Hermione quickly got up and left the table, followed by Fred and
George. Tom just sat picking at his scone with a smile across his face.
They caught up with her near the library.
"It was him." she told them.
"Him that what?" George asked, confused and still trying to catch his breath.
"She was attacked last night. She uh... stayed in our dorm until morning." Fred looked down at the ground.
"Did you... nevermind, I don't want to know."
"How does he know our names?"
"He attacked me while I was in the shower, and I thought it was you two, so I started yelling at you. I wasn't thinking and I called you by your real names." she admitted as they walked into the library. They took seats at an empty table away from a group of students studying.
"We've been forgetting a lot lately. We really need to start calling ourselves by our new names." George pointed out. Hermione and Fred nodded.
"No more slip ups." Fred added.
"No more sneaking to the boy's dormitory for a cuddle session with your brothers." George winked at Hermione. She blushed.
"What are we going to do about Prince Git?"
"Dra- I mean Marcus?" Hermione asked. she'd forgotten about him.
"Yeah. Your boyfriend's heroism might be the thing that gets us all axed. Especially if Riddle's beginning to suspect something." replied George.
"He's not my boyfriend."
"Either way, you have to stop being nice to him." warned Fred.
"Yeah, it'll be a dead give away." added George.
"Think about everything he's done to you over the past six years."
"Now's your chance to get him back for all of it."
"I'm not like you. I don't seek out revenge and trouble. I'll just ignore him." she told them, irratence apparent in her tone.
"Has that ever worked in the past?"
"Yeah, everytime you've tried to ignore him, he'd make it worse just to get a rise out of you."
"Now with him madly in love with you, ignoring him probably won't give the dire effect you're hoping for."
"He might make a scene."
"So what do you expect me to do? Taunt him in the hallways? Stick dungbombs under his bed?" she was beginning to get annoyed with them.
"No, leave that to us." smiled Fred, menacingly.
"Just don't be nice to him. Treat him how he treats you." as George said this, the bell rang for class. They got up and started walking back out to join the rest of the school in the hustle and bustle of students trying to get to class on time.
The next few months were like a bad dream to Hermione. Draco was constantly trying to pull her aside for a private conversation, only to be let down when Fred or George rescued her. Hermione had to study for the O.W.L's which was harder than it had been when she'd studied them in her own fifth year. She knew more than she was supposed to, and found dumbing down her homework was an extremly difficult task. Fred and George were back to their schoolday antics, but with different results than they'd expected. The entire second floor was blocked after they set loose Fillibuster Fireworks. Students of their modern world would've found them funny, but seeing as they hadn't been invented yet, it caused hysteria and three first years ended up in the infirmary due to mental anguish. Luckily, they weren't caught, but they had to endure hours of Hermione lecturing them for messing with the past and their rash behavior.
"Detention would've been more tolerable than this." muttered Fred, trying to block out Hermione's voice.
"Lines would be a blessing sent from the Elders themselves." George whispered back.
Meanwhile, Hermione had explained to Tom that Fred and George were the names of two people she knew before she'd come to the school. He accepted that, to her relief, and eased up a bit. By the end of April though, he was more insistant that she begin searching the third floor for the entrance to the Chamber. She'd been able to postpone it with excuses or busying herself with her homework in the library. It was getting to the point though where he wasn't accepting her excuses anymore and wanted her to go look around. She decided she'd pretend to be searching, and just tell him she hadn't found anything yet.
Hermione walked down the corridor slowly. She wasn't sure if Tom had followed her or not. It had become a constant paranoia of hers. He hadn't snuck up on her since, but he continously stared at her during classes. When she reached the third floor bathroom, she began to casually walk past it. She would tell Tom she hadn't seen anything unusual in there. As she moved past it though, someone reached out and pulled her in. It was Tom. He pushed her up against the wall.
"If you had no problem going into the girl's bathroom, why did you have me go looking for the chamber?" she asked him.
"Because I cared, originally. But I got impatient with you and your excuses. I was beginning to see that you had no intention of helping me. I admit my behavior hasn't been the most trustworthy, so knowning you weren't going to be of any use I went looking myself." he pushed her harder into the wall.
"What are you doing?" she panicked. She tried to break free from his grasp, but he wouldn't budge.
"Something I've wanted to do since I first met you on the train back in January." he hissed. He forced his lips against hers.
"Stop, Tom." she was able to push him away.
Hermione ran for the door, but he grabbed her by the waist and threw her backwards. She felt her back hit hard against the sink. He leaned in close to her. She could feel his warm breath on her skin and it gave her chills. He pushed her robes down over her shoulders and she felt the buttons of her shirt break as he ripped it open. He kissed down her neck and chest. She closed her eyes, waiting for the worst to come but it didn't. Opening her eyes, she noticed that Tom had backed away from her. He was no longer concerned with her and his eyes were looking straight past her.
"This is it." he smiled with delight.
She looked behind her to see what had distracted him. On the tab protruding into her back, was a tiny snake etched into the copper. She gasped. It was the entrance to the Chamber. Ron and Harry had never told her exactly where it had been, and now it all made sense to her. She took this moment to run past Tom and out of the bathroom. She was heading towards to the Slytherin Common Room when she was grabbed again. She let out a startled cry and went to hit her attacker. It was Draco. She looked down the corridor to make sure no one was around.
"What happened to you?" he asked, noticing her shirt. She quickly pulled her robes tightly around her.
"He's found the entrance to the Chamber. The attacks are about to start." she informed him.
"Did you... with Voldemort..."
"Draco, don't you dare start playing crazy jealous ex-boyfriend again. No I didn't do anything, okay?" she wanted to tell him the truth, that she was almost raped. But her instinct knew better. Draco would do something drastic, and they couldn't afford to have anything else go wrong.
As they stood there looking at each other, they heard a cry. Hermione watched as Myrtle came running past them and up the stairwell followed by Hermione's roommate Olive Hornby yelling out remarks about her classes. Fred and George came out of the Common Room laughing about something until they saw Hermione standing there with Draco, looking disheveled.
"What'd you do to her?" Fred demanded.
"Nothing, you git."
"Stop it we have to go after Myrtle." Hermione grabbed Draco's hand and they rushed up the staircase after her. Fred and George followed, utterly confused.
Olive walked past them, smirking to herself. Hermione looked around for Myrtle once they reached the third floor. She was no where in sight. Hermione let out a frustrated sigh.
"Would you kindly tell us what's going on?" asked George.
She didn't have time to answer though, they heard a scream coming from the girl's bathroom. Hermione lunged forward but was grabbed by Fred and Draco. She faught against them hard, but they were too strong for her. She screamed out.
"We have to go save her! It's the basilisk! Tom's opened the Chamber!" she yelled at them, frantically.
"Stop! There's nothing we can do!" George told her.
"If you go in there you'll be killed too!" Draco yelled back.
"Let me go!" she cried.
"It was meant to happen!"
"You're the one who said not to interfere with history. You can't save her." Fred reminded her. She broke down in tears and stopped struggling. Hermione retreated into Draco's arms.
"Come on, we need to get back down to the Common Room." George tugged on her arm.
"We're just going to leave her there? We have to go get help."
"We're not the ones who are supposed to find her, Hermione." she nodded at Fred and walked back to the Slytherin Common Room with him and George, leaving Malfoy standing there slightly confused about the whole situation. He rushed back to Gryffindor Tower.
Hermione sat down next to Fred and George the next morning at breakfast. The whole school was filled with familiar whispers of the attack. Hermione felt as if she was back in her second year. She was a wreck after not having slept most of the night. She wasn't hungry either and picked at her food. Tom walked past her with Damien and smiled. She smiled weakly back, trying to give the impression that she approved of what he'd done. Dippet gave a small speech about how sorry he was that Myrtle had died, and that they were doing whatever they could to prevent any more attacks. Hermione was tuning in and out and for the first time in her life, she didn't give a damn as to what the Headmaster was saying. A pang of guilt rested in her stomach. She'd wanted to save Myrtle. She couldn't see how saving her life would've impacted the future. She tried to shake the thoughts out of her head with reason. The twins had been right. It was meant to happen and there was nothing they could've done to prevent it. She hoped that the prophecy would be told soon. She wanted to return home. She'd had enough of the past.
She looked up and caught Draco's glance. He'd been nice to her since his arrival. It made her uncomfortable. She knew he was expecting them to get back together, but she wasn't going to let it happen. She couldn't. She'd grown so accustumed to his double personality that dealing with the more sincere Draco was beginning to be more irritating then putting up with his usual egotistical cunning side. Even throughout their relationship, that part of him kept her open to the fact of who he was. Now he was trying to get in her good graces again, and she didn't know how to deal with him. She hoped he'd been wrong about her dying after the prophecy was told, but another part of her was beginning to hope it was true. It was unlike her to think these sort of thoughts, but she was so tired mentally and physically. The past few years had been such an emotional strain on her. She promised herself, that if she returned, she'd appoligize to Harry for every time she'd thought him to be overreacting when he was dealing with stress. She was beginning to understand what he was going through more each day.
When the bell rang, Hermione said goodbye to the twins and headed off to class. She sat alone. She didn't want to listen to Tom brag quietly about the success of opening the chamber. She knew it was only a matter of time before Hagrid would be convicted of setting the Basilisk free and he'd be praised as a great example to the school. She hated Tom Riddle. She hated him for what he'd tried to do to her and for the way he acted as if he was superior to everyone when the admistration wasn't around. She hated him for what he was going to become. Only Dumbledore seem to know there was more to him than his good grades and respective demeanor when it came to the professors. She decided that she would go to him that night after supper and talk to him. He would understand. She spent the rest of the day focusing on her school work. The O.W.L.s were only weeks away and no one questioned her removal from conversations and pranks during the day.
That night after supper, Hermione made her way to Professor Dumbledore's office. He motioned for her to come in and have a seat. He was looming over essays that he'd been grading. He smiled at her.
"I know why you have come."
"Isn't there anything we can do to prevent it?"
"I'm afraid not. As you know everything has a chain reaction to itself. Everything that happens in life is entertwined. We go through experiences that we wish we had not, but we learn things from them and they mould us into who we are. If we were to convict Tom Riddle of something we have no proof of until forty years from now, then it'll change the future... your present... drastically. I'll give you an example. I know you wanted to save that poor girl from the bathroom yesterday, but if you had then Hagrid would not be gamekeeper in your present, there would've been no way to save Sirius Black, and had the girl not died then your friend Mr. Potter would have died during the Triwizard Tournament your fourth year, as it was the ghost of the girl that helped him discover a clue leading him to safety of the first task." he started to explain. Hermione had always known that Dumbledore was a powerful wizard, but it still boggled her mind as to how much he knew and why. She understood why Tom was so afraid of him. She would be too if she ever found herself on the opposing end of Dumbeldore.
"Maybe so but if we stopped Tom now then Harry wouldn't have ever been in the tournament. His parents would still be alive. He wouldn't be going through all of the things he's going through now."
"Yes, I can see why you think it would be in the future's best interest to dispose of Tom Riddle now, but he's had his purposes. It's nothing I can explain to you, as you will need to think about it and figure it out yourself, Miss Granger. It is not wise to know more than you're suppose to, especially of the future." he winked at her. Hermione was about to reply when there was commotion from outside the office.
She followed Dumbledore out into the corridor. Dippet and Blackthorne were trying to restrain Hagrid, who was in tears. Tom just watched on with an expression of sorrow. She knew it was an act and her stomach lurched watching him play the part of concerned prefect, when the truth was he'd pinned the attack so that he could remain at Hogwarts during the summer. His narassicism disgusted her and she left the scene to head back to the Common Room. She also made a promise to go visit Hagrid immediatly upon her return.
A/N: I've had people both here and on HPFF ask if I was going to keep Draco and Hermione together. Yes, this is a DM/HG story but this is a continuation of my previous story and I'm not going to just jump in with them being all over each other. They're going to be seeing other people for awhile before they end up back together. Don't worry though, they will be together again. :)
"It was him." she told them.
"Him that what?" George asked, confused and still trying to catch his breath.
"She was attacked last night. She uh... stayed in our dorm until morning." Fred looked down at the ground.
"Did you... nevermind, I don't want to know."
"How does he know our names?"
"He attacked me while I was in the shower, and I thought it was you two, so I started yelling at you. I wasn't thinking and I called you by your real names." she admitted as they walked into the library. They took seats at an empty table away from a group of students studying.
"We've been forgetting a lot lately. We really need to start calling ourselves by our new names." George pointed out. Hermione and Fred nodded.
"No more slip ups." Fred added.
"No more sneaking to the boy's dormitory for a cuddle session with your brothers." George winked at Hermione. She blushed.
"What are we going to do about Prince Git?"
"Dra- I mean Marcus?" Hermione asked. she'd forgotten about him.
"Yeah. Your boyfriend's heroism might be the thing that gets us all axed. Especially if Riddle's beginning to suspect something." replied George.
"He's not my boyfriend."
"Either way, you have to stop being nice to him." warned Fred.
"Yeah, it'll be a dead give away." added George.
"Think about everything he's done to you over the past six years."
"Now's your chance to get him back for all of it."
"I'm not like you. I don't seek out revenge and trouble. I'll just ignore him." she told them, irratence apparent in her tone.
"Has that ever worked in the past?"
"Yeah, everytime you've tried to ignore him, he'd make it worse just to get a rise out of you."
"Now with him madly in love with you, ignoring him probably won't give the dire effect you're hoping for."
"He might make a scene."
"So what do you expect me to do? Taunt him in the hallways? Stick dungbombs under his bed?" she was beginning to get annoyed with them.
"No, leave that to us." smiled Fred, menacingly.
"Just don't be nice to him. Treat him how he treats you." as George said this, the bell rang for class. They got up and started walking back out to join the rest of the school in the hustle and bustle of students trying to get to class on time.
The next few months were like a bad dream to Hermione. Draco was constantly trying to pull her aside for a private conversation, only to be let down when Fred or George rescued her. Hermione had to study for the O.W.L's which was harder than it had been when she'd studied them in her own fifth year. She knew more than she was supposed to, and found dumbing down her homework was an extremly difficult task. Fred and George were back to their schoolday antics, but with different results than they'd expected. The entire second floor was blocked after they set loose Fillibuster Fireworks. Students of their modern world would've found them funny, but seeing as they hadn't been invented yet, it caused hysteria and three first years ended up in the infirmary due to mental anguish. Luckily, they weren't caught, but they had to endure hours of Hermione lecturing them for messing with the past and their rash behavior.
"Detention would've been more tolerable than this." muttered Fred, trying to block out Hermione's voice.
"Lines would be a blessing sent from the Elders themselves." George whispered back.
Meanwhile, Hermione had explained to Tom that Fred and George were the names of two people she knew before she'd come to the school. He accepted that, to her relief, and eased up a bit. By the end of April though, he was more insistant that she begin searching the third floor for the entrance to the Chamber. She'd been able to postpone it with excuses or busying herself with her homework in the library. It was getting to the point though where he wasn't accepting her excuses anymore and wanted her to go look around. She decided she'd pretend to be searching, and just tell him she hadn't found anything yet.
Hermione walked down the corridor slowly. She wasn't sure if Tom had followed her or not. It had become a constant paranoia of hers. He hadn't snuck up on her since, but he continously stared at her during classes. When she reached the third floor bathroom, she began to casually walk past it. She would tell Tom she hadn't seen anything unusual in there. As she moved past it though, someone reached out and pulled her in. It was Tom. He pushed her up against the wall.
"If you had no problem going into the girl's bathroom, why did you have me go looking for the chamber?" she asked him.
"Because I cared, originally. But I got impatient with you and your excuses. I was beginning to see that you had no intention of helping me. I admit my behavior hasn't been the most trustworthy, so knowning you weren't going to be of any use I went looking myself." he pushed her harder into the wall.
"What are you doing?" she panicked. She tried to break free from his grasp, but he wouldn't budge.
"Something I've wanted to do since I first met you on the train back in January." he hissed. He forced his lips against hers.
"Stop, Tom." she was able to push him away.
Hermione ran for the door, but he grabbed her by the waist and threw her backwards. She felt her back hit hard against the sink. He leaned in close to her. She could feel his warm breath on her skin and it gave her chills. He pushed her robes down over her shoulders and she felt the buttons of her shirt break as he ripped it open. He kissed down her neck and chest. She closed her eyes, waiting for the worst to come but it didn't. Opening her eyes, she noticed that Tom had backed away from her. He was no longer concerned with her and his eyes were looking straight past her.
"This is it." he smiled with delight.
She looked behind her to see what had distracted him. On the tab protruding into her back, was a tiny snake etched into the copper. She gasped. It was the entrance to the Chamber. Ron and Harry had never told her exactly where it had been, and now it all made sense to her. She took this moment to run past Tom and out of the bathroom. She was heading towards to the Slytherin Common Room when she was grabbed again. She let out a startled cry and went to hit her attacker. It was Draco. She looked down the corridor to make sure no one was around.
"What happened to you?" he asked, noticing her shirt. She quickly pulled her robes tightly around her.
"He's found the entrance to the Chamber. The attacks are about to start." she informed him.
"Did you... with Voldemort..."
"Draco, don't you dare start playing crazy jealous ex-boyfriend again. No I didn't do anything, okay?" she wanted to tell him the truth, that she was almost raped. But her instinct knew better. Draco would do something drastic, and they couldn't afford to have anything else go wrong.
As they stood there looking at each other, they heard a cry. Hermione watched as Myrtle came running past them and up the stairwell followed by Hermione's roommate Olive Hornby yelling out remarks about her classes. Fred and George came out of the Common Room laughing about something until they saw Hermione standing there with Draco, looking disheveled.
"What'd you do to her?" Fred demanded.
"Nothing, you git."
"Stop it we have to go after Myrtle." Hermione grabbed Draco's hand and they rushed up the staircase after her. Fred and George followed, utterly confused.
Olive walked past them, smirking to herself. Hermione looked around for Myrtle once they reached the third floor. She was no where in sight. Hermione let out a frustrated sigh.
"Would you kindly tell us what's going on?" asked George.
She didn't have time to answer though, they heard a scream coming from the girl's bathroom. Hermione lunged forward but was grabbed by Fred and Draco. She faught against them hard, but they were too strong for her. She screamed out.
"We have to go save her! It's the basilisk! Tom's opened the Chamber!" she yelled at them, frantically.
"Stop! There's nothing we can do!" George told her.
"If you go in there you'll be killed too!" Draco yelled back.
"Let me go!" she cried.
"It was meant to happen!"
"You're the one who said not to interfere with history. You can't save her." Fred reminded her. She broke down in tears and stopped struggling. Hermione retreated into Draco's arms.
"Come on, we need to get back down to the Common Room." George tugged on her arm.
"We're just going to leave her there? We have to go get help."
"We're not the ones who are supposed to find her, Hermione." she nodded at Fred and walked back to the Slytherin Common Room with him and George, leaving Malfoy standing there slightly confused about the whole situation. He rushed back to Gryffindor Tower.
Hermione sat down next to Fred and George the next morning at breakfast. The whole school was filled with familiar whispers of the attack. Hermione felt as if she was back in her second year. She was a wreck after not having slept most of the night. She wasn't hungry either and picked at her food. Tom walked past her with Damien and smiled. She smiled weakly back, trying to give the impression that she approved of what he'd done. Dippet gave a small speech about how sorry he was that Myrtle had died, and that they were doing whatever they could to prevent any more attacks. Hermione was tuning in and out and for the first time in her life, she didn't give a damn as to what the Headmaster was saying. A pang of guilt rested in her stomach. She'd wanted to save Myrtle. She couldn't see how saving her life would've impacted the future. She tried to shake the thoughts out of her head with reason. The twins had been right. It was meant to happen and there was nothing they could've done to prevent it. She hoped that the prophecy would be told soon. She wanted to return home. She'd had enough of the past.
She looked up and caught Draco's glance. He'd been nice to her since his arrival. It made her uncomfortable. She knew he was expecting them to get back together, but she wasn't going to let it happen. She couldn't. She'd grown so accustumed to his double personality that dealing with the more sincere Draco was beginning to be more irritating then putting up with his usual egotistical cunning side. Even throughout their relationship, that part of him kept her open to the fact of who he was. Now he was trying to get in her good graces again, and she didn't know how to deal with him. She hoped he'd been wrong about her dying after the prophecy was told, but another part of her was beginning to hope it was true. It was unlike her to think these sort of thoughts, but she was so tired mentally and physically. The past few years had been such an emotional strain on her. She promised herself, that if she returned, she'd appoligize to Harry for every time she'd thought him to be overreacting when he was dealing with stress. She was beginning to understand what he was going through more each day.
When the bell rang, Hermione said goodbye to the twins and headed off to class. She sat alone. She didn't want to listen to Tom brag quietly about the success of opening the chamber. She knew it was only a matter of time before Hagrid would be convicted of setting the Basilisk free and he'd be praised as a great example to the school. She hated Tom Riddle. She hated him for what he'd tried to do to her and for the way he acted as if he was superior to everyone when the admistration wasn't around. She hated him for what he was going to become. Only Dumbledore seem to know there was more to him than his good grades and respective demeanor when it came to the professors. She decided that she would go to him that night after supper and talk to him. He would understand. She spent the rest of the day focusing on her school work. The O.W.L.s were only weeks away and no one questioned her removal from conversations and pranks during the day.
That night after supper, Hermione made her way to Professor Dumbledore's office. He motioned for her to come in and have a seat. He was looming over essays that he'd been grading. He smiled at her.
"I know why you have come."
"Isn't there anything we can do to prevent it?"
"I'm afraid not. As you know everything has a chain reaction to itself. Everything that happens in life is entertwined. We go through experiences that we wish we had not, but we learn things from them and they mould us into who we are. If we were to convict Tom Riddle of something we have no proof of until forty years from now, then it'll change the future... your present... drastically. I'll give you an example. I know you wanted to save that poor girl from the bathroom yesterday, but if you had then Hagrid would not be gamekeeper in your present, there would've been no way to save Sirius Black, and had the girl not died then your friend Mr. Potter would have died during the Triwizard Tournament your fourth year, as it was the ghost of the girl that helped him discover a clue leading him to safety of the first task." he started to explain. Hermione had always known that Dumbledore was a powerful wizard, but it still boggled her mind as to how much he knew and why. She understood why Tom was so afraid of him. She would be too if she ever found herself on the opposing end of Dumbeldore.
"Maybe so but if we stopped Tom now then Harry wouldn't have ever been in the tournament. His parents would still be alive. He wouldn't be going through all of the things he's going through now."
"Yes, I can see why you think it would be in the future's best interest to dispose of Tom Riddle now, but he's had his purposes. It's nothing I can explain to you, as you will need to think about it and figure it out yourself, Miss Granger. It is not wise to know more than you're suppose to, especially of the future." he winked at her. Hermione was about to reply when there was commotion from outside the office.
She followed Dumbledore out into the corridor. Dippet and Blackthorne were trying to restrain Hagrid, who was in tears. Tom just watched on with an expression of sorrow. She knew it was an act and her stomach lurched watching him play the part of concerned prefect, when the truth was he'd pinned the attack so that he could remain at Hogwarts during the summer. His narassicism disgusted her and she left the scene to head back to the Common Room. She also made a promise to go visit Hagrid immediatly upon her return.
A/N: I've had people both here and on HPFF ask if I was going to keep Draco and Hermione together. Yes, this is a DM/HG story but this is a continuation of my previous story and I'm not going to just jump in with them being all over each other. They're going to be seeing other people for awhile before they end up back together. Don't worry though, they will be together again. :)