A/N: Whew, Alianne, you do test my knowledge. :happy: Nice to know there are reviewers out there thinking about what's going to happen. I'd love to answer your questions (if I can…!), so look for a few answers at the bottom! And to everyone else, I know this chapter is really…weird. I kinda didn't really know what to put in it! But I think it turned out okay, hope you all enjoy!

CHAPTER 12: Painful Dreams

Hermione went to bed very satisfied. Ginny was no longer blackmailing her, they were friends again, and Draco was with her. She could be getting rid of Ron tomorrow, and she had finished much of her homework for the next two weeks.

Upon waking, Hermione stretched happily and dressed with a smile on her lips. Everything was going really well for her right now. Humming to herself, she packed her book bag and fairly skipped downstairs to breakfast. She ignored Ron's empty seat next to him, giving him an I-hope-you-don't-mind look and sitting next to Ginny, whom she talked to the whole time.

A note came by owl telling her that her detention this week was to be served grading Professor Vector's Arithmancy homework. She sighed. Arithmancy was her hardest class. Well, the note only says for this week, Hermione reflected. It'll be something new next week, probably.

She finished her breakfast and hurried out to Herbology. They spent the first period removing seeds from the ears of drawlish pixies, a task harder than it should be because the pixies did not like their ears to be touched. When Harry and Ron joined them for the second period, they potted the seeds. As soon as they were watered, a strange blue-striped violet plant sprouted, and Professor Sprout explained how the seeds that would come off of this plant were used in sleeping draughts.

Speeding past Harry and Ron she and Ginny caught up again during lunch. This time, though, conversation became serious as they began to discuss how she should break up with Ron. They agreed sadly that when he pulled her aside after dinner she should break it off then, and then just go early to detention.

Ginny walked Hermione to her next class (Charms), where Harry and Ron overtook them and Ginny left to get to her own class.

Hermione was glad that after Charms she had Ancient Runes while Harry and Ron had double Charms. She wouldn't have to sit there with Ron again, knowing she would break his heart right after dinner. She was beginning to feel nervous about the whole thing, but when dinner came and went, she took a deep breath and steeled herself as Ron took her hand and pulled her off to the side.

She looked up at him and said, her voice deceptively steady, "Ron, I want to break up." His jaw dropped, and he ran a hand nervously through his hair. He looked dazed.

"Wh—what?" he stuttered.

"I think we should break up," she said.

As if his brain wasn't quite connecting to what was happening, Ron said, "But why?" It killed her to see the tears in his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Ron. I only like you as a friend," she said softly. He blinked in confusion, and she gave him a quick hug and a peck on the cheek before leaving.

Hermione's hand was raised to knock at the door before someone pulled her into a closet. Frightened, she pulled her wand and turned to look at her unknown captor. "Draco," she breathed, replacing her wand.

"So is it done?" he said cheerfully.

"Yes, but…oh, Draco," she said, pulling him into a hug. She didn't let go for a long while, and when she did, he looked confused.

"What's wrong?" he asked her.

"Draco, I just broke up with him," she said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, so now we can be together. What's the problem?" Hermione sighed, suspecting he wouldn't understand even if she did her best to explain it. Though he wasn't the cold, heartless Draco Malfoy she had known before he obviously had never had his heart broken.

Or felt pain when he had broken someone else's.

But as he held her close, she wondered why he wasn't the old Draco anymore. With a sudden rush of understanding, she realized it wasn't him that had changed, not really. He had molded himself to fit her new status. And it would appear that he had grown to like her for her, not just for her role as the Dark Lady. But the change, it seemed, was only for her to see. To everyone else, he was the same git he had been before. She thought back, remembering the few encounters she had watched of him with other people. He was still the same person to them, though, if she thought about it, he had been a little softer around the edges, and his insults had become less (though he replaced all the insults with vicious sneers).

He had changed to fit his queen, but she was the only one who would ever be able to view the beauty of the change.

She too had changed, and she knew it.

She lifted her head so that he could kiss her, and he quickly dispensed her of her previous thoughts, which is what she had been hoping for.

Slightly mussed, Hermione stumbled into Professor Vector's office. He pointed to a stack of papers and handed her a quill, pointing out a sheet of parchment that listed what he was looking for in the essays. She settled in the chair behind the desk and got to work.

The words were blurring before Hermione's eyes before she was allowed to go bed. Even so, she lingered in the hallways, not wanting to see Ron in the common room and view the hurt in his eyes. She was thankful when she walked in through the portrait that there were only a few people there, and Ginny jumped up immediately to draw her over to a vacant corner, where they talked for about fifteen minutes about how Ron had taken the break up.

"He wanders around as if in a dream. I think that's what he hopes it is," Ginny confided in her. Nodding in dismay, Hermione executed a jaw-cracking yawn, and Ginny laughed and urged her to go to bed. Hermione fell asleep almost instantly.

The rest of the week passed rather quickly, and Hermione was surprised at how soon Friday came. The Halloween feast was, as usual, wonderful, and she spent much time with Ginny and sometimes Harry during the week. Ron couldn't seem to get up the nerve to talk to her, and had looked miserable all week, which made Hermione sad whenever she looked at him.

During the feast, Draco met her eyes across the room. A gray eye disappeared under a slow wink, and he tilted his head to the door. Instantly, Hermione began to work herself into a fake sickness. Draco left right away, but she waited for nearly fifteen minutes, at first slowing her eating, then taking a disgusted look to her face before looking all-out sick. After holding this last stage for a few minutes, she excused herself to go to bed, and no one questioned her.

She met Draco right outside the doors. He kissed her cheek, then took her hand and led her up to the seventh floor. The Room of Requirement was already there, with the door slightly ajar so it wouldn't disappear. Before she could glimpse anything, Draco covered her eyes with his hands and guided her in, closing the door behind them. "Happy Halloween," he whispered, giving her shivers and taking his hands down.

"Oh, Draco," she said excitedly. The room was a cozy little place rather like the Gryffindor common room, but draped in greens, silvers and blacks. There was a fire crackling in the fireplace, and a small mahogany coffee table between the fire and a black loveseat. Taking her hand, he pulled her over to the small sofa, and sat down on it. Now that she was closer, what she had mistaken for an ornate piece of glass in the center of the coffee table was a silver-wrapped present.

"That's for you," he said, indicating the gift as he stretched out.

Hermione looked at it in dismay. "Draco, I didn't…"

He hushed her gently and pulled her down to him to kiss her sweetly. "Yes, you did," he said. "You gave me your time." She began to protest again, and he leaned over her legs and took the present, handing it to her. Hermione sat down on the edge of the couch, and he curled himself around her and supported himself with one arm to put his chin on her shoulder. With shaking hands, she unwrapped the book and put it on her knees before she could drop it.

"Draco," she said worriedly. "I can't accept this. There are only fifty copies of it in the whole world." It was a book, a wonderful, horrendously rare text that had been written by Merlin himself. Merlin had made the fifty copies himself, and then had put anti-duplicating charms on every single one of them. Currently the fifty were scattered across the globe, and the Ministry of Magic had lost track of them over the years, which was a shame.

"I know," he said, kissing her ear. "I want you to have it."

"Draco, I really really can't," she said. She couldn't. She just couldn't take a book as rare as this.

"Hush," he said, kissing her neck tenderly, "My mum owns another copy. This one's mine, I'm free to do with it as I wish. And I want you to have it." With shaking hands, Hermione put the book back on the table, not wanting it to get blemished, before she turned to Draco, who was chuckling. "It has several spells on it to keep it from being damaged, you know."

"I don't know what to say, Draco," she murmured.

"Then don't," he said, kissing her. "Besides," he said, a mischievous twinkle in his eye, "It's not every day that Hermione Granger doesn't know something. We can take a minute to let it sink in," he joked. Grinning, she smacked him lightly on the shoulder.

"Just for that, I'm not going to kiss you all night," she said haughtily, putting her nose in the air.

"Really now?" he asked, and she could tell he was going to make her eat her words. "Even if I do this?" Draco breathed softly on her neck before he kissed it, giving her chills. He worked his way up to her ear and nibbled it gently before he kissed that too. Returning to her neck, he gently kissed it until she began to grow frustrated. She watched herself fall into a pleasurable malleability, and felt her will begin to melt. Draco wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her away from the edge of the sofa into his lap. He ruthlessly kissed her neck until she finally just turned around and kissed him.

Laughing, he pulled away, feigning confusion. "I thought you said you weren't going to kiss me?"

"Oh, shut up," she growled, pulling him down to her to kiss him.


The feast was over, and everyone went up to bed. Ginny desperately wanted to sneak away, but knew she couldn't until everyone thought she was asleep. She clambered into her bed until her roommates had shut off their lights and then slipped down to the common room.

"So how's it coming?" the whisper sounded like Harry's voice while he climbed up the boy's staircase.

"It's going really well," Ron's voice whispered. "We may be able to have it in time for the ball."

"That's excellent," Harry said, and then the voices faded too much for Ginny to hear and she smiled at their conversation. They were planning to pull a prank at the ball. She wished slightly that they would have included her in on the plan, but figured she had better things to be doing right now. She cautiously poked her head into the common room and was elated to see no one else was in there.

Pulling her cloak tighter around her, she slid out of the common room and into the hallway. The Fat Lady mumbled sleepily to herself, and Ginny felt a pang of guilt for when she woke up the portrait later. Shrugging it off, she glided down the halls until she reached the one she was looking for.

Ginny knocked quietly at the door. It opened at her touch, and she walked in, shutting it with a soft click behind her. A fire was burning low in the hearth, and she looked around to find Orlando asleep on his couch. She smiled softly at him: he had been waiting up for her and had fallen asleep.

She poked around his quarters cautiously, searching for a blanket to cover him up with. One door opened up to his room, and though curious, she shut it without going in. Going to the other door, she found a pantry…only one other door (besides the bathroom, but she already knew which door that was). Opening it, she found what she had wanted: a hall closet. She gently shifted through the things until she found a cozy little blanket.

After draping the blanket over his sleeping figure, she kissed his forehead gently. He looked so much younger in sleep, just like a little child. It made her want to curl up next to him, but she knew she couldn't. Sighing gently, she glanced over at the fire, now just a layer of embers on the bottom of the fireplace. She banked it so that he wouldn't get cold and then left, shutting the door behind her.

Ginny ghosted back up to her room, and ignored the Fat Lady's indignant squawks of annoyance. She went to sleep with a gentle smile on her face and the image of her love sleeping peacefully with firelight on his face.


In the morning, Hermione did something she had been meaning to do for a while. She sat down and penned a letter to Lord Voldemort. After much editing, her final letter was:

I am sorry, Father, and I know it was wrong to bring a guest the other night. I should not have done so, and am ashamed at my lack of forethought. But there is something I would like to ask you, and I want you to seriously consider this before you say yes or no. Can you admit Draco Malfoy into your inner circle? I hope you will say yes, because I wish for him to accompany me to all of the meetings, for walking to and from the castle is boring without his company.

I eagerly await your answer.

Your daughter

With shaking fingers, she folded it up and sealed it. Now she just needed to ask Draco for the use of his owl. She left the common room and went down to the hallway down to the dungeons and hid herself in a closet with the door slightly ajar so she could see people passing. After nearly an hour, she began to grow impatient—breakfast would end soon. But then finally she saw the familiar blonde come down the hall.

She shouldered the door open right in front of Draco's face and dragged him into the closet. "Draco, I need to use your owl," she said. He rubbed his shoulder where it had hit the wall.

"Don't need to kill me to ask for it," he grumbled.

Standing on tiptoe to get to his height, she kissed him on the lips, and was startled when he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer. The kiss was more prolonged than she had originally meant it, but that didn't matter, and she pulled away to breathe smiling. "Is that better?" she whispered.

"Yes," he breathed. "I'll get my owl, meet you right back here in five minutes." With that, he left, and Hermione sat on a box in the darkness. In what seemed forever (but must've only been five minutes) he was back. She tied the letter to the owl's leg, and it ruffled its feathers as if irritated and nipped at her. Draco took the bird and held it behind his back as he leaned forward to give her a parting kiss. "Bye. I'll see you around." He caressed her cheek and tugged on a curl before leaving her alone in the dark again.

Hermione waited nearly ten minutes before dashing to breakfast in time to snatch a single piece of toast. Smirking in a self-satisfied fashion, she went back into the Entrance Hall to see a sudden influx of people in the minute she'd been in the Great Hall. "What the…?" she murmured under her breath, and then she realized what it was.

Hogsmeade was coming to Hogwarts. Hermione grinned and dashed upstairs to get her money purse, she needed a new quill and some more parchment for her classes.


Voldemort sat behind his great desk and contemplated the letter in front of him. It was from his daughter, and it was asking him to include her little—he sneered—friend into his inner circle.

The most shocking thing was that he was actually considering it. He knew he shouldn't, but the beseeching tone that had melted into her handwriting got to him. The Malfoy boy hadn't done anything remotely worthy of being included into his inner circle except for having his parents and the whatever-it-was (respect? what exactly was between them?) of his Chicklet.

My Hermione, he corrected himself mentally to avoid attachment, and then flinched. "No," he said aloud. "No names, pet, real, or other. She is merely my tool."

He picked up the letter and set it down indecisively. He really didn't know what to do about this. It would gain her favor if he did and she would be less likely to rebel. If he didn't, she would probably be angry with him and may even be defiant enough to bring him anyway. Of course, if he allowed the boy to come, he would also be privy to Lord Voldemort's most secretive plans.

But if he didn't, who knew what Hermione—my tool, he corrected lazily—would do. The Malfoys would certainly be happy, not that they mattered, but it may prompt Lucius to do the task that he was asking of him.

Setting his jaw defiantly, he grabbed his quill and wrote a reply.


That evening, Hermione found Draco's eagle owl on her bed. It snapped its beak at her fiercely, as if annoyed at making it wait so long. Recognizing the plain envelope, she ripped it open eagerly, then looked around the room. Good, no one else was there. She quickly scanned it, then dropped it onto the bed, unsure of what to make of it:

Convince me. I have several ideas of negative effects of granting your request, such as angry D.E.'s who could not make it in no matter how hard they tried, him being privy to my most private plans. It would undermine my authority if I bent merely to your wish.

Or if you could find some way for him to be here but be unseen then make arrangements. It would be best that way.

Father

Hermione's head swam. Convince him? She had no idea even where to begin. Draco hadn't really done anything to be worthy of inner circle status. She couldn't just say, 'He carries me up to bed when I faint or if I'm hurt,' that wouldn't get her anywhere. Voldemort didn't understand feelings, so she couldn't just write a heartfelt letter.

Gnawing on her nails, she reread the last paragraph. Some way to not be seen…an idea was beginning to blossom in her mind. She grabbed a spare piece of parchment and wrote:

Usual place. Midnight.

D.L.

She tied it to the owl's leg and said, "Go on back to Draco now, and give him the letter." It hissed at her on its way out, and she rolled her eyes. Boy, did that owl have attitude.

The rest of her night was spent under a pile of homework. Harry and Ron came in late, wet, muddy and grinning from quidditch practice. She smiled at them in return, and was glad when Ron gave her an uneasy smile, which she returned warmly. They came down and played a few games of wizard's chess. Halfway through their last game, Hermione finished her homework and put her stuff away, settling between the two boys to watch them.

Ron won the game with a yawn, which caught all around. Harry and he congratulated each other and then claimed sleepiness and went to bed. Hermione went to her dormitory too and got into her P.J's, crawling into her bed to read the book Draco had given her. She was asleep before long without meaning to.

A niggling feeling of unease woke Hermione up. She looked over to her clock. It was half an hour past midnight. She calmed herself down and put her book onto her nightstand, clicking off her light. She rolled over to go back to sleep when she remembered Draco. Like a shot, she was out of bed immediately and running barefoot down the hall to the Room of Requirement. Draco was just leaving, and looked over her attire dubiously as he opened the door back up and let her in.

"You okay?" he asked casually, obviously thinking she was but asking anyway.

Gasping for breath, she looked up at him apologetically. "I'm so sorry. I went up to bed to read and fell asleep."

Hermione was surprised when his look turned to one of concern. "Well, that explains your outfit," he said with a smirk. She looked down at herself and blushed. She was only wearing a small pair of shorts andhistank top. "You wear that to bed?" he said, tugging on the hem of his shirt. She blushed and nodded, not looking at him.Then he said in a concerned voice, "You obviously were tired. You should've just gone back to sleep," he said, pulling her into a hug.

"No, I needed to talk to you. Do you have an invisibility cloak?" she asked. Absently, she realized it was the same room as last night.

"No, those are really rare," Draco said. "Hm…though now that you mention it, I should ask mum to get me one. That would be bloody useful to have."

"Yes, do ask. Because I talked to father, and he said that if you had some way of being invisible, you could come to the meetings!" she said happily, smiling up at him.

"You're so beautiful when you're happy," he told her huskily. Still grinning, she looked up into the swirl of emotion in his pale gray eyes. She felt an echoing surge of emotion in her heart and he leaned down slowly to give her a chaste kiss. "You're my little secret," he muttered in her ear as he nibbled it gently.

"Yes," she whimpered, nearly losing herself in his touch. "And you're mine." Grinning wolfishly, he plucked her off the ground and carried her over to the couch, where they curled up and just watched the fire.

It wasn't too long before the mesmerizing flames and comfortable bulk of Draco at her side put Hermione to sleep.


Draco had known exactly what would happen when he'd put Hermione on the couch and curled up around her. He had wanted her to fall asleep there. As she slept, he examined her. What is so special about her? What is it about her that makes me keep coming back? He traced a finger down her nose, across her lips. What about her is making me like her more than I have ever liked anyone else?

Why is she my secret? He wondered. Why is she even mine? She shouldn't be. "All you are is an ugly, filthy Mudblood," he whispered to her. But her features didn't change, and she even snuggled closer to him at the sound of his voice. "That's all you are, a plague on this land." He paused. "Why do you make me feel so much? Why are you doing this to me?"

Draco ran a hand through his hair in frustration, upsetting his perfectly slicked-back locks. "Hermione, I'm not supposed to have a heart. Why are you forcing me to have one?" He leaned over and brushed his lips across hers before settling down on his side next to her again, wrapping his arm around her.

"Oh, Hermione," he slurred sleepily. "I should get rid of you before you do anything else to me." He was silent for a long time, and then just before dropping off to sleep, he added, "But I think I'm going to keep you."


"All you are is an ugly, filthy Mudblood," Draco sneered at her for the hundredth time. But this time she nearly burst into tears at it.

"But Draco," she blubbered. "How…I thought you liked me? How could you turn on me like this?" She squirmed helplessly at his feet.

The walls of the room they were in suddenly began an outpouring of ropes from between the stones. They piled up on the floor, hung from the ceiling, and they all bound her up, keeping her motionless where she knelt. The ropes from the ceiling lengthened and wrapped around her head, pulling up her chin so that she would have to look at him. She sobbed and through her tears, she saw another girl enter the room.

The girl was beautiful, with long wavy blonde hair. She had brilliant green eyes like Harry's, and they were huge in her face. A pouty mouth, perfect body…Hermione was sickened and cried in despair as Draco pulled the girl close and kissed her passionately.

Hermione glared daggers at the girl, and suddenly there was a dagger, and it was poking out of her stomach. The girl clutched at it in disbelief, and then with a smirk drew it and plunged it into Draco's chest, laughing cruelly. Draco looked up at her, his beautiful gray eyes becoming foggy. "Why do you make me feel so much? Why are you doing this to me?" he asked the girl.

He shredded his shirt in an effort to get it off of him, and exposed the knife in his chest. Blood ran down his perfect skin, and he looked at Hermione in anguish and confusion. "Hermione, I'm not supposed to have a heart. Why are you forcing me to have one?"

Suddenly she understood, and she felt terrible. He wasn't supposed to have a heart, and it was all her fault that he was dying now. If she had let him stay as he was, uncaring and heartless, he wouldn't have one that could be pierced by the dagger protruding from his chest. Then suddenly he was at her side, and the knife was hard between them as he kissed her gently.

"Oh, Hermione," he slurred slightly in his pain. "I should get rid of you before you do anything else to me." He pulled the dagger out of his chest painfully, and held it up before her. He ran it across her cheeks, and then in a line down the center of her face, and then he held it at her throat, and she could feel it as a mercy strike, the same as she had done to Louis Frunge.

There was a huge pause, and she begged him to kill her, to hold her, to do anything to her, so long as it was something

And after a long period of time, he tucked the knife into the ropes binding her chest, so that she could feel the hilt thrusting into her throat whenever she managed to move her head. "But I think I'm going to keep you," he told her ruthlessly. Suddenly a metal cage came to surround her, just big enough for her body in the cramped position the ropes kept her in.

There was suddenly depression big enough to be a room in the floor in front of her. Draco walked down the steps on the side and settled himself on a throne in the center of the lower room, and looked up at her with his death-clouded gray eyes. Though it hurt to do it, she shifted her head down into the room so that she could meet his eyes. The hilt of the blade tucked into the ropes cut off most of her air supply, but to watch him was worth the pain.

Blood still oozed from his chest and his shirt was still in tatters. Their eyes were locked, and she could see nothing but the gray in his eyes. But then she blinked, and saw that it wasn't a throne he was sitting on, it was a bed, and the blonde girl from earlier was giggling in his ear, kissing his neck and exposed chest, licking away his blood…

And then he turned to her and kissed her back passionately, and the two of them made love that was blurrily seen behind Hermione's lashes and tears. The hilt of that knife was slowly killing her, and she could save herself if she could just look up again, but she couldn't look up, she was too captivated by Draco and the scene below her that she didn't want to watch. She knew it was over between herself and him, and it crushed her beyond words.

She died slowly, piece by piece as the dagger hilt suffocated her, and her depression from the loss of Draco smothered her, trapped in a cage made by her own Draco.

Hermione woke up with tears flowing down her cheeks, and the whisper of his name caught in her throat. Shaking, she looked around, confused by her surroundings. The Room of Requirement, she remembered, and then thought of her dream. It's the same room as the one in my dream. I don't know how I know, but I know. She shook violently, and seemed unable to stop.

Draco drowsily opened an eye, and then saw her tears and shot up, wrapping her in his arms immediately. "Are you okay, what happened?" he asked frantically, while he gently wiped her tears away. She shook in his grip, but after a while managed to calm herself.

"It was just a dream," she told him wearily. "Just a dream," she mumbled as they arranged themselves back on the couch. On her back, she stared at the ceiling while Draco positioned himself on his side next to her and wrapped his arm around her. He put his head on her shoulder, but she knew he wouldn't sleep until she did.

Her last thought before going back to sleep after staring at the ceiling for a long time was, Would I really be that broken up about a break up with him? We have only been together for…not even two weeks yet. Am I already that attached to him?


I'll keep you my dirty little secret

(Dirty little secret)

Don't tell anyone or you'll be just another regret

(Just another regret, hope that you can keep it)

My dirty little secret

—All American Rejects "Dirty Little Secret"


Alianne, your questions and answers: You first asked if I got the name Orlando from Orlando Bloom. That, actually, would be a no. He was more of an afterthought. That was more of a reference to Tad Williams' Otherland series (which I'm still trying to get through…!), and I kinda liked the idea of Orlando and Oliver Wood.

You asked how Draco and Hermione are going to be able to go to the Christmas ball together, when they have to keep their relationship secret and if she was going to disguise herself. The sad, pathetic truth is that I really have no idea how I'm going to write out that scene yet. I have some ideas for it, but I don't have a truly solid thought for that yet, so I'm still working on it. Hey, this chapter just ended on November 2nd (really early in the morning). I have time…ish…:blushes at lack of forethought:

Your last bit was asking if Hermione was really going to insist on having Draco come to all future meetings with the Dark Lord, and you were wondering if she was just saying that when she was emotional. "It just seems a bit extreme, considering how Voldemort will probably react." Well, yes, it would be a bit extreme. I think she was just trying to get her point across about how much she wanted him there. (:nervous: I really don't know myself, but I think she would.) I kinda addressed that in this chapter, but if you're still unclear about it, feel free to ask. :excited about getting questions she can answer from reviewers:

Ta ta, all! I'll try to get the next chapter out soon, but I really don't know what to put in it! Would anyone mind if I kind of just skimmed over most of November? :grumble:nothingmuchreallyhappensthenanyway:grumble: