Hmmm..what shall I write today?

[Tinder] How about finishing up your HP fic?

Umm….

[Tinder] You've kept it off long enough.

Aww…I wanted to do another Golden Sun fic…

[Tinder] Hp fist. Then GS.

Um, don't you mean, "first"?

[Tinder] No, I meant fist. I'm getting pretty annoyed.

^_^;; And I'm getting writing ASAP, then…

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Hermione toppled backwards over her chair, stunned.  Draco held out his hand to help her up, but she got up on her own.

She stared.  It seemed like an eternity that she stared.  The dark lord broke the silence.

"It's a shock, I know.  And I didn't find out until recently, when she was getting killed….they were her last words."

Hermione started to take a pace back, and another.  Draco, not sure if he should or not, went against his better instincts and took her hand.  She didn't move after that.  She just kept on staring.

"Just a while longer, Hermione.  You see, as you are now my heir, you shall be treated with respect and dignity.  You will have many, many privileges.  As Draco should have told you, you and he will be the heads of the school.  I have no use for it any more, but the younger Malfoy here-" he waved his hand at Draco "-thought it may be a good idea to get your opinion.  It does count for a lot around here from now on.  What are your wishes?"

Hermione stared.  At last she said "Where are Harry and Ron?"

Voldemort sneered.  "Locked up at the moment.  Why?"

Hermione looking at the bottom of the chair.  Slowly, picking it up, she said,

"Here is what I want.  Firstly, I want Harry and Ron to go unharmed.  Secondly, Hogwarts will open in the fall.  I know you thought that if it did open, I should be head girl, and that's fine with me.  What you teach, I don't care-but this school means everything to me, and I need to make sure that the students can be with each other.  Thirdly, you will not harm any student unless they attack you, and I have a pretty good idea that they won't..  And…that's all.  Please, just these three things.  All right?" 

Voldemort pondered.  Now that the first prophecy was lost forever, he didn't need to kill Potter.  And he could always teach the Dark Arts…

Wait he thought.  An idea had occurred to him…

"All right then."  He said.  "Malfoy, you shall take her things up to the Head's dorm and give her anything else she wants.  You, Wormtail, will take Potter and Weasley to their rooms.  The twins will be dealt with later.  You are free to go."

With that, he left the Hall with a final swish of his cloak.  Wormtail left, leaving Hermione and Draco staring at each other, alone.

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Draco heaved Hermione's suitcases up towards the Gryffindor tower.  Rather then go towards the dozing portrait of the fat lady, Draco led the way to the left, through a hallway Hermione hadn't seen before.  It led towards a statue, one made of gleaming crystal.  He knocked three times, and said "Gonreil."

Hermione whizzed around.  What had previously been a rounded curve in the wall was revolving so it looked as though there was a large, circular dent in the wall.  Following Draco's lead, she hopped in.  The walls started moving again.  She was suddenly facing a huge room.  With quite a cheery era, this room had a fireplace, outlined with furniture, between two staircases-both curved, leading in opposite directions, away from each other.  Draco started going up the one on the right.

"Where are we?" asked Hermione, scampering up the stairs behind him.

"This is where the Head Boy and Girl live.  These are you quarters.  Mine are on the other side of our common room.  You have your own walk-in closet, bathroom, and desk." he said, as he put her trunk on the bed.  "Anything else you'd like?"

Hermione surveyed the red and gold decorations.  "No,"  She said.  "I can unpack by myself.  What time is it?"

Draco looked at his watch.  "Five past midnight, I'm afraid." He said. "Maybe you should get some sleep-"

"Yeah, that's it, isn't it? I'll just nod off? Like nothing's happened? Like it's all ok?"

"Hermione, I didn't mean-"

"Of course not! Why would you? You're just here on his orders!  I don't believe I'm wasting my time with some Death Eater!  Just run off and do something else for him, ok?" Hermione said shrilly.  She opened her suitcase and stared throwing things out randomly.

"Hermione-"

"Yes, there you go again! Hermione, Hermione! It's GRANGER to you, I don't care WHAT he says! Just get lost, will you?" Draco could now see tiny dew-drops at the edges of her eyes.  He tried to touch her shoulder-she whipped around, punching him strait in the chest.  She kept pounding and pounding, until he grabbed her, and pressed her against him.  It was such a simple tactic-the pounding stopped, yet the struggling didn't.  For at least a minute, she tried to wriggle against Draco.  At last, she collapsed into his arms, now sobbing her eyes out.

Draco would've loved to have told himself he was just doing this for Voldemort.  He would've loved to have reported this to his father as an act of 'kindness' towards her, in order to get the Malfoys into good books with the Dark Lord.  He would've been relieved if he could've told the voices in his head that he was just doing this for his benefit.  But a Malfoy was always true to his word.  And his word, the truth, was this-he was doing this because he wanted to.  He felt needed, in a way he had never felt before.  For the first time in his life, he felt sympathy for this former Mudblood-and enemy of his.  She needed someone to cry on, someone to explain.  Anyone to explain.  Right now, he supposed he had to do.

Hermione felt a hand on her back.  She know it was Malfoy's, but she also knew it wasn't.  This wasn't the Malfoy she knew.  This wasn't the one who had made her miserable, all those years of "Mudblood" and death wishes.  This wasn't the one who had hated Dumbledore.  This wasn't the Malfoy who had made Ron belch up slugs…although, in truth, Ron had caused that for himself…

Forget that, she thought to herself.  The point was, this wasn't…this couldn't be…The old Malfoy.  She didn't care if he was doing this to please the Dark Lord-all she knew was that she needed someone to cry on-she needed someone to explain.  She needed answers, and she needed them right now.

Her eyes were almost dry.  She pulled away; although she was not happy, she was considerably relieved.  It felt good to let all that go.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and stepped away from him.  His arms dropped limply from around her as she proceeded to sit down on her bed.  Draco, unsure of whether or not to sit down beside her, said "Don't be.  Sometimes, you need to cry in order to move on, right?"

Hermione scowled.  "How would you know? You've never gone through anything like this, have you?"

Draco winced inwardly-maybe it was time that she was left alone to think about what had happened.  "No, you're right-I just…maybe I should go-"

"No, don't.  I'm sorry.  I don't usually like yelling, or being moody, but as we have such unusual circumstances-"

"You have every right to be," said Draco, sitting down besides her.  He felt much more at ease then a couple of seconds ago, although he had no clue why.  She seemed, now, more interested then miserable-much more then the Gran….Hermione he knew.

"I suppose so." She said.  There was a bit of an akward silence, and then-

"Draco?"

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you something?"

Draco smirked.  "Didn't give me much of a choice there, did you?"

"You know what I mean, so stop teasing me."

"Yeah, I do. Sure, ask me anything."

"Why?"

"Well, because you wanted to ask a question-didn't yo-"

"No, I mean why is all this happening.  I still can't believe he didn't  just kill me too.  I can't believe I'm going to be Head Girl next year, with someone other then Dumbledore as Headmaster.  I can't believe I'm sitting here, with you.  We're on first-name basis, we're both doing the Dark Lord's dirty work for him. I should be dead. It would solve so much for him.  Why are I dead-why hasn't he killed me? He has no love for me. I know that much. So why…why did he keep me?"

Draco surveyed her.  He pondered about whether or not he should tell her.  Whether she was ready.  It was not a question of her ability of comprehension-he just did not know if she could handle it. She looked at him, and knew he knew.  It was as simple as that.  She needed him to know, she needed to know-she needed to know the truth. 

"Please, Draco.  Please, just tell me. I need to know."

Draco made his decision then and there-there was no way that she would forgive him if he didn't.  Not that that was important, but her well-being was.  No, it was how she would react to it that-

Oh, just TELL her already! a voice inside his head screamed.

"Very well," he replied. "I will tell you everything."

Hermione looked him strait in the eye-maybe, just maybe, she was going to get some answers.

"As you know, we have killed Dumbledore.  We have not, however, killed all of the staff.  Well, at least, we hadn't…"

Draco tried to phrase what he was going to say perfectly in his head.  The best he could come up with was,

"Before she died, Professor Trelawney was of great use to our Lord.  As you know, she gave us a very useful prophecy…but with Dumbledore dead…and the copy of it smashed…the prophecy is useless."

Hermione did a double take. "I don't understand."

"Without her remembering, the copy smashed, and the sole person to hear it dead, the prophecy has been lost.  Forgotten.  It has no value-"

"I understand that," said Hermione, a little impatiently.  Then, more inquisitively, she asked, "But what does this have to do with my-?"

"Hermione, when one prophecy dies, do you really think that everything-life in general-goes on, just hunky-dorey?"

"What's your point?"

Draco spoke softly.  "Your life was saved because of a new prophecy, Hermione."

There was a shocked silence.  Draco broke it, with "I know it's quite a shock.  I shouldn't have told you now-"

"No, I'm glad you did.  Even if it is-" Hermione glanced at the magically illuminated sun-dial above her bed "nearly one o'clock."

Draco cringed-he could see that she was getting tired.  "Maybe I should tell you the rest in the morning…" he started, but Hermione was shaking her head already.

"We're in too deep for you to stop now.  Keep going, I can stay awake for this.  Who heard it?"

"I did."

"Waitasec…you heard the prophecy I was born into?  Who else heard it?"

"Just me.  I wasn't really supposed to…I was keeping guard over her until Dad came back and killed her, and she went…odd…I couldn't see the pupils of her eyes, and she spoke like a drunkard-"

"Forget that.  What did it say?"

Draco sighed.  He knew that she would've asked this eventually.  "I'm not sure If I'm supposed to tell you.  I mean, you might get mad, you might be in denial or petrified or shocked-"

"Draco, in the past 24 hours, I said good-bye to my parents, went to the Burrow, watched Mrs. Weasley have a nervous breakdown, got taken against my will to a now darkened Hogwarts, got named Head Girl, found out I'm the daughter of the king of darkness, making me PRINCESS of darkness, found out I was born into a prophecy, and I'm now on a first-name basis with a former worst enemy of mine.  Nothing is going to shock me much anymore.  Please, just tell me about the prophecy so I can get to sleep."

Draco smiled.  Hermione was smiling, as if doing anything to get him to say it.  This girl was learning.  He would tell her.  But, of course, only because he had to.  Her father had instructed him to do so.  If he didn't like that she knew, tough.  She should know. He tried to put the image of him being tortured by Voldemort out of his mind as he said,

"Allright.  Here is what it said…"

He cleared his throat, cleaned him mind, and recited;

 "A soul has been lost, and therefore a prophecy is abandoned.  A new one begins, stating the following; A new bond of family is met, between an unlikely daughter and a Dark Lord.  The one who pleases the commander most shall fall in love with the one who loathes the dark lord until the brink of death.  With the mighty sword of her righteous house in hand, she shall be the one to finally defeat the Dark Lord, no matter how improbable or impossible the task is.  This woman will be known forever as the defeater of darkness, and the bringer of pure light. And she and her newly found love shall live together happily, coming into a new era of happiness."

Hermione stared at him.  What she had just heard astonished her, but it also filled her with wonder.

"That's it," Draco finished.   "That's all.  I'm sorry if it's confusing, I don't understand most of it either.  Please, retire.  Fall asleep, and you'll fell better."

He stood up, and crossed the room in five steps.  He breezed out the door, and just before it clicked shut, he heard a small voice calling to him, saying,

"Thank-you."

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Well, that wasn't so bad, was it?

[Tinder] Considering that it took you such a long time, no.

Well, thanks.  I mean, it's nice to know how appreciated I am…

[Tinder] You're as appreciated as much as maybe some sort of sickness that kills countries at a time-

Thank you, Tinder. Now is the part where I beg you all for reviews. Please please please?