beating just as fast as it had in her anxiety five minutes ago. But now she was scared the girl might find her and, perhaps, wonder why the Gryffindor prefect was listening in to her visit to the toilet.
Soon another pair of footsteps came and Hermione started cursing her luck under her breath.
"Gimmie those," the girl said to the new feet. The feet didn't say anything. They just stood timidly on the floor, waiting for judgment. "Where's the bicorn?"
"I couldn't!"
"Uh, useless first year!" the girl snarled.
"But I-"
"Right, right. Get out. Go."
The first year put up no protest and walked straight out without saying a word. When they were both gone Hermione cautiously stepped out but she was surprised to see the girl had left her indigents. She peeked in the small cauldron left in the back stall. It was just a cauldron, nothing else except something that looked boomslang skin, which she had used in the polyjuice potion four years ago. It didn't bother her, however. If someone was making polyjuice potion, they would have certainly gotten the easier ingredients first. Besides, boomslang was used in lots of potions, particularly a type of love potion that tastes wonderful but has a horrible after taste. Hermione left curiously, not even thinking if perhaps she should be concerned as a prefect.