Chapter 4 – Emotions
Disclaimer – This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Summary – H/D. An attraction that is so totally forbidden slowly begins to arise. Lies, deceit, and a stolen kiss shared between the Head Boy and Girl. How far will this forbidden game of attraction go?
Last Chapter - Draco glanced down at the watch on his wrist.
His blood ran cold.
It was only one o'clock.
Draco's eyes flew over to the old Grand Father clock beside the fireplace. His heart slowed down. It said one o'clock on that one too…
Then why all the chimes?
It's faulty, remember? The little voice inside his head said.
Immediately he kicked himself mentally for over-reacting.
It's just a stupid clock. It's been playing up since the start of the year! Who cares if it tells the wrong time?
But still, as Draco turned his gaze away from the clock and back to Hermione lying on the couch, the sinking feeling returned in the pit of his stomach. He knew deep down that there was something strange about that clock. He should have done something about it then.
He glanced over at Hermione's figure almost guiltily. He felt partly responsible, but he wasn't sure why.
It was Potter's fault. Potter put her in this state. He got her worried, he was the one who ruined whatever it was that they had. Not me. I had nothing to do with it.
Malfoy's aren't even supposed to feel emotions! What the hell are you thinking! I shouldn't been feeling all this... this… stuff! It's not right! What would father think?
Oh yes, always back to your father, isn't it. Your whole life based on how your own father was brought up. Slowly being molded into the same, cold-hearted, self-absorbed, miniature version of your fath-
Shut up!
Draco had been mentally battling with himself for a while now. Ever since all this stuff with Harry and Hermione had begun, Draco had found himself dealing with emotions he had never felt before. He did things he could never before have pictured himself doing. He felt and thought things he never thought he would.
But why? Why is all this happening to me! I don't even feel like myself anymore! I feel as though someone is writing out my life and I have no choice but to follow their instructions. What the hell is wrong with me!
Draco looked back over at Hermione.
Why does she have to be so damn pretty?
Hermione's rich chocolate brown hair was dangling from the arm of the chair where her head rested. It was usually shiny, but today and for the last few weeks it had been dull and limp. Her usual bouncy silky curls lacked in colour and life. Her face seemed drawn as though the colour had been drained out of it. Her lips, usually a luscious red, were now pale pink. She looked sick. Really sick.
Maybe I should have helped Weasley take her to the Hospital Wing…
No! Stop kidding yourself! You don't care. You couldn't give a flying f-
"Mmmhmm…"
Draco almost jumped out of his chair in shock. Hermione groaned again and moved one of her arms to lay on her stomach. Her eyes flickered but did not open. Draco watched her tentatively as she squirmed around on the couch, her brows darkening into a frown. Another emotion suddenly flickered across her face; different to the first. Not discomfort, but… fear?
Draco studied her face again, making sure he wasn't imagining it. She screwed up her face and took in a sudden sharp breath. It was definitely fear.
"What's happening to you, Granger?" Draco asked softly, looking down on her sympathetically.
And what the hell is happening to me!
For almost half an hour Draco sat there studying the Head Girl curiously. She was still tossing and turning on the couch, mumbling incoherently under her breath. Draco was sitting back in his chair, arms folded neatly across his chest. Strangely enough he didn't mind watching over her. Actually, he rather liked it. Though he'd never admit it; not aloud.
Where the hell is Weasley! Does it really take that long to get to the Hospital Wing? Did he get lost or anything? I thought it didn't take much brains to walk there… I mean, Potter practically lives there, so it can't be that hard! Oh well, I suppose I was wrong.
Draco paused for a moment.
Note to self; never admit that aloud.
Draco absentmindedly gazed around the room, not really taking in the stone walls covered in assorted tapestries and portraits. Or the dim flickering of the fire. And he most certainly did not see the pair of eyes staring intently down at him from where they hid concealed by a rather large tapestry.
The owner of these eyes watched Draco with immense curiousity. They flashed with delight, unable to suppress a cackle before suddenly disappearing with a blink.
Draco's head snapped over towards the source of the noise and for the first time he noticed the tapestry on the wall.
What the hell was that!
Draco's eyes scanned the tapestry searching for any signs of movement; anything that could have made that noise. But he couldn't see anything. Draco just shrugged and turned away, non-fussed.
It was probably just some stupid rat.
And so Draco forgot about it. For the time being, anyway.
Draco looked down at his watch again.
One-forty five … what the hell is taking Weasley so bloody long
Finally, Draco had had enough. He jumped up out of his seat, and with one last glance at Hermione, headed over to the portrait to find Ron.
"No don't!"
Draco span around quickly, eyes opened wide, expecting to see Hermione sitting there wide-awake, calling him back. But she was still asleep. Her face was contorted with such terror that Draco, with wide eyes, pondered exactly what it was that frightened her so much. Draco frowned and walked quickly back beside the couch.
Harry. It was all Harry's fault. Harry's fault for the things that went wrong. Harry's fault for the friends they'd lost. All Harry.
Hermione sat primly in her chair, a blank, and calm emotion forced over her face. She stared directly forward, her eyes unmoving. Those cold, dull eyes that were once a vibrant brown seemed to bore into thin-air, burning a hole in it with her eyes. Her face was gaunt, her cheeks hollow and the black bags under her eyes seemed to never want to leave. Her lips were pale and chapped as they gracefully sipped from the expensive china teacup.
The once bright, top-of-her-year Hogwarts student was now a sad and lonely woman.
As her trembling hands placed the teacup back on the matching china saucer an enraged roar erupted from inside the house. She turned to face their proud cottage when her husband Harry burst through the front door, trampling over their felicitous garden and stormed over to where she sat at the glass table.
"What do you think you were doing sleeping with him!" Harry screamed at her, grabbing a fistful of her unkempt hair and pulling her face up to look directly into his eyes. Those cruel, terrifying eyes that kept her awake at night. She same ones that plagued her dreams. Those same eyes that watched her every forced move. The eyes of Harry Potter had changed greatly over the years. Hermione's own eyes immediately stung with tears, knowing what was to come.
"Nothing, I wasn't-" Hermione began in terror, but Harry's eyes flashed, showing the true maniac within.
"DON'T LIE TO ME!" Harry bellowed, gripping her hair tighter causing Hermione to cry out in pain.
"I didn't, I swear, you know I would never deceive you!" Hermione shrieked, tears rolling freely down her distressed features.
"Liar," Harry spat, eyes flashing more dangerously than ever. "I saw you go off with him with my very own eyes." Hermione whimpered feebly.
"Harry please, you have to believe me," Hermione pleaded. "I love yo-"
"You love him!" Harry interrupted. "You can't lie to me, Hermione. I know you all too well."
"If you knew me well enough you'd know that I'm unhappy!" Hermione screamed. "You would let me go if you loved me!"
Harry looked at her, a cruel, tantalising smile creeping up on his face.
"Then I expect you shall be living here quite a long time." The tears just kept rolling.
"Why can't I just be happy, Harry?" Hermione asked him, almost pleading, as he let go of her hair, only to trace his fingers down to grip her chin.
"People like you don't deserve happiness, Hermione. I buy you everything you want, anything you desire and you don't appreciate any of it."
"Possessions… I don't want possessions, Harry! I want a family, I want a loving husband, I want to know what it's like to feel cheerful again! I hate living like this!"
Harry's glare turned more stony than ever and his grip tightened on her chin.
"Ungrateful… you are so ungrateful. Look at the house around you! The roof above your head I provide you out of the kindness of my heart. The food on the table each night."
Harry raised a hand.
"You should learn to respect your superiors."
Hermione curled back in terror.
"No Harry, don't!"
Before bringing his hand down he curled it into a fist and began the work that had become a daily ritual.
Hermione moaned and screwed her eyes together. Her hands flew up to her face as she squirmed around on the couch, unintelligible cries escaping those chapped lips. Draco, now on his knees beside her, shook her arm gently in an attempt to wake her. However this polite, gentle gesture did not seem to calm or wake her. In fact, she thrashed about even more as Draco's skin made contact with hers.
Draco drew back as Hermione's hand slapped him away, watching her in shock and utter disbelief, wondering what on earth could possibly be so bad. The discomfort and fear on her face was almost too much to take. He grabbed her a little more roughly on both arms this time, firstly ceasing her thrashing – but not for long – and then he tried to wake her.
"Wake up!" Not so subtly. Hermione just groaned and tried to throw him off her. Draco shook her a little harder this time.
"Err… Granger? Wake up…" Draco paused momentarily. "… Now."
The unsure tone in his voice did nothing to help wake her. Draco, growing impatient now, took a deep breath and made sure his face was reasonably close to hers – so she could hear him, of course.
"Wake up!" Draco yelled. Hermione's eyes flew open in an instant and she went to sit up bolt right with a gasp, but her head suddenly connected with Draco's with a sickening crack. Both of them simultaneously groaned in pain, clutching their heads.
"Granger!" Draco moaned, squinting his eyes open, his hands still clamped on his forehead. Hermione just groaned in reply, her head throbbing with pain. As Draco slowly pushed himself away from Hermione, collapsing on the armchair beside her, she sat up, a hand to her head.
"What the hell were you doing, Malfoy!" Hermione cursed through clenched teeth, trying to ground out the pain. "Give me a heart attack? Or more like crack my head open!"
"You were dreaming," Draco said, rubbing his forehead gently, wincing as he touched the purplish bruise that was beginning to form there. "What were you doing lying in the middle of the corridor?" Hermione shot him a puzzled look.
"Corridor?" Hermione asked. Draco looked at her in disbelief, finally letting go of his forehead.
"Need I remind you, Granger?" Draco asked, almost exasperatedly. Hermione just continued staring at him, a pointed expression on her face. Draco sighed.
"Do you remember anything about last night, Granger? Anything at all about earlier this morning?" Draco enquired. Hermione thought about it for a moment.
"Well, last night I remember we were in the Common Room talking and-" she broke off blushing at Draco, who tried to act non-fussed, but a pink tinge was creeping up on his cheeks. "And this morning…" Hermione again trailed off, staring off into space, a dark and troubled expression crossing over her face. "Harry."
"I found you in the middle of the corridor," Draco said. "An hour or so after you took off."
"Where was I?" Hermione asked.
"The Transfiguration Wing on the fourth floor. Then Weasley came along-"
"Ron? What was he doing there?" Hermione asked. Draco paused.
"Come to think of it, I have no idea," Draco said, seemingly shocked he didn't know the answer. "Anyway, he carried you back to the Common Room-"
"All the way back to the Common Room!" Hermione exclaimed. "But why didn't one of you just wake me?"
"Granger, are you going to actually let me tell the story or are you just going to keep talking over the top of me?"
"Sorry."
"Good. Now, as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted for the millionth time-"
"Just get on with it, Malfoy!"
"Fine. Well, Weasley thought that you were sick, so he wanted to take you to the Hospital Wing, but I said you had only fainted-"
"Only! Gee thanks Malfoy! Your courtesy is simply blowing me away!"
"Granger-"
"Fine, get on with it!
"So, I told him you had only fainted, so he carried you here. Then…" Draco glanced towards the portrait. Suddenly his tone changed completely. "Then the bloody git made me stay here and baby-sit you, whilst he left to get Madam Pomfrey!" Draco paused for second, looking down at his watch. "And that was an hour and a half ago."
"You mean you actually stayed here this whole time?" Hermione asked, an almost awed looking on her face. Draco, on the other hand, shuffled uncomfortably in his seat.
"Well, I had nothing else to do…" he mumbled quietly.
"Well… thank you," Hermione said, rather uncomfortably, looking up at him. She winced as she noticed the purple bruise she saw on his forehead.
"Sorry about that," Hermione said, pointing to it guiltily. Draco's hand automatically went up to his now flawed forehead, cringing as his fingers brushed over it. He looked up at her and saw that she, too, had a rather large bruise.
"Don't worry, I'm not the only one," Draco smirked, looking at the bruise above Hermione's right eyebrow. She touched it and gasped at the pain it sent shooting through her head.
"If you hadn't been like this close to my face-" Hermione held her finger and thumb mere millimeters from each other.
"Me! This isn't all my fault, I was trying to wake you!" Draco said defensively. "Would you have preferred it if I had have let you stay in that obviously awful nightmare you were having?
Hermione's expression darkened as she remembered that horrible dream.
Harry raised a hand.
"You should learn to respect your superiors."
Hermione curled back in terror.
"No Harry, don't!"
Before bringing his hand down he curled it into a fist and began the work that had become a daily ritual.
Hermione heard her own scream from the dream echo around her head, a dark, creeping sense of foreboding washing over her in a sea of dread. An involuntary shudder shook her whole body as she closed her eyes, trying to shake it out. Eventually it stopped and she opened her eyes, looking away from Draco.
"No," she said. "I wouldn't.
"What did you dream about?" Draco asked, an obvious curiousity in his tone. Hermione shook out of her reverie, flicking her gaze up at Draco.
"Nothing," Hermione lied, here eyes fluttering away from his eyes as she did. Draco looked at her uncertainly, not fooled, but decided not to press the matter.
"Fine, well if you're okay-"
"I'm fine," Hermione insisted quickly.
"Good, well I'm going to find Weasley and make him never want to waste my time again-" Before Draco was even half out of his seat, Hermione roughly grabbed his arm, stopping him rather abruptly in his tracks.
"Don't, Malfoy." Draco set a cold, hard stare on her.
"And why not?" Draco enquired, leaning forward to rest his chin on his free hand.
"He's my friend, and he helped me-"
"Yeah, yeah. And he wasted my time. It does not take an hour and a half to get to the Hospital Wing and back, no matter how stupid you are."
"Bet you couldn't have found it in four when you were in your first year," Hermione retaliated.
"Well, Weasley is not in his first year, he has actually – much to my surprise – made it to his seventh year. Still he has yet to return," Draco sneered, checking his watch again. "And it has now been almost two. Though I would give him four, just to prove his incompetence to you."
"Well, maybe he forgot," Hermione suggested.
"Isn't he a great friend? I mean, he obviously cares for you when he believes you to be practically on your death bed, yet still manages to forget to fetch the nurse," Draco said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "And left you passed out with a Malfoy, no-less! He must trust me more than I trust myself."
That comment may have gone over the heads of some, but Hermione caught the jist is the underlying meaning. Hermione tightened her robe around her, making sure she was completely covered.
"You're an arrogant pig, Malfoy," Hermione spat. Draco just smirked cockily.
"But very good at it." Hermione couldn't suppress a smile. The way he was so open with his arrogance – it was laughable. Draco leaned in a little closer.
"Granger-" Draco began, but was suddenly cut off by a loud knocking at the portrait. Draco leaned back and he and Hermione exchanged glances.
"It's about bloody time!" Draco exclaimed before he and Hermione simultaneously got off their couches and walked towards the portrait. Draco reached out the same time as Hermione did, their fingers brushing for a second before Hermione drew back and let him open the portrait. She blushed deeply, but Draco just smirked, making her hate him more than ever.
Hermione looked up smiling as the portrait opened, expecting to see Ron, but instead, McGonagall was standing there, a rather grave look on her face. All traces of a smile were instantly wiped off Hermione's face, as she exchanged another glance with Draco.
"Good morning Miss Granger, Mister Malfoy," McGonagall greeting, turning to each of them in turn. She sounded tired, and looked even more so. The bags under her eyes made her look much older than she was and that expression in her eyes… Hermione had never seen the Deputy Headmistress looking so dull.
"Good morning, professor," Hermione replied, then waited for whatever it was McGonagall had to say to them. Whatever it was, it didn't look good.
"Miss Granger, the Headmaster requests your presence in his office," McGonagall said to Hermione, before turning to Draco. "You might want to come too, Mister Malfoy." For the third time in the last two minutes, Draco and Hermione exchanged perplexed glances. They then followed McGonagall out of the portrait hole, towards Dumbledore's office, the sense of foreboding Hermione felt wash over her earlier becoming a tidal wave for the both of them.
A/N – Sorry I took so long to update this story! I've been working mainly on my story Corruptive, and for those of you who are curious, a new chapter of that should be up fairly soon. Sorry for the delays in updates, but I've got school, stacks of homework, piano(and hopefully very soon, singing) lessons, production auditions and work to fit in as well as writing now! But I will still try to get chapters out as soon as I can! Thanks heaps for putting up with me!
Hope you liked this chapter! Please review!
Marauders Gal
