My most abject apologies for the ridiculous delay in posting this chapter! It...probably will happen again.

Chapter 5: Talons

It was very difficult to concentrate in class, Draco discovered, with Hermione staring hard at his left ear at all times except when he looked in her direction. At first he wondered whether he was imagining things, but it quickly became obvious that he wasn't. Efforts to catch her eye proved an abject failure, and when he could stand it no longer, he tore off a bit of his parchment.

What the hell are you doing?

She gave him a quizzical look. He snatched back the parchment impatiently.

You're staring at me. At this, Hermione looked scandalized-but she also went crimson, which added to his bafflement. She scribbled something on the parchment and shoved it back at him.

I am not.

You are too.

Am not!

Are too. Hermione made an impatient sound in her throat and determinedly faced the front of the room for the rest of the lesson. The moment the bell rang she shot out the classroom at top speed, nearly knocking over Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott in the process. Draco stared after her, slightly dizzy, until Daphne poked him sharply in the arm.

"Oy," she said loudly. "Let's go."

"Right," he said vaguely. He allowed himself to be led to the Charms classroom, where the rest of their Housemates were already waiting outside. Pansy seemed very stressed about something, and Theo looked supremely bored.

"...dunno why you care," he was saying. "It all sounded like a load of nonsense to me."

"Death omens are not a load of nonsense!" snapped Pansy.

"I didn't say death omens were a load of nonsense, I said I don't believe she really saw one," said Theo impatiently. "Besides, Potter's been at Hogwarts as long as us, even she's got to know it's always something with him, hasn't she?" Draco glanced at Daphne, and they shared a grin. Hermione's odd behavior faded from his thoughts at the prospect of a piece of interesting gossip.

"What's that got to do with anything?" Pansy demanded.

"Well, if she really wanted to get our attention on the first day, of course it's his cup she'd pick, isn't it?"

"Theo!" cried Pansy, looking scandalized.

"What?! I didn't realize you cared so much for Harry Potter's health."

"I don't want anyone to die," Pansy declared.

"Had a good first lesson?" asked Draco nonchalantly, slipping between them. Theo stiffened slightly and edged away in what he clearly thought passed for a casual manner. Pansy, on the other hand, leaned closer and gave Daphne a very significant look. Daphne rolled her eyes, and Draco wondered, briefly, what bizarre event he'd missed this morning which made every friend he had act like idiots.

"Theo wants Harry Potter to die," Pansy announced. Theo looked as though he were considering smacking her around the head with his bookbag.

"He's not going to die, Pansy," he snapped.

"Everyone dies, eventually," said Draco flatly. Daphne snorted. Pansy opened her mouth, looking scandalized, but at that moment the classroom door swung forward of its own accord and tiny Professor Flitwick was ushering them into the room.

Draco tried with everything in him to pay attention to Flitwick, but once again, his friends made this extremely difficult. To his left, Pansy was staring daggers at Theo, who somehow managed to roll his eyes at her across Draco while determinedly avoiding even a glance in his direction. Daphne, meanwhile, kept nudging Pansy and giving her an annoying sort of mischievous grin. By the end of the lesson, Draco was thoroughly sick of them all. When the bell rang for lunch he shot out of the classroom without waiting. To his great relief, he found Hermione sitting alone at the end of the Gryffindor table, nose buried in her Arithmancy book.

"Have you finished behaving strangely?" he asked. Hermione barely glanced up from her book.

"If you'd just explain what you're on about, I'd really appreciate it," she said shortly. "It's been an awful morning, and I'm sorry, but I'm not in the mood for this." Draco stared at the top of her head for a moment, utterly taken aback.

"You could've just said 'no,'" he said flatly. "What's with you?" Hermione didn't look up, but turned her page so roughly that he was surprised she didn't tear it.

"I'm reading," she said stiffly. She didn't sound angry, Draco realized. No, unless he was gravely mistaken, she was excruciatingly anxious about something, but what?

"Are you all right?" he asked, softening his tone considerably. "I just-you seem...off, today."

"I'm perfectly well." Her eyes remained firmly on her book, this sent a flood of annoyance through him, tinged with something infuriatingly close to desperation.

"You're not," he countered. "You wouldn't stop looking at me in class, and now you won't look at me at all, so what is it?" He paused. "I haven't seen you since Diagon Alley, so I don't see how I could've-"

"For heaven's sake, Draco, not everything is about you," snapped Hermione. She closed her book with a dramatic thud and shoved it into her bag, trying without success to hide her scarlet face from view, and marched out of the Hall. Draco stared after her, stunned, for a few minutes before he remembered he was sitting at the Gryffindor table. Numbly, he picked himself up and, not really seeing an alternative, went to join his friends.

This proved to be a mistake almost at once. The moment he sat Daphne turned to him, a truly atrocious grin on her face.

"Draco, would you say-"

"Don't ask him, that's cheating!" cried Pansy, blushing furiously and attempting to cover Daphne's mouth with her hand. Daphne shrieked and swatted her away, sending an entire jug of milk into Blaise's lap in the process.

"Bloody fuck!" yelled Blaise, jumping up with an expression Draco might have found funny if he hadn't been so confused. He turned to Theo, who had scarcely looked up when the milk jug went flying.

"What the hell is with everyone today?" he asked. Theo shrugged, but didn't meet Draco's eyes.

"Dunno," he said flatly. Draco frowned, unsure whether he was more perplexed or annoyed.

"Why are you avoiding looking at me, then?" he demanded.

"You're too sensitive, Draco," said Theo dully, and without waiting for a response, he stood and swept regally from the Hall. On his other side, Daphne was apologizing profusely to Blaise, who looked ready to kill her, and Pansy was laughing so hard she couldn't support her own weight. Draco turned away from this spectacle, wondering whether he was losing his mind. Theo had been acting a bit distant since the Welcoming Feast, but Draco had supposed he was still preoccupied by the dementors. Now, however, he wasn't so sure; if it was the dementors, then why was Hermione behaving the same way?

You're too sensitive, Draco.

For heaven's sake, Draco, not everything is about you.

Well, what was it about, then? Quite suddenly, his mind flashed back to the horrible moment on the train, when the woman's-what? Ghost?-had struck him in the chest. Had she...done something to him? Marked him in some way which was making his best friends unable to look him directly in the eye?

He shook his head slightly. That was ridiculous. Obviously the woman had terrified him, but she hadn't really been in the compartment. He wasn't four, and there was no reason to allow his imagination to run away with him as if he were.

So why were Theo and Hermione acting this way? And, for the love of god, what could he do to make them stop?

The bell split the air overhead, and Draco nearly jumped out of his skin.

"What've we got next?" he asked Blaise, fighting to make his voice sound nonchalant.

"Care of Magical Creatures," said Blaise darkly. "Bet you ten galleons someone gets their head ripped off in that oaf's first lesson." Pansy laughed. Daphne scowled disapprovingly, but seemed to decide she couldn't argue with this. Draco groaned. The very last thing he needed this afternoon was whatever Hagrid would try and pass off as a lesson, and his misgivings only grew as they made their way outside onto the grounds and he spotted the Gryffindor third-years a few paces ahead of them. Not only would he have to endure Hagrid's teaching, he'd have to do it with Hermione pretending she wasn't treating him like a leper.

Hagrid was standing in front of his hut, waving them along as they approached.

"C'mon now, get a move on!" he called. "Got a real treat for yeh today!" Draco, who seriously doubted this, scanned the class and spotted Hermione standing a bit off from Potter and Weasley. She and Weasley appeared to be glowering at one another, and she hung back a bit when Hagrid began leading the class away from his hut. Seeing his chance, Draco caught up to her.

"I take it back, you're not acting strangely," he said in an undertone. "Are we all right now?" Hermione jumped as though he'd struck her, then took a deep breath as if to steady herself.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you," she said softly. Draco felt a smile come unbidden to his face.

"Oh, thank god. I was going to have to-" he broke off, realizing that Hagrid was beginning to lead them toward the forest. Draco hadn't been within fifty feet of the Forbidden Forest since that unspeakable night in their first year, and it would take a hell of a lot more than Hagrid's lesson to make him consider entering it again. Unconsciously he seized Hermione's hand and squeezed, but to his enormous relief, Hagrid simply led them into a small paddock just at the edge of the trees. The moment they'd stopped, Hermione wrenched her hand away, blushing furiously again. She opened her mouth as if to say something, then shook her head frantically and rushed back to Potter's side. Draco felt as if he'd been kicked in the stomach. What the hell was going on?

"Everyone gather 'round!" Hagrid was saying. "Righ', firs' thing yeh'll want ter do is open yer books…" There was a pause as the class exchanged anxious looks.

"How?" asked Draco. He heard the edge in his voice, but he didn't particularly care. Hagrid looked at him as if he'd asked how to conjure a salamander from thin air.

"Eh?" Draco rolled his eyes.

"How do we open our books?" he repeated. To illustrate his point, he removed the snarling book from his bag, holding it by the rope that bound it shut. There was a pause as other people followed suit, looking expectantly up at Hagrid.

"Hasn'-hasn' anyone bin able ter open their books?" asked Hagrid. The class shook their heads.

"Yeh've got ter stroke 'em, o' course," said Hagrid, as though this were the most obvious thing in the world. He took Hermione's copy and ran a finger along its spine. The book shivered, then fell open and lay quietly in his hand.

"Of course, how stupid we've all been," Draco muttered to Blaise, as they opened their books. "Why didn't we guess?" Blaise snickered, but unfortunately, he wasn't the only one who'd heard.

"Shut up, Malfoy," snapped Potter. Draco could've punched him, but he settled for a sneer and a very rude hand gesture, which Potter returned.

"Ooh!" squealed Lavender Brown from the front of the group. She pointed, and as the class followed her finger, Draco felt his stomach drop. Hagrid was leading a dozen hippogriffs toward them across the paddock, each attached to a long chain in his enormous hand.

"Whoa," muttered Theo, and Draco jumped slightly. He hadn't realized the latter had joined them.

"Now, firs' thing yeh've gotta know abou' hippogriffs is, they're proud," Hagrid told the class. "Easily offended, hippogriffs are. Don't ever insult one, 'cause it might be the last thing yeh do." Draco had no trouble believing this; the talons on the one nearest were half as long as his arm. The class listened apprehensively as Hagrid explained the process for properly greeting a hippogriff, and predictably, when he asked for a volunteer, everyone shrank back-with one notable exception.

"Good man, Harry!" roared Hagrid, clapping him on the back and nearly knocking him over in the process. Hagrid set Potter next to the gray hippogriff nearest the class, and Draco thought idly that he'd never seen him look so small. Potter bowed, and tense muttering broke out in the perhaps thirty seconds that followed; Hermione appeared to be gnawing on her fingernails, which Draco found highly annoying for some reason he couldn't have articulated if there was a knife to his throat. The creature bowed back-quite a few people audibly sighed with relief-and Hermione threw her arms around Potter the moment he rejoined the group. Draco felt a hot surge of something beyond fury course through him. He wanted to bash Potter's head in with a rock, but even more, he wanted to be the one Hermione hugged like that.

Hagrid set them into twos and threes bowing to the hippogriffs. Draco, Blaise, and Theo found themselves practicing on the gray hippogriff-Buckbeak, he was called-and Draco and Theo watched as the animal returned Blaise's bow and allowed him to stroke its beak.

"This is really easy," he said lazily. Draco eyed the hippogriff's enormous talons, and for no reason at all, he wondered what they felt like. Would it hurt immediately, or would the shock cover the pain for a few seconds like a particularly sharp knife? Would it burn afterward, or would it simply recede into a dull ache? Would it leave a scar?

For fuck's sake. He shook the thought from his head, but it came creeping back, insidious and pervasive and accompanied by another, much more appealing image: Hermione sobbing over his prone and bleeding body, hand cradling his cheek.

Easily offended, hippogriffs are. Don't ever insult one, 'cause it might be the last thing yeh do.

"Let me have a go," he told Blaise, shoving him nonchalantly aside and staring directly into the hippogriff's angry orange eyes.

"Draco, you've got to bow," said Theo behind him, and Draco took a surprising amount of pleasure in the anxiety in his voice.

"Relax, I bet it's not really dangerous," he said softly.

"Draco," snapped Theo, but Draco scarcely heard him.

"Are you? Are you dangerous, you great ugly brute?"

"Hagrid! Hagrid!" Too late. Draco didn't even see the talons move before he got the answer to his first question. It didn't hurt, he was simply very aware of the skin cleanly dividing, peeling away, exposing his insides to the air, and-now it hurt. Pain like he'd never imagined tore through him, and he tried to clutch his left arm but his fingers only made it worse, and now they were covered in a horrible warm, sticky substance he supposed was his own blood. He couldn't see properly, and the world spun nauseatingly around him, and then he felt himself hit the ground, hard. He couldn't piece together a coherent thought any longer, he was simply filled with the hot throbbing of the wound in his arm and the horrible, high-pitched sounds of chaos around him, and his head felt dull and heavy as a rock, and then great black splotches bloomed in his vision, growing until they obscured everything.

Draco was unconscious. Or maybe just asleep. Either way, he looked terrible. His skin, normally quite pale, was chalk white and the bandages around his left arm were soaked through from just below his shoulder to just above his wrist. Hermione had never realized, before this moment, how violently scarlet human blood really was. Madam Pomfrey had told her (rather gruffly) that he would be all right, but at this moment that seemed dubious.

"Draco?" she said softly. He didn't stir. She was seized by the unbelievably strong urge to brush his hair back from his face, and hot, irrational anger flooded her as she forced it down.

"Wake up, you idiot," she snapped, and this time, his eyes fluttered open. He stared blankly at her for a moment, as if unable to properly recognize her.

"You're looking at me now," he said quietly, and the barest hint of a smile flitted across his lips.

"That's why you did it, then?" said Hermione incredulously. Draco frowned slightly, and she realized his eyes were a bit cloudy, as though he were preoccupied with something else.

"I don't know," he nearly whispered.

"But you don't deny you did it on purpose," she said sharply. "Draco, that was-I don't even-my god, tell me you didn't do it on purpose!" She hated how high and frantic her voice sounded. Draco, however, ignored this.

"You said you had an awful morning," he said dully. Hermione was so taken aback that her anger wilted a bit.

"Er-what?"

"At lunch. You said it's been an awful morning, and then you said not everything was about me and then you ran off." Hermione couldn't see how Draco thought this was a more pressing topic for discussion than his mangled arm, but she was too exhausted to argue.

"Ron's not speaking to me," she said dully.

"You and I have different ideas of an awful morning." Draco did smile then, and for the first time that day, so did Hermione. He really was her best friend.

"Just because I don't think Harry's in any danger from a stupid dog," she went on, half to herself. Draco frowned.

"Dog?"

"Oh, this morning in Divination, Professor Trelawney claims to have seen some horrible death omen in Harry's tea leaves," she explained. "It sounds ridiculous to me, but of course half of Gryffindor believed it, including Ron, so now he's not speaking to me." Draco frowned, but after a moment his face cleared.

"I did tell you not to take Divination," he said lightly. She sighed.

"There's...a possibility you may have been right," she admitted. He grinned.

"D'you know, I've always dreamed of the day I'd hear you say those words." She laughed.

"I've said them before."

"You haven't. I'd remember." Hermione rolled her eyes slightly.

"Well, is this what you envisioned?"

"Yes," said Draco seriously. "This exactly. It's uncanny." They laughed, but almost at once Hermione remembered the next bit of her morning. She glanced down at the floor and bit her lip. She shouldn't tell him. After all, what if Daphne was right? Hermione wasn't sure she wanted to know, but on the other hand…

"What?" asked Draco. Damn. How long had she been staring at the floor?

"Er-nothing," she said quickly. Draco sighed.

"You could fry an egg on your face, it's not nothing," he said, a touch impatiently. Hermione took a deep breath, steeled herself, and raised her head. She opened her mouth to speak, but her tongue didn't seem to want to cooperate. Draco's expression softened.

"You don't have to tell me," he said quietly. "Just...please be my friend again." He looked so sweet and vulnerable then, and Hermione couldn't remember feeling more like a fool in her life.

"All right," she agreed, and drew herself up to her full height. "As your friend, what you did was really stupid, you could've gotten yourself killed, and if you ever do anything like it again I won't speak to you for a month." Draco gave her a crooked sort of grin.

"You wouldn't last a month."

"Don't tempt me," she retorted. He laughed, but after a moment he stopped abruptly and frowned.

"You were with me in Arithmancy this morning," he said matter-of-factly. Hermione swallowed her jolt of panic and managed to look suitably baffled.

"Yes. And?" Draco looked profoundly confused.

"What d'you mean, and? Arithmancy is on at the same time as Divination." She'd been wrong before-now she'd never felt like a bigger fool. What was she thinking, mentioning the stupid Divination lesson in front of Draco? Ron, she could handle-he'd probably already lost interest-but unless she played the next few minutes exactly right, Draco would never forget.

"You should probably get some rest," she said flatly. Draco looked at her as if she'd suggested he eat his own left arm.

"Hermione, what-I mean, are you telling me you're in two lessons at once?"

"Don't be ridiculous," she said at once, and mentally winced. That was one of the worst things she could've said. Sure enough, Draco rolled his eyes.

"I'm not being ridiculous," he snapped. "How could you be in two lessons at the same time?"

Hermione opened her mouth to reply, but was rescued as Madam Pomfrey bustled over, looking stern.

"Mr. Malfoy, I am glad to see that you are awake. Miss Granger, if you're quite finished, I need to see to Mr. Malfoy's arm."

"Yes, I am," said Hermione gratefully.

"No, she's not," said Draco at once. Hermione, however, stood with what she hoped was a mysterious shrug.

"Get back here!" he snapped.

"Enough!" said Madam Pomfrey sharply. "Out at once, Miss Granger! Mr. Malfoy, whatever you believe is so desperately urgent can certainly wait until you stop bleeding all over my bed linens!" Hermione didn't wait to be told twice. The moment the hospital wing doors closed behind her, an involuntary grin made its way across her face. Perhaps it could be fun, after all, keeping a secret. She'd need to be much more careful, though. Draco would never stop hounding her if he knew.

Draco was still annoyed with Hermione that evening, and now that he was over the shock, the pain in his arm was excruciating. It burned and throbbed endlessly, and he had to carefully avoid looking down at the blood-soaked bandages; his first accidental glimpse had made him feel light-headed and sick. Worse, he was thinking clearly now, and Hermione's words echoed inexorably through his head.

But you don't deny you did it on purpose. Draco, my god, tell me you didn't do it on purpose!

He couldn't, could he? Because he had. Something deep inside him, some weird bit of himself he'd never seen before, had told him to do it.

It was the woman on the train, hissed a voice in his head. There's something dark in you now, does that frighten you?

No. He'd imagined the woman on the train, dammit.

Or maybe excite you?

Shut up!

After all, she did look at you, didn't she?

Yes. She did.

Perhaps it was the pain, or the loss of blood, or perhaps it was simply some inexplicable miracle, but he slept deeply that night. When he awoke the next morning, he felt much better. He supposed the liberal amounts of dittany Madam Pomfrey had applied to his wounds had done its job-an experimental flex of his fingers proved a grave mistake, but at least the horrible throbbing, burning sensation had gone away.

"Good, you're awake." How Madam Pomfrey managed to appear out of nowhere like that was beyond him. "You're feeling better?"

"Er-loads, yeah," he said quietly. She nodded and yanked his arm up from the bed, examining the bandages carefully.

"You don't appear to be bleeding any longer," she said matter-of-factly. "If you can walk, you're free to go this morning. It's a very deep cut, so if it twinges for a week or two, consider it your comeuppance for playing with dangerous animals in lessons." He sighed slightly.

"Right."

"And, Mr. Malfoy, when you return to your common room, you're to write to your father. He's very...interested to know how you're getting on." Draco found this hard to believe, and besides, he didn't think he'd be doing any writing just yet.

"I don't think I can hold a quill."

"Have I overlooked some injury to your other hand?" Draco resisted rolling his eyes with difficulty.

"I'm left-handed," he said impatiently.

"Well, find someone to do it for you, then," said Madam Pomfrey, beginning to walk away. "He's not at all pleased you've been injured."

This didn't seem right. Draco knew-or at least, he was fairly sure-that his father would care if he were seriously ill or injured. He also knew that, when he was eight and broke his wrist and two of his ribs hitting a tree on his broomstick, he'd been in trouble for wasting his father's time. So why, suddenly, did a cut on his arm warrant special attention from his father? He wracked his brains as he made his way down through the castle for anything his father might have to gain from this incident, but by the time he reached the common room he'd found nothing. And, though the rational part of his mind was screaming for caution, he found that he didn't care. It was nice, knowing his father cared that he'd been injured. It made him feel, at least for now, as though he belonged to a normal family. Draco never felt as if he belonged to a normal family, and regardless of the cause, he was going to enjoy it.