Days of Destruction

A/N: Finally wrote and uploaded the second chapter. Sorry about taking a long time, I have been with school and such. Hope everyone enjoys. I'll try and work on all my other stories, I seem to have a lot with only two chapters now. :) Please R&R!


Draco pulled Hermione into an empty classroom.

"Where are Harry and Ron?" Hermione demanded.

"I can't tell you that," Draco said. "But look, I might as well tell you the whole story. I used to be on the Dark Side, but just a few years ago, I swapped sides, see? Now that Voldemort has taken over – well – I'm in some trouble. Voldemort's out to punish all the people that betrayed him, so I need to run. I want you to come with me – I'll look less conspicuous and you're the best witch in our entire grade, I'm gonna need you're help. It's quite lucky for me you didn't die, actually," he added as an afterthought.

Hermione ignored the last comment. "And what do I get out of helping you and putting myself in danger?"

"I know where Ron and Harry are," Draco said. "It's lucky for you I'm alive, otherwise you'd never find them."

Hermione weighed the things up in her mind. It was possible that Draco was bluffing, but then again he'd know she'd get her revenge if she found out that was true, and she had little choice.

A scream, sounding startlingly close, reminded her that if she stepped outside alone, she'd be killed. With Draco she had a chance. As slim as it was. She also figured she could use him now – it was an evil thing to do, but to survive you had to go to extreme measures – and then change her mind.

"Agreed," she said. "Now, get me out of here."

Wordlessly, Draco reached inside his blood-stained robes and rummaged around for something.

"Quickly!" Hermione shrieked. Someone, a Death Eater by the sound of it, had started pounding on the door, encouraged by the sound of her shriek.

Draco produced from the depths of his robe a small cordial of blue fluid. He hastily drained half of it.

"Drink the rest," he told her.

She didn't need to be told twice. She almost swallowed the glass tube in her hurry to get it down.

Draco made a grab for her hand just in time and then, with a painful lurnch, they had vanished.


Then, all of a sudden, they were standing in another room, in exactly the same position as when they vanished. Draco hastily dropped Hermione's hand.

Hermione blinked. She didn't feel anything, yet knew it couldn't be a dream because the foul taste of the blue fluid still lingered a bit too realistically in her mouth. The room she stood in was small, with dirty wooden walls and a caved in straw roof with numerous holes. The air reeked so bad of horse manure and moss that the air seemed thick and stuffy. It was hard to breathe.

She tried to step, finding her foot was stuck in a manure of some sort.

"Eeeeew!" she shrieked.

Draco groaned. "Granger, we're going to get nowhere if you're freaked out by a bit of horse turds. I mean really… it's just getting started."

"Shut up and help me!" she snapped. Her shoe was good and truly stuck. She lifted her foot and her foot just slid out of the shoe. "Great." She leaned down and pulled her shoe out with a loud squelch.

She then turned on Draco, who was examining the barn. "Why the hell are we here Draco? And where are Harry and Ron?"

Draco lifted his head and sent her a scathing look before resuming his examination.

"Draco," Hermione said from behind gritted teeth. "This isn't funny. Voldemort and his Death Eaters are destroying Hogwarts – they're killing everyone! And Ron and Harry could very well be dead! We can't just stand here and do nothing! We've got to help them!"

She took a deep breath, trying to control the rush of adrenaline and anger that hummed in her veins.

"We can't help them now," Draco told her. "There's nothing we can do. People our dying – people we know – and you've got to accept that."

A strangled gasp escaped her throat and against her will, the tears started rolling down her cheeks. "But – I can't." she whispered between sobs.

"The only way you can help them is by staying with me."

"How is that?"

"Because you're the only one who is capable to protect me against the Death Eaters, and I'm the only one who knows where Harry is, and Harry is the only one who can stop Voldemort. See?"

Hermione nodded weakly. She sat down on a barrel of hay, trying to sort things out in her mind.

A few minutes later Draco seemed down examining the barn.

"We can't stay here," he concluded aloud. "Your pothead friend Potter is lying unconscious somewhere, and we've got to get to him as fast as possible. I think that Lucius has put tracking spells on this barn… most likely all the places he knows I would stay…" Draco seemed deep in thought, and Hermione listened intently.

"Lucius?" she asked shakily. "As in, your father?"

Draco shot her a cold glare. "Yes, as in my father. Do you know of any other Lucius?"

"B-But then why is he after you?"

There was a pause in which Hermione sensed a battle going on in Draco's head. Should he tell her everything, or should he not?

In the end, he did.

"After I decided to not become a Death Eater, my father disowned me. I made up my mind to join Dumbledore and before I left I found something of importance to Voldemort, in our house. It was a spell, still being made. The Death Eater planned to attack Hogwarts and put this spell upon Harry Potter, which would transport him into a new dimension. Afterwards, they would use a potion to get to this dimension and feed him another potion that would twist his mind so that he would become evil. Voldemort decided it would be better than killing him.

"But I stole the potions that they needed to get to his dimension and warp his mind. So… that's why Lucius is after me. Because I have the potions."

"That's not the story you told me before we left Hogwarts!" Hermione pointed out. "You said that you were on the run because Voldemort wanted to punish you."

Draco cocked his head to one side, remembering. "Oh yes, there is that. I lied. But not completely – he does want to punish me."

"How can I believe you now, then?"

He shrugged. "I suppose you can't." He smirked, apparently pleased with himself.

Hermione threw her arms up in despair, lost for words. It seemed he hadn't changed much. Finally her brain started working again, and she had an idea.

"A muggle hotel," she said, eyes bright with enthusiasm and fear. "Lucius wouldn't spell a Muggle Hotel, I don't think he would even consider it."

Draco grimaced. "A-A muggle hotel? As in, a hotel for Mudbloods?"

"Oi," Hermione protested. "Do you want to live or not?"

"Fine," Draco said. "I choose life. I suppose when we get there we can make a plan to get Harry."

Hermione conjured a picture of the Big Apple in her head.

"Ready?" she said, uncertainly taking his hand. When he said nothing, she fixed the image in her head and apparated.


New York was crowded. People from high-class magazine editors to thin beggars pushed past each other. Nobody noticed that two extra people had suddenly just appeared out of thin air. If they did, they assumed it was the heat.

"Good Lord," Draco said, as a muggle wearing a business suit pushed past him. "Look at all the muggles!"

"Oh, shut up," Hermione snapped, not in the mood. "We have to find a hotel." She took his hand again, so he wouldn't be lost, and expertly steered her way through the throng of sweating bodies.

"What do these mudblood hotels look like?" Draco was asking, but she took no notice.

Eventually she saw one. It looked reasonable enough, and since she saw no Death Eaters lurking around the parking lot, she figured they'd give it a shot.

"Not that," Draco snapped. "I'm a Malfoy. I have standards – and I am under no circumstances sleeping anywhere near that cheap Mudblood-built hotel!"

"Malfoy," Hermione turned around to face him. "You are being ridiculous! When you're on the run from crazy Death Eaters, you do not muck about, whining about the quality of your hotel. You do exactly as your smart bodyguard says, because it is safe. Do you understand me!"

Draco made ugly face, but he knew she was right.

"Fine. Fine. Let's go in then."

They went in, and booked a room. It was a one room, the only room they had.

Hermione only realized what they meant when they got up there. In the small, poorly furnished room, there was only one bed.

"There's only one bed," Draco pointed out.

"We'll make do," was Hermione's answer. "We can get another mattress or something."

"What's this?" Draco asked, poking the television. Hermione spent the next ten minutes explaining what everything was to Draco. He seemed particularly enthralled by the 'telephone'.

"So, when you speak in here, you can actually hear the other person? They're really speaking?"

"Yes," Hermione sighed exasperatedly. "I never knew you were so interested in muggle things – you might even be the next Arthur Weasley!"

That shut him up.


A/N: Well I realise that chapter might have been a bit confusing... I'll answer any questions you might have. In the next chapter hopefully there will finally be some Hermione/Draco romance:)