CONTEST WINNER THIS CHAPTER: LookieWoo recommended the song, "Bleeding Love" by Leona Lewis for this go around (actually, she recommended it for Blaise-Ginny for their earliest chapter, but I couldn't make it fit with the theme of the story until now). So, this chapter is dedicated to LookieWoo - congratulations! Lyrics for that song appear at the bottom of this chapter. Hope you'll find this song somehow and give it a listen.
Remember, I'll accept song suggestions for each couple, as well as digitally manipulated images of live people and your original hand-drawn or digitally drawn fanart for this story up until the end of this fic is published. SEND ME YOUR LISTS OR ARTWORK to: rzzmg at yahoo dot com.
Remember: In this fic's universe, Voldemort was never resurrected in the 'Goblet of Fire' timeline. Voldy's spirit lingering inside Quirrell was permanently destroyed after the events of the Philosopher's Stone, and his only horcrux—the diary—was destroyed by Harry at the end of the Chamber of Secrets. Consequently, it wasn't Barty Crouch Jr. polyjuiced as Mad-Eye Moody (in this fic, Barty died in prison), but the actual Moody who taught D.A.D.A. during everyone's fourth year. However, because Moody demonstrated the three Unforgivable Curses in the classroom, he was deemed unfit to return to teaching by the Board of Governors, and was dismissed at the end of Harry's fourth year. Which was one of the reasons Umbridge was assigned by the Minister to the school during their fifth year (it was a move by Minister Fudge to win back political favour with voters. However, that plan backfired spectacularly when Umbridge was dismissed for the abuse of her power and the use of corporal punishment on the students, and as a result, Fudge lost the election to his political rival, Rufus Scrimgeour).
Thank you so much to my beta for this chapter, MikkaMimmi. You were inspirational in your suggestions!
PLEASE REVIEW!
CHAPTER TEN: REVELATIONS - PART I
Sunday, June 14, 1998
The knocking on their door was obnoxiously loud, and had an urgency to it that was impossible to ignore.
"For fuck's sake!" Draco growled. He interrupted what had been a hot kiss leading them straight towards heaven and stared at the door to their private room with bubbling fury. "The fucking castle had better be burning down!"
Hermione was just as frustrated as her partner, honestly. She was finally ready to cross all sorts of lines with Draco, eager for it even, and this interruption was unquestionably inconvenient and definitively unwelcome.
With a sigh, she tapped him on the shoulder to move off her. Obligingly, he did as she wanted, flopping over onto the mattress beside her with an exasperated growl.
"Do you want to get it, or shall I?" she asked, sitting up and staring at the exit.
He threw an arm over his eyes and grumbled. "Probably better if you get it. I'll just murder whoever it is."
"What, Azkaban's not part of your post-graduation plans?" she joked.
He snorted. "Malfoys don't do prison stripes, love. Besides, after next week's over, we're onto building our evil empire together, remember? And shagging. A lot. Everywhere. We'll be much too busy for jail."
She laughed. "Charming as a snake, as always." When the knocking came again at the door, reminding them of why they weren't doing such a thing now, the shagging that was, she bent down and his cheek. "Be right back."
His lips quirked. "Cock tease."
"Spoilt brat."
Before he could reply, the pounding at the door became decidedly more insistent. Someone outside badly wanted their attention, and Hermione's instincts were positive that it wouldn't be just to announce something as banal as a winner to the game.
She slid to the edge of the mattress and got to her feet. Then, conjuring a robe, she donned it. Synching the ties, she fluffed her hair and headed for the door, shoulders back and chin up. Whoever was on the other side would expect 'sex hair' anyway. That was the point of the game, after all.
She opened the door to find a panicked Teddy ready to give the wood another hammering. "You both have to come out, right now. Before the chimes ring," he said, glancing past her to Draco. "We've got trouble, mate."
"What's happened?" Hermione asked him, gripping the door's edge and digging her fingernails in for purchase. That sick, sinking feeling from last round's question phase was suddenly back...and stronger than ever.
"No time. The last chime's about to ring!"
He grabbed Hermione's arm and tugged her out into the main room.
"Hey!" she gasped, pulling back against his bruising hold. "Let go this instant!" she demanded, twisting her wrist to break Teddy's hold.
He was formidable, though, and resisted her attempts to make him loosen his grip. He only let her go once they'd reached the couches.
The final chime for the end of the round rang out.
Holding her injured wrist to her chest, Hermione scowled at Teddy. "What did you think you were doing?" she demanded of him.
Daphne smoothly stepped between them.
"I am sure Theo apologises for the rough handling, Miss Granger, but it was necessary to move you into the common area whatever it took, to prevent the game from ending," Greengrass explained, supremely calm and unflappable.
There was a hard look in her eyes and steel in her tone, however, that indicated her immense displeasure at something or someone. Hermione hoped that icy, barely-contained anger was not directed at her, for Slytherins were known for being vicious revenge-seekers.
"Okay. You have my attention," she replied, rubbing her wrist and glancing between Greengrass and Teddy.
Draco reached Hermione's side at that moment. He was bare-chested and without shoes, but at least he'd put his trousers on before appearing before the others. His fists were clenched and he was ready to launch himself at his best friend. Hermione restrained him with a hand on his arm.
"What? He fucking touched you!"
"There has been an incident," Greengrass stated, interrupting what would surely have been a nasty fight. "Miss Weasley requires immediate medical attention."
The tone of her voice brooked no argument on the matter, and it effectively shut down Draco's desire to brawl with his best friend to defend Hermione's honour. He paused, looking to his partner for her reaction to the news.
Hermione was taking the emergency seriously, that gnawing, black feeling inside her expanding, threatening to choke her. "Ginny's hurt?"
She glanced around Greengrass, noting the door to the room her best girlfriend and Zabini had been sharing was now wide open. Inside, other couples were gathered, talking in hushed voices, and underneath it all were the sounds of Ginny's moaning and her partner's attempts to soothe her.
"What happened?" she asked, already heading for the room.
Smoothly stepping between Hermione and her destination, Greengrass cut her off again. "The bleeding has stopped, for now. Miss Parkinson is quite adept at healing charms. However, we have a much more urgent problem to untangle, Miss Granger. It appears the passage out of this room has disappeared, and the house-elf refuses to answer our summons." She held up a blue Deeds card. "And then there is this to contend with as well."
"Bleeding?" Hermione's chest grew tight. "What?"
"Near as any of us can tell, she just started...you know, getting her period," Theo said, warily watching Draco for any sign that his best friend might decide to abandon his civility. "But, it was a lot of blood. Everywhere. It kept...um, gushing out, according to Brown. By the time Daph and I had gotten out here, Blaise had taken her back into his room and Brown had cleaned up the mess, while Finnigan kept firing spells at the place where the door used to be."
Hermione considered that, eyes trained on the card in Greengrass' hand, mesmerized by the artful pattern of Eros and Psyche embracing on the back.
"Where are Harry and Ron?" she asked.
"Mister Weasley is currently at his sister's side. I summoned him earlier, while Theo attempted to rouse you and Mister Malfoy. Mister Potter has not yet been disturbed. You were the priority."
"Why?" Reaching out, Hermione took the card from the other witch, but did not yet flip it around to read it. "Why was it so important that you get Draco and me out here first?"
Greengrass nodded to the item in Hermione's hand. "For the answer to that, you should read the card, Miss Granger."
Hermione turned the card around and read it once, twice. Her heart did a triple stitch under her ribs and that dark pit in her belly sank even lower.
THE FIRST MUST PLAY TO WIN OR ALL ARE CURSED TO LOSE.
"Draco, please go get Harry and Tracey. They need to be out here. Now."
She glanced over her shoulder at the blank space in the wall where Seamus was still trying out spells and looking for cracks to exploit. He would find none, she knew. Not until the one controlling their fates decided the game was over.
It seemed they were trapped, for now.
~.~.~.~.~
"So, you were right. The cards have been manipulating us all along," Tracey Davis mused, staring in fear at the inert deck of questions in the centre of the coffee table.
The witch's hair was mussed, she smelt of sex, and she was sporting a lovely set of too-kissed lips, but whatever fun she'd been able to eke out of her time tonight with Harry was surely about to end, Hermione thought. Which was a pity, because she'd never seen Harry happier, and if anyone deserved a shot at real love, it was her best friend. Merlin knew, he hadn't enough of it in his life, especially from those horrid Dursley people.
She glanced around at the others, noting the absence of Ginny and Zabini, who were still cloistered in their room. The others had all come out to her summons, however, and now sat as couples on the couches, clinging to each other. Fearful uncertainty infused the room, making everyone tense.
If Hermione's guess was correct, her friends had good cause to feel that way.
"It seems so, Tracey," she admitted, "and if I'm right…" She looked at each one of them, noting the unasked questions in their eyes and the anxiety stamped across their features. "First, I think you should know, I don't believe we're in the real Room of Requirement anymore, if we ever were."
Harry sat up. "Not the real room? What makes you say that?" He raised a hand to adjust his glasses in nervousness, only to remember at the last minute that he hadn't needed them since his surgery. He dropped the hand with a sigh. "This is going to be one of your famous logic leaps, isn't it?"
"Which always prove right," Ron murmured, concern etched into every line in his face. He wrapped an arm around his partner and drew her closer to him, as if snuggling with Parkinson could keep his uneasiness at bay. "Just saying."
"True," Lavender chimed in. "There's a reason she's the Head Girl."
Seamus chuckled around another honey-coloured lolly in his mouth. The man must keep a stack on reserve somewhere on his person, Hermione thought, for he was never without one. "Yeah, 'cause she's got a nose fer huntin' down trouble," the Irish added.
Feeling her cheeks heat from the bizarre praise her friends offered, Hermione cleared her throat. "Yes, well, thank you for the votes of confidence. That makes what I'm about to say easier."
She glanced at Draco, uncertain he was going to like what she had to say on the matter of their current circumstances, even if her Gryffindor friends would believe her. Slytherin loyalty, she'd learned during the course of the game, was subtle but strong, and Draco's had the added bonus of also being quite stubborn and somewhat volatile. Whether that was the influence of the cards upon him or innate, she wasn't yet sure, however, as the jury was still out. Either way, she knew she was in for a fight with him once she laid out her theory, because she was going to fundamentally challenge his friendship with a certain Madam before the night was over.
"It seems logical to deduce from the evidence provided that this isn't the real Come-and-Go Room," she began. "For one, the door would have appeared when at least one of us commanded it to."
"Even if someone else countered that command with a wish that the door remain hidden?" Lavender asked.
Hermione nodded. "Fair question. However, as we all remember from the year of Umbridge, the room has to obey the one who initially summoned it." She turned to Draco. "Ask it to open the door for us."
Draco turned his head and stared at the spot where the way out had once been. "Open the exit," he commanded.
Nothing happened.
"Let us out," he tried again. "I order it."
The stone wall did not shift or change in any fashion. It remained solid and impenetrable.
"Well, that's enlightening," Hermione said. "Definitely a box ticked off in favour. Let's also consider that the real Room of Requirement wouldn't be able to negate a house-elf's attempts to come and go through it. Their magic works on a different wavelength from human magic, and is more powerful in some aspects, especially when it comes to crossing human wards. Only commands by those they are bound to serve can restrain them." She turned to Harry. "Will you please try summoning Dobby," she suggested. "If he's able to, he has to answer you, as you're his—" She choked on the word and cringed at the idea. "—Master."
Harry did as suggested.
No house-elf 'poofed' into existence before them.
Her best friend tried phrasing the request several different ways, all with the same outcome.
"That's two epic fails." Hermione pointed out. "The final test: wind-up watches aren't affected by the Room of Requirement's magic, as you'll recall from our time hiding out here during fifth year. Old fashioned pocket watches were how we all knew when curfew was called. What time does your watch show, Harry?"
He fished for his wristwatch, which he'd taken off at some point and put in his trouser pocket. He pulled it out now and as he glanced at the dial, he frowned.
"That can't be right."
He held the watch up for the room to see the face. It showed both hands on the number twelve.
"It's not battery run, but a wind-up. How could it have shorted out?"
"It didn't," Hermione confirmed. "I doubt it's worked properly since the moment we stepped into this room last night. Draco, I believe you'll find your own watch is much the same. The passage of time as we believe it has been a lie." She glanced around, noting the room had no windows to show the outside skyline—another clue to confirm her theory. "Just like everything else about this place."
Checking out the ceiling far overhead, she noted its particular, bland whiteness. Why hadn't she noticed before that the entire main room matched that same, boring colourlessness—that 'white noise', for lack of a better term. As if the magic spell on the place only had so much energy to go around, and it didn't want to waste any of it on painting a room that was merely a stage prop...
"We're in a space that's mimicking the Come-and-Go room, but it's not the real thing," she pronounced.
"So, then, where the hell are we?" Parkinson asked, clearly agitated.
"My best guess? When we came here tonight as a group and we opened the door to the RoR we crossed directly from Hogwarts into a space in-between realities. Another dimension."
"Crossed over how?" Harry frowned at that. "I didn't feel any sort of Apparition or Portkeying sensation."
"Me, either," Lavender confirmed. "How could we have been moved without feeling it? And where would we have been transported to?"
Hermione turned to her partner and took his hand in hers. "What exactly did you ask for when you activated the room at the start of the game? Try to remember, word-for-word."
Draco glanced at Harry and then back at her. "I asked it for a secret space where we wouldn't get caught playing 'Eros & Psyche' by the staff or other students—a place no one else in the castle knew about. That's exactly the phrase I used."
Sighing, Hermione put a hand to her forehead. It was as she'd feared. The RoR had given him exactly what he'd requested. The magic on the place was quite literal, after all.
"You had the cards in your hand when you made that request, didn't you?" she asked him.
He frowned at her anxious reaction. "Of course. Potter and I were here to set up the room in advance. That included putting the cards in place."
Harry nodded in agreement. "Malfoy summoned the room, and when we opened the door, the couches and tables were already in here, as were the six privacy rooms. It looked then like it does now. We checked the place out, though, made sure there were bathrooms, lights, that sort of thing. Then we shuffled the four decks, and Malfoy put them on the table." He pointed to where the decks had lain all game. "After that, we hung out and waited for the rest of you to show up. I don't see how any of that could have transported us somewhere outside Hogwarts, though."
"I didn't say we were outside Hogwarts," she pointed out. "I said we were in an alternate dimension. A bubble space, that happens to be inside the castle, tucked away in the Room of Requirement, but is not actually the Room itself."
"You're confusing me," Davis admitted.
"And me," Pansy groused.
A round of agreements came from all except Draco, who remained oddly silent at her side. He watched her through a narrowed gaze, as if he actually followed her logic...either that, or he was reserving judgment until she'd explained her wild idea.
With a thought, she summoned a visual aide she thought would best represent their situation. It appeared in the centre of the table, for everyone to see. "These are Matryoshka, or Russian nesting dolls. I'm going to use these to explain things a little better." She pointed to the doll. "Now, let's say for argument's sake that this one represents Hogwarts." Reaching out, she removed the top of the doll. Inside was a second nesting doll lying in the hollowed-out middle. The second doll was smaller than the first, but painted exactly the same. She put her finger on the top of the second doll. "This is the Room of Requirement, inside Hogwarts." She removed the top of the second wooden doll, and inside it's abdomen was an even smaller version of the same doll—a third doppelganger, existing inside the others. "And this is where we are."
Everyone was quiet, considering her demonstration. It was Theo who eventually asked the one question on everyone's minds.
"And where is that, exactly?"
Hermione fiddled with the wooden dolls, hands shaking as the horror of their circumstances finally hit her.
She stared at the deck, seeing it for the first time for what it really was...
"When Draco requested the room give us a place that was not only secret, but more importantly that no one else in the castle knew about, he challenged the Room," she explained. "After all, most of us here know of the Come-and-Go room from the year of Umbridge, how it was both a rebellious sanctuary and a classroom to the student body during that year. Since then, what transpired has become the stuff of Hogwarts legend. I dare to say there isn't a student, teacher, ghost, portrait, or house-elf who doesn't know about this room now. Even the Ministry knows what transpired here that year. So, you see, the Room couldn't fulfill Draco's request as worded."
She glanced at her partner from the side, noting the narrowing of his eyes and the way his thoughts turned inward as he considered her hypothesis, mulling it over in that amazing brain of his. She wondered if he'd ever read the same books she had, the times she'd run into him in the Restricted Section...
"However, when he stood before the Room with the 'Eros & Psyche' cards in hand," she continued, "the Room found it's solution to the problem." She pointed to the cards on the table. "It created a door into the deck itself."
The conversation exploded.
Everyone began commenting all at once, talking over each other in debate. Hermione patiently waited them out, knowing the skepticism would eventually give way to the evidence.
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth", Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had once penned. The philosophy of Sherlock Holmes had served her well over the years here at Hogwarts, despite the awe-inspiring and occasionally unpredictable nature of magic. She didn't doubt now that once the emotional response to her theory was given time to be digested properly, the others would see there was really no other plausible explanation for their situation.
Tracey Davis, however, had no such patience.
She brought the arguing to an end rather quickly with a high-pitched, shrill whistle. "Please, you're giving me a headache!" she announced, pressing a hand to the side of her head and was rubbing it. "Just...let's allow Miss Granger a chance to further explain her ideas. And no more yelling, please. My head's about to explode!"
Harry was there for his partner in an instant, taking over the scalp massage and rubbing the muscles in her long, slender neck to ease the tension. With a relieved moan, Davis leaned back into him and closed her eyes.
The conversation took on a much more polite tone after that.
"So, basically, you're saying, we're inside the card deck," Lavender asked in a softer voice, seeking clarification.
Hermione nodded. "I believe so, yes." She tapped a painted nail against her bottom lip as she contemplated the item in question as it sat, inert in the centre of the coffee table. "And if it's what I fear it is, then the deck isn't just a stack of cards. It's actually a magical receptacle of dark magic, one that we're trapped inside."
Next to her, Draco's knee started bouncing in agitation and his hands curled into fists. His earlier anger had returned. "So who's in here with us?" He jerked his chin towards Greengrass' card, which had been laid face-up on the table after Hermione had earlier passed it around. "Who's been playing with us all night?"
"And how did they get trapped in here with us to begin with?" Lavender added.
Hermione sighed and rubbed a hand over her forehead. She was getting a bit of a headache, too. "I think it must be this, 'Eros' character—the aristocrat who had been involved with the courtesan, 'Psyche', who had once owned this deck. Draco, you said she'd committed suicide over the cards some two-hundred years ago, but what if she'd been murdered instead?"
"Murdered?" Harry sat up straighter. "By who?"
"By whom," Hermione automatically corrected. "And I think it was Eros. I think he killed Psyche and used her blood and soul to cast one of the darkest magic spells in our world, binding that magic to the deck itself." She glanced up at the ceiling again, and then around them at the white-washed walls. "I believe this is the result, this place. It's his horcrux."
Everyone played the 'silent statue' game again, going instantly quiet and still.
Dark magic wasn't, they all knew, something to talk about lightly. Moody's in-class demonstration of the three Unforgivables during their fourth year had left a lasting impression on all of them. And, of course, there had been Umbridge and her unforgivable use of other types of dark magic to terrorize the students during that year she'd come to reign over Hogwarts... It was almost taboo to discuss such spells, as much as it was to speak the former Dark Lord's name aloud.
For long moments, no one seemed to want to step into the conversational abyss she'd just opened up at their feet.
It was, predictably, one of her Gryffindor friends who eventually jumped feet first into the hole and shone a light on the problem.
"Um, not to sound like a muppet or anything, but what's a horcrox?" Ron asked.
"Horcrux," Hermione gently corrected him. "And I'd hope you wouldn't have heard of it, Ron. It even makes my skin crawl knowing about it. It's the darkest of magical spells, absolutely forbidden by the Ministry, and an automatic sentence for The Kiss, if cast."
"And you would know about it, how?" Draco asked her.
He seemed oddly intrigued, as if he hadn't expected her to know about such awful magic, and was surprised that she did.
He also looked at her as if he was just now coming to see a side of her he hadn't known previously existed...
She swallowed back the well of fear that crawled up her throat and turned aside her gaze, focussing on the banquet table on the other side of the room.
Her partner couldn't know the truth. She'd only ever told one person, and he'd been sworn to secrecy. And as far as she knew, the Hat had never told on her to Dumbledore or any of the other staff members, either. So, no, Draco couldn't know that she'd been meant for him in more than one way.
But he would if she didn't evade the unspoken question in his gaze.
The man was entirely too clever for his own good sometimes.
"I came across the term in the library this year, in the Restricted Section," she explained, deflecting, "in that book I told you last question round I'd been reading: Magick Most Evile by Godelot. I was researching Parselmouths for a D.A.D.A. extra credit report I was writing. The first recorded Parselmouth was Herpo the Foul, a Greek wizard from ancient times. Aside from his linguistic talents, it seems he also invented many black spells. One of them was the horcrux. The book didn't explain what it was, however, only implied that it was one of the darkest curses in our world. I wanted to know why, so I went to Professor Dumbledore for explanation."
"Wha? And the old coot told you what it was?" Ron asked, incredulous.
"Naturally not. In fact, he refused to answer any of my questions about it. However, I wouldn't be set aside like some child, and demanded he stop treating me as such, especially given all we'd faced over the seven years we've been here. He relented...a bit."
"In the face of your stubbornness, he'd be foolish not to," Harry joked.
Hermione stuck her tongue out at him.
"What did you just say about not being a child?" he asked her.
She gave him an exasperated look and waved off his cheeky grin. "In any case, all I could manage to get out of the Headmaster was that, at one time when he'd been a student here himself, Voldemort had also asked questions about the same dark magic."
There were a few fearful hisses at the use of the dark wizard's name from the group.
"Honestly," she chided them. "He's been dead and gone a long time. Can we please stop being afraid of a worm-riddled corpse?"
Teddy chuckled at that.
Draco glared at him.
"What?" Nott asked, shrugging. "Worm-riddled Tom Riddle. It's funny."
"Wait, how do you know his real name?" Harry asked, suddenly suspicious of the Slytherin side of the room.
Tossing Harry a dark smirk, Teddy said, "Didn't you hear? My father was one of the Dark Lord's elite. Inner circle, and all that shite."
"While under the influence of the Imperius Curse, of course," Draco added, throwing his solidarity behind his best friend.
Harry looked between them, made to adjust his glasses again, and once more, dropped his hand away when he realised they weren't there. That hand curled into a fist at his side.
"For Salazar's sake, boys, don't prod old wounds," Pansy growled. Her fingers tightened their grip on Ron's as he sat up and went tense, preparing to defend his best friend from the snakes in the room. "Leave the past alone. It's where it should be."
Hermione nodded in agreement. "Parkinson's right. Discuss it later, if you need to."
Seeing the good-will created by the night's events eroding away between the two sides over events that had happened nearly twenty-years before was a bit disheartening, in all honesty. Besides, she was beginning to suspect that the nature of this place, the evil that had created it, was beginning to influence them the longer they stayed. More likely, it was the responsible party for the testosterone spike in the room.
All the more reason to find a way out as soon as possible.
"We have a slightly more pressing problem to deal with at the moment," she reminded them.
"She's right," Tracey agreed, putting a hand on Harry's arm to calm him. "We need to work together if we're going to get out of here."
"So, pardon me fer being thick, but I'd like ta know the rest o' the story, darlin'." Seamus asked, pulling the Pixie Pop from his mouth and pointing it at her. "How'd ya learn o' this 'horcrux', if ol' Twinkly Eyes didna tell ya 'bout it?"
She shrugged. "I asked the one person in the castle whose knowledge of the dark arts is almost as complete as the Headmaster's."
"Snape."
She turned to Draco and nodded. "As you say. He loaned me a book called Secrets of the Darkest Art by Owle Bullock, which discussed the various types of dark magic used for immortality seekers. One of those was the horcrux magic, a curse that requires a human sacrifice to cast. Basically, by murdering some hapless person, you then have all the energy you need to split your own soul in half. That piece of your soul can then be put inside something else for safekeeping." He pointed to the cards. "Like a special deck of cards, for instance."
Ron pulled a face. "Splitting your soul? Holy shite, that's insane! Why would anyone do that?"
"Because as long as that piece of your soul remains protected from harm, you're immortal," she explained. "You can't die, although you do age normally. However, when you reach a point where you're body's about to fall apart, you open up the horcrux, reunite the two halves of our soul, and voila! Instant youth as you revert to the age you were when you made the horcrux initially. Then, you cast it all over again. Rinse, repeat for as long as you can get away with it."
"And Snape just lent you this dangerous book of the darkest spells known to mankind?" Teddy asked, unconvinced. "Just like that?"
"No, it wasn't that easy."
"But you did manage to convince him to give it to you, eventually," Draco asked, staring at her through narrowed eyes.
Hermione stared at her feet. "Y-yes."
He nudged her with his knee and raised a questioning eyebrow at her.
Stubbornly, she pursed her lips together, determined not to give herself away. None of them knew that secretly, she'd been intentionally mis-Sorted. The Hat had put her in Gryffindor because she'd had a brave heart, yes, but it had also put her there to hide her, per her request.
Having read Hogwarts, A History from cover-to-cover three times before coming to Hogwarts, determined to know as much as possible about the magical world, Hermione had learned everything there was to know about the four great Houses...including Slytherin's reputation for elitism, for intolerance, and for their darker notoriety. Their ambitiousness and cunning, in particular, had appealed to her hard-working, crafty nature, but Hermione had known that had she been sorted there, she'd never have been able to escape the persecution for being a Muggle-born in a House infamous for its pure-blood snobbery.
She might not have heard the term 'Mudblood' until Draco had called her it in second year, but she'd known the rest—including the war fought by Voldemort a dozen years earlier over keeping her kind out.
So, like Tracey Davis and Harry Potter had apparently done, when it had been her turn to sit under the Hat, she'd asked it for a favour. The Hat had granted it.
...And only herself and Severus Snape knew the truth, and he only knew because that had been the price she'd paid to get her hands on Owle Bullock's book.
"How?" Draco asked.
She sighed. "I...I gave something up to him."
Everyone recoiled at that, and it took her a moment to figure out why.
"No, not that!" she insisted. "Godric, get your minds out of the gutters, please. It was a secret. That's all. Nothing big."
Except it was to her. And it probably would be to Draco once he knew.
Would he be cock-strutting proud to know that she'd been meant to be a Slytherin, too, or would he look down on her for it? She'd gotten the impression that part of her appeal to him had to do with how he perceived her to be the ideal of Gryffindor House: noble, brave, self-sacrificing. That sort of thing.
The problem was, not all Gryffindors were that way. Most of them, in fact, had more Slytherin in them than anyone wanted to admit. Just look at Romilda Vane and Cormac McLaggen. Even Colin Creevey was a sneaky, little thing with a knack for coming upon just the right moment for a scandalous photograph or two. Hell, even Professor McGonagall had been sly enough to hide her family's heirloom, the Time-Turner, from the Ministry's Unspeakables all these years.
"And before you ask, no, I'm not telling any of you," she admonished. "Furthermore, it's not important to this discussion. What is, is that we might be trapped inside a horcrux with a murderer."
"So, how do we get out?" Lavender asked, waving her wand again at the space where the door had once appeared. She cast a Finite Incantatum at it, adding the specific word, 'horcrux' at the end of her spell. Nothing changed. "Are we going to have to battle our way out, because Sea already tried a barrage of offensive spells on the place, to no effect."
Hermione picked up Greengrass' card from the table and showed it to all of them again.
THE FIRST MUST PLAY TO WIN OR ALL ARE CURSED TO LOSE.
"I think we'd better do what it says, don't you?" She turned to Draco. "If Greengrass' theory is right, that means it's you and me."
"We're still in it, too," Teddy pointed out. "Daph and me...we didn't quit."
She glanced at the others. "Anyone else forfeit already?"
Harry looked down at his shoes. "We're out. Just this last round."
"Us, too," Lavender admitted, turning to Seamus.
Ron and Pansy looked forlorn, clearly regretting now having quit the game rounds ago.
"And Blaise and Ginny were the first to call," Harry reminded them. "So, it's down to the four of you."
Teddy's throat convulsed as he eyed the questions deck, and his tongue darted out to swipe at his dry lips. "So, whose turn was it?"
"We must needs switch seats to resume the proper turn order," Greengrass reminded them.
"Everyone who forfeited, you need to sit outside the circle," Hermione said. "You're not part of the game anymore."
With a thought, Harry conjured a third couch, and put it against the far wall. He, Davis, Ron, Parkinson, Lavender, and Seamus all crossed to it and took a seat in the new spectator's section.
At the same time, Hermione, Draco, Greengrass, and Teddy rearranged themselves on the couches in the middle of the room to resume play. Hermione noted she was the only one on her side remaining.
"Remember: we have to play until either Draco or I pull a card we absolutely cannot stomach playing," she told them. "The cards will know if we're lying or not, and given the warning, I don't think we should attempt to fool Eros." She looked at Teddy and Greengrass. "You can forfeit now, if you want. No need to face what's coming."
They shared a look before turning their gazes on Draco.
"Slytherin opened the challenge, and it is possible the card is referring to a team and not an individual," the blonde reminded her. "In that case, should we leave now, and Mister Malfoy forfeit..."
"Contingency plan." Hermione nodded. "Good thinking. So, I have to be the one to forfeit in the end."
"Yeah, 'cept it's gonna take a hellava lot to push you out," Ron said. "You're Gryffindor, stubborn and brave to a fault."
Yes, but she was also secretly Slytherin, and that meant she might be able to use her cunning to get out of this fix...
"I went last," she told them, "so Teddy would be next, in order."
"Right back at the beginning," he said, and reached out to pull the top questions card. "Here goes."
He flipped it, read it.
...Went as still as a corpse.
"No," he whispered, his face going so pale he could have passed for a wraith. "I can't do this."
He threw the card at the table, as if trying to push it away from him, to deny it, but Draco reached out and quickly snatched it out of the air. He turned it around and read it.
An instant later, his eyes blackened and his face twisted with rage. "NEVER!" he screamed, springing to his feet. He crumpled the card in his previously injured hand, then tossed it to the floor. "Fuck you, Eros! FUCK YOU!"
Hermione quickly retrieved it and, smoothing it out, read it as well.
Her knees swayed, nearly buckling.
She managed to steady them a moment later. "You can't forfeit, Draco. Not over this. You have to play to win, no matter what that takes. Besides, this...it isn't going to break us, not if what you just told me last round is the truth. If you meant it, this is nothing."
He stared at her with so much fury that he visibly shook from it, and she could read that everything in him wanted to fight, wanted to kill this faceless, puppet-mastering 'Eros' for daring to threaten what he'd schemed so hard to win. At the same time, there was also a bleak helplessness in his eyes that pleaded with her not to give in to the demands of the cards, that begged her to let it all go so that what they'd built couldn't possibly be tainted.
But she couldn't do that, because the truth was, this wasn't a deal-breaker for her. There were still plenty of benign Deeds and Forfeit cards in the stack, and Eros had to know that this one, simple command wouldn't be enough to push her over the edge.
He was toying with her.
She wouldn't let the bastard win.
Taking a trembling breath, she glanced at Teddy. "We can do this. When it crosses lines, then we stop. Until then, we play it out, see where we're being led. It might be our only chance."
"Uh, anyone want to tell the rest of us what 'this' is?" Ron dared to ask.
She read the card aloud, so all of them would know, without a doubt, that the deck wasn't being controlled by a benign entity, but by a madman whose end-game they still had yet to fathom:
"Swap partners with the remaining couple."
TO BE CONTINUED...
Author's Notes:
Don't fret, the next chapter won't be another year off. I've got my mojo back for this story, and plan to finish it by year's end. Thank you for hanging in there with me, and having faith, and leaving me such lovely, kind words of support and encouragement. It's been a long, bumpy road to get here (real life has been absolutely horrid over the past few years, but 'chin up', yes? 2016 seems to be going better thus far). I want to sincerely thank you each of you for being here for me and keeping my Dramione muse alive, for reading and for reviewing! :) XOXOXO!
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Musical selection for this chapter: "Bleeding Love" by Leona Lewis. Lyrics are as follows...
Closed off from love, I didn't need the pain.
Once or twice was enough and it was all in vain.
Time starts to pass, before you know it you're frozen.
But something happened for the very first time with you...
My heart melted to the ground, found something true,
And everyone's looking round thinking I'm going crazy.
But I don't care what they say, I'm in love with you.
They try to pull me away, but they don't know the truth:
My heart's crippled by the vein that I keep on closing.
You cut me open and I...
Keep bleeding.
Keep, keep bleeding love.
I keep bleeding.
I keep, keep bleeding love.
Keep bleeding.
Keep, keep bleeding love.
You cut me open.
Trying hard not to hear, but they talk so loud.
Their piercing sounds fill my ears, try to fill me with doubt.
Yet I know that their goal is to keep me from falling,
But nothing's greater than the risk that comes with your embrace.
And in this world of loneliness, I see your face.
Yet everyone around me thinks that I'm going crazy.
Maybe, maybe...
But I don't care what they say, I'm in love with you.
They try to pull me away, but they don't know the truth:
My heart's crippled by the vein that I keep on closing.
You cut me open and I...
Keep bleeding.
Keep, keep bleeding love.
I keep bleeding.
I keep, keep bleeding love.
Keep bleeding.
Keep, keep bleeding love.
You cut me open.
And it's draining all of me,
Though they find it hard to believe.
I'll be wearing these scars for everyone to see.
But I don't care what they say, I'm in love with you.
They try to pull me away, but they don't know the truth:
My heart's crippled by the vein that I keep on closing.
You cut me open and I...
Keep bleeding.
Keep, keep bleeding love.
I keep bleeding.
I keep, keep bleeding love.