Chapter 13:

Enchanted Walls, Midnight Rendezvous, and Tardy Visions

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On her way back from her midnight wanderings, Hermione fidgeted with loose threads from Harry's cloak. Realizing that destroying one of his most prized possessions wasn't the best way to say 'thank you for lending me your priceless piece of clothing', she ceased her actions and leaned against a nearby wall.

However this wall was not just a wall. It was the wall. In fact, its stonework dated back to…a long time ago. The point being, that this wall is vital to our story. Why? Well, because it was one of Hogwarts' few enchanted walls.

Now the history of enchanted walls goes very far back, as noted above, but not much is known of their abilities. For instance, they had been known to suddenly vanish and show up in random corridors for unsuspecting people to collide with. They also can decide to move unexpectedly, causing sudden claustrophobia; but this Hogwarts wall was special. How, you ask? Well, it could sing.

"Oh, give me a home! Where the buffalo roam! And the deer and the antelope play! Where seldom is heard, a discouraging wo-"

"Shut up wall!"

The wall closed its stony mouth and would have glared at Hermione if 1) she were visible and if 2) the wall had eyes. But it just sat there like walls tend to do and pouted.

A moment later, Hermione felt as if she had been kicked. Standing up quickly, she turned on the wall shouting, "Fine, be like that! I'll just go mope somewhere else!"

Storming off in a rage, she failed to notice the invisibility cloak slowly slip off of her, until it had become tangled with her feet. Hermione stopped in her tracks, struggling for a brief moment with the material pooled around her legs. However a familiar voice caused her to pause in her escape attempts.

"Herm- Granger, now why are you out and about at this hour?"

Hermione finally succeeded in freeing her legs and glanced up at Blaise from her kneeling position on the stone floor.

Standing she spoke, "I could ask you the same thing."

Blaise did a double-take at the sight of an invisibility cloak in Hermione's hands, but shrugged it off, remembering she was friends with the famous Harry Potter.

He shoved his hands into his pockets. "Couldn't sleep. You?"

"Same."

Hermione gestured to the cloak, "I wanted to go for a walk without Snape breathing down my neck."

Blaise shuddered inwardly at the mental image, and nodded.

"Do you want to," he paused. "Walk together? Help clear our minds maybe?"

She blushed, though in the darkness it wasn't visible, and brushed a stray hair behind her ear.

"Sure- where to?"

He shrugged, "Just around."

Side by side they walked down the hall, passing the enchanted wall in the middle of the chorus of 'Home on the Range'.

---In the Slytherin 6th Year boy's dormitory, a few moments before…---

Draco awoke with a start, the image of Blaise and Granger walking together burned into his mind. Grinning, he jumped out of bed, "I'm a seer!"

Crabbe and Goyle sat up and blinked in unison, after the blinks ended, one of them, Crabbe, dropped back off to sleep.

"What'd you say Draco? You're an ear?"

"No you big lump! I'm a seer!"

"Oh," Goyle performed his blinking routine again. "G'night then."

Draco bounded over to the mirror and examined himself. "And I don't look a bit as ugly as the hag that teaches Divination. Hmph," he sniffed. "That'll show Blaise! You can be devilishly handsome and still predict the future."

Once he had mulled over this thought for a moment, he sat down with a plop.

"Granger and Blaise? When will that happen?" Smiling to himself, he decided that he would just have to be the one to prevent this utter catastrophe. However, little did he know that he could not predict the far future…he could only see as far as five minutes into the future as evidenced by his earlier dreams of stubbing his toe.

"Ouch!" Draco hugged his leg to his chest after his big toe accidentally collided with a wall.

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