Chapter 6
Caught
Hermione traced the fancy golden title on the blue satin book, Prospect of Prophecies with her index finger. Now she could finally read its pages to find out this mystery. She turned to the Table of Contents. Hermione slid her finger down the subjects until she got to Sorceresses of a Thousand Years. She quickly turned to that page. When she got to it, she came to another table of contents. Getting annoyed, she ran her eyes down the list until she came to the name, Kiyoshi.
"Finally!" Hermione muttered under her breath.
Kiyoshi
The King of Unicorns
Kiyoshi is the immortal King of Unicorns. When his race was being slaughtered, the greatest sorceress of all time came to his aid and help ward the evil off. The battle was not easy, though. Although the two were extremely powerful, it took about a decade before the battle was won. Grateful for the sorceress's aid, Kiyoshi gave his horn to protect her at all times. The sorceress shrunk the horn, and placed it on a silver chain to place around her neck. However, the horn could not prevent her from death. After she had died, a prophecy was made. The prophecy states: "When the sorceress will die, a new age will dawn, hundreds of years later when her heir shall lead her kind and protect the kind of her immortal brother. The heir is the smartest and wisest witch of her age. She shall then become like her ancestor, but her power will reach beyond the great sorceress's extent. Her, and only her, can control the powers of the unicorn's horn. A dark wizard shall then challenge her power and try to take it away from her, making it his own. The son of the new sorceress's will then fight to the death with the dark sorcerer. The father of the son will be a pureblood, both good and evil. Only fate will decide the outcome of the greatest battle of all time."
Hermione set down the book. No wonder Malfoy was being so nice to her! He was only using her for power! Hermione reread the prophecy: "The heir is the smartest and wisest witch of her age. She shall then become like her ancestor, but her power will reach beyond the great sorceress's extent". They couldn't possibly expect her to be THAT powerful! Hermione thought about this for a moment. Defending a whole race of unicorns AND humans against the greatest dark sorcerer! Now that was too much! What if she couldn't do it! A cold wave of fear washed over Hermione. She knew who the sorcerer was: Lord Voldermort.
"Great. Just great. Not only did the most ancient powerful thing in the world is missing, but it's up to me to save the world. And my… son. WHOA! My SON! I'm going to have a BABY with DRACO MALFOY!" Hermione thought. This was way too much to comprehend at one time.
Draco walked into the room as soon as she had read the prophecy. Hermione looked up, giving him a 'demanding explanation' look of 'how could you!' written all over her face. His silence told her everything. Hermione shook her head in disbelief and got off the bed. She walked up to him and slapped him across the face. If she wasn't so weak from a pounding headache and heartache, the slap would have actually hurt. Draco said nothing, but just looked into her eyes and tried to hug her to comfort her. He knew her confusion, for he had known it too when he was first told. Hermione pushed him away and looked up at him with pleading eyes. With tears threatening to fall, she looked down and tried to hold them back. This was all too much for her to handle. Draco tried again but Hermione tried to push him away again. After realizing it was useless trying to struggle against him, Hermione gave in and cried on his shoulder.
"What if can't do this!" Hermione cried, clinging onto him.
Draco broke the hug, putting his hands on her shoulders and looking into her eyes to make sure she was listening and understanding every word he was about to say.
"You can, and you will. You are the brightest witch of this age! You are her heir, Hermione! You and ONLY you can control the powers within! If you can't find a way, no one can," Draco explained. Hermione took a deep breath and nodded. Then she remembered.
"Draco! The necklace! Someone stole the necklace!" Hermione cried, heart pounding against her chest.
"Well, actually… I didn't trust those house elves so I kept it for safekeeping. I figured that you weren't ready yet so I told you I didn't know anything about it. Now that you know, you can have it back," Draco clarified as he took the necklace out of his pocket. But something was…. different about it. Instead of it being ALL silver, there was a thin ling of opal and turquoise running through the middle of the necklace.
Draco caught her studying it, trying to figure out if the opal and turquoise was there or not before.
Draco confirmed her thoughts.
"No, it wasn't there before, but I put it in there to spiff it up a little. Plus the opal and turquoise have uses, too. Opal is used for beauty, astral projection, and luck. Turquoise is used for courage, friendship, health, and also luck."
Hermione was impressed by his knowledge of use of crystals and stones.
When she put the powerful necklace on, she felt better.
"So I guess that's why there are so many crystals and stones here, huh? They think we can't take care of ourselves so we need the use of rocks to keep us under control," Hermione cracked and smiled weakly.
"Thank you, it's wonderful," she added.
Draco smiled and was about to answer when-
"All Prefects and Head students please report to the principal's at once!" Mrs. McGonagall's voice sounded through the halls.
"Oh no..." Hermione groaned. "This can't be good."
When Hermione and Draco arrived, all the other prefects were already there, wondering the same thing they were:
What could they possibly want so late at night!
"Mr. Filtch has just informed me and professor Dumbledore that there was a break in the Restricted Section in the library and a robbery of a book. Whoever it was could not have been a regular student because their scent was smelt like one of the soaps we personally provide the prefects and head students. So any student here who has committed this crime, would please step forward and the consequences will not be as severe," Mrs. McGonagall informed the students.
All the color in Hermione's face drained. She stood frozen solid, deciding what to do.
"Heh, wonder who THAT was," cracked Abbey Smithson, a Hufflepuff prefect as she looked over at Draco. The prefects giggled and looked over at him, waiting for him to say something back.
When Mrs. McGonagall was about to say something to this remark, the most unexpected thing happened. Peggy stepped up.
"Peggy? But why? Why would you do such a thing?" Mrs. McGonagall asked, taken aback.
"Well, I supposed you know what I'm going to say next. Such things can not happen without punishment. We cannot have our school role models going about and breaking into libraries. I'm sorry Peggy, but I'm going to have to take your badge as prefect away," Mrs. McGonagall said regretfully.
Pride badly hurt, Peggy just stood there, holding her head up and trying to hold back the bridge of tears. She gave back her badge to Mrs. McGonagall and ran off.
"As to the rest of you, let that be a lesson. We will not tolerate any such behavior as this," Mrs. McGonagall said as she bid them goodnight and sent them back to their rooms.
The next morning was Saturday and Hermione went to her spot as usual at the Gryffindor table. As she approached Harry and Ron though, she noticed 2 extra bodies.
She recognized them as she got closer. They were the same 2 girls that Crabbe and Goyle were beating up. Fiona Grate was sitting next to Fred and Shayla Robinson was next to Harry.
"Hey," Hermione greeted as she sat down on the other side of Harry as she gave him a questioning look about the 2 extra bodies.
"It's so great to be back!" Hermione exclaimed, hugging her best friends even though she was doing in front of girls she barley knew but didn't care.
"Are you okay?" Harry and Ron both asked at the same time.
"Yes, yes I am," Hermione verified. "Umm, why are they here?" Hermione whispered lowly so the other girls wouldn't hear her.
"Oh... that's right... you don't know… Ron, tell her," Harry said quickly. Ron sighed.
"Harry and Shayla are going out, Fiona and Fred are going out, and Kristen and I are going out," Ron said boredly in a rehearsed tone.
"Oh, I see that you have had to explain it a lot," Hermione noticed as she started to eat her breakfast.
"Yeah…" Ron sighed. Hermione looked up as she saw Seamus Finnegan flirting with a girl at the Hufflepuff table that she believed she saw last night.
"Who's he…?" Hermione started as she pointed to Seamus.
"Oh… that. Seamus is cross-house dating. He has already gone through 4 girlfriends this month from Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and now Hufflepuff. Her name is Abbey," Harry informed her.
"Oh… I saw her last night when Professor McGonagall called us to Dumbledore's office," Hermione replied.
"About that, what happened?" Ron asked.
"Ehh… I rather not say. But the only thing I will say is that Peggy took the blame and lost her badge as prefect," Hermione quickly explained as she stuffed her mouth with toast so could avoid any question they could say next and then change the subject.
Ron and Harry noticed her quick, dismissing action, and decided to leave her alone.
After lunch was a quidditch game with Gryffindor against Hufflepuff. Hermione decided not to wear the necklace because it was so crowded and she might lose it so Hermione put it under her clothes in her dresser right before the game. Then she sat next to Shayla, since she thought that she ought to get to know her better if she was Harry's girlfriend and was obviously going to spend a great deal of time with the quartet.
"Hey," Hermione acknowledged as she climbed up onto the Gryffindor benches next to Shayla.
"Hey," came Shayla's response. "Where is Kristen?" Shayla added, looking around for outgoing girl.
"Don't you know? She is on the Quidditch team!" Hermione informed her. Shayla raised her eyebrows at this statement, thinking that Hermione must be kidding.
"Really! She doesn't seem like she would be on a team…" Shayla started.
"Umm, why not! What's wrong with my best friend?" Hermione snapped, narrowing her eyebrows. Then immediately regretted what she said for coming on so strong in a negative way on a person that she barely even knew and this was not a good way to start off with.
Shayla looked down at her hands while she wringed them and realized that this was obviously not a good topic to share after all.
All of the sudden, everyone started screaming. Shayla and Hermione look immediately up and around. The players from Gryffindor and Hufflepuff were coming out and their names being introduced to the crowd like a muggle's basketball game.
"Anyways, what was with you and Fiona that night Draco and I found you!" Hermione asked, wondering what that whole commotion was about. She never did find out and she decided that it was best getting the info out of someone that it actually happened to.
"Well, Crabbe and Goyle were angry with us because we didn't even want to go to "first base" with them. So they tried to FORCE us to take a "home run" with them and that's when you guys found us," Shayla explained. Hermione's eyes practically popped out of their sockets at this information.
"They WHAT! You mean that we have rapists on the loose!" Hermione shouted, flying off the handle. Then glanced around to make sure that no one was staring at them.
The roar from the crowd from the player's names being announced was so tremendous that they could barely even hear themselves communicate.
"God, I hate this part of Quidditch!" Hermione thought as she covered her ears.
"Hey," Draco panted as he climbed up next to Hermione. He was in a rush this morning and almost forgot about the game today.
Hermione, unaware that Draco was there, still remained covering her ears and squeezing her eyes shut from the roar of the crowd. When the noise finally died down, Hermione sat up properly and noticed that Draco was sitting right next to her. She jumped.
"Yeah, hi to you too," Draco gasped between laughter.
"That was not funny! You-" Hermione started.
"I scared you," Draco interrupted, giving her a teasing smirk.
"You did not! You just…. Surprised me," Hermione protested.
Shayla raised an eyebrow and looked back and forth between the two.
Just as Draco was about to reply, the game had begun.
Kristen was a chaser and a pretty good one at that just from being trained in ONE summer!
After the game, (they had tied)
Hermione ran up to catch up with Kristen, who was hoisted up into the air by her teammates.
"HEY KRISTEN!YOU PLAYED A GREAT GAME TODAY!" Hermione shouted so Kristen could hear her. The other team players put Kristen down on the ground.
"Thanks! Did you see Kiki Garris? MAN SHE IS GOOD! And same with their seeker, Abbey Smithson!" Kristen gushed.
"Yeah I know! And Sydney their keeper was awesome too!" Hermione agreed.
"Hey Hermione! Over here!" Draco called.
Hermione glanced over at Kristen to see if it was okay. Kristen shrugged.
"Go if you want," Kristen okayed.
Hermione strode over to Draco to see what he wanted.
"Hey!" Draco said as Hermione approached. He looked around to make sure that no one was watching.
"Umm, yes?" Hermione asked, feeling a little awkward.
"Come here," Draco insisted as he grabbed her arm and practically dragged her all the way into their room.
He pulled her all the way up into their room and closed the door.
