The Hidden Secrets
A Hermione/Draco Romance
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I am not JK Rowling, nor do I have anything to do with Harry Potter besides fanfiction. I am not making any money out of this story, and I am not worth suing.
Chapter 12
The colours swirled, bright spots, those he associated with pain, but there was nothing. He was floating, but he was tied down, he could see, but he was blind. The spots swirled even more, whirling around in his mind, behind his eyelids, shading out the last of the black. The familiar airless feeling invaded his chest, tightening it, letting no air through. He couldn't breath, he would suffocate again, and then they would bring him back, bring him to see the black again, and the black was worse then the swirling, dizzying colour.
The invisible band tightened even more, and he felt the last of his air leave his lungs, only to be forced back in again by the machine, by the people who were doing this to him. His head spun, the pain still wasn't there, but it should have been. He needed something to associate the feeling with, he needed the pain. Opening his eyes, forcing them open, he felt the whole room lurch, as though he were travelling once again by floo powder, travelling once again by portkey. He felt himself leave the table, the cold metal table attached to the machine, then he was falling, falling, falling so fast he would die if he ever hit the bottom.
Then he sat up, gasping for breath, holding his throat. Something wasn't right - what happened to the table, the machine? Then he remembered. He wasn't in the room any longer, in the black; he was back at Hogwarts where nothing could come for him. Nothing could hurt him here... except for her, perhaps.
Stepping out of bed, Ron reached for his wand and muttered, "Lumos," under his breath. Instantly, the room flooded with light, showing him the rich carpeted floor, the almost familiar-again layout of the other beds in the room. Most of them were occupied, but one wasn't. The bed beside him wasn't occupied, and hadn't been for over a year. The bed beside him should have been occupied.
He wondered if Hermione was awake, if she was studying, if she were willing to talk to him, to let him apologise for not writing, not telling her about his return. He took his wand and headed down to the library, hoping that no one would see him. Hermione always sneaked down to the library after hours, though she never told anyone, during the fourth year. Old habits were hard to break.
Whether it was good luck, or just a fluke, no one heard him, no one saw him. He stepped into the library, letting the light from his wand shine around. There was no one there. Almost sighing in defeat, he turned and was about to head back to the dorm when he saw a doorway with the Ravenclaw Prefect's name on it. However, the Ravenclaw emblem was dark, as the light behind it was turned off. He walked towards it, noticing a lit emblem next door. This one had Hermione's name on it, and there were shadows behind the emblem, walking back and forth.
Wondering who he would be disturbing, he knocked on the door softly. The shadowy figures stopped, suddenly, and one left his sight. Hermione opened the door, and he looked at her. She didn't seem to be very happy, but she didn't look angry either. "Ron..."
.:a little while before:.
Draco pushed the door completely open with his foot. "Hermione, we need to talk. If you can't face me, after you push me away, then there's something seriously wrong. You can tell me, Hermione, I think I know you well enough now that you can trust me! If it's about my father, it's not your fault, he's been out to get me for years now, and he's only using you as an excuse!"
Hermione stopped trying to close the door, and glared at him, angrily. "Your father is still your father, whether you like it or not, and there should be nothing to stop you from being the best you can - you can't survive without money, Draco. And I'm not being the cause for your being unable to do anything. Besides, that's not all that's wrong, and if you haven't figured out what that is, then you don't know me very well at all!"
Momentarily stunned, Draco released his hold on the door, giving Hermione the chance she needed to slam the door shut. Knocked off balance, Draco stepped back to steady himself, but caught his foot on the top of the stairway and rolled, backwards, down the stairs, feeling every bruise that would appear by the next day.
Groggily, he got to his feet, ignoring the laughter of Peeves as he flew through the common room - obviously delighted to be back in the school. Their conversation wasn't over, but he couldn't, for the life of him, think what else was wrong. It couldn't have been anything he'd done, because he hadn't done anything except to tell her what his father had said.
Thinking, he racked his brain for the answer. Then it hit - Ron, the Weasel! Why was he so stupid all of a sudden? Of course she wouldn't want anything to do with him anymore; she was only using his father as an excuse. Remembering snatches of conversations from the holidays before, when Lucius had turned two of the three unforgivable curses on him, Draco walked numbly to the Slytherin couch set up in his corner. "You're nothing but worthlessness, Draco... You're no good for anything... You were an accident... We never wanted a child... You'll never amount to anything without the family name... You're lower then all the mudbloods and muggles combined..."
I don't deserve someone like Hermione, he thought to himself. She'd be better off with Weasley... at least then I won't have to worry that my father will come after her...
Later that night, almost midnight, he left his room and headed for his study room. Seeing that Hermione's door was unlocked, he found a surprising urge to go next door and finish their earlier conversation. She was sitting at her desk, staring absently towards the couch. "I still say it looks better as a bed," he cut in, causing her to jump, letting papers spill everywhere.
"What do you want, Malfoy?" she asked coldly, in turn causing him to laugh. "It's back to Malfoy, now? Whatever happened to good old Draco? Or are we past that stage?" he finished with his voice almost touching on a sneer, but it didn't reach his eyes - they remained dark, showing the beginnings of hurt. Hermione looked flustered, embarrassed. "Look, I don't know what I want. Ron isn't exactly going to 'welcome you with open arms', you know!"
Draco stepped inside the room, sending Hermione into another bout of jumpiness. "You know what? I don't care, because when you make up your mind, I'll be there. If you choose Ron over me, I won't hold it against you. But make up your own mind, not what you think is best for everyone else around you... and that includes me."
Hermione was about to say something when there was a knock on the door from the library side. She looked towards the door, almost too scared to say anything. She looked back at Draco, who shook his head. "Don't worry, Granger, I'll leave and save you the embarrassment of being seen talking to me," and he left.
Hermione watched him leave, then remembered the person at the door. She rushed to the door, only to find Ron standing on the other side. "Ron..."
He stood there, holding his wand, in his pyjamas. Something set off alarm bells in her brain - this wasn't right. Ron shouldn't have been standing outside her study room by himself; Harry should have been there. The alarm continued to go off - only now, there were words as well. It's your fault that Harry's not there, You caused him to lose his best friend. Finally, she found her voice, and said in barely a whisper, "What are you doing here?"
He looked sheepish, and dropped his head. "Do you mean, here, or here at the school?" Hermione at once blushed, and stepped back, allowing him to step into the room. "Both, I guess... you didn't tell me you were coming back, no one did, and now you show up in the middle of the night, like you used to..." She let her voice trail off - Ron and Harry, when they'd found out that she had been sneaking to the library in the middle of the night for extra study, continuously walked down and brought her back to the dorm.
Ron laughed, hollowly. "Yeah, I guess it is the same... sort of. But you couldn't imagine the number of letter's I tried to write to you, to tell you I was ok... none of them seemed to be right, though. When I got back, the first thing I did after leaving Dumbledore was to go look for you, to tell you I was back. But I couldn't find you, so ended up going straight to transfiguration. When you weren't there, I thought you'd left maybe, or he'd gotten you too... then you walked in late, and I was so ashamed of not writing to you... but Harry was still alive when I got out, I'm sure of it..."
Hermione turned and walked back until she was almost at the desk. She took her wand and brought the chair around until she could sit down. "I missed you, you know... and it was my fault that you were taken anyway. It was my idea to go to Hogsmeade, and it was my idea to stay there later, when you two both wanted to go back early... Ginny hasn't spoken to me since, so it was like I lost all of my friends in one go - only Fred and George didn't blame me, and I don't even know why! They should've, they had every right to..."
Feeling a sudden need to burst into tears, she looked away. Ron walked closer, shortening the distance between them until he was so close, he could sense the amount of energy she was using to stop from crying. "Hermione, it wasn't your fault. It could have happened to anyone - remember what happened when Harry decided to let Wormtail live? He blamed himself all through fourth year, remember, and through those holidays... but it wasn't his fault. None of it was - it just happened. And us being taken... by whoever, or whatever it was... is just one of those things. It was going to happen..."
Hermione turned to look at him, the familiar freckled face, and red hair, and found she couldn't hold back her tears. Sobbing, she pulled him into a hug, and for once, he knew what to do. In the past, when she'd hugged him, he'd been almost too willing to let her go, but now... now it seemed right.
When she finally calmed down, and stopped crying, time seemed to fly. Eventually, when she dared to check the time, she was shocked to find it was near dawn. "Ron... we've been talking all night... you should have been in bed ages ago... you need your sleep!"
He shook his head, laughing. "I'll be fine. It's only potions catch-up with Snape anyway, and it was all so easy last time. We're up to Combustion Potions, and they're meant to be easier than Icecubis ones, so I'll be right. It won't take long at all."
Hermione looked at Ron, trying to see if he were joking. Obviously, he wasn't. "Combustion Potions? But we didn't cover those until the end of fifth year! You can't have caught up that fast... could you?" Ron shrugged. "I can't explain it myself, but everything seems so simple to me. I skipped a whole term's work in transfiguration because it was so simple, and Snape's really riled about me being about to do all these potions so quickly. The only lessons I'm not ahead of schedule in are ones that don't require magic - History, and Divination, and Herbology. Even Care of Magical Creatures is simpler then ever - at least I missed out on facing the Manticore!"
Hermione made to say something else before remembering the time and shooing Ron back to the Gryffindor dorm, returning to the study room to clean up a bit before school started.
She moved the folded blanket from the side of the couch, and put it back on the seat. Her wand was sitting on the edge of the desk and she picked it up. Remembering Malfoy's comments from earlier about it being better as a bed, she smiled to herself. Maybe he was right...
A/N: Ok.. So now I've finally caught up to where I was... I've got a fair bit of typing to do now, to get this damn thing finished... and hopefully I'll get a few more scenes thrown in for all you peoples who claim to be over 18... hmm... I wonder how many of you actually are? R&R pls! Mini Draco's still up for grabs!
