UNREAL REALITIES

Chapter 4: Dungeons

DISCLAIMER: The characters don't belong to me – I just like to mess them about a bit, you know, a bit of mild torture. Bits of the plot aren't mine, ie. The bits I stole from Buffy, but that doesn't matter cos I added my own little evil twists. I think…

Hermione strolled down towards the Quidditch pitch, noticing absently how beautiful the day was, even though it was September.

It was funny how she'd never really appreciated how gorgeous Hogwarts actually was. I suppose that if I have to make up a whole other life I might as well make the places pretty, she thought, moving her gaze from the castle itself to the lake, from the lake to the forest, and from the forest to the Quidditch pitch.

She could see the green and silver blurs moving around, 50 feet from the ground and watched them as she drew nearer.

However, when she finally reached the stands it occurred to her that she had no idea how the hell she was supposed to get Malfoy on his own. It would be so much easier to just wait for the Slytherin team to finish practising then hit him with a curse or something when he was back on solid ground, but then she would have to deal with the rest of the team and there was no way she would be able to get to Harry, Ron and Ginny and kill them too before they locked her up or something.

Although Doctor Snape hadn't actually said anything about it, she had the feeling that the people at Hogwarts, even if they were just figments of her imagination, would not take kindly to being…eradicated. Therefore it was probably best if she tried not to draw too much attention to herself.

She mused for a moment on the weirdness of this thought. Here she was, in her own head, her delusions, her fantasy land, and she was trying to stay as inconspicuous as possible.

Lost in thought, it wasn't until the Slytherins had landed and most of the team were making their way towards the changing rooms, leaving Malfoy to put the balls away, that she finally realised he was alone.

It's now or never. She steeled herself.

"Malfoy." She called. She had no idea what she was going to do to him, but it had to be quick. Playing it by ear, she walked closer to him as he looked up at her shout.

"Oh, it's you," his lip curled when he located the source of the yell, "what do you want mudblood?"

"You know, you should probably be nicer to me Malfoy, seeing as I basically control your destiny and all." She didn't stop walking until she was standing right in front of him, watching him try to wrestle the last bludger back into the case and insult her at the same time.

"What the hell are you talking about Granger?" He eventually managed to shut the case and gave her his full attention, "and can you move a bit further away, I can smell your filth, and Merlin knows what I could catch. Why don't you run along and go pester Potty and the Weasel."

For a moment Hermione considered just killing him there and then but that would cause too many awkward questions and most probably she would be stopped from completing the task at hand, so instead she had to think up something else.

"I didn't come down here just to insult you Malfoy, as much fun as that is, Dumbledore wanted me to come and find you, he says he wants to talk to you about something."

"Fine. Now bugger off, I'll go up to his office once I've put this away," he kicked the case slightly and sneered at her.

"Sorry Ferret-face, he's not in his office, he told me to show you where he was."

"Alright then," he waved his wand at the case and it flew towards the changing rooms, "lets go, but make it quick, I don't want to spend any more time with you than is absolutely necessary Granger."

"Oh, yeah," Hermione replied turning away from him and making her way back up to the castle, "because, I totally love hanging out with you too, Malfoy." Her words and tone were flippant but inside her heart was beating fast and her mind was racing.

Well, she'd gotten him to follow her, now she just had to decide where the hell she was going to take him and what she was going to do when they got there. Not to mention what was going to happen when everyone realised Malfoy was missing. It wasn't as though he blended into the background or anything, he was so obnoxious that you always noticed when he was around, and when he wasn't around he was noticeable by his absence.

They reached the entrance hall and she hesitated for a second. It was long enough for Malfoy to get impatient.

"Can you hurry it up a bit Granger? Or has the great genius forgotten where she's going?"

Hermione ignored the scorn dripping from his ice-cold voice as her mind raced through a dozen possibilities incredibly quickly.

Room of Requirement. No, too many people know about it.

The forest. No, it's too late for that, we're in the castle now and he'd never follow me back out

One of the secret passageways. No, there's always a chance Harry or someone would stumble across it

Suddenly it came to her. The dungeons. No-one would look for him there, and even if they did there were so many rooms and corners and corridors down there that it would take ages to search them all, and by then it would be too late. Plus if she dumped him in a room down there then she could bring the others down one by one and kill them all together, that would be easier than killing them separately and leaving the bodies lying around.

"Shut up Malfoy, of course I know where I'm going." Less than 5 seconds after she'd stopped, Hermione was once more leading Malfoy, this time towards the deepest, darkest, furthest away dungeon she could find.

She could hear him getting more and more nervous behind her as she took him further through the labyrinth, all the time noting in her head which way she was going. It wouldn't do to take Malfoy somewhere and then not be able to find her way back out again.

Eventually she noticed a door up ahead with a lock on the outside. She discreetly peered through the doorway, noting the small cell like room beyond. Perfect.

"In here Malfoy, he'll be down in a minute." She stopped and pointed a finger through the doorway.

Malfoy glanced past her hand and into the room. "What the hell are you going on about Granger?" Although he tried to hide it she could detect a hint of fear in his voice and had to bite back a laugh as she remembered what a wimp he'd been about going into the Forbidden Forest years ago.

"There is no way I'm going in there. And why would Dumbledore want me to meet him here anyway?" Malfoy was starting to look suspicious now.

"'Theirs is not to reason why, theirs is but to do or die.'" Came her serene reply.

"What the…?" Malfoy stared at her as if she was mad, "Have you been drinking Granger?"

"For Gods sake, it means just do what you're told and don't ask stupid questions." She rolled her eyes.

"I'm not going in there until Dumbledore gets here."

"Fine, whatever…" Hermione broke off and suddenly started to shriek, "oh my God! What is that?" She pointed once more into the room, and, as she'd hoped, Malfoy leaned past her to try and see what was wrong.

Seizing her chance, Hermione shoved him in the back, hard, and sent him stumbling into the cell.

"Finally." She said as she slammed the door behind him. "Don't worry Draco," she called through the thick wooden door, "Ginny will be along soon to keep you company."

Hermione could hear his shouts and banging as she strolled away, they echoed impossibly loudly through her mind even as she wandered dazed through the Gryffindor common room.

Ginny looked up as Hermione strolled into her bedroom, looking tired and worried.

"What's wrong, Hermione?" She instantly put down the transfiguration essay she'd been working on and fixed her concerned gaze on Hermione's pale face.

"Nothing's wrong, Gin," she replied, trying really hard to sound normal. Getting Ginny to follow her would be easier than it was to get Malfoy to follow her, but this girl had been her best female friend for years, and now Hermione's conscience was acting up, something which she tried to quash immediately.

Stop it, she's not real. It's not like I'm going to kill her, how can you kill something that never existed in the first place?

"Don't lie to me. I've known you long enough to know when there's something wrong with you." Ginny grabbed Hermione by the shoulders and gently led her towards her bed, making her sit, before just staring at her, waiting for her to talk.

"Do you…can you…" Hermione tried to ask Ginny to come with her but the words wouldn't come out.

"Do you remember what happened that day?" For some reason her mouth was just operating of its own accord, "at my house, I mean. You know, the fight."

Ginny frowned and sat down beside her. "Well, to be honest with you, I don't remember much, just the beginning really. That stupid prick McNair knocked me out and I didn't wake up again till just before Harry killed You-Know-Who…" She gave a small smile, "Voldemort." They'd all gotten better at saying his actual name since the beginning of the second war.

"What happened after I…collapsed?"

"Hermione, are you sure you want to…"

"Please just tell me Ginny." Hermione's voice was pleading, "I need to know, it's really important."

"Well, ok, but I don't really know much. Voldemort hit you with an incantation before Harry…killed him, but no-one really knows what it was or what it did, but don't worry, you were thoroughly checked over at St. Mungo's and at the hospital wing here. Dumbledore thinks that Voldemort died before the spell was finished so you should be ok, but they're keeping an eye on you just in case. Anyway, Harry cursed him and he just sort of crumbled into dust."

She stopped, a serious look on her face as she absently rubbed a hand over her stomach, where a scar had been left, a permanent reminder of the injury she sustained during that last fight. The healers had, for some reason, been unable to remove it.

"The Death Eaters didn't seem all that panicked though, I mean, after it happened I would have expected them to all disapparate immediately or something, but they didn't. They just dropped you and the ones holding your dad…erm…well, you know…and then they just kind of looked at each other and disapparated. It was a bit weird but we were all too worried about you. After that, everything's pretty much a blur and the next thing I remember was being at St. Mungo's."

"Oh," was all Hermione could think to say.

"I'm sorry Hermione, I'm not being much help."

"No, that's ok," Hermione replied, looking at her friend's anxious face, "I was wondering if you could possibly do me a favour? McGonagall wanted me to sort a couple of things out in one of the dungeons, can you help me with it?"

"The dungeons?" Ginny wrinkled her nose in disgust, "what does she want that would be in the dungeons?"

"Oh, just a few spare chairs and desks that have been stored there, a couple of blackboards, that sort of thing, she just wanted me to check them out, see that they're all still there or that they haven't been infested with termites and stuff," she tried to sound nonchalant, "so will you come with me?"

"Yeah alright, it'll get my mind off this essay anyway."

Hermione's heart leapt as she heard these words, but it wasn't with happiness. It felt more like a curious mixture of hope and guilt.

Despite what she'd been telling herself the whole time she'd been talking to Ginny, she was having trouble thinking of the flame haired girl as anything other than a person. Her best friend to be exact.

But at the same time she knew that once Ginny was down in the dungeons with Malfoy she would be halfway through what she had to do.

Then she could go home. Back to her mother.

Back to real life.

A/N – by the way, what Hermione said before she shoved Malfoy into the dungeon was a quote from Churchill. Please leave me a review if you liked the chapter! Or even if you didn't!