Chapter Ten

February arrived in the blink of an eye. The 7th years were taking it easy, not pressuring themselves too much yet with the schoolwork. Students approached their teachers to suggest that a Valentine's Day dance take place; nothing too extravagant, just something to do to make it special. The teachers discussed it among themselves and decided to agree, but the only condition was that it had to end at midnight sharp, after all, Valentine's Day was going to be during a school day and classes weren't going to be suspended the next day. Also, only 4th years and up were allowed to go. The rest of the school was bummed, but they couldn't do anything about it.

In the last few weeks, Hannah had tried to convince Hermione to join them in the Nymph Galaxy again.

Hermione refused every time.

She was tired of it and didn't want to keep doing it. Also, she knew that Draco wouldn't have gone. Since that night, they kept a good distance from each other. However, Draco didn't try to humiliate her in public or insult her; he just avoided her and had an indifferent attitude towards her in front of people.

A few days later, Hermione got the courage to open up to Ron and tell him how she felt (omitting the Draco part). They had ended heir relationship in good terms, maintaining their friendship, even though it wasn't the same. Harry didn't want to tell Hermione that Ron secretly met up with Lavender once in a while. Not only was he mad at Ron for doing it, he also knew that Hermione needed to clear her head for a while.

She actually found herself quite calm once she was single. She decided to just focus on her schoolwork like she'd always done and take her mind off Draco (something that was impossible, but she tried anyway).

Draco started being his normal self during those weeks; back to being the flirt, dedicating more of his time hanging out with the Slytherins and the occasional hookups with girls from all the houses except Gryffindor. He went back to tormenting incessantly the Gryffindors. The only change was that he avoided Hermione in those moments, allowing another Slytherin to make nasty remarks about her so that suspicions didn't rise. In his mind, he was over Hermione Granger. But inside, he cried for her.

February 10th

"Do you think this dress looks good on me?" asked Ginny, standing in front of Hermione's mirror.

"It looks great, Gin. Harry will love it" said Hermione.

Only four days left for the Valentine's Day dance. The entire school was hectic. Owls kept arriving with packages; certainly ordered presents to give on the 14th. Six guys had asked Hermione to the dance, and she turned them all down. She didn't feel like going with anyone, didn't want to go at all, but Ginny had convinced her that it was going to be fun and that she would miss out of she didn't go. She'd found out about three days before that Draco was going with a girl from Ravenclaw. She wasn't happy about it, but it was better than him taking Pansy.

They both tried on dresses for a while. When they found what they were looking for, they put them away and made their way outside. They were supposed to meet Harry, Seamus, and Parvati to go to Hogsmeade.

They met up and started making their way to the village, when they noticed over the grounds that someone was running as fast as possible to Hogwarts. The kid looked scared and accidentally tripped and fell. Harry and Seamus helped him up.

It was a Slytherin.

"Are you alright?" Parvati asked the boy.

He looked like a 3rd year. He was frantic and was trying to catch his breath "Ok..need to get…to the infirmary…players..hurt"

"What players?" asked Harry.

"They were practicing Quidditch when a bludger hit the head of one of the chasers and he crashed against the seeker"

Everyone looked at each other. "I'll go with him to the infirmary, you guys try to see what happened" said Harry and left with the boy.

Seamus, Parvati, and Hermione ran to the Quidditch pitch to see how badly they were hurt. He said the seeker got hurt was all that was going through Hermione's head. Once they got there, they saw a bunch of students in a circle near the middle of the pitch. They reached them and asked what had happened. The Slytherins wouldn't answer them and glared at them.

A Hufflepuff girl told them that when the chaser got hit, he turned his broom abruptly and crashed directly into Draco, forcing both of them to the ground at a great speed. Hermione pushed the students and made her way to the middle. The chaser was unconscious. His head was bleeding at a fearful speed and his uniform was torn everywhere. It must've broken when he rolled on the ground.

Draco was trying not to scream. Several bones were broken and when someone tried to move him, he would snap at them and groan in pain.

Hermione felt sick. She wanted to soothe him, to make him feel better.

At last, the teachers came and levitated the students to take them to the hospital wing.

Draco was fuming once he was on the bed in the infirmary. The nurse had told him that even if a potion fixed all of his bones, he would still need to rest for a week or more to make a full recovery. He was going to miss the dance. He wasn't allowed to move. They told him that he was going to be moved to his room on the 13th, but that by that time he wasnt going to be able to stand properly. He tried to calm himself down. There wasn't anything he could do about his situation. It was dark outside; he closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep.

Hermione had stayed in her room the entire day. She apologized to her friends and locked herself in. She was dying with worry. She stared at the clock next to her.

11:15pm.

She looked once again at the ceiling and debated whethet she should go see him in the infirmary.

At 11:30, she couldnt take it anymore. She stood up from her bed, exited the Heads apartment, and made her way towards the infirmary.