Realization dawned and she studied him carefully, wary at how easily he could be duping her.
"So it's a Traveler's Path?"
"Five points for Gryfinndor," he nodded towards it, "I'm sure the recently revealed 'not so smart' Miss Granger can tell us all about it."
"Actually, the details are a bit hazy," she lied, "Why don't you inform everyone?"
Malfoy smirked. "Are you sure you can take it?"
"I can take it," she snapped, well beyond caring how childish she probably sounded.
"A Traveler's Path is enchanted to lead its users to wherever they wish to go, whichever place they hold at the front of their minds." Malfoy started walking slowly away from her, looking towards where they could now see the path infinitely stretching straight along the spine of the hill, itself having become endless in either direction.
"What happens if we both want to go to different places?" she asked, irked at his bare response.
"It only works for whoever is walking in front," Malfoy said simply.
"So you, in other words." She narrowed her eyes at the nagging irritation that their situation hadn't changed after all in the slightest. She still had no idea where they were going.
"In other words," Malfoy turned back towards her, "This is your last chance to leave me alone before we both end up a long ways away from here."
"Why can't we just apparate?" she asked, deciding that it was best to altogether avoid the present topic of separating. "It seems to me that it would be a good deal easier, unless we are going a fairly long ways, in which case a portkey—"
"I'm not telling you where we're going," Malfoy interrupted wearily, as if she had been bugging him about that ever since they'd left the Manor. Well, she supposed that wasn't entirely incorrect.
"Why not?" she yelled, flinging her arms up in the air mockingly. "What is honestly the big deal?"
"Because you want to know," he sneered at her.
"Oh, that's really mature," she rolled her eyes.
"Just like following me around like a little lost puppy," he feigned a moment's thought, "But then again, I suppose I'd rather a puppy following me than a filthy Mudblood. At least a dog knows what it is."
"I'm not going away," she said loudly.
His wand was suddenly out and his expression lost all traces of the humor she hadn't even realized he'd had. For a moment he looked as though he was actually going to hex her, but she watched as he reigned in his abrupt anger.
"I could stop you right now," he whispered, "Stop you from following me a hundred different ways. But only a few of them would be satisfying enough. It wouldn't make up for everything—it's too late now. But it would make me feel better."
She didn't say what she wanted to, but she still couldn't keep from slowly shaking her head at him. Even though she didn't really think he was going to do anything to her, she had to forcibly exhale the breath she'd been holding.
He wouldn't do anything. He was as spineless as ever; all talk, if this was even that. It wasn't extraordinarily difficult to deduce that this was merely another act, a more desperate attempt to scare her off. Somehow she knew that.
"Come on, Malfoy," she said gently, "Let's just apparate."
"No." He had blurted the word before he could help himself, and then he sat for a moment fuming, looking even angrier than before. Or childish, she really couldn't decide.
"You can't," she blurted out in nearly the same manner. "You can't apparate, can you?"
Malfoy gave a sullen look before stepping past her.
"What's the matter?" Hermione taunted, seizing the rare opportunity even though she really didn't want him angry anymore. "Can't little Malfoy do the three D's?"
"I can apparate!" he shouted back at her.
"Oh, really? Then why don't we?" she asked in a mockingly sweet voice.
"Because I've got an anti-apparition curse on me, all right? Are you happy now?"
Hermione came up short. "They cursed you?"
"No, I thought it might make for good exercise if I walked a little more," he snapped, "So I can't apparate, okay? Are you done? Is there something else? Do you want to try to figure out my favorite color? Or how about my list of most annoying people? I'll even give you a hint on the first person."
"But …" she disregarded his vehemence for a moment and chewed on her lip, trying to remember everything she knew about apparition curses, "If you tell me where we're going, you can side along apparate with me, or—"
"Granger, use you head," he looked at her as though it was possible she didn't have one, "Do you have any idea what would happen to me if I did that? Oh yeah, and it probably would be a little detrimental to your health too."
Hermione turned her head away from his glare and fought down the distinctive longing to shout at him. He was treating her like she was stupid again. But how was it her fault that she had no idea what kind of curse had been put on him, much less its exact effects?
"They didn't trust little Malfoy, so they used a leash," she spat half-heartedly as she fought to regroup her thoughts.
"What do you think?" He was pacing again, apparently riled at being forced to admit something else to her. Honestly, sometimes he could be so frustrating in unintentional ways. She wondered if he knew just how much those kinds of things bothered her.
She pursed her lips, wondering how everything had gotten off track so badly regarding their work-in-progress relationship. Admittedly, only so much could be blamed on the conditions. The rest was her fault. That much she had to concede. She had made some progress with it. For a time things had been going marginally well. And then something had happened that had pulled everything apart, though she couldn't remember what exactly.
He had broken her trust. That must have been it. He'd used her words against her, and things had deteriorated from there. Well, if this was ever going to work, it would be up to her to see to it. It was so temptingly easy to continue on with the insults and the bickering, but that was certainly never going to get them anywhere.
On some level she realized she enjoyed it. That was an odd thought, but obviously it must have something to do with not having Ron around, or even Harry. Yes, that had to be it.
She knew that there was no sense in holding a grudge against Malfoy for something she shouldn't have trusted him with in the first place. She would just have to make sure she didn't make the same mistake again. As long as Malfoy wasn't really willing to get rid of her through forceful means, now was as good a time as any to set things right. She only needed a place to start.
"Malfoy … listen, I'm sorry."
"What?" he looked over at her sharply, then carefully. "What for?"
"Well …" she stalled, mentally scrolling down the rather lengthy list, "I'm sorry that I thought we weren't going anywhere, that all this was pointless. I honestly wasn't expecting that we were going to a Traveler's Path. It's … much better than anything I could've come up with. It really is a useful way to get around, isn't it?"
If she'd been hoping for him to be pleased after all the expectant looks he'd gave her, she would have been disappointed. In any case, she still kind of was.
"Too bad we can't apparate, though," Malfoy said in a challenging voice.
"That doesn't matter," she said, using her best soothing tone.
He threw her a vaguely disgusted glance and stalked off down the path. Seeing her proverbial window of opportunity slamming shut on her proverbial fingers, she took a few hesitant steps and decided to use her trump card before he got far enough away to make conversation awkward.
"Is it true though?" she called after him.
He halted, somehow managing to make every motion required in that simple movement convey frustration. "No, Granger. I can't apparate."
"No, not that," she spoke up quickly, "That doesn't matter. There's nothing wrong with that—it's not your fault, not really. I mean—no—it isn't your fault at all. When we get back somewhere maybe I can help you get rid of it or—" she hurried forward at his expression, "But what I meant to say was … was I right about last night? About what you were trying to do? I was trying to be mean … that's all … really, and I'm sorry if I was mistaken."
Draco looked down at his feet. "I don't remember much about last night," he admitted softly.
"Well, that's that then," she declared briskly, seeing that it might be bad to let Malfoy say anything humiliating that he might get angry about later. Still, she couldn't help herself from beaming at him. Before he looked back at her she had to hide it by hastily turning away in hopes of maintaining the present seriousness. "And I'm … sorry. I really am."
When she looked back he was already striding off, and with a small elation of victory she followed. She'd lost track a long time ago how many times he'd threatened her in various degrees, but she knew now more than ever that she'd been right from the beginning.
Honestly, she didn't know what she wanted with him. There was no long-term goal that she knew of. The short term only required that he be tolerable. The long-term would come eventually, in its own time.
For every threat he threw at her, she knew she could prove each one wrong. And that made her smile.
---------------------------------------------------
She was so happy in fact that she paid no heed to where they were going. Malfoy led and she followed, going over and over again in her mind what he had said. Somehow the simple admission he'd given, while pathetic had it come from anyone else, was somehow special because he'd said it. He hadn't exactly apologized, but she had little doubt that that was the closest she'd be getting from him anytime soon. Had he actually ever apologized to her before, or to anyone else for that matter? Not that she had ever seen, at least not by his own compulsion.
These were facts she'd known for a long time, but still she wasn't satisfied until she had dissected the matter and examined it from every possible angle, almost afraid that she would find something to negate or lessen it.
But she didn't.
It was special, she knew it was.
That must have been how he found her when he looked back. She was following the ground with her eyes, a dopey smile on her face.
"What?" he called back, sounding cautious.
At that particular moment she must have looked terrified. Had she slipped and spoken out loud what she'd been thinking? Had he somehow heard her thoughts?
She had the briefest moment to appreciate how ridiculous those fears were before everything suddenly went dark. An almost gentle movement swept over her head, not unlike a soft cloak being drawn. Then everything was abruptly light again. Her breath caught as blinding pain flashed suddenly at the center of her chest.
Malfoy's eyes had gone wide. She watched numbly as he drew his wand and staggered indecisively off the middle of the trail.
Her mind only had the barest time to grasp these things before the cause of it all swung into view, bearing down on Malfoy with its feet extended to strike.
It was a considerable black mass, consisting of almost elegant, enveloping wings and the horse-like legs in question. Despite the swiftness in which it passed and the awkward angle presented to her, Hermione's mind had already dutifully identified it.
"Malfoy!" she found herself screaming. She could only watch almost dazedly as the thing swept by him, lashing out with its legs. But momentum carried it past Malfoy before it could hit him. It let out a horrible screech as it tried vainly to snap at him from back over its shoulder.
Malfoy was, with amazing dexterity, scrambling backwards off of the path and closer to the trees. Hermione was caught between the nearly stifling instinct to get as far away from Malfoy as possible and the sense that she needed to run and help him. Belatedly she had her own wand out, but what was she going to do? What could she do?
The griffin wheeled around, its enormous wings trembling as though with excitement. When it discovered that the two of them were no longer on the open path it let out another shriek, this time in obvious disappointment as it dove low through the path where they'd just left. It began to circle again.
She realized she was mindlessly screaming various combinations of the same thing over and over. "Malfoy, it's a griffin, it's a griffin!"
"I know!" he shouted back. "Get to the other side! The other side!"
But she could no more move logically than she could form a coherent thought. She continued to retreat further into the trees as the creature landed on the path almost gingerly.
It wasn't even looking at her. With a hiss and then another shriek, deafening at this distance, it advanced slowly on Malfoy, almost cautiously. His wand was extended straight at it, but it visibly shook in his grip as he circled around the griffin, plunging clumsily deeper into the woods and being careful to keep as many trees between them as possible.
Abruptly the griffin let out another shriek and leaped forward faster than Hermione would've imagined possible. Its lunging head was stopped only a few short feet from Malfoy's chest when its shoulders caught in a space too narrow for it to push past. Hissing as it franticly writhed forward, its beak nearly caught Malfoy's cloak as it madly snapped at him.
"Impedimenta!" Malfoy bellowed as he stumbled backwards, immediately scrambling back to his feet and running the opposite direction away from her. "Blast it, do something Granger! Do something!"
She took two quick steps forward, immediately freezing again when the griffin's rear legs spun around as it changed tactics and tried to pull itself backwards. Malfoy's shouting was hardly discernable above the pulse beating furiously inside her head. Her knees were so weak that she sought a tree for support as she stared at the creature. It was so disconcertingly similar in form to a hippogriff, but terribly different all the same. It was like a twisted version of Buckbeak, a giant twisted version.
She tried, she really did. But with each step she made towards it, the panic was nearly enough to push her a dozen backwards. Every time she tried to fight it, to reason that just standing here was foolish, the urge pulling at her stomach to turn and run nearly won out altogether.
For all the surprising speed in which she'd identified the griffin, she could not think a single word of what she'd learned about them. It wasn't that her mind had gone blank. Well, it partially had, but it seemed like such an effort just to remember that she should be thinking at all, that she needed to break through the panic that was so close to overwhelming her.
The griffin finally succeeded in extracting itself, managing to step back onto the edge of the trail. For a moment time came to horrifying halt as its eyes snapped over to hers, as though it was just now noticing her for the first time. It had black, hungry eyes. Hermione found herself completely unable to comprehend anything that didn't fall into the dead reflection staring back at her.
"Reducto!" Malfoy's hoarse shout jarred Hermione to her senses a moment before the griffin screamed and twisted itself around in an unnatural way, using its wings to propel the movement.
Malfoy had stopped for a moment in the middle of the path again. Now he paid no pretense to keeping his eyes on the creature as he turned and dashed for the opposite tree line. Again the griffin swept past him as it lunged, though this time not nearly as swiftly as when it had been airborne.
Hermione clenched her fists together almost painfully and seized upon the fleeting courage the moment lent her. She started running when she saw Malfoy stumble and nearly fall again. Racing up to the middle of the path, she pointed her wand to where the griffin was fighting to regain control of its momentum and turn around again.
"Stupefy! Stupefy!" she screamed again and again as hard as she could, as though that might change the pitiful results that her wand issued. The ensuing red light barely reached the griffin at all, and what little did had no visible effect.
"Impedimenta!" Malfoy was now sputtering a stream of spells as the griffin closed in on him, this time more carefully, as though it had learned not to lunge so recklessly. "Sectumsempra!"