Crimson Rain Drops
Chapter 6
Disclaimer: I only own the plot and the characters that obviously aren't in the books
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Cold as Ice
Hard as Stone
Both believe
They must face this world alone
What happens
When Enemies Meet
All they share; a love of hate
But what they find; they do not seek
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Previously:
"At a loss for words you two? Was the painted picture of my perfect life ruined? I cant believe you actually believed what I told you. You will never know what its like to be me, and I hope you never know. But you'll never have to worry about that. And you'll never have to worry about me lying again. You know now that we don't belong together. Malfoy knows me better then you two. All I have to say is good bye and good luck"
With that she turned and started to walk away, but she felt someone's hand on her arm. "Hermione wait" Ron pleaded.
Hermione froze, her body rigid. "I have nothing to say to you two"
"Hermione, how could we know when you never told us anything or even hinted. You never gave us a reason to not trust you so we did"
"Ron, let go of me"
"Not until you hear me out"
"Wrong thing to say Weasley" The three turned to see Dallis, Luke, Eva and Draco coming around the corner.
"Don't you know that you should never say no to Hermione when she's like this?" Dallis questioned.
"Why?" Ron asked, his hand still on Hermione's arm.
"Not important, I just suggest that you let go" Luke brushed off his question
"She could kill you in a matter of seconds, without magic" Eva threw in
"I'm not letting her go until she listens to me" Ron said again
"Your choice" Draco shook his head, not knowing why he was even here.
"Ron, let go. NOW"
"Her…" but he was cut off as her fist connected with his eye.
This is when Dallis, Luke and Draco stepped forward. They figured if they all stepped forward they had some chance of stopping her.
"Hermione, think. You could lose Head Girl if you kill them. Worse you could be expelled and sent to Azkaban. They're not worth that" Eva, who was standing off to the side, reasoned with her.
Hermione looked at the boys, all of them, then dropped her fists and fell out of her stance.
"Now listen, and listen good because I wont repeat myself" she said looking straight at Harry and Ron. Stay far, far away from me unless you want to find yourself in the hospital wing or six feet under. Understood?"
Harry and Ron nodded, not knowing what to say.
"Good" she then turned and walked gracefully to her dorm.
"Stay away from her or you'll have four to deal with instead of one, and we're the ones that taught her everything she knows" Luke glared at them.
"Five" Draco corrected, and when he saw Luke looking at him like he was crazy he elaborated, "They'll have five to deal with. I would rather help her then be on her bad side. I've seen what she can do"
"Ok, so five. And anything she told you is not to be repeated"
They then turned and followed Hermione's path to the Head common room, leaving Harry and Ron there to process everything they just heard.
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Hermione was on her knees, frantically digging through her trunk. It has to be here. It just has to she kept thinking.
Almost the entire contents of the trunk were sitting around her. Finally she saw a tiny glint of sliver. A sigh of relief escaped her lips.
She had found it. She carefully ran her finger over the cool steel before bringing up to her wrist. There was a slight pressure right before the skin broke. It felt like life was returning to her and leaving her at the same time.
She lifted the knife up right before it made contact with the vein and moved it out an inch before pressing again. She repeated this, all pain leaving her, throwing her into a world of bliss.
That's when she heard it.
"Mia!" it was Luke
"Fuck! What do you want?" she hollered back.
"Come out. We want to talk to you" Eva called back.
"I just want to be alone right now. Please, I'll talk to you guys later"
She heard some movement then it went silent again. She turned back to her wrist and went to make one more cut. Just one more. That's it.
The knife sank deeper and deeper as she applied a slight pressure to it.
"Granger?" Draco poked his head into her room. "Come on, they wont leave until…What the fuck are you doing?"
"Nothing Malfoy. Go tell them I'm fine and that you and I'll meet them later ok? Just get rid of them for me" she glared at him, angry that he had come in.
Draco disappeared for a moment and she heard the slam of the door. Moments later, he reappeared in her door frame. "Explain. What the hell are you trying to do? You're going to get yourself caught you know"
"Didn't I already?" her eyes were hard as she stared up at him.
Draco snorted. "Like hell you did. Come on, lets clean that up" He reached to help her up, making sure that she could walk without passing out.
He led her to the bathroom and grabbed a towel, wetting it under the tap. "Sit" he commanded, pointing to one of the chairs.
Hermione, slightly confused, did as she was told. What did he mean Like hell you did? Was he going to keep her secret or was he going to hold it over he head?
Draco rolled up his sleeves before picking up the towel to tend to her wounds. He wrapped to towel around her arm and applied some pressure. "Hold" he said, getting up to grab another towel and some disinfectant from the cabinet under the sink.
Sitting back down he removed the towel and took some ointment on his finger. "I would say this is going to sting but from the looks of it you've done this several times before" He gazed at her arms for a minute longer. In fact, it looked like she had done this more then you could count.
Then, turning back to the newest cuts, he cleaned away any blood that was around them. Then, gently, he started to rub the ointment in.
Hermione hissed. That hurt more then she remembered. She looked down to see what Draco was doing to her. It was then that she noticed his arms. Nicely muscled, but there were scars. Many scars.
"You do it to" she stated.
Draco started, jerking her arm in the process, opening one of the old new cuts (A/N: As in its not from that day. But it cant be more then a day or two old). He followed her eyes to see that she was looking at his arms.
"So what if I do?" he snarled, looking her straight in the eye.
"That's what you meant by 'like hell you did' isn't it? If you don't tell anyone about me then if you ever got caught I wouldn't tell. Right?" her gaze was strong and steady, not faltering as his stone cold eyes focussed on her.
Draco didn't know how to react to this. No one would've ever held his gaze like this or would've been as bold as he was. No one had ever stood up to him like this, never once breaking the contact. This was beyond new to him and it was weird. It made him feel uneasy to think that someone else on this earth had an inner and outer strength that matched and most likely surpassed his.
"Dammit Malfoy, answer me"
"No Granger. This is none of your fucking business"
She stayed silent, her face blank and eyes void. She just looked at him, wondering.
Draco dropped his gaze to her arm and finished tending to it.
"Why?" Hermione finally asked. "Why do you do this? What drove you to the knife?"
"What reasons are there Granger? The only thing I know of is the relief"
"What I mean is, what drove you to it for the first time? Why did you pick up that knife for the first time?"
"God Damn Granger. Why the hell do you care? Did you finally figure out the I, Draco Malfoy, am not perfect? Do you want me to admit it to every student in Hogwarts? To the entire world?" Draco growled.
He turned to leave but found himself stopped. Her hand was on his wrist, not letting him leave.
"You are never to speak a word of anything you saw today. Not to anyone. It doesn't leave this dorm and it stays between us. Understood?"
Draco looked at her, feeling anger rise in the pit of his stomach. He wrenched his arm from her grasp and turned for the door.
"Malfoy, I have just as much to hold over your head as you have to hold over mine. I can black mail you as easily as you could me. You speak a word of this to anyone and I wont keep quiet. Now I'll ask you again. Do you understand that this stays between us?"
"Whatever Granger. You're just as messed up as me. Maybe more so, I don't know. But I could ask you the same thing. What drove you to it? Was it your oh so precious best friends? Because if it was, then your problems way exceed mine"
"If you think that's what started this, then your more stupid then I thought Malfoy. Sure, they may have drove me to this once or twice, but they had nothing to do with why I started"
"Then why don't you tell me your story Granger? What drove the perfect, studious, bookworm Hermione Granger to this?"
"Fuck you Malfoy" she snarled. With that she got up and shoved past him and seconds later the sound of a door slamming rang through the dorm.
&&& around 2 hours later &&&
Draco heard someone pounding on his door.
"What the hell do you want?" he yelled.
"Get off your lazy ass Malfoy, and come join us" Luke called through the door
Draco groaned, and rolled off his bed. He trudged over to the door and yanked it open, a scowl crossed his cold features.
"Laurthian, get the fuck out of here" he sneered, not wanting to deal with people right now.
"Nope, sorry. Not until I know that your coming with me"
"What part of leave are you not understanding? I don't want you here and I don't want to go anywhere"
"Man, I'm not going anywhere. Now grab the drinks and lets go. Look, we even made Mia promise to be nice" Luke's eyes glinted with determination and Draco knew then that there was not way that he would get out of this.
He turned back into his room and grabbed some of his stash, shrinking is so that it would fit in his pocket. No need to risk anything by running into a teacher on the way.
He didn't know how Luke did this, but he did it each time. He was able to convince Draco of virtually anything. The worst thing was, he knew it. Luke knew that he could get Draco to do most anything. And the worst part was that it gave him a power the few had. Draco hated people having power over him, but yet that's exactly what Luke had.
They headed out of the Head commons and down the passages until they reached their destination.
"It should let you through again, but I'm going to hang back just to make sure." In reality, Luke was only going last because the was no way in hell that he was going to give Malfoy a chance to run off. He worked hard to get him here, and he was going to make sure that Malfoy actually followed through.
Draco walked through, a sneer on his face. He saw that the others were already there. Hermione was staked out on one couch, already munching on the Gummie Bears and licorice. She glared at him as he sat down on the couch across from her, making it very well known that she did not want him here.
"Why in the hell did you drag me here Laurthian?" he growled
"Because we decided that you needed to get out more. You almost never leave that dorm of yours unless its for class, to eat or if a teacher asks you to come see them. You need to start hanging around with people Malfoy. We decided that you could make a good start by hanging out with us. You like us or are at least comfortable around us. We all agreed that you belonged here in some weird way" Luke explained, but quickly corrected himself seeing the look that Hermione sent his way. "Ok, so most of us agreed that belong here"
"Gee, I wonder who could be the one" he rolled his stormy eyes, sarcasm dripping from his voice.
"Come on, you and Mia have been getting along better then you used to. Why cant you guys just grow up and get over your differences?" Eva put in, obviously impatient.
Draco and Hermione snorted. Like hell that was going to happen.
"Who ever said I wanted to hang out with you guys in the first place? I sure as hell didn't. I don't ever recall saying that I wanted to spend any time with a Mudblood"
The next thing he knew, pain ran through his abdomen and his eye felt like it was going to explode.
"What the hell was that for bitch?" he yelled
"I've warned you time and time again, never call me a Mudblood. Hell, I've hurt you before and yet you never seem to learn. Well, Malfoy, I can get a lot more violent than this and we both know that I can severely hurt you if I want to. So next time, think before you say anything." She turned to the others, "I need some space, you guys know where to find me"
Unless you knew her really well, there was almost no way to tell that she was even angry. Not unless you talked to her anyway. And I feel so sorry for anyone that chose to cross her path that evening.
"What the hell were you thinking Malfoy?" Dallis yelled at him once Hermione was gone.
Draco fixed him with a withering stare, but it didn't seem to affect in the least.
"We've been working on her for days now, trying to convince her that your okay. Trying to get her to let you join us. And this is how you repay us? By pissing her off?"
"Did it ever occur to you that the perfect angel Granger, isn't what she appears to be? I know a lot more about her then you think and I know enough to shatter that image completely. Your perfect friend isn't so perfect. And have you ever noticed, that even though it doesn't look like it, she controls everything that her friends do? It's a quiet control, but its there"
"What do you mean?" Luke's eyes now only visible through small slits.
"Open up your fucking eyes for once and look at her. She has control over everything. But not only that, she has everyone thinking that she's so perfect. She's as far from it as you can be, and I've seen first hand. Push me, and I'll shatter the image that you have of her in less then a minute" He then got up and left, just wanting to get out. The get away from these people.
Little did he know, this day was the first of many like it. There were days to come the would be crazier and more painful then this one had been. His whole world was about to be turned around and jumbled into such a mess that no one ever thought he would be able to fix it. Days would follow this where he needed an escape, but none would be provided. But at the end of the day, if he fought for what he wanted, would it have been worth it anyway?
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Hey guys! Who's ready to kill me? But if your following my other story, you know that's its only been like half the time that its taken me to update that! Ok, so I've been promised for like the last month to get a new chapter out, but I've been basically brain dead when it comes to writing. I've had writers block for so long!
But here ya go! Here's your chapter. Finally its getting to more of the plot, but I still don't know where I want to take this. I'll come up with something eventually J
Anywayz, you can get updates on how my writing's coming at (I know it should be puremudblood but I'm getting sick of that name) There's a link to it on my profile (two links actually). And, though I have yet to start posting this story there, my Givin Up Trilogy (most of it anyway) is also available at http/ca.
They'll be kept up to date after this weekend and if theres ever a problem with that's where you can find an update. Just check out LiveJournal to see if I have anything there.
As always, EMIAL updates are available. Just tell me you want one and either give my your email or tell me and make sure it's a signed review so I can have access to your email address
Until next time,
L&H Pure Mudblood
(Edited on August 23 2005)