CHAPTER FOUR

RUDE AWAKENINGS

"Are you quite sure, Miss Granger?"

"Yes."

"Very well, then." Dumbledore searched in his desk for something. "Take this, if you will. Please sign here."

It was a contract. I took no time to think it over and jotted my name on the dotted line.

He looked it over carefully, then stuffed it into his pocket.

"Very well. You are free to go."

He didn't watch me on my way out.

I spent the afternoon out on the lawn with Ginny. She and I really treasured our bonding time – of course we loved Harry and Ron – but it was fun, every so often, to have that special 'girl time'. You see, being best friends with two boys meant I rarely used that term. And I liked it.

She exhaled easily.

"Are you all right?"

I followed her gaze to the cloudless sky and looked back at her.

"Yeah. I'm fine. I mean I think so," I frowned back at it.

"That was quite an ordeal he put you through," she said. Her fingers wandered through the grass and collected the dew. "You were raped, Hermione. Nobody can seem to get that into your head."

"That wasn't rape, Ginny," I said angrily. "He didn't do anything to me..."

"Blimey, Hermione!" her face flushed. "He would have if Professor Snape hadn't come in!"

"But the point is, he did." I wanted to end this conversation as soon as possible. I knew he'd raped me. But I didn't want to admit it.

"So?" she turned on her knees to face me, and dropped her voice once she saw that people had begun to stare. "Hermione, listen to me. You need to stay away from him."

"Ginny, why would I go near him?"

"I'm not saying we don't trust you, Hermione," she buried her face in her hands and rubbed her eyes wearily. "All I'm saying is we want you to be safe. That was scary, Hermione."

I didn't feel authorized to comfort her, seeing as I was the raped one. But I put my arm around her shoulder.

"It's really fine, Gin, I'm over it. Draco Malfoy will never come near me again. Mark my words."

Ginny nodded, but I was not quite so sure of myself.

"Transferring schools?"

"This is excellent!"

"Never thought I'd see the day – "

"Are you sure?"

"Positive." Creevey's big blue eyes widened dramatically. "I heard Snape talking about it with Dumbledore."

"Where do you think he'll go?"

"Durmstrang, presumably," piped in Parvati. "Where else could they send a twit like Malfoy?"

Harry and Ron laughed. "Bet he couldn't stand the humiliation," said Ron, beside himself with delight.

"Well," said Harry, sitting down by the fire in the Gryffindor Common Room, "Hermione will be pleased, all right."

Which is right when I walked in.

They all leapt at me the moment I stepped through the portrait hole, causing all of my books to fall to the ground. When I bent over to pick them up, Harry and Ron scrambled to do it for me. They threw them hastily into a highly disorganized pile on the floor next to me, and sat me down in a large chair when I reached to arrange them.

"What's going on?" I made another attempt to escape, but Ron held me back.

"You're going to want to stay for this," he said excitedly.

"Well, is somebody going to tell me?"

Parvati leapt into the circle. "Malfoy's leaving Hogwarts! For good!"

Ron shot her an exasperated glare. "Yes, well, we tried to tell you but you were, you know, at the Library and.... well, aren't you going to say something?!"

"I..."
The truth was, I was confused. You know when you've wanted something for SO LONG, and I really had waited for this, since the day his icy cold eyes met mine; and when you finally get it, it's just not so thrilling anymore?

"I...I can't believe it." I grinned. "He's leaving?"

"Yeah!" Harry looked relieved – my anticipated reaction had come a bit late. "Leaving Hogwarts! Now you'll never have to worry about him laying a finger on you again."

Parvati gasped. "That's right!" She dropped her voice to a low purr. "He raped you, didn't he? At the Prefect's Party? What happened? What did he –"

Ron glared at her.

I laughed, nervously. "This is just.... it's wonderful. I've wanted him to leave from the moment he walked in."

The others laughed. "Well, who hasn't?" Lavender Brown giggled. "He's so awful...and his father's not exactly a jolly bloke either, is he?"

"He's rather frightening," Parvati whispered, shuddering. "I mean, he's a Death Eater, isn't he?"

"Good riddance," Lavender spat.

And on it went.

Though I was, without a doubt, and most certainly, definitely, and undeniably, no ands ifs or buts about it, glad that Malfoy was leaving, (I had, after all, been wishing this were so from the beginning), there was something strange inside me that almost, dare I say it, foiled my happiness.

I sat on my bed and thought about it for a while. I just couldn't get it. I was finally getting what I'd always wanted. Now Malfoy would finally be permanently out of my life. Forever.

What had I been thinking?

I was completely happy that Malfoy was leaving, and there was no reason, no reason at all that I should be anything but. He was never anything to me but a repulsive clump of rubbish stuck to the bottom of my shoe.

Now, Malfoy was leaving and I would have perfectly clean shoes.

It made perfect sense at the time.

Very early the next morning, I awoke to a very distant sound. Being the light sleeper that I am, I could not fall back asleep. I just sat rigid in my bed as the sound grew nearer.

Footsteps.

But they were not frightening ones. They were graceful and light across the creaky wooden floors. They seemed to be proceeding towards my bedroom door, but eventually I convinced myself I was just being paranoid, and slid back down into the covers.

Through the gold and crimson sheets, they still echoed in my ears like a slow and steady heartbeat.

Frustrated, I sat back up again and fumbled for my wand.

'Lumos,' I muttered. My wand pointed at the door, while I rubbed my eyes.

When I opened them, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. But the blurry figures of an open door and a tall blond man standing in it were clear.

I clutched my sheets tightly when I realized who it was.

"Malfoy? What are you doing here? Your first late-night visit to my bedroom wasn't enough?"

I could distinguish his signature smirk even as he crossed over into the dark side of the room.

"Shut up," he growled, "I don't enjoy being in your bedroom this late any more than you do."

"Well, we're on the same page then."

"It would seem that way." He was searching for something: I could hear him going through my things.

I jumped up.

"Then get out of my room!"

He looked like a deer caught in headlights. He whirled around, holding my journal.

"Granger? What are you doing in my room?"