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The story should start getting a bit more intense now, what can I say I love drama
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Chapter 20 - Another Prophecy
The next morning Hermione and Draco went down together for breakfast. They were holding hands as they usually did and when Ron saw them his face went a crimson colour and Hermione went and sat at the slytherin table with Draco. It was never really fun to sit there as they still put up with a lot of glares from the other slytherins but they had taken to keeping their mouths shut which is more than could be said for Ron, Hermione knew he would be furious when she finally had to talk to him and did not relish the moment that would happen.
It was a Sunday so there were no lessons today thankfully which meant Hermione would be able to speak to Ron and he would have a bit of time to calm down before the next day. It would soon be Christmas break anyway and Ron would no doubtedly be returning to the burrow. Hermione and Draco were to both stay at Hogwarts as they had nowhere else to go really.
After breakfast they left the great hall and immediately on doing so they were accosted by Ron
"I thought you were dumping him?" he said to Hermione grabbing her arm.
"I can't" she said
"Why not?" he asked her and turned his fierce gaze upon Draco
"Because I love him" she said, there were tears in her eyes from where Ron was hurting her.
"Weasley get your hands off her" Draco said. He was quickly getting annoyed at Ron and he wasn't one to keep his mouth shut in a situation
"I will do no such thing" the red head snarled "she is my best friend"
"Well if that's the way you treat your friends I would love to see how you treat people you don't like" Draco said and pulled Hermione from him. She was openly crying now and holding her sore arm.
"Ron" Hermione said "I need Draco and he needs me, I am not going to break up with him, no matter what you say. And I do not want to be with you, I couldn't"
"Be with him?" Draco scoffed and then turned on Ron "you said all this just to be with her? You sicken me"
Ron glared "she would be better off with me"
"like hell she would" Draco said and stood in front of Hermione "so what happened you went home all sad about Harry and went to see this psychiatrist and what told him you were in love and he filled your head with junk as to how to win her over?"
Hermione was startled that Draco even knew what a psychiatrist was but then remembered that he took muggle studies and they had covered that in their last year.
"He just told me what I needed to do for myself" Ron said trying to defend himself
"He talked crap. Find your own girl" Draco said and pulled his wand out at him "or I will be forced to deal with you"
"Oh please" Ron said and laughed manically, "she will come to see, I know she will"
"Ron
I think you need some help" Hermione told him
"then leave him
and help me" he said
She looked into his eyes, they weren't like they normally were they were darker and his pupils were so small she could barely see them. He also had a bit of a crazy look to them.
Hermione was scared for all of them.
"I think you should talk to Dumbledore" she said "we will come with you"
"What on earth do I need to talk to that old coot for?" he shouted "he has gone flipping mad I will tell you. He told me to see Snape if I had any problems. The whole bloody world has gone mad"
"Ron as head girl I am telling you to go and see the headmaster" Hermione stated putting her hands on her hips "and if you don't go of your own free will then we will escort you"
"Make me then" Ron said and within a second Hermione had him in a full body bind and was levitating him towards Dumbledore's office.
They entered the office and Hermione removed the curse from Ron
"See
what she did?" Ron asked Dumbledore
"I do indeed but I also
know that miss granger would not do that without a good reason" he
said eyeing the redhead over his half moon glasses.
"Well professor" Hermione began "I believe Ron is still not emotionally well"
"He's not right in the head" Draco added
"Tactful Draco" Hermione whispered to him
"Thanks" he said and smirked
She rolled her eyes at him.
"Well I will give Mr Weasley and evaluation then" Dumbledore said
"Just wait till I tell my mother" Ron said
"I will be informing her, she might like to be here for it" he told him.
And with that the heads left the office and walked back towards their common room.
"You think he would find out some more facts about it rather than just be like, ok then I will sort it out" Draco said
"Oh come off it" she said knowingly "Dumbledore knows everything, he will know what Ron was saying and everything"
"Yeah I guess so" Draco agreed and they went to read, Hermione couldn't concentrate and ended up just pacing around the common room for a long time. Draco got fed up of watching her in the end and decided to go for a nap.
Meanwhile upstairs Mrs Weasley stepped out of the fireplace and walked over to an empty chair in professor Dumbledore's office
"Well what's this all about Albus? I am quite busy you know" she snapped, it had not been a good time for her lately. Ginny still wasn't back at school and she was trying to be so strong for everyone it was taking its toll on her good nature a lot.
"Molly" he said and smiled at her "it seems that Ron doesn't seem quite back to his old self and some people are concerned for him"
"But that person that st mungos recommended said he was fine now" she said and looked rather confused
"I am fine mum" Ron told her
"Well you see this is the problem and I am going to do an evaluation on Ron, and I wished for you to be present"
"I see" she said "and just how is this evaluation carried out?"
"Well unfortunately I need to do some legilamency on him and enter his mind" he told her "this should tell me all I need to know"
"Very well" molly said and sat back in her chair
"Mum" Ron shrieked "you aren't seriously going to let him just invade my mind are you?"
"Yes Ronald I am" she said "now be quiet"
And that was that. Ron was to endure his mind being prodded and probed by the aged gentleman that stood before him.
An
hour later Dumbledore had finally reached his opinion.
"please
forgive me it is very tiring to do that, Ron however should feel no
side effect from it at all" he said as he sat down in his chair
"Mrs Weasley I feel that Ron should be checked into st mungos he is not in his right state of mind and I feel he needs to be put on an anti-psychotic course" he told her seriously
"I beg your pardon?" she said not quite believing her ears.
"I am sorry molly, there is some dark in there and its trying to take him over, we must deal with it before it gets out of hand" he said "Ron I am very sorry but you must do as I say otherwise there will be no help for you and I would say in probably less than a year he will more than likely be in Azkaban"
"Come along then Ron" molly said wearily standing up "thank you Albus"
"I am sorry" he said and watched the mother pull her son into the fireplace
Draco had just re-entered the common room from his nap and Hermione was sat at the desk staring into space
He went and put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her on the temple
"Hey" he said
"Oh hi" she said "do you feel better for that?"
"Yes much" he said "any word from Dumbledore yet?"
"No nothing" Hermione said "but its time for lunch so I think we should go"
"Ok" he said and they left for the great hall, as they neared it they spotted Dumbledore just entering,
"He must have finished then" Hermione said
"Yes he must, perhaps he will tell us after lunch" Draco said and squeezed her hand.
Hermione in some ways hoped that Ron would not have anything wrong with him. But she didn't want him to act that way if he was fine so in that case she was hoping there would be something wrong with him. It was far too confusing and she knew that yet again her appetite had abandoned her.
They ate in relative silence and then when they went to leave Dumbledore called them over
"Please come through here" he said and they went into the little anteroom that led off the great hall
"Yes sir" they said and followed him obediently
"Unfortunately Mr Weasley has had to leave us again. You were very right miss granger, the darkness is taking over his mind" he explained
"How does the darkness get in?" she asked
"Unfortunately at times off loss and severe emotional trauma. It can be a trigger to the dark that is in there already only people who can fight it stand a chance really. There has never really been a truly light wizard or witch with absolutely no darkness in there mind at all. This is why it is able to spread because it is always there in the beginning lying dormant beneath the mind. In Mr Weasleys case his grief has triggered it and he hasn't the will power to keep it back" he told them
"Then how come I didn't suffer the same?" Hermione asked "after all I felt"
"well there are two possibilities to this" the old man said "one is that having Draco with you to help you cope was strong enough to help you, or with you being a muggle born there is little dark within your mind already, or it could be this there was a prophecy many, many a year ago that said
one day a truly light witch would grace our world with no darkness in her mind, she would touch the lives of some who are lost and put their troubles behind, she would lessen the sorrow of that which we feel by helping to destroy the one who has killed, she will help the warrior to prepare for his fight, with an intelligence that overpowers any fight. To this day we have been waiting for her and we could never have any way of knowing who she is, so we have been hoping that she would come to Hogwarts, with Mr Potter's prophecy we assumed that she would be the same age as he and help him to prepare for his fight. We have wondered for a while if this was you miss granger, would you mind if we found out?"
"I don't mind professor but I find it very difficult to believe" she said
"How do you test it?" Draco asked, his father had told him this prophecy many years ago and until now he had quite forgotten it.
"There are two ways" Dumbledore said "I can either enter miss grangers mind using legilamency as I did Mr Weasley or I can ask her to touch this instrument I bought with me"
He showed them a tiny silver orb, it was translucent and it looked very precious
"What does that do?" Draco and Hermione asked in unison
"The person touches it with their palm. It will fill with a liquid, it goes golden for the light and black for the darkness. Most people are 1 third black and 2 third gold. Your father did it once when he was at school Draco and it was almost totally black the only person I know of that was completely black was tom riddle. Although once it was full tom was surrounded with a black aura and he was as surprised as we all were at this time"
"Ok professor" Hermione said
"Draco I would like you to touch it for me also" Dumbledore said "in fact could you go first"
"Ok" Draco said and laid his palm across the top of the orb, "hey you didn't say it stung"
"It shouldn't sting" Dumbledore said and looked a bit bemused
"It's stopped stinging now" Draco said as liquid started to fill the orb
"Usually the light fills it first" the headmaster said as gold started filling the orb. Dumbledore was quite pleasantly surprised when Draco's full orb was a quarter black and three quarters gold.
"Very good Mr Malfoy" he told the young boy. "that is the same as I got when I have done it"
Draco beamed at this, he was happy he wasn't very dark like his father
Hermione squeezed his hand and smiled at him.
"Your turn" he told her
The orb had emptied itself again now and Hermione stepped up to it nervously
"Ok" she said and put her palm on it. It didn't sting her it felt nice and relaxing to her, as soon as she did so it started filling, but not with gold, it was with a beautiful shimmering silver liquid, and it did not stop until it was full. And then she still felt compelled to hold her hand on it and Dumbledore exclaimed when he saw a brilliant silver aura surrounding his pupil.
"Miss Granger I believe the prophecy speaks of you, you are a perfect match for him" he told her
Draco was surprised "I thought you said it was gold, what's silver?"
"I am not too sure about that Mr Malfoy but I feel that silver is a light colour so it is nothing to worry about however I shall owl the man that made this and speak to him about it just to be sure" he told them.
"we will need to speak again soon and try to devise some plan as we no longer have the same strategies open to us." He said
"Ok" they agreed and left. Hermione's head was spinning "oh my god!" she said to Draco as they made their way back to their rooms "I don't believe it, me a lowly muggle born the truest light witch ever?"
"Better believe it" he said and grinned at her
Neither of them could quite get over this at all. Draco was just happy that he wasn't evil and Hermione well she was too overawed by it all for it to really make sense to her.
