Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, they are the brilliant works of the marvelous J.K.Rowling. I also do not own Coldplay or To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.
CHAPTER 18
The next morning Hermione woke up on the couch alone. She was still in her bikinis but found that there was a rug spread over her. It had the Slytherin crest in the top corner, and it made Hermione feel strangely safe. She wondered where Draco had gone and what time it was. She rolled off the couch and into her room to get dressed. As Hermione reached the common room door to go to breakfast, she spotted something sparkly hanging from the knob on the door. As she got closer she recognised it to be the necklace Draco had given that she had given him back after the 'incident'. Although it brought back some bad memories for her, she felt she owed it to Draco to wear it as a sign that everything was ok between them again. She put the necklace on before she left the room and headed to the Great Hall.
That day in Muggle Studies they were handed back their gun assignments. Hermione of course got an A, having grown up in the Muggle world and knowing a lot about guns from television and so on. Harry got an A, the same as Ron, and Draco scored a C-. Probably because he spent the whole lesson flirting with Hermione and hardly listened to a word the teacher said. Even without Hermione, he probably still wouldn't have listened. He was – until recently – anti all things 'Muggle' and regarded the whole subject with contempt. When Hermione flashed her A+ across the room at Draco, he put on a 'good for you' look. Then he triumphantly flashed his C- and the giggled. Harry and Ron still had no idea how he could appeal to anyone, but for Harry at least, he wanted to be happy for them. He did trust Hermione's judgement and therefore he reasoned Draco couldn't be that bad. Ron however had been rather cold to Hermione since he found out they were back together.
It wasn't that Hermione didn't care about Ron's feelings. It was just that she didn't want him to get in the way of her happiness, and he had had the past 6 years to ask her out if he liked her so much. Little did she know he had tried. Despite the fact that the whole school knew they were a couple, Hermione still tried to be as discreet as possible. The couple did not sit together in classes and did not often show public signs of affection. Though she did not tell anyone, their relationship was this way because she did not want to upset Ron more than she had to. She was also worried how the other Slytherins would treat Draco, and so they tried to seem as detached as possible.
Though Hermione was deliriously happy, the thought that Draco might have tried to commit suicide still trouble her. Being such a caring person, she was determined to get to the bottom of it and try to get him to open up about it. She hoped that she was right and that there would be nothing for him to open up about. She just had to think of a way to make it look like she figured it out on her own without the help of Madam Pomfrey. She could not understand the way the Mediwitch had acted but she was not going to betray her trust.
It took Hermione a few days to pluck up the courage to put her plan into action. She figured since he responded so well to the bath last time that she would try that again.
When Draco entered the common room one evening after his night patrol, he found a not on the coffee table infront of the fireplace. The note read: Care for a swim? I'm upstairs… waiting. He had barely finished reading the note when he pulled his shirt off over his head and threw in on the couch. His pants came off on the stairs and his socks at the top of the landing. He entered the bathroom at a run and literally jumped into the bath. Hermione was relieved that he was in such a good mood.
"You haven't even been in here for 5 seconds yet and my bathroom is already all wet!" Came a playful voice from somewhere within the bubbles. Hermione's head appeared in the froth.
"Plus, you could have killed me since you couldn't actually see where I was" she added, pretending to be hurt. He swam toward her and cupped her face with his right hand.
"Sorry" he said before kissing her softly on the lips. She wrapped her arms around his muscular abdomen and they bobbed up and down for awhile in the centre of the enormous 'bath'.
"So how was your day?" She asked him as they danced in the water.
"It was ok. Pretty boring really. Oh that's right, I have something to thank you for." He smiled.
"Oh, and what would that be?" She asked rather curiously.
"Well, now that the school knows we're going out, Pansy has left me totally alone. It's great." His face beamed and she smiled in amusement. This was her chance. She adjusted her features to a look of worry. It would not take him long to notice and ask her what was wrong. Then she would tell him what was 'on her mind'. Sure enough, he picked up on it straight away and asked her what was bothering her.
Hermione paused before she spoke. Though he was her boyfriend, she knew well that she was stepping into dangerous territory by broaching the subject, and she wanted to choose her words carefully.
"It's just…" He looked at her to go on.
"I can't stop thinking about a few weeks ago. When I found you unconscious in the common room…" Her eyes started to fill with tears and she was shaking. While the image still upset her and her emotions would make her look more sincere, she was crying from nerves more than anything else. He tried to change the subject.
"Oh, don't worry about that! I'm fine now, aren't I? Try not to think about it, it was nothing." HE looked uncomfortable, but Hermione pressed on.
"But what happened? What did Madam Pomfrey say?" She got the feeling that she was getting close to crossing the line.
"Nothing. She didn't know. That stupid old bat doesn't know anything. She's completely hopeless." His tone was harsh and his sentences choppy. She tried one last time.
"You can tell me Draco. You know you can tell me anything. Were you depressed?" As soon as the words slipped out of her mouth she knew she had gone too far. She had given it away that she knew too much. In a split second there was a fire in his eyes like nothing she'd ever seen. His grip on her suddenly became tight. She tried to pull away but his grip was unyielding. Now she was frightened. He put his lips close to her ear and hissed,
"You went to see her, didn't you? What did she tell you, huh?" He repeated the question, at a yell this time.
"WHAT DID SHE TELL YOU?" Hermione was speechless. She hardly knew what to say.
"I… I didn't. No - no one told me anything. I don't know anything, I – I swear."
"You stupid lying bitch! You think you can lie to me?" Hermione took it as a rhetorical question but he was serious.
"DO YOU?" Now he was really yelling.
"N-no. I'm not lying." Hermione sobbed. She was petrified, but there was nothing she could do but answer his questions and try not to aggravate him further. Without warning, he grabbed the hair at the back of Hermione's scalp and plunged her head beneath the water. She was taken so by surprise she didn't have time to take a breath and swallowed a mouthful of water in shock. He was holding her firmly under the water. After what was only a few seconds - but to Hermione felt like forever – Draco wrenched her head violently back to above the water. She gasped for breath and tried in vein to cough the water from her lungs. He got in close to her ear and yelled at her and whispered menacingly,
"No one finds out about any of this. Any of it. Is that clear?" Between coughs she was trying to say 'yes' but she could not make a sound.
"I can't hear you!" Draco dunked her back under the water again, without warning. Once again Hermione fought against him but he was too strong for her. She was overcome with weakness and couldn't see that she was going to get past his rage alive. He brought her back up to catch her breath and he asked again,
"DO YOU UNDERSTAND?" Determined, Hermione manages to squeak a small,
"Yes". Seeing that he was about to dunk her again she said louder,
"YES". This seemed to satisfy him.
"Good." Was all he said before he violently let her go, thrusting her backwards in the water and leaving the bathtub. He did not storm out, just casually walked as though nothing had happened.
It was a broken, petrified Hermione that was left in the bath. She managed to make her way to the side and cling to the edge. She stared wide-eyed into space, reliving the whole event in her mind. She stayed there for a long while, and eventually, she shakily got out of the bath and closed and locked the door. She sunk to the floor of her bathroom remembering all too clearly that she had done this once before. She broke into sobs and whimpered softly to herself. How could she have gotten herself into this mess? How could everything have been so perfect one minute, and a total disaster the next? She was completely shattered and humiliated. Everyone had been right. Harry, Ron, Madam Pomfrey. They had all warned her about him but she hadn't listened. Her Draco - the one she fell in love with? - was decaying before her eyes. Crazy, violent and dangerous Draco was starting to show, and little did Hermione know it, but he wasn't done yet.