FANTASY. WRITTEN BY GIRL-WHO-IS-RUNNING-OUT-OF-IDEAS-FOR-THIS.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Thank you and have a good day.

Note: In this chapter, I've tried desperately hard to get Hagrid's accent right. In case I've failed, I'll say sorry now! Thanks and enjoy the chapter!

Chapter Seven: A New Professor and the Third Detention.

Sunday was peaceful and quiet. Students sat outside and enjoyed the sunshine as they watched Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape, Professor Sprout, Professor Flitwick and this year's Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Hoover, try to place the giant squid back into the lake – deflated.

There had been a lot of argument between the students about Professor Hoover. She was a muggle-born witch, a mudblood as some of the ruder students would claim. The Slytherins tried their hardest to make her life at Hogwarts a living hell, but she was tough and would ruthlessly punish those who dared to disobey her. Hermione had also seen her in one of the meetings with the Order of the Phoenix.

Hermione felt something that seemed like relief, as she saw the giant squid swim happily in the lake. She had forgotten why she had the detentions with Draco in the first place and now it all came flooding back to her.

"Ahem."

Hermione sat and swatted at a bee that was buzzing around her head. She ignored the impatient cough coming from beside her.

"Ignoring me, are you?"

She jumped. Draco sat down beside her and smirked.

"What are you doing here, Mal – Dra – Mal – Dra – Gah." Hermione waved her hands in the air in frustration, as his smirk grew wider.

"My name is Draco Malfoy. You either call me Draco, or Malfoy. It's fairly simple really." He said smugly as he watched the squid being petted by some second years. "Oh, and I'm here to stay away from Pansy. She's been following me around all day, asking me where I've been. It gets annoying. I know she won't even dare to come near me if I come and sit here. Scared of catching mudblood germs you see."

Hermione snorted. Lame excuses. "Well aren't you scared of catching mudblood germs?"

"Of course I am! I put a charm on myself. Stops bacteria from getting onto my beautiful body." She rolled her eyes. Same old bloody Malfoy – arrogant as ever.

"Lucius!"

The Dark Lord called for his Death Eater.

"Did you meet my spy yesterday?"

"Yes, My Lord."

Lucius Malfoy bowed down in front of his master and replied, "All is going well. I have the Hogwarts student files with me."

He handed them to Lord Voldemort. Voldemort smirked as he pointed his wand at it and muttered a spell. Immediately, two names sprung from the parchment.

"Wormtail!" He called, his eyes glistening.

The rat-like man crawled up to his master. "Yes, My Lord?"

"Get me some parchment and a quill. I shall write a letter, myself, to the spy."

"Yes, My Lord." He hurried away, stumbling over Lucius' foot as he went.

Lucius smiled cruelly before facing the Dark Lord once again. "My Lord, may I ask a favour?"

Voldemort raised a thin eyebrow at Lucius' question. "Seeing as you have completed this task successfully for me . . . I'll think about it. What is this favour?"

"I would like to have the honour to deal with my son, while you deal with that dratted Harry Potter." Lucius spat out Harry's name, as though it was filthy even pronouncing such words.

"Of course, Lucius. Your son is of no importance to me; he is only important to Dumbledore. You can do what you please to him."

The next day's lessons passed quickly and soon, it was detention time. Hermione and Draco ate their dinner in silence and waited patiently for their Professor to arrive. Hermione had almost given up on waiting, when suddenly, someone burst through the library doors.

"Sorry I'm late, I got a bit tied up." Hagrid's enormous self stood in the library. His hair looked ruffled and somehow rather feathery. "The chickens wen' ballistic. You'll find out why soon, but I'm 'ere now so, com'on."

Hagrid led the two outside, where they stopped on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Hagrid pushed aside a nearby tree to reveal the most beautiful creatures that Hermione had ever seen.

"A beauty they are, but the chickens seem ter be terrified of 'em."

Hagrid beamed proudly as Hermione stared in wonder. They were unicorns – but not just any unicorns - they were golden and silver with purely magnificent wings. Hermione gazed at what seemed to be the female and it gazed back. Its crystal blue eyes appeared to be swirling.

"They're very rare. Only about twen'y-five left in the U.K."

Hermione nodded as Hagrid began to explain what they were to do. He was going out on a date with Madame Maxime and he needed someone to feed the beautiful creatures and wash them as well. He then told them what the winged unicorns ate and that he would be back at nine to see how well they had taken care of them. If they finished before he returned, they were allowed to stay outside, or if they preferred, to go inside and back into their separate common rooms.

"Oh, and yer should name 'em too. I couldn' think of a name that would suit them." Hagrid gave Draco a nod, and ruffled Hermione's hair before turning around and slowly walking away.

"Wait!" Hermione called after him suddenly. "Hagrid! Where did you get them from?"

Hagrid stopped and turned to Hermione with a smile. "I found 'em, in the forest. Nothin' illegal, don' worry!"

Hermione breathed a great sigh of relief before returning Hagrid's smile. With one final nod, the gentle giant turned and began walking away once again. Draco waited until he was well out of earshot.

"I don't see why we have to name those - those – those things. Can't the big loaf even name something without losing a few brain cells?"

"There's a legend that I read about, Malfoy. The book said that it's very hard to name one of these species. If you don't get the right name, they'll ignore you, as if you don't exist anymore!"

"Yes, Granger, I do know what 'ignore' means. What happens if you do get the right names then?"

"Their horns will glow gold and the person who guessed their name correctly, and anyone who was there to witness it, will be blessed."

"Blessed?" Draco suddenly became interested. "In what way exactly?"

"Well, it depends. Suppose it's name is Wealth, and you guess it's name correctly, then one day, you'll find that you have all the money you need when you most need it. Like, if they're pushing you out of your flat because you haven't got any money to pay the bills, then suddenly, you have enough to pay the bills and buy all the broomsticks in the world!"

Draco appeared to be deep in thought. "How . . . very interesting . . . "

She frowned and eyed him suspiciously. "What do you mean by 'very interesting'?"

He shrugged and looked at the winged unicorns. He smirked at them. "We better get to feeding you two then, shouldn't we?" Draco took the lettuce in front of him and laid it in a trough. "Hand me the tomatoes then, Granger." Hermione did as she was told. Hagrid had said that they enjoyed salads; she wondered what salad Draco would make.

"Carrots."

"Potatoes."

"Sweet corn."

"Cabbages."

"Salad Cream."

Hermione watched as Draco added each vegetable with care. She had never seen him like this before – actually acting like he cared about something for once. Draco caught her looking.

"Can't let those bloody things starve now, can we? Wingardium Leviosa."

He lifted the trough and carefully placed it in front of the two beasts. They both stared at it for a while before they began to nibble at it. Slowly, the salad began to disappear and as they finished their meal, one of the unicorns – the male – looked up and saw Draco and Hermione watching it curiously. Its eyes somehow told them that it was happy and grateful.

"Shall we clean them now?" Hermione asked, turning to face Draco. He nodded and with a wave of his wand, he summoned two big tubs of water with foaming bubbles and soap.

"You can clean her and I'll clean him." He said.

They spent quite some time cleaning them and by the time they had finished, the unicorns looked even more ravishing than they did before. Hermione combed the female's silvery mane dreamily.

"I really do wonder what your name is," said Hermione absent-mindedly as she brushed.

"How about . . . Death?" Draco wondered aloud. Hermione sent him a glare.

"Malfoy, it has to be something good! Not something horrid!" Hermione turned back to the female unicorn. "Perhaps . . . Friendship?"

Draco snorted. Hermione glared some more.

"Fine! I'll be serious!" He looked into the eyes of his winged horse, his face screwing up in concentration. "Maybe . . . Sweets?"

It was Hermione's turn to snort.

"What kind of a name is Sweets? How could you be blessed with Sweets?" Hermione said, rolling her eyes at Draco's supposedly serious suggestion.

"Well, if you got hungry, then you could have all you can eat – sweets!"

Hermione paused before she started to laugh. Draco was almost cute when he wasn't trying to be annoying. Almost.

"Would your name be . . . Faith?" She asked her unicorn softly. There was no reaction.

The pair continued to guess name after name, but still, neither of the horns would glow. Hermione was determined to find their names, while Draco was growing more impatient by the minute. It didn't take long before Hermione was also growing impatient.

". . . I can't think of anything anymore! Maybe I should just give up hope!" She cried. As she finished her sentence, the horn on the female unicorn shone a bright gold. She beamed at Draco. "Its name must be Hope!"

Draco frowned. "So, you'll be blessed with hope? How that makes sense I don't know." He stared intently at his creature for a while, before smirking and triumphantly exclaiming, "I think I've got it. Saviour!"

As Draco had suspected, he was correct and the horn on the male unicorn shone, just as the females' had done.

Soon, Hermione and Draco had completed all their tasks and the two winged unicorns had fallen asleep. They sat beneath a tree and watched the beasts as they slept peacefully.

"You know, I don't get it." Draco said, breaking the silence.

"What don't you get?"

"I don't get how you –

"You mean we."

"Yeah, whatever. I don't understand how you can be blessed with Hope and I'm blessed with Saviour? What the hell does that mean anyway?"

"Well, for one thing, we are blessed with both things and I guess being blessed with Saviour means to be saved or something. If you think about it for a while, it'll make sense." Hermione stated matter-of-factly. Draco grunted. He felt annoyed – Hermione Granger, always the one to know everything. They sat in silence for a few more minutes, before they saw a figure coming towards them. That figure, was named Hagrid.

"Great job! They're cleaner than I thought they could ever be!" Hagrid grinned down at Hermione and Draco. "Did yer happen ter figure out their names?"

Hermione nodded eagerly. "Yeah, the female is called Hope and the male is called Saviour."

"Hope an' Saviour, is it? Well, it suits 'em perfectly! Yer can leave now - ten points ter Gryffindor!"

"Hey!" Draco cried indignantly.

"Alrigh', alrigh'! Ten points ter Slytherin as well!"

Draco stuck his nose up at Hagrid and began walking back towards the castle. Hermione followed. That night, they decided to do their night patrol together (normally, they would each patrol half the castle). It would take longer than usual, but that couldn't be helped. It wasn't often that they found somebody out of bed, but today was different.

"Ginny?"

Hermione stopped the frantic redhead. She had been running when they had found her and now that they had stopped her, she looked even more worried than before.

"Oh, Hermione!" She exclaimed. "Have you seen a girl about my height? She's got long black hair, quite pretty – she's Cho's little sister! Madeleine Chang – in Ravenclaw!" Hermione frowned. She didn't even know Cho had a sister.

"The new seeker on the Ravenclaw quidditch team?" Ginny spoke hurriedly, trying to get Hermione to see whom she was talking about. A small part of Hermione's brain whirled into action. 'The quidditch season hasn't even started yet! How am I supposed to know who the new Ravenclaw seeker is?'

She sighed and shook her head before turning to Draco. "Malfoy, maybe you should go back to your common room now. Ginny can tell me what happened on our way back to the Gryffindor common room."

Draco nodded and said a quick goodnight before heading for the dungeons. The moment he was gone, Ginny immediately launched into her story.

"Well, Madeleine Chang is my best friend. We were sitting outside, just talking, when this Slytherin boy in your year, Callum or something, came and asked if he could speak to Madeleine for a while - he said it was urgent. So, we thought it was something the Professors needed her to know but had just sent that guy to deliver the message. She went with him and I waited for ages, but she never came back."

Ginny looked on the verge of tears. Hermione gave her a comforting smile. "Don't worry, Ginny. I'm sure she's fine. If she's not back by tomorrow morning, then we'll tell Professor Dumbledore, but that'll have to wait till tomorrow. It's too late now. You need some sleep and there are still lessons tomorrow."

The two girls soon returned to the Gryffindor common room. They bid each other a goodnight before changing into their nightclothes and going to bed. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice was telling Hermione that something was very, very, wrong.

Edited Version: 1st August 2005