Chapter 8: The Thing
Since 'Candida' was Alistair Moody's female alter-ego this really was a call of duty. There was nothing attractive about looking at a grizzled, middle-aged man with a horribly mutilated face dressed in drag.
"But look at the nose disguise!" Fred exclaimed excitedly as he circled admiringly around Mad-Eye Moody. "How did you do it; potion, charm, or transfiguration?"
Moody tapped his nose. "Neither. My special mixture. It's prosthetic," He proceeded to slowly peel off the false nose, revealing the misshapen stump that passed for his own. "Most important feature to get right if you want to pass yourself off as someone else. Nose gives it away every time."
"And you're-?" George turned to face Moody's blonde companion.
"Claudia Moonshine," she simpered, offering a gloved hand which George wisely chose to ignore. "Otherwise known as," She tugged off the blonde wig and long roman nose, revealing a plain looking brunette. "Special agent Z5. Now if you'll excuse us, we need to change out of our work clothes to go and join the party."
Fred and George allowed themselves to be ushered out of the attic room, still staring in wonder at the prosthetic nose.
"So, what do you reckon, old bean, is this going to fly off our shelves or what?" Fred said, the familiar entrepreneurial glint entering his eye.
"Think of the possibilities," George agreed, staring off into the distance "Every kid in Hogwarts is going to want one of these. Getting grief from your least favourite teacher? Just disguise yourself as the model student for the day."
"Or the teacher," Fred sniggered. "You know, I only wish we had had such well-meaning businessmen around when we were in school. We're practically-"
"- A community asset." George finished emphatically.
"Whose community ass is it?" Tonks slurred, staggering up to the twins and placing an arm around each of their shoulders. "Who are we talking about?"
"No one, we were just thinking of the marketing possibilities of our latest find," Fred said, struggling to keep Tonks propped up.
"Mad-Eye was just showing us his latest deception technique," George clarified.
"You know who I think has a nice ass?" she continued, as though neither had spoken. "But you can't really tell hidden behind all those billowing robes-"
"Please, for the sake of my sanity and all common taste do not fill in that blank." George pleaded.
"Severus Snape, Severus Snape!" Tonks shouted in a sing-song voice. "He can give me detention any day."
George and Fred looked at one another and grinned. Spotting the opportunity for mischief like a sixth sense they really didn't need such encouragement.
"You go and find the man of the moment and bring him up to the library while I try and sober her up a bit," Fred ordered, already walking Tonks around the landing.
"Gin, Gin," George pestered, tugging insistently on Ginny's sleeve after locating her in the kitchen.
"What?" She scowled, turning round to face her older brother. "I was in a conversation, you know?"
"Sorry," he said hurriedly, sounding wholly unapologetic. "Have you seen Snape anywhere?"
"Snape?" Her nose wrinkled in disgust. "What do you want him for? Try looking under a stone." she sneered, before turning back to her companion.
"Mum, have you seen Professor Snape anywhere?"
"I'm not sure where he's been all evening, love. I certainly haven't noticed him." Mrs. Weasley smiled kindly.
"I didn't even know he'd been invited," Kingsley Shacklebolt harrumphed.
Blimey. Who'd want to be this unpopular? People could say what they liked about him and Fred but at least they were noticed when they entered a room. There was a palpable difference, a presence. And then an absence when they withdrew. I guess it just went to show that you reaped what you sowed.
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Hermione soon learnt that Draco was not the most chivalrous of walking companions. She had lost count of the times he had allowed a low hanging branch to swing back into her face without warning.
"I thought you were supposed to be a member of the sodding aristocracy." She scowled after ducking another flying bough.
"And that's exactly how I'm behaving. Mustn't let the peasants get ideas above their station."
"You are so lame," Hermione retorted half-heartedly. It had got to the point where they were both so saturated by mutual insults that they no longer meant anything, merely a ritual bantering they felt had to be kept up for the sake of morale, if not dignity. It was better than the alternative, the all-pervading gloom of the silent forest. "What are we supposed to be looking for anyway?"
"I just need to get some bearings, I can't Apparate until I can see where we are," Draco replied over his shoulder.
"Why can't we-" Hermione stopped as her foot caught on a tree root, propelling her forward. Clutching at thin air, her fingers found the back of Draco's robes which she grasped on to, filling her fists with the folds of the fabric. Draco lurched backwards, arms flailing, until he managed to balance himself on the dry floor.
"Careful!" he snapped as he brushed her hands disdainfully from his robes. "Don't touch the robes."
A sudden shrill sound broke the silence.
"What was that?" Draco trilled, a note of terror in his voice. "Did you hear that?" He grabbed onto Hermione, pulling her roughly toward him.
Hermione stood still, listening. And then she heard it again; a long, low note that could only mean one thing. She turned to face Draco. "Draco?"
"Please don't tell me we're in the Forbidden forest, please don't tell me we're in the Forbidden Forest," Draco repeated quickly to himself, as though willing it could make it happen.
The gravelly noise rumbled through the air again, perhaps closer. Draco's hands migrated to Hermione's sleeve where he clung like a drowning man.
"I don't think so," Hermione said quietly, remembering Draco's first encounter with Hogwart's forest in their second year. "Different vegetation." She felt safer with facts. Facts were solid, real and certain. All the same, she didn't shirk when Draco placed his hand in hers, squeezing it tightly.
"Is that what I think it is?" Draco whimpered, moving closer to Hermione's reassuring warmth.
Hermione looked up to the treetops where a chink in the tightly knit branches allowed a glimpse of the sky. It was still light, but rapidly approaching dusk. "It'll be dark soon," she said matter-of-factly, looking into Draco's saucer-sized eyes.
"Hermione, I'm scared of the dark."
Despite herself, Hermione gave his hand a little squeeze back. Their situation was too bizarre to do anything else, even if he probably deserved derision.
"We just have to keep walking. If we can find a way out or a safe place to Apparate we shouldn't have to worry. Come on." She started forward, gently loosening her hand from Draco's grip.
When they next stopped for a rest, the sky was already starting to take on an inky tinge as nightfall approached. Hermione sat down on a fallen tree trunk to readjust her pinching shoes while Draco paced impatiently on the ground in front of her.
"Come on, we can't afford to waste this time," Draco snapped. His incarnation as caring, sensitive Draco had seemingly lasted only as long as his fear, which had been allayed by the recent quiet.
"Look, we've been walking for hours. My shoes are slowly killing me from the feet up. Try and have some sympathy for the female predicament since it's you bastards who design these sodding things." She flung her left shoe off with anger, narrowly missing Draco's kneecaps.
"What kind of an idiot wears these things for walking?" Draco sneered, holding up the offending article by its buckle strap.
"Well sorry if I hadn't planned on taking an impromptu hike through a never-ending forest – silly me. Next time I'm on my way to a party I'll wear hiking boots shall I?"
Draco sniggered. "Who would invite you to a party? What was it, book study group for geeks?"
"If you must know it was a Christmas Eve party, and I would be having much more fun there if it wasn't for your stupid, irresponsible antics."
"You and me both," Draco muttered.
"Why, what were you doing that was so terribly important you felt the need to interrupt it with a bit of good old-fashioned bodily assault?"
Draco reddened and turned away. "Just leave it, okay?" he snapped, kicking at a small stone that flew threw the air and hit a nearby tree with a satisfying thunk. "It certainly wasn't no party," he said quietly, scuffing his feet along the leafy floor.
Hermione, deaf to this last utterance, ploughed on. "Who would invite you to a party for that matter? Not exactly life and soul, are we? What's Draco Malfoy going to do; stand around critiquing the décor and spitting out the canapés? You know, if you actually wiped that self-satisfied smirk off your face and stopped trying to find fault with everything you might actually have more fun."
"And if you stopped trying to fit everyone into your perfect safe little make-believe world you might actually get a dose of reality."
"Aw, poor little rich boy," Hermione teased, pulling a baby face. "Life must be so difficult in your big lonely mansion. My heart bleeds."
"You're just like all those other idiots. Money can't buy the important things in life; freedom, lo-" Draco stopped suddenly.
"Yeah, but it sure buys you more comfortable shoes!" Hermione shouted after his retreating back, before realising that he still had her other shoe and hopping quickly after him.
"The first thing I'll do when I get my new wand," Draco said as Hermione leant against a wide tree to put her shoe back on. "Is hex that mouth of yours shut."
"What, so you don't get shown up as a complete idiot in class?" Hermione said sweetly.
"Everyone knows I'm clever than you," Draco growled, "I just don't spend all my time swallowing text books."
"Yes because you're too busy swallowing-"
A low guttural noise pierced the still forest air, leaving Hermione's sentence lying forever unfinished in the Draco-shaped hole left where he had been standing only seconds before.
"Draco Malfoy, you come back right now!" Hermione screeched after him as she ran to catch up. "You will not leave me alone in this forest."
Credit where it was due, he was fast on his feet. Hermione may actually have admired his athletic prowess – if he hadn't been running in the opposite direction from her, away from a big bad monster. But then she had soon learnt at Hogwarts that those who were slow got left behind.
With one real spurt of speed, she raced up to Draco and exercised an impressive rugby tackle. Lunging onto his back, she circled her arms around his slim waist and pulled him down to the floor. They crashed onto the dry earth in a spray of dirt and leaves that momentarily obscured their writhing forms. Despite a quick resort to fists and feet, Hermione came out top by stint of her sharp elbows.
Sitting astride Draco, pinning his wrists down with her knees, she addressed him directly, leaning down into his dirt-smudged face. "Now you listen to me, mister. This is a joint thing. The two of us together, we might just manage to come out of this. I need your Apparating ability, and you need my Defence Against the Darks Arts skills. This isn't about Slytherin versus Gryffindor, this is about two Hogwarts students. Now are you with me, or do I have to make myself plainer?"
Draco swallowed the obvious response. She had a point. And in the worst case scenario he could always use her as a decoy while he ran. "Okay, okay, as long as you promise to stop using every excuse to straddle me. Jesus, anyone would think you were enjoying this."
Hermione went red, but stayed in position. "You promise you won't run off?"
"Yes, yes I promise," Draco sighed, trying to wriggle free from his constraints.
"Okay, then we have a deal." Hermione jumped up, offering Draco her hand.
He stared at it for a few seconds, before surprising both of them by accepting it as she pulled him up.
"But I'll need my wand," she said quickly.
"Then I'll need my diary."
"Maybe we should devise an alternative exchange system?" Hermione suggested tentatively.
"Oh surely not," Draco drawled sarcastically. "Last time was so much fun. Maybe this time we'll be really lucky and end up in shark-infested waters."
"Look, I'll place your diary here," Hermione bent down to place the book on the floor. "And you leave my wand next to it."
Despite his reservations, Draco did as he was told.
"Now, let's pick them up and see what happens." Hermione shut her eyes as her fingers closed around the familiar wooden stem, but there was no blinding flash of light and all remained as it was. "It worked! We're not… we're still here!" She looked around just to make sure.
Draco tucked his diary discretely into his robes. "Hermione," he said, two pink dots colouring his cheeks slightly. "How much of this did you read? Is that why you've been giving me such a hard time?"
"I didn't read anything, I-" she stopped as she saw the deeply sceptical look in his face. "Okay, I admit I was tempted, and that I even open the front cover, but it turned out that my conscience was stronger than some seedy curiosity after all."
"How… Gryffindor of you," Draco drawled, cocking his head to one side. "If it were me, I would have had no hesitation reading your most secret desires."
"I suppose you should at least be commended on your honesty." Hermione faltered. "Maybe – maybe it's not so clever keeping something like that."
"Why? It only contains thoughts anyone else could discern themselves, if they cared enough to observe." He shrugged.
"Whatever," Hermione said shortly, mindful of the passing time. "We better get going."
It still felt like a very surreal experience, plodding through a pine forest with Draco Malfoy, public enemy number one at school. In her heart of hearts, she couldn't help thinking that it would just be easier on all of them if Harry forgot his dangerous grudge and stayed out of Draco's way. She for one was tired of feeling as though she were entering a battle-ground every time she had a Potions lesson. She had almost forgotten that classrooms could be neutral territory where one came to learn rather than to defend.
"What's the deal with you and Harry?" she said finally, after several moments of silence.
"What do you mean?" Draco whipped around, practically snarling.
"Why are you always waiting for each other to fall down?"
"Stay out of it, Granger," he growled.
"I just mean, you can't enjoy constantly being on the offensive. I certainly don't enjoy getting caught in the crossfire." Hermione persevered.
"You don't have to," Draco said laconically. "You don't have to get carried along with the hype and always jump in to defend Hogwart's resident Wonderkid."
"He's my friend," Hermione said simply. "You stick up for your own."
"Whatever."
"You know," Draco piped up after a lengthy silence. "This is really weird for me."
Hermione looked inquisitively at his back, failing to detect any sarcasm. "It's not how I usually spend my free time either," she replied cautiously.
"No, not just that, I mean us. We've lived in the same place for five years, never really spoken to each other, and now we find ourselves here, alone together. Isn't that weird?" He turned around to face her, stopping so abruptly that she nearly ran into him. "Who'd have imagined Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy stranded alone together?"
Hermione wasn't quite sure what he was trying to get at – was he threatening her? She was just about to reply when a blood-curdling animal scream tore through the air and jolted her heart.
"Draco, look!"
Draco followed her finger up to the night sky and grimaced.
Another scream rippled out from among the forest trees.
"Is it just me, or is it getting closer?" Draco whimpered, still transfixed by the sight above his head.
"It's getting closer," Hermione whispered as another animal noise sounded closer still. "Run!"
Draco didn't need much encouragement, heedless of the scratching branches as he sprinted through the tightly knit trees behind Hermione. They charged forward, pursued by the approaching creature. But no matter how fast they ran they couldn't leave behind the chilling sound which was growing nearer and nearer.
"Draco, it's no good, we can't outrun it!" Hermione wheezed, pulling her wand out in front of her.
"Keep going!" he shouted, running past her, twigs snapping, leaves flying up.
But it was too late. In front of him loomed a tall, angry figure.
8