Disclaimer: Magically, I am now J.K. Rowling and instead of spending my time making millions and out talking to my adoring fans, I'm on the computer writing a fanfiction. It's how I now get my kicks in giggles! If anyone believed that, e-mail me, you can use my psychiatrist!
Warnings: Hm, for this chapter, just a little talk about...uncomfortable subjects...nothing major, no worries. Oh, and maybe a little use of the 'h' word. It's not really a swear word to me, but some people feel it is.
Author's Note: Thanks to SpazySange you made me feel all warm and fuzzy. I didn't think anyone would be 'on the edge of their seats' but I'm glad you were. Thanks to everyone else who reviewed too! Luv ya guys!
Oh! This chapter is named after that game. Seven minutes in Heaven. You know the one where you go in the closet and make out for seven minutes. Supposedly, I've never played it before.
Seven Minutes In...Hell?
Hermione walked calmly toward the Gryffindor common room. She traced the scars on her left hand absentmindedly. She reached the portrait of the fat lady. She stood in her regular place looking down at Hermione. Hermione was perhaps one of the only people the fat lady was nice to. But like everything else, that was before she had a run in with Voldemort.
"Password?" She hissed at her.
Hermione looked at her, tears in her eyes. "Forget it," she said walking away, not paying attention to where she was going.
She walked for a good half hour before she realized that she didn't know where she was. Somehow or another she had ended up in the dungeons. They were all cold and dreary. They didn't seem the type of place where you seem very invited into. Hermione shivered. The dungeons were cold and she wasn't familiar with where she was. 'Just great,' she thought.
"Lost?" Blaise asked coming out from the shadows. Malfoy and Pansy came out behind her.
"Can you tell?" Hermione asked smiling slightly.
"Just a little," Pansy smirked.
"Hermione, we need to talk." Blaise said grabbing her hand before she could reject to it.
"But..."
"No, this is serious," Pansy explained said turning to a portrait. "Pure loyalty." Instantly the painting swung open revealing a hole in the wall.
"But, this is the Slytherin Common Room," Hermione began to protest.
"Which is why no one will be here," Pansy said sitting down on a couch. Hermione followed suit looking around.
It wasn't as gloomy as she thought it would be. It was dark, sure, but it wasn't unwelcoming.
The torches reflected green light and they had a marble floor that was shining like new. The couches and chairs were made of leather and felt like a cloud to sit on. It was rather warm and a fire cackled in the distance.
"Hermione, what happened at lunch," Pansy began.
"Like I said, I don't want to talk about it." Hermione turned away.
"I didn't ask if you wanted to talk about it. I said we're going to talk about it!" Pansy said forcefully.
Hermione looked around at each face and decided that it was a losing battle anyway. It was her against the three most powerful witches and wizard she had ever known.
"Hermione, who did this really?" Pansy asked touching her arm slightly.
"I did," Hermione said in a stone hard voice completely dead of emotion.
"What? Why in the hell would you do that?"
"I don't know. I was cold. Voldemort was trying to make me say anything about Harry, but I wouldn't. He finally went into my mind and made me relive my worst memories. I wanted it all to end. I scratched at my arm to get my mind off it and try to block the attack. My nails broke on one arm so I went to the other. I remember trying not to scream. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of hearing me scream. It's all he wanted and I wouldn't give it to him.
"I relived everything. Even being teased as a young girl by everyone in my school. That was before I knew I was a witch. I relived coming to Hogwarts and going through the same thing. The first time Malfoy called me a mudblood," Malfoy looked away looking into the fire like it had somehow just become the most interesting thing in the world. "The troll, the basilisk, werewolves, the department of mysteries, and what had occurred there that day. Everything came back full force."
"But you didn't give in?" Blaise asked knowing the answer but wanting to hear it from her.
"No. I wanted to die. I didn't want to give in all the secrets and then die like I was some useless tool in his big plan."
"You have guts, kid," Blaise said squeezing her hand.
Hermione laughed slightly. "According to you, I didn't have any."
Blaise smiled. "I misread you again," she said squeezing again.
Malfoy sat in the corner of the room not talking to anyone. Hermione, Blaise, and Pansy switched topics after a while knowing that when Hermione was ready to talk that she would. Every once in a while Malfoy would make a smart comment and Hermione would have a comeback for him. Blaise and Pansy would laugh occasionally at what they said to each other. After a while Slytherins began to start filing in.
"What's she doing here?" Goyle asked in his low voice.
"Talking. Got a problem with it, Gregory?" Blaise asked putting on fake sweetness with each word.
Goyle shook his head and continued on to his dorm. Crabbe stopped and looked at Hermione for a moment. Pansy straightened a little. "Don't tell me you have a problem with it," she stated glaring at him.
"No," he replied. Draco rolled his eyes. Crabbe was one of the dumbest people he knew.
The other Slytherins didn't seem to care that Hermione was there; just as long as she didn't bother them or talk to them. Hermione smiled slightly to herself. Everything was coming back in her life. She had the two best friends that she always wanted. Not everyone hated her and she didn't care who did.
Well, maybe she did. She cared that Harry and Ron did. She didn't care who else hated her. Her own parents could hate her for all she cared, but just as long as they didn't. But the sad truth was that they did. Hermione sighed.
"Granger, don't you have to get back to your housemates soon?" Malfoy asked hesitating on the word housemates. He would have made a smart comment but decided that now wasn't the time.
"You seem happy to be rid of me," Hermione said gazing at her watch. "Bloody Hell I didn't know it was this late! Ya, I better be going back. I'll see you guys at dinner." Hermione bounded out the portrait and started down the hall. She took a left and then a few more turns and quickly remembered that she had no clue where she was. After continuing her search for anything that sparked her memory, and finding none, she growled in frustration.
"Did you forget that you don't know your way around here?" Malfoy's cold voice asked from behind her.
Hermione spun around and glared at him. "I didn't forget. I just..."
"Forgot. Right."
Hermione growled lightly in anger. "I'll get out sometime soon."
"I'll time you then," he said pressing a button on his wizard's watch.
Hermione scowled at him and continued on her way becoming increasingly annoyed at the tick of Malfoy's watch and his heavy footsteps behind her. She turned endless corners and didn't see anything that even looked vaguely familiar. After five minutes of searching she retraced her steps and couldn't even find the Slytherin Common Room.
"Need some hints?" Malfoy asked rubbing the fact that she didn't know where she was in her face.
"No." She said sternly determined to find out on her own.
The search continued and Hermione had almost snapped.
"Six minutes and ten seconds. Six minutes and eleven seconds. Six minutes and twelve seconds," Malfoy drawled smirking to himself as Hermione rounded on him.
"Would you shut up?" she yelled at him. She was sure she yelled so loud that people in the Gryffindor tower could have heard her.
"No," he replied smugly.
"Argh!" she screeched and turned on her heal to resume searching. "This is like..."
"Six minutes and sixteen seconds," Malfoy said almost reading her mind.
"Of Hell!" she finished not caring enough to wonder how he knew what she had been thinking.
"Isn't it supposed to be seven minutes in Heaven?" Malfoy asked smirking yet again as she took another wrong turn.
"Malfoy, with you, it sure wouldn't be seven minutes in Heaven," Hermione smirked at him from over her shoulder. His smirk fell off his face and was replaced with an annoyed scowl.
She continued for a little more and then found the way to the Great Hall. "Yes!" Hermione said grinning broadly.
"And it only took you..." Malfoy stopped his watch. "Seven minutes. All they Slytherins usually take a right after coming out of the portraits and they're here in less than a minute," he said sarcastically.
"No one asked for a comment," Hermione said continuing her way to the Gryffindor Common Room.
"People don't always ask for things, but they get them just the same," he said.
Hermione turned around to look at him. For the first time she examined him very closely. He had grown up over the years. When they started Hogwarts together he hadn't grown into his face. Now his face was very masculine and he looked more than just seventeen. He had high cheek bones that were tinted ever so slightly the lightest shade of pink that Hermione had ever seen. In fact she almost over looked it taking it as the lighting in the room, but it seemed so natural that it couldn't be anything else.
His eyes were dark silver or a light blue. Hermione couldn't tell what they truly were. They had both colors mixed in them making it hard to tell his true eye color. His platinum blonde hair wasn't gelled back anymore but fell into his face. His bangs came down and hid his eyes every once in a while making it hard to tell what emotion he was having.
Although you could never really tell what kind of emotion he was having. He always had masks around him so that no one got passed the bad boy image he set up for himself. His bad boy attitude made it almost impossible for anyone to get close to him. Pansy and Blaise had only done it because they're parents were friends and they were together a lot when they were little. The same went with Crabbe and Goyle. At the moment his hair was out of his face and Hermione could see emotion flicker in his dark mesmerizing orbs. It was an emotion that she couldn't read, but it seemed very strong, the way it flickered and danced.
With Draco's broad shoulders and tough face it was hard not to be intimidated by him. He was known for being a heart breaker to the women and a jaw breaker to the men. He was always going out with someone new and always making them think that he was in love with them, only to turn around and break their heart. When the man came around that actually did love the girl they would confront Malfoy and he would punch them square in the jaw. Hermione doubted that he had ever actually broken someone's jaw, but it just made the point bigger that he was known to punch a good one.
"Where did you hear that from?" Hermione asked shaking her head and continuing walking.
"I didn't hear it from anywhere. I just said it," Malfoy said following her.
"You said it?" Hermione asked disbelievingly. Malfoy was smart, she'd give him that. But he never seemed to be the type that had much common sense.
"Didn't you hear me say it?" He asked angrily.
Hermione ignored him and turned a corner and bumped into Ron, Harry, and Parvati. She flew back and would have hit the ground if Malfoy hadn't caught her. She gasped as his arms wrapped themselves around her. They were the strongest arms she had ever felt. He seemed to pick her up with ease and set her back straight. For that brief moment Hermione had felt like nothing else mattered as long as he was there with her. 'What in the world am I thinking?!' Hermione scolded herself. She blushed and smiled her thanks to him and he twitched a corner of his mouth. Hermione didn't know if it was a scowl or a smile.
"Watch where you're going prats!" Parvati said dusting her front like Hermione had dirtied them somehow.
"Same thing to you," Malfoy and Hermione said at the same time. They glanced at each other then turned back to the other three.
"Just forget it, Parv, they aren't worth rising to the bait," Ron said playing with a strand of her hair. Parvati smiled and kissed Ron's hand slightly. Harry coughed and Hermione again felt like barfing.
"Get a room," Malfoy said looking utterly disgusted. Hermione laughed shortly. Harry looked at her for a moment his mouth twitching slightly. Hermione realized he was trying not to laugh too!
"I'll do what I like, when I like," Ron said grabbing Parvati's hand in his.
"Me too," Hermione said walking in between Ron and Parvati causing them to drop each others hands and jump back in surprise. Harry snorted but no one heard it because Malfoy was laughing so hard. Hermione smiled and continued on her way.
Malfoy looked after her retreating form. She carried herself proudly. She never had a wave of doubt about who she was. She was who she was and she was proud of it. Her bushy brown hair was now calmed and less frizzy. It was sleek and shiny and always bounced whenever she walked. With Hermione's golden highlights naturally in her hair she seemed to be an angel. Her eyes were still the chocolate brown that they had always been but now they seemed sharper. She caught every little move and she protected emotion from flashing across them.
Her face was now sleek and feminine. Her little red mouth was never chapped and always had a shiny glimmer on it almost calling out for someone to put their imperfect lips against them...
Malfoy shook his head. What was he thinking? This was the same girl that he had hated since his first day at Hogwarts. He's hated her kind ever since he was a little kid. His father pounded bad information about 'mudbloods' into his head and he always had the same opinion of all of them, no matter if they were Headmaster or just a friend of a friend.
Malfoy looked after Hermione and then back to her old friends. Harry was trying to calm Ron down while Parvati scowled at both of them and glared in the direction that Hermione had gone. He shook his head at them and went back to the Slytherin Common Room to clear his head of impossible haunting thoughts of a certain girl.
Author's Note: Well, I broke my perfect every four days update thing! I decided to update sooner than four days. I had some extra time so I thought I present you with another chapter. I hope you liked it. I was rather happy with this title too :D ah, the simple things in life. I will update as much as I can before cram time comes around for the finals. :S Thanks to everyone that reviewed the last chapter! Keep it up!
Please Review!!!
Warnings: Hm, for this chapter, just a little talk about...uncomfortable subjects...nothing major, no worries. Oh, and maybe a little use of the 'h' word. It's not really a swear word to me, but some people feel it is.
Author's Note: Thanks to SpazySange you made me feel all warm and fuzzy. I didn't think anyone would be 'on the edge of their seats' but I'm glad you were. Thanks to everyone else who reviewed too! Luv ya guys!
Oh! This chapter is named after that game. Seven minutes in Heaven. You know the one where you go in the closet and make out for seven minutes. Supposedly, I've never played it before.
Seven Minutes In...Hell?
Hermione walked calmly toward the Gryffindor common room. She traced the scars on her left hand absentmindedly. She reached the portrait of the fat lady. She stood in her regular place looking down at Hermione. Hermione was perhaps one of the only people the fat lady was nice to. But like everything else, that was before she had a run in with Voldemort.
"Password?" She hissed at her.
Hermione looked at her, tears in her eyes. "Forget it," she said walking away, not paying attention to where she was going.
She walked for a good half hour before she realized that she didn't know where she was. Somehow or another she had ended up in the dungeons. They were all cold and dreary. They didn't seem the type of place where you seem very invited into. Hermione shivered. The dungeons were cold and she wasn't familiar with where she was. 'Just great,' she thought.
"Lost?" Blaise asked coming out from the shadows. Malfoy and Pansy came out behind her.
"Can you tell?" Hermione asked smiling slightly.
"Just a little," Pansy smirked.
"Hermione, we need to talk." Blaise said grabbing her hand before she could reject to it.
"But..."
"No, this is serious," Pansy explained said turning to a portrait. "Pure loyalty." Instantly the painting swung open revealing a hole in the wall.
"But, this is the Slytherin Common Room," Hermione began to protest.
"Which is why no one will be here," Pansy said sitting down on a couch. Hermione followed suit looking around.
It wasn't as gloomy as she thought it would be. It was dark, sure, but it wasn't unwelcoming.
The torches reflected green light and they had a marble floor that was shining like new. The couches and chairs were made of leather and felt like a cloud to sit on. It was rather warm and a fire cackled in the distance.
"Hermione, what happened at lunch," Pansy began.
"Like I said, I don't want to talk about it." Hermione turned away.
"I didn't ask if you wanted to talk about it. I said we're going to talk about it!" Pansy said forcefully.
Hermione looked around at each face and decided that it was a losing battle anyway. It was her against the three most powerful witches and wizard she had ever known.
"Hermione, who did this really?" Pansy asked touching her arm slightly.
"I did," Hermione said in a stone hard voice completely dead of emotion.
"What? Why in the hell would you do that?"
"I don't know. I was cold. Voldemort was trying to make me say anything about Harry, but I wouldn't. He finally went into my mind and made me relive my worst memories. I wanted it all to end. I scratched at my arm to get my mind off it and try to block the attack. My nails broke on one arm so I went to the other. I remember trying not to scream. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of hearing me scream. It's all he wanted and I wouldn't give it to him.
"I relived everything. Even being teased as a young girl by everyone in my school. That was before I knew I was a witch. I relived coming to Hogwarts and going through the same thing. The first time Malfoy called me a mudblood," Malfoy looked away looking into the fire like it had somehow just become the most interesting thing in the world. "The troll, the basilisk, werewolves, the department of mysteries, and what had occurred there that day. Everything came back full force."
"But you didn't give in?" Blaise asked knowing the answer but wanting to hear it from her.
"No. I wanted to die. I didn't want to give in all the secrets and then die like I was some useless tool in his big plan."
"You have guts, kid," Blaise said squeezing her hand.
Hermione laughed slightly. "According to you, I didn't have any."
Blaise smiled. "I misread you again," she said squeezing again.
Malfoy sat in the corner of the room not talking to anyone. Hermione, Blaise, and Pansy switched topics after a while knowing that when Hermione was ready to talk that she would. Every once in a while Malfoy would make a smart comment and Hermione would have a comeback for him. Blaise and Pansy would laugh occasionally at what they said to each other. After a while Slytherins began to start filing in.
"What's she doing here?" Goyle asked in his low voice.
"Talking. Got a problem with it, Gregory?" Blaise asked putting on fake sweetness with each word.
Goyle shook his head and continued on to his dorm. Crabbe stopped and looked at Hermione for a moment. Pansy straightened a little. "Don't tell me you have a problem with it," she stated glaring at him.
"No," he replied. Draco rolled his eyes. Crabbe was one of the dumbest people he knew.
The other Slytherins didn't seem to care that Hermione was there; just as long as she didn't bother them or talk to them. Hermione smiled slightly to herself. Everything was coming back in her life. She had the two best friends that she always wanted. Not everyone hated her and she didn't care who did.
Well, maybe she did. She cared that Harry and Ron did. She didn't care who else hated her. Her own parents could hate her for all she cared, but just as long as they didn't. But the sad truth was that they did. Hermione sighed.
"Granger, don't you have to get back to your housemates soon?" Malfoy asked hesitating on the word housemates. He would have made a smart comment but decided that now wasn't the time.
"You seem happy to be rid of me," Hermione said gazing at her watch. "Bloody Hell I didn't know it was this late! Ya, I better be going back. I'll see you guys at dinner." Hermione bounded out the portrait and started down the hall. She took a left and then a few more turns and quickly remembered that she had no clue where she was. After continuing her search for anything that sparked her memory, and finding none, she growled in frustration.
"Did you forget that you don't know your way around here?" Malfoy's cold voice asked from behind her.
Hermione spun around and glared at him. "I didn't forget. I just..."
"Forgot. Right."
Hermione growled lightly in anger. "I'll get out sometime soon."
"I'll time you then," he said pressing a button on his wizard's watch.
Hermione scowled at him and continued on her way becoming increasingly annoyed at the tick of Malfoy's watch and his heavy footsteps behind her. She turned endless corners and didn't see anything that even looked vaguely familiar. After five minutes of searching she retraced her steps and couldn't even find the Slytherin Common Room.
"Need some hints?" Malfoy asked rubbing the fact that she didn't know where she was in her face.
"No." She said sternly determined to find out on her own.
The search continued and Hermione had almost snapped.
"Six minutes and ten seconds. Six minutes and eleven seconds. Six minutes and twelve seconds," Malfoy drawled smirking to himself as Hermione rounded on him.
"Would you shut up?" she yelled at him. She was sure she yelled so loud that people in the Gryffindor tower could have heard her.
"No," he replied smugly.
"Argh!" she screeched and turned on her heal to resume searching. "This is like..."
"Six minutes and sixteen seconds," Malfoy said almost reading her mind.
"Of Hell!" she finished not caring enough to wonder how he knew what she had been thinking.
"Isn't it supposed to be seven minutes in Heaven?" Malfoy asked smirking yet again as she took another wrong turn.
"Malfoy, with you, it sure wouldn't be seven minutes in Heaven," Hermione smirked at him from over her shoulder. His smirk fell off his face and was replaced with an annoyed scowl.
She continued for a little more and then found the way to the Great Hall. "Yes!" Hermione said grinning broadly.
"And it only took you..." Malfoy stopped his watch. "Seven minutes. All they Slytherins usually take a right after coming out of the portraits and they're here in less than a minute," he said sarcastically.
"No one asked for a comment," Hermione said continuing her way to the Gryffindor Common Room.
"People don't always ask for things, but they get them just the same," he said.
Hermione turned around to look at him. For the first time she examined him very closely. He had grown up over the years. When they started Hogwarts together he hadn't grown into his face. Now his face was very masculine and he looked more than just seventeen. He had high cheek bones that were tinted ever so slightly the lightest shade of pink that Hermione had ever seen. In fact she almost over looked it taking it as the lighting in the room, but it seemed so natural that it couldn't be anything else.
His eyes were dark silver or a light blue. Hermione couldn't tell what they truly were. They had both colors mixed in them making it hard to tell his true eye color. His platinum blonde hair wasn't gelled back anymore but fell into his face. His bangs came down and hid his eyes every once in a while making it hard to tell what emotion he was having.
Although you could never really tell what kind of emotion he was having. He always had masks around him so that no one got passed the bad boy image he set up for himself. His bad boy attitude made it almost impossible for anyone to get close to him. Pansy and Blaise had only done it because they're parents were friends and they were together a lot when they were little. The same went with Crabbe and Goyle. At the moment his hair was out of his face and Hermione could see emotion flicker in his dark mesmerizing orbs. It was an emotion that she couldn't read, but it seemed very strong, the way it flickered and danced.
With Draco's broad shoulders and tough face it was hard not to be intimidated by him. He was known for being a heart breaker to the women and a jaw breaker to the men. He was always going out with someone new and always making them think that he was in love with them, only to turn around and break their heart. When the man came around that actually did love the girl they would confront Malfoy and he would punch them square in the jaw. Hermione doubted that he had ever actually broken someone's jaw, but it just made the point bigger that he was known to punch a good one.
"Where did you hear that from?" Hermione asked shaking her head and continuing walking.
"I didn't hear it from anywhere. I just said it," Malfoy said following her.
"You said it?" Hermione asked disbelievingly. Malfoy was smart, she'd give him that. But he never seemed to be the type that had much common sense.
"Didn't you hear me say it?" He asked angrily.
Hermione ignored him and turned a corner and bumped into Ron, Harry, and Parvati. She flew back and would have hit the ground if Malfoy hadn't caught her. She gasped as his arms wrapped themselves around her. They were the strongest arms she had ever felt. He seemed to pick her up with ease and set her back straight. For that brief moment Hermione had felt like nothing else mattered as long as he was there with her. 'What in the world am I thinking?!' Hermione scolded herself. She blushed and smiled her thanks to him and he twitched a corner of his mouth. Hermione didn't know if it was a scowl or a smile.
"Watch where you're going prats!" Parvati said dusting her front like Hermione had dirtied them somehow.
"Same thing to you," Malfoy and Hermione said at the same time. They glanced at each other then turned back to the other three.
"Just forget it, Parv, they aren't worth rising to the bait," Ron said playing with a strand of her hair. Parvati smiled and kissed Ron's hand slightly. Harry coughed and Hermione again felt like barfing.
"Get a room," Malfoy said looking utterly disgusted. Hermione laughed shortly. Harry looked at her for a moment his mouth twitching slightly. Hermione realized he was trying not to laugh too!
"I'll do what I like, when I like," Ron said grabbing Parvati's hand in his.
"Me too," Hermione said walking in between Ron and Parvati causing them to drop each others hands and jump back in surprise. Harry snorted but no one heard it because Malfoy was laughing so hard. Hermione smiled and continued on her way.
Malfoy looked after her retreating form. She carried herself proudly. She never had a wave of doubt about who she was. She was who she was and she was proud of it. Her bushy brown hair was now calmed and less frizzy. It was sleek and shiny and always bounced whenever she walked. With Hermione's golden highlights naturally in her hair she seemed to be an angel. Her eyes were still the chocolate brown that they had always been but now they seemed sharper. She caught every little move and she protected emotion from flashing across them.
Her face was now sleek and feminine. Her little red mouth was never chapped and always had a shiny glimmer on it almost calling out for someone to put their imperfect lips against them...
Malfoy shook his head. What was he thinking? This was the same girl that he had hated since his first day at Hogwarts. He's hated her kind ever since he was a little kid. His father pounded bad information about 'mudbloods' into his head and he always had the same opinion of all of them, no matter if they were Headmaster or just a friend of a friend.
Malfoy looked after Hermione and then back to her old friends. Harry was trying to calm Ron down while Parvati scowled at both of them and glared in the direction that Hermione had gone. He shook his head at them and went back to the Slytherin Common Room to clear his head of impossible haunting thoughts of a certain girl.
Author's Note: Well, I broke my perfect every four days update thing! I decided to update sooner than four days. I had some extra time so I thought I present you with another chapter. I hope you liked it. I was rather happy with this title too :D ah, the simple things in life. I will update as much as I can before cram time comes around for the finals. :S Thanks to everyone that reviewed the last chapter! Keep it up!
Please Review!!!