Chapter eight

(Sorry if I did offend you by saying 'you Americans' but I really didn't mean it like that! It's just that last time I wrote a fic, and American girl criticized me on my spelling and grammar because it's different so I thought I'd warn you that I was from the UK and it will be different, do you think it is? Loki… I am SOOO flattered about what you said about me! I couldn't stop smiling! Thank you so much! I would recommend 'Salem's Lot if you like vampire stories, it's like a modern Dracula.  If I do use your idea, the fic will be longer and I don't mind, hopefully you lot don't, I've already got it all worked out.  Thanx for it! :D.  This is a suspense chappie so not much action or entertainment… unless you count the card tower thing… BEWARE THE ATTEMPTED ROMANCE! I HATE IT!)

Hermione sat staring at her two friends, who were standing in front of her, with her arms folded and one eyebrow raised.  "So, let me get this straight… you guys drag me out of the library and up here to tell me that Draco is a vampire? Now, I want the two of you to think about this sentence and tell me what's wrong with it!"

"It sounds very… strange doesn't it?" Harry nodded.

"Total understatement!" Hermione laughed.

"Take it you don't believe us then?" Ron asked.

"Look.  How would you two react if I just came bursting in telling you that… that… Seamus was a werewolf… would you two believe me? I don't think so!" Hermione snapped.  "First of all, you tell me that Draco was up to something and something evil.  You two must've realised that I didn't really take heed of that and now you are trying to feed me some bullshit story that he is a vampire? The two of you just don't like us being together and you are trying to put me off him, well, now I don't believe anything you say about him… I know what you are up to.  You two are getting worse at this planning and scheming you know that?" She raised her voice slightly.

Harry and Ron were struck dumb by this and couldn't find anything to say.  Both stood staring at Hermione with mouths open.

"You don't believe us? We are your best friends and you don't trust us?" Ron finally snapped.

"Listen to yourselves! How can you expect me to believe a story like that?"

Ron unwrapped the cloth that was tied tight on his hand to reveal two deep teeth marks.

"Look, he bit me! The bastard bit me on the hand because I held him in the sun light!"

Hermione looked at it and a look of disgust came over her face.  "Ouch, that must've hurt!" then she came back to the discussion.  "Well, let's say it is a vampire bite… how come you haven't become one?"

"Professor Lupin told us that it is rare that the victim becomes a vampire when bitten, they only do when the vampire wants them to.  They usually only use their teeth to feed and to attack… surely you know that Miss Know-it-all, you spend long enough in the library reading books!" Ron half shouted.

Hermione took that as the worse insult imaginable.  "Why would I need to know that anyway? There are no vampires in Britain, they live in Romania!"

"Well, there are vampires in Britain now!"

Harry was standing against the wall, cringing with each remark in case it set off an alarm in one of them and they end up hitting each other… again.  He decided it best to keep quiet, but that was impossible.

"Tell her Harry! She'll believe you!" Ron shouted.

Harry made an involuntary squeaking noise as Ron and Hermione both turned and stared at him with equally angry looks on their faces.  If I agree with Ron, Hermione will think I'm just taking sides with him and she will yell at me… If I don't agree with Ron then he will yell at me… HELP!

"…er…" Harry broke the silence and the tension.  I've got to tell her the truth, if I don't, she'll get hurt… or worse… "I'm sorry Hermione but it's true…" he said awkwardly.

Her reaction was right on target.  "I knew it! I knew you would side with him! You two are in this together and trying to get me to stay away from Draco!"

"It's nothing like that! You have to believe us or you will get hurt!"  Harry tried to reason, and then he remembered something that could make Hermione believe them.  "Hermione, do you remember when you chased Malfoy down in the dungeons and you told me that you felt that there was something strange about him? Well, I felt it too.  I felt like there was something of pure evil around there… You don't remember do you?" he added seeing her face.

Hermione was looking as if Harry had gone mad.  "N-o.  When did-"

"Ah ha, I knew it! It was him who erased Hermione's memory and that's the reason why! He knew that Hermione had an idea what happened and he couldn't take it!" Ron suddenly jumped. "I was right, I was right!"

Harry smiled as he caught on and remembered what Draco had said when he went spying on him.  I reckoned that that mudblood Granger suspected something, but I dealt with her.  Doesn't remember a thing! "Yes, of course! See Hermione, makes perfect sense! Malfoy is a vampire because Voldemort wanted him to be one and now he can be part of Voldemort's plan… to kill me… great… now I have vampires to add to my list of supernatural enemies."

"That's what happened to him that night!" Ron added.

Hermione was looking very scared now.  "Erased my memory… because he thought that I knew something?" Hermione knew that that would explain a few things, but the other part of her brain was stubborn and wouldn't give in that easily.

"I have to go think about this… it's all so… so strange and too weird to be true.  Surely if he was then Dumbledore would've known!"

Harry and Ron looked at each other and their eyes lit up.  "Malfoy attacked Dumbledore!" they said in unison.  They both grinned hardly able to believe their genius.

Hermione turned to walk out.

"Oh no! Where do you think you're going?" Ron called as he jumped up and grabbed her wrist.

"Back to the library… to think…" she replied.

"Not now you're not! You're staying up here… the vamp free area!"

"Oh for goodness sake!" she snapped as she pulled away and walked out of the common room.

"I think that went pretty well, don't you?" Ron sighed.

"Better than I thought, I thought she was ready to slap you one!" Harry admitted.

*~*~*~*

Hermione finally emerged from the library at curfew but decided to help the other prefects by patrolling the corridors, any excuse to stay out of Harry and Ron's way for a while longer while she thought.  She had been thinking about what Harry and Ron had told her.  It was utter ludicrous, yet some part believed them.  She decided that there was only one way to find out the answer… see Draco for herself.  She had looked up books on vampires and she now reckons that she would be able to tell if he was or not by just looking at him.  She got her chance.

Hermione had that feeling again, the feeling that Harry was telling her about and it felt so familiar.  That feeling that she was being watched by something of pure evil.  She was alone in the Entrance Hall, standing in silence, no one else was there.  When she heard the slightest noise, she spun round in alarm but only to find that she was still alone, yet that feeling still haunted her.  She was getting more afraid as each second ticked by and more jumpy. 

Suddenly, she heard whispering and echoing voices in her head, and again they were all so familiar.

"Help me!"

"Trapped!"

"Lost!"

"No way out!"

"Eternity!"

"Don't look in its eyes!"

"Don't trust it!"

"RUN!"

The last word was louder and seemed to be echoing around her rather than in her head.  She was so shocked at this she screamed and stumbled trying to run away.  A pair of ice cold hands grabbed her to stop her from hitting the ground.

"Are you OK? Stupid question, of course your not… What's wrong with you?"

The voices had stopped abruptly when she fell and the person began to ask if she OK.  Hermione, feeling dazed, looked up.  She gasped and staggered up at seeing Draco standing in front of her, his face full of surprise and confusion but his eyes said different.

Hermione had never looked properly at Draco lately until now, last time she had been so caught up in seeing him alive that she didn't notice how different he looked now.  His eyes were no longer their brilliant, shining silver that Hermione had always loved, they were now a grey colour scarily close to black rimmed with blood red, something about them told her that he was not to be trusted.  His hair was now white as freshly fallen snow and messy like it hadn't seen a brush in days and his face was much paler than usual and his features were sharper, he looked barely alive… yet he was smiling at her, a sparkling smile of white teeth, sharp white teeth.  Hermione swallowed when she realised how dry her throat had gone by seeing him.  No… please no!

"You're acting a little odd.  What's going on?" Draco laughed slightly.  His voice hadn't changed, it was still the same as it always was.  The book had said that his voice would be like ice and a hiss.

"I should be asking you the same thing!" Hermione said when she managed to get her voice back.

Draco raised an eyebrow.  "Say what?"

"You know what!"

Draco looked down at the ground and shook his head before looking back up at her, he laughed shortly.  "You've been talking to Super Potter and his Weasel boy side-kick haven't you?"

Hermione remained silent, she was still staring at Draco trying to figure him out.  It wasn't easy but what she had already seen made her hold her breath.

"Come with me.  I can tell you while we go for a nice walk around the lake." he took her hand in his cold one.

Hermione pulled her hand out of his and backed off a few steps, a look of anger crossed her face.  Don't even try it!

"Hey, what's the matter with you?" Draco took a couple of steps towards her again, Hermione just backed off more and glared at him, eye to eye so he would get the message, she didn't trust him.

Draco's smile flickered as he stared back at her.  Hermione could feel a sudden rush of cold surge through her as he stared at her with his hollow, evil eyes.

"NO! Don't look! Look away! RUN!" the voice called again, more urgently than before.  Too late.

Hermione continued to stare into his eyes, it was as if they were great, black oceans and she was drowning in them, unable to free herself from the current's grip.  A feeling of calm and relaxation washed over her like the tide.  Although she felt like this, some part of her was triggering the alarm meaning danger.  She panicked but the calm overpowered it and the panic was no more.

"Let's start that again shall we? Come with me, Hermione," he repeated as he held out his pale hand.  Hermione unknowingly, and against her will, took it.  "Good girl," Draco grinned as he began to lead her off.

*~*~*~*

"Do you think we should tell Lupin?" Harry asked while adding another pair of cards to his fourth tower.

"'bout what?" Ron replied with a question as he sat upside-down on the armchair.

"About it being Malfoy who attacked Dumbledore.  Maybe it will help him find a way to bring Dumbledore round again so he can stop this plan going any further."

"He probably already knows…"

"If he does he doesn't seem to be doing much about it! There's a vampire on the loose in these grounds and nobody is dealing with him!"

"Would you?"

"Well… no, I've never really dealt with vampires before, couldn't be too hard though.  Show them two pieces of wood stuck together and shove another piece of wood into their chest! They're pathetic really…"

"Yeah, just watch out for the teeth… that's one advantage they've got." Ron replied poking his still painful, yet blood free, hand.

"I swear, if one comes anywhere near me, it'll be like a scene out of Buffy the vampire slayer!"

"Harry… please do not give me visions of you in a skirt or tight jeans with high heels fighting vampires… that's just scary, not to mention sick! You'd scare Malfoy off before y- OUCH!"

Harry threw a book at Ron.  "You deserve it!" Harry placed the last two cards on the top of his last tower.  "Look! It's a box of card towers!"

"It won't be standing for long!" Ron jumped off the armchair and ran towards the towers.

"Don't you dare! I spend ages on those!" Harry caught Ron's arm before he knocked them over.

Ron began to blow hard in the direction of Harry's tower box.  The top two on the first tower began to wobble and soon one of the cards fell.  Harry watched, but the rest stood as proud as ever.

"HA!" Harry gloated.

As soon as he had said that, there was a loud exploding noise from behind him.  Harry slowly turned round to see the cards scattered over the desk and floor and where they had stood was a charred patch of wooden desk.  He had used the 'Exploding Snap' packs.

Ron grinned down at Harry.  "Don't say it!" Harry said before Ron said anything.

(A/N: There was absolutely no point to this scene what-so-ever but I decided to put in a little humour to lighten it up a little before the suspense part… it helps me.  It was going to be the Two Towers from LOTR but I thought that that would sound wrong because of the whole Sept. 11th thing… so I changed it.)

*~*~*~*

It felt cold outside, but it wasn't the air.  No matter how long she held his hand, it seemed to get no warmer but spread the cold through her body instead.  Finally he stopped leading her when they were in the dark shadow of the forbidden forest's edge.  He didn't let go of her, he kept a strong grip on her hand and pulled her towards him.

"Feeling better? You were so uptight earlier," he whispered softly into her ear as he ran his fingers through her hair.

Hermione smiled to herself.  She was calmer, why was she so scared in the first place? It all seemed so stupid right now, she was happy where she was now, it's the way she had always wanted it to be... Draco and herself alone together.  Something was telling her that this wasn't right, but she wouldn't let that take her happiness away from her… not now.

"Can't think why I was, but I'm fine now… sorry I was so twitchy earlier," she whispered back, putting her arms around his neck.

"No! Ge-… -way fr-… it!" the voice called to her from the back of her mind.  It faded and came back like a bad signal on a radio as Draco's powers of keeping Hermione calm and unaware were more powerful.  What was that voice? Her conscience? No, the voice sounded strangely familiar to Hermione, but she didn't think about that… she had lost the ability to think her own thoughts.

Draco smiled, "It's OK, as long as you are feeling fine.  You know how beautiful you look in the moon-light?"

Hermione smiled and looked down to hide, her face was turning red.  She didn't know how to respond to that, nobody had ever said something like that to her before… Krum wasn't exactly the romantic type.  She wasn't thinking about what she could say back to him but she didn't have to.  He did something that made her speechless and surprised.

"Hermione…" he whispered.  Hermione looked up at him and as soon as she did, he kissed her.

This is what Hermione had been waiting for, she had always been too scared to approach him, not knowing if he felt the same but if this kiss was like words… he was keen alright! 

Then it was like a dark cloud had covered her mind and prevented it from knowing what was happening or from doing anything about it as soon as his lips touched hers.  His kiss was cold, like his very lips were made of ice yet it burned her lips like acid.  She kissed him back just as fiery as he was to her as she ran her fingers through his soft hair.  All that mattered to her now was that this would never end.

Draco had other plans of course.  He began stroking her neck and she smiled through the kiss at it before Draco broke free of their fiery kiss and left a pattern of kisses down the side of her face, right down to kiss the side of her neck…

(Ah! No better way to end my first update of the new year than a good old cliff-hanger! Soz it's late but ff.net locked me out for a while! *glares* Next chapter will involve two fights (both involving Draco) and a lot of vampires as you meet the rest of the little bloodsuckers, oh and of course, will Hermione be rescued or will Draco get his way? I'm planning on writing another fic cos just writing one is a bit naff so I need ur help to come up with a plot please help! I can write Harry Potter, LOTR (I  have limited knowledge!) or buffy. Ur names will be down as my helpers! E-mail me them if you can, if not put it in ur reviews…PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO REVIEW! Thankies! Buh byes! ; ])