Glad to hear it! Thank you to all reviewers!!! You make me feel so special!!! Lol. You and all your encouragements. Especially the ones to update. I suppose flattery will get you anywhere.
Evil Eric? (gasp) how so? I've always portrayed him so nice!!! Wherever did you get that idea from? Hm?
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"I trust you not to take advantage of her while she's intoxicated?" Draco made sure, gazing sleepily at the knocked out Hermione in his arms.
"Can I trust that you haven't already taken advantage of her?" Harry fired back. When the fifth years ran up to him saying Malfoy was outside the portrait, Harry dropped his books immediately and rushed to meet him in anticipation that something might have gone wrong. He saw he was right in a way, but in a somewhat lower scale.
Seeing Hermione in Draco's arms, as if unconscious, Harry didn't know whether to rejoice or fret.
"There you go." Draco murmured to Hermione as he handed her to Harry.
"What happened." It wasn't a question.
"Do you really want to know?" Draco asked,
No.
"But I suppose I'll tell you before you start clawing my eyes out. I had some Firewhisky with me to… calm my nerves. Since we were paired up, I offered her some. Didn't know she would take care of nearly the whole bottle. Amazing sight she is, though, when drunk. Hilarious; she offered to elope with me to Durmstrang and grow tiger lilies around our cottage we were to live in. Suppose she thought we could live on tiger lilies." Draco chuckled, looking suddenly too affectionate to Hermione for Harry's liking.
"How long was has she been out for?" Harry really didn't want to know.
"Oh… five minutes? As soon as she plopped down I came straight here. Better nurse her back to help, o Harry Savior Potter; she's going to have one hell of a hangover when she regains her senses.
"Malfoy, are you drunk?" Harry inquired,
"Not nearly enough." Draco muttered back, stroking Hermione's hair. Her eyes fluttered open and she returned his dreamy gaze.
"Aiye wuv yu." She muttered, before drifting back to unconsciousness.
"Oh god." Harry spluttered, wondering how the Malfoy would react. Draco sighed,
"Me too." He agreed.
"I'm guessing you two got partnered up." Harry sighed.
"Yes. Out of curiosity, who was graced with the luck to be protected by the famed Harry Potter?" Draco drawled, even in his drunk state he seemed to get the best of Harry. It was in his very being.
"Ginny." Harry replied through his gritted teeth. "We got to choose who we were partnered with."
"Had to choose a girl, didn't you Potter? You sly devil, I take my hat off to you; o The Boy Who Lived To Perve On Innocent Girls." As Draco pretended to take off the hat on his head, Harry was turning a surprising shade of maroon.
"Malfoy, you're not sober. Go… bang your head on some other house's wall. You're scaring the first years. I'll talk to you some other time." Harry couldn't keep his mouth from twitching.
"No no, Potter. I refuse to talk to you. Must not. No, not I. Hermione might have got some words out of me, but I refuse to accomplice you. Don't look at me like that. It's not as if only the first years are scared. Everybody in the whole sodding school is terrified. Except for me of course." H stopped blabbering for a moment, "at least we'll know she's safe from it all." He paused again, squinting, and thinking to himself. "Or is she?"
As Draco stalked off. Harry, very pleased Malfoy decided to terrorize his own bloody housemates for once, brought Hermione inside. Over Ron and Ginny's fussing, Harry assured himself that if the Dark Lord was to somehow kidnap Draco, he was in for one hell of a headache; in the state he's in, Draco was enough to make even the Dark Lord plunge into insanity. Anyone listening to that singing would be better off dead, Harry reasoned.
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"Damn and Damnation." Draco muttered as he stumbled over a stool he could've sworn did not belong in the common area.
"Bugger it all, he's drunk." Blaise chuckled,
"All the better." Malcolm piped in, "Poker anyone?"
Blaise nodded in agreement as Draco scrambled over.
"Heard you got Granger for your partner." Malcolm murmured as he dealt.
"Mmm" Draco agreed, never taking his eyes off the cards, watching for some sign of cheating. "Pick each other as partners?" He asked absently. He sniffed the drink that was handed to him, out of habit.
The looked at each other.
"Pick?" Blaise asked softly, "We didn't get to choose, like you. I got chucked with Pansy." The expression on his face implied that he was anything but happy about the arrangement.
"Anna." Malcolm replied before the question was asked.
"It was as Snape did this to us on purpose." Blaise growled.
"Funny thing is," Draco chuckled, "The Gryffindors got to choose."
Blaise choked. Malcolm scoffed.
"And what were you doing hanging around them again?" Blaise asked,
"I got paired with the Mudblood." Draco growled, how dare they question him?
"Poor you." Malcolm offered.
"Nah." Draco admitted. "Fine little ass she's got."
Blaise choked and Malcolm sprayed the table with lemon liquor. Specially imported from… someplace.
Draco sipped on his glass as if nothing in world could've possibly be wrong.
"You and…"
The Mudblood?
Granger?
Hermione?
"…your partner are… involved?" Malcolm tried again.
"Nah." Draco held up a bottle he kept in his robe, "Just go her wasted; she drunk that much." He put this finger to show them just how much.
Blaise continued to make choking noises. Malcolm chuckled and shook his head. Draco beamed with pride.
"What will it be?" Malcolm asked of the Poker game.
"Double or nothing." Draco decided, "Let's start with, I don't know… 5000 galleons."
Malcolm continued to make choking noises; in a game of double or nothing, no matter dirty rich you were, you do not start it at five thousand galleons!!!
"Sober up, Malfoy." Blaise decided, shaking his head and booting Draco out of the game. "Go get some rest, for Salazar's sake."
Muttering darkly, Draco got up and began his quest for his bed.
"So, what do you know about all these disappearances?" Malcolm wondered, staring into the fire. Blaise shrugged.
"Do you think any of us will be taken?" Blaise asked, knowing it was useless to. "We should've asked him."
"In this state? We won't get anything out of him like that. Merlin, we're lucky he didn't order a herd of Pink Elephants to parade for him like he insisted last time."
Blaise chuckled insanely, remembering.
"He actually ordered them himself in the end, didn't he? Remember when he got that howler?" Blaise brought up as they howled with laughter.
Anna and Pansy came to join them, muttering something about Snape coming, something about him throttling them if they weren't paired right and left the boys to their game as they curled up beside them and gently drifted into sleep.
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Breakfast was usual enough, a siding from the Slytherins all looking anything but peaky and both Hermione and Draco looking worse than they would if five hippogriffs were to trample over their heads.
Draco, making everyone's life a living hell, ordered everyone to hand over all his or her coffee.
"Give me coffee, damn you! I…need…coffee. Whoever insists on practicing that damn gong should stop right now. I wish it. Coffee, you incapable fool. I WANT COFFEE. I order you. Give… me… that."
Hermione, on the other hand, had never experienced it before and had no idea how to control it.
"Oh, Harry. Please don't shout. I keep hearing this rhythmic banging. Go away." She moaned,
"Sorry." Harry adjusted his mumblings to the apologetic whisper. They were both lucky the hall was unusually quiet.
"What do you want?" Harry almost snarled as Eric approached their table. He had forgotten about the stranger, thinking perhaps all would be well with Draco and Hermione; thinking perhaps there would be no need to replace Draco.
"I just wanted to make sure Hermione was alright." Eric looked curiously at Harry. "Are you?" He kept looking at Harry.
"Yes. Definitely; I'm good." Harry spluttered. "Sorry."
Hermione smiled weakly at him and cringed away from the loud noises Eric was making.
"I was jut wondering… yesterday… about Dumbledore's speech." Eric hinted,
"She's already got a partner." Harry answered for her.
Eric looked stunned at Harry, and then back to Hermione. A flicker of acknowledgement flashed across his eyes.
"Very well." Eric walked away.
"Harry!" Ron boomed as he brushed the sleep from his eyes.
"Ron." Hermione said weakly.
"Oh, sorry." Ron murmured. Wow. It as amazing that Hermione actually got drunk. Ron couldn't believe it when Harry carried her into the common room last night. He couldn't until Harry muttered something about Malfoy. "Is she going to Hogsmeade?" Ron asked Harry and continued to eye his list of things to buy.
Harry shrugged, but doubted that she would choose to go.
"Hermione, are you alright?" Ginny asked worriedly. When Hermione dug her face into her hands, moaning, Ginny felt a pang of pity stab against her; in attempt to fight off the laughter that was building in her, Ginny purposely started a coughing fit.
Hermione cringed away, bracing herself if someone slammed the entrance doors, she whimpered knowing she would simply die.
"I'll get her some…books." Ron scrunched his nose; detesting the thought of voluntary wasting what money he had on books, and scribbled it on his list.
Still Hermione cringed away from Ron's waaay-too-loud-and-so-called-murmuring.
"So what do you think about the disappearances." Ginny brought up, looking up to Harry with such hope filled eyes, Harry suddenly knew why the Hall was so quiet. "Ron, stop it." Ginny brushed away her brothers hands sneakily trying to steal another one of her very special sugar quills.
Ginny grabbed a fork and made a stabbing motion towards her brother's force of evading hands.
"Stay away, brother dearest." Ginny warned, still looking up at Harry with such trust.
"I don't really know." Harry admitted, but the look Ginny gave him couldn't be dimmed, "I think…" Harry looked around, piecing the pieces of the puzzle… there was one bit missing… just that one little piece. It felt as if the answer was right under his nose.
"It's okay, Harry. You'll get it." Ginny assured. "Ron! You better buy me more. Merlin's beard, just because you're older than me doesn't mean you can steal my things!" Ginny pouted, turning away from Harry to face her annoying brother who succeeded in abducting her supply. "Put them on that scrawny list of yours." She insisted, flicking the scraps of food at her brother.
"By God!" Harry exclaimed.
He had it.
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OOOooOOooo…
Can you figure it out? Willing to take a stab at it? ( a little voice chants: review, review review! )
I only rated 9/10 for the last chappie? : (
How'd I do this time? Give me a rating say… out of a 100? ( the little voice chants, yet again: review, Review, REVIEW!!! )