Chapter 5

Breaking the Rules

Here was the plan. Before curfew, she would ask Harry for his invisibility cloak and the map of Hogwarts. Then, after curfew, when everyone is in bed, she would go down to the Restricted Section in the library. Then she'd look under Prospect of Prophecies by Carl Franzliger – Hermione had looked it up before, when an assignment was due. The book is restricted because some of the prophecies were very dark and disturbing. Then, under the table of contents, she'd look for Sorceress. Under the Sorceress section, she'd then look for King of Unicorns, Kiyoshi. Kiyoshi was a Japanese name. His name meant Purity.

Just as she was about to put her plan into action, there was a knock at her door.

"Yes, Draco, you can come in," Hermione said tiredly.

"Wow, does he come in your BEDROOM THAT MUCH that you automatically know it's him? And since WHEN did you start calling him DRACO?" Kristen asked, opening the door with annoyance. "Seriously, is there something going ON between you two!" Kristen asked, afraid for the answer. Hermione sighed.

"No, there is nothing between us. Let's just put it that we're more… friends now than we used to be. Is there something bothering you because you never come up here," inquired Hermione.

"Well, actually yeah, there is. See there is this guy…" Kristen trailed off.

"YES?" Hermione said, urging her to go on. Kristen bounced onto the fluffy bed, making Hermione move with it.

"Okay. You know Ron, right? Of course you do! Stupid question!" – Kristen smacked her head – "Anyways, he likes me. He even told me that. I said that I liked him too but I'm not even sure if I actually do!" Kristen gushed.

Hermione was shocked. She definitely wasn't expecting this! Well, actually, she kind of suspected that it would happen one day.

"If he asked you to be his girlfriend, would you? Honestly?" Hermione asked, trying to settle her best friend's confusion.

"Umm… yeah," Kristen admitted, heat rising to her face.

"Then you like him!" Hermione concluded.

Kristen smiled and thanked Hermione. Crookshanks jumped onto bed, walked into the space between the two girls, and flopped over to take a nap. The girls laughed at Crookshanks's performance - it was so random. Startled, Crookshanks jumped off the jump and crawled under it.

"Aww! Sorry Crookshanks!" Hermione cooed between giggles. When she looked under the bed, it was so dark that the only thing she could see was Crookshanks's yellow eyes.

Kristen gave Hermione a friendly hug before she got off the bed.

"Thanks Hermione!" Kristen said, walking towards the common room door. Before she closed the door however, she added a quick comment before Hermione had time to protest.

"Oh, and, by the way, I think you and DRACO would make a REALLY cute couple!"

Hermione thought about this for a moment before dismissing the comment. She didn't like Draco! What was Kristen talking about! And even if he did ask her his girlfriend, she wouldn't go with him!

Would she?

Hermione skipped dinner, for she wasn't hungry for some reason. She was too busy proof reading her plan. After reading and rereading it over, Hermione finally agreed that it was full-proof. Then she decided that she needed a nice, relaxing swim.

Besides the huge tub, there was a smaller one. A hot tub.

Hermione got into another bikini, but this one was pink. She turned on the faucets of the hot tub and let the warm water flow almost to the top. She slowly slid herself into lukewarm water. The hot tub was great! The outside was black, but the inside was all crystal. The faucets itself were made out of diamonds. There were at least 20 knobs. Hermione decided "Oh, what the hell," and turned on the middle faucet. Pink bubbles shot out of the jets in the tub. It felt so nice and it smelt good, too. Like a very expensive perfume. Just as she was relaxing, Draco walked in the door. As soon as he saw her, he blushed and quickly apologized for intruding her privacy. Then, when he was about to use the quickest exit, Hermione stopped him.

"What the hell am I doing?" Hermione thought, but couldn't stop herself from saying:

"Would you like to join me?"

Draco raised his eyebrows way up. He gave her a quizzical look before saying

"Umm, okay..."

As Draco started to take off his clothes, Hermione couldn't help but to look. She couldn't help but to look as he took off his shirt and pants. When Draco finally managed to strip down to black shorts, he slid next to Hermione in the hot tub, being that there wasn't that much room. Turning slightly pink for being so close to Hermione in a hot tub, Draco scooted over a bit to give Hermione some room.

Sensing his confusion on where he should go, Hermione said:

"No, that's okay, you were fine where you were."

Draco scooted back over, curious at what she had in mind. After a little while, after all the joking and laughter, Draco smiled and looked deep into her eyes. They leaned forward and parted their mouths and-

BANG!

Hermione and Draco pulled away from each other, thinking the same thing.

What was that noise?

Then they heard 2 angry voices and 2 squeaky, shaky ones. Hermione and Draco both jumped out of the hot tub, put on a towel, and stepped outside the common room to see what had caused that loud noise and interrupt them. Before they turned the corner however, Hermione gently touched Draco's arm, stopping him. She leaned upward and gave him a peck on the lips. She flushed.

"Sorry, I just wanted to get that in before whatever that bang was ruins our night," Hermione explained.

"Don't be sorry," Draco said, pulling her in for another kiss, this time a little deeper.

"Okay, now let's see what's going on before we get caught!" Hermione declared as they turned the corner.

Hermione's and Draco's eyes popped at the sight.

There, standing in front of them, were Crabbe and Goyle, standing over 7th year girls.

"CRABBE! GOYLE! WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS!" Draco demanded.

The 2 boys turned around, speechless. "20 points EACH from Slytherin!" Hermione deducted. Crabbe and Goyle ran off in the other direction. They all watched them go.

"I'll deal with them later," Draco muttered under his breath.

Draco and Hermione advanced toward the 2 cowering girls that Crabbe and Goyle were looming over. One of them Draco immediately recognized.

"Shayla? Shayla Robinson?" Draco asked, picking up the poor girl, who nose was bleeding. He unwrapped the towel he had around him and took the corner of the fluffy white towel to dab away the blood.

"Are you okay?" he asked, concerned.

"Yeah..." Shayla said weakly.

Shayla and Draco were best friends when they were little. They had grew up together, but as soon as it came to Wizarding schools, they had gone to different schools. He had not seen her in 7 years. "God, she has changed a lot," thought Draco. Shayla was 17 and had long jet black hair to about her ribcage. The only thing that didn't change was her eyes and personality. She had always been a sweet girl. Draco didn't know that she had switched schools.

While Draco was busy with Shayla, Hermione was helping the other girl.

Her name was Fiona Grate. She was 17; same age as Hermione, had deep red-purple dyed hair, and had clear blue eyes. Unlike Shayla, Fiona had not sustained any injury except a few strained muscles.

"Here, take them to the Hospital Wing," Hermione ordered. "I have some business to attend to."

Draco gave her a questioning look, but trusted her judgment. Hermione started off in the other way, but then went back to her room to change into some dark clothing where she'd be hard to see.

When she was about to step into the library, Hermione thought she had heard some whispering behind her. Hermione kept walking casually, and then turned around quick.

There was no one behind her as she peered into the darkness.

"Lumos," Hermione whispered, holding out her wand so she could find her way better.

She had yet again not been able to get in touch with Harry, so she didn't have the map or the cloak. She'd just have to wing it.

She made her way through the library until she reached the Restricted Section.

"Alohamora!" Hermione whispered as she pointed her wand at the lock that stood in her way of getting into the Restricted Section. As she was strolling down the isle looking for the author's last name, she heard the whispering again. Hermione quickly found the book, and stuffed it into her clothing. Afraid that it was a teacher, Hermione quickly whispered "Nox" and put out her light on her wand. Hermione quickly found the book, and stuffed it into her clothing. But this time, the whispering was different, it sounded like there was more than one person.

Hermione took a few more nervous steps and-

CRASH!

Hermione crashed into another body! Hermione quickly lit her wand and saw who the culprit was: Peggy Quirsey. She wasn't alone. She had two other people with her. One she recognized, one she didn't.

The one she did recognize was Rebecca Kimberly Smith.

Rebecca was 15 like Peggy; she also had dark curly brown hair and brown-green hazel eyes.

The other person was Desiree Anna Therswell, whom just introduced herself. Dezzie was a year younger and had red-brown hair with blue eyes and freckles.

"What are you doing down here?" Peggy asked, rubbing her head where they had collided.

"Well I was just- wait a minute! I'm Head Girl! What are YOU THREE doing down here?" Hermione asked back.

"Following you," Desiree said sheepishly. Rebecca nudged Dezzie hard in the ribs.

"What! She asked us what we were doing and I told her!" Dezzie complained.

"Guys! You can't be here at this time of night! Get out of here before you get into trouble!" Hermione protested.

"Who's in 'ere?" a voice called. Hermione, hearing this voice quite often in her years at Hogwarts, recognized it to belong to Mr. Filtch's. Hermione quickly hushed the girls down, and then pulled their arms in the opposite direction of Filtch's voice. Knowing that he would have his cat, Mrs. Norris, with him, Hermione urged the girls to be as light on their feet as they could.

"I know yer in 'ere! Mrs. Norris and I heard you break in!" Mr. Filtch growled, thinking of all the horrible punishments that he could do to the students if he ever found them!

They wound and twisted their way through bookshelves until they were out of the library and into the hallway. Then, they quickly said their goodbyes and rushed off to their rooms.

As soon as Hermione got into her room, she laid the book upon her bedspread and sat next to it.

Mission accomplished!