Chapter 7: The Part with the Poppies (POPPIES)

Hermione Granger was in shock!

It was the REAL Draco Malfoy holding Hermione Granger in his arms! It was the REAL Draco Malfoy who had just placed his arms around her, kissed her earlobe, and then brushed his lips against her neck, all the while confessing THAT HE WAS THE REAL DRACO MALFOY!

This was not happening! This was an illusion, a dream, a massive hallucination. Imagining that she was stuck inside the movie 'The Wizard of Oz' was one thing, but imagining that the real Draco Malfoy had just kissed her neck and was stuck in here with her was too much to handle. It wasn't real. It couldn't be!

She tried to process everything, decided that she couldn't, wouldn't, and just plain didn't want to, so she pushed away from his chest and said, "Alright, good to know, good to know. Well, we best be on our way to the Ruby City. Where the hell is the green brick road?" She looked to and fro, and then said, "Oh, there it is. Come along, the real Draco Malfoy. Let's get you that heart."

She smiled (an almost maniacal smile in Draco's opinion) and started walking along the road. She yelled, "Come along Scarecrow and Lion. Don't forget the cat and the basket."

She marched along quickly. Draco ran to catch up with her. "Did you hear me, Granger? Did you hear what I said back there?"

She nodded; the same weird, stupid smile still painted on her face, and replied, "I heard you. You're Draco Malfoy. Not the tin man. That makes perfect sense. Everything makes perfect sense. Everything makes perfect sense in every perfect way!"

"It does?" he asked, confused and bewildered.

"Of course," she answered, smiling still. Her smile scared him. Harry ran up to the pair and Hermione smiled at him and said, "I don't suppose you're really my friend Harry Potter, are you?"

"No, I'm really a scarecrow, but I don't mind that you call me Harry," he said.

"Good to know, good to know," she repeated. Damn, she was still smiling. She looked over at the lion as they 'eased on down the road' and said, "And you're really a lion, right?"

"Yes, Hermione," he said, "but I'm with Scarecrow here, if you want to call me Harry, you can."

"No, she wants to call you 'Ron' and me 'Harry'," the scarecrow corrected. He laughed and said, "Maybe he needs a brain, too."

Draco suddenly stopped. What was wrong with her? Was she suffering from a malaise of some type, or hysteria, or a fever, or a brain aneurysm, or… "Did you hear me, Draco?" Hermione asked.

Draco called out, "No. I was pondering the fate of your mental health. What did you say?"

"I told you that you had better hurry up or you might be left behind. Don't lag too far at the rear. The poppy field is coming up. We don't want to miss that part. Fun time is sure to be had by all, when we all pass out from the effing poppies! The poppies, the poppies!" Her voice became higher and shriller with each word she uttered.

Draco stopped again. Something was definitely wrong. "Hermione Granger, get your arse back here right now and look at me!" Draco shouted. He threw his little funnel hat on the ground and turned his stupid tin suit back into the designer, black suit that he had on at the time that she entered this nightmare.

She turned around. She saw him as he had appeared the last time she had seen him at the Ministry. She began to breathe heavy. She sat down on a low fence and grasped her chest and said, "I think I'm hyperventilating. I need a paper bag. Does anyone have a paper bag?"

He rushed to her side, along with Harry and Ron. Draco knelt in front of her and said, "Why are you acting stranger than usual?" He was going to ask her why she was acting so strange, but then again, he realized, she usually acted a bit daft.

She took Harry's hat off his head and began to breathe into it, so that she wouldn't pass out. Between breaths she said, "But…(breath)…how….(breath)….did…(breath)…you…(breath)…come…to…be…"

"Oh for Merlin's sakes woman, spit it out," he hissed.

She threw Harry's hat on the ground, stood up, knocking Draco on his bum in the meanwhile. She pointed down at him on the ground and screamed, "How did you get to be here with me? Is this your fault? Did you hex me, or curse me, or something?"

"NO! I'm offended by that accusation!" he said.

Hermione snorted.

"Hey, I am offended by it," he repeated, standing up quickly. "How do I know you didn't plan all of this, to get back at me for trying to take your beast of a cat?" He knew she hadn't done that, but he thought it was better to accuse her than to be accused.

"WHAT?" she shouted. "You think I did this to myself? You're certifiably mad!" She turned away from him, picked up Harry's hat and threw it back to him. She turned to Draco and said, "Just stay away from me, you hear!"

"No, I won't! I have to find a way out of this nightmare, too, you know," he argued.

"Why didn't you tell me who you were straight away?" she finally had the wherewithal to ask. "Why the charade? Why pretend to be the tin man?"

"Because that's who you told your coworker I looked like, so I thought…" he started, though he got no farther.

Her mouth dropped opened, and he realized his blunder. "What?" she said it in almost a whisper. "What?"

He looked down. He didn't know how to continue.

"Draco Malfoy, tell me right now what you mean," she insisted, though she said it softly, with a slight hitch to her voice. He thought she sounded as if she might cry.

He shrugged and then finally answered, "You told some woman at your office about how this was your favourite movie, and how some of the characters reminded you of some of us, and that's all I knew. When that bookshelf started to fall on you, I reached out to help you, which, by the way, your two moronic friends didn't do. I guess when I reached out I got sucked into the tornado with you, Dorothy."

He was afraid to say any more.

"Yet, that doesn't tell me why you lied when you got here," she said, not looking at him. She sat down on a large rock. The scarecrow and the lion stood behind her. Draco felt as if it was just like old times. It almost seemed as if the three of them were on one side, he was on the other, and they were judging him, because he was in the wrong, and they, of course, as was par for the course, were in the right.

"I felt I had to lie," he lied. "You wouldn't have wanted me along, and I had to try to find the Wizard fellow with you, to get back home."

"How do you know this story?" she asked.

Should he tell her the truth? "I've seen the movie before," he said, not telling her that it was recently, and only because of her, that he had seen it.

She rubbed her eyes with her hands. She felt frustrated. "Was this whole thing with my cat a ploy or some kind?"

"Listen, I don't have to stand here and listen to these accusations!" he shouted. She was dangerously close to the truth, and he didn't like that.

"I'm asking a question, not making an accusation, though I think you just answered my question," she confirmed. She stood up and looked at Harry and Ron. "Let's go gentlemen. The sooner we get to the Wizard, the sooner Draco and I can go home, and we can resolve this issue with my cat, and then I hope that I'll never have to see him ever again."

Draco watched as they started walking away and he stomped his foot and said, "That's not nice, Granger! Don't you even want to know why I wanted to kill your kitty in the beginning?"

She rushed back to him so suddenly, and with so much passion and fury on her face, that he was scared. He pulled out his wand. She took his wand from his hand and threw it on the ground and pulled him toward her with her hands on his lapels. "I don't care what evil thing you had in mind in the beginning, Malfoy. I don't care whether it was a joke, or just an elaborate way to get back at Harry or me, or a way to show how much you hate me, or what. All I know is, when we get back, you will not harm one hair on Crookshank's head, or so help me, I'll make you pay!"

The fact that she was being so unreasonable, and a bit violent, upset him more than he thought it would. He grabbed her wrists, pulled her hands from his jacket, held them tight, and said, "Listen here, Granger, when we get back, that cat is dead. He's a menace! He has no reason to be around polite society, and frankly, neither do you! If you had just calmed down, and thought for a moment when I told you that I overheard you talking with your friend, you would have realized that I heard you say a few other things as well! Some things that maybe were reciprocal at one time, but now that you're being, shall we say, a wicked witch, are now not shared at all!

"Go on to the stupid Ruby City without me! I don't bloody well care! I don't need you, strawhead, or the cowardly weasel over there! Go on! Get out of my sight, Mudblood!" He released her wrists, stooped down, and picked up his wand. When he stood back up, and saw the horrified look her on her face, he didn't know what to feel.

Hermione gasped. "You know what; you need that heart more than the tin man! Sure, he thought he needed a heart, but he at least had the capacity to love, and to change! You only love yourself and you'll never change, Malfoy! You'll always be a closed minded, bigot and a pureblood bully!"

"And you'll never change either, Granger! You'll always have an ego the size of Kansas, and you'll always think you're better than me, because you think you're smarter, and holier, and more righteous, but honey, you aren't a saint. You're not even close! I don't know what I thought I saw in you. To think, I thought I had feelings for you! Maybe I'm the stupid one! Maybe I need the brain, not sawdust head over there!"

She stared at him for many long moments. Her chest was heaving up and down. He wouldn't look away. He knew he had hurt her, but damn it, she had hurt him, too. Harry came up to her, placed his arm around her shoulder, and said, "Come on, Hermione. We need to go."

She started to turn away, only to turn back. She wanted to tell him that he was right, and that she was sorry, but her pride was in the way. She merely looked at him for a moment longer, shook her head, and then felt shame wash over her as a tear ran down her cheek. She brushed it away furiously, said, "Come along, Harry, Ron. We have to get to the poppy fields."

"Is the tin man coming?" Ron asked.

"No, I don't think so," Harry answered. He took Hermione's hand and led her along.

She looked back. Draco sat down by the side of the road, and she thought he looked lost and forlorn. She had seen him look that exact same way years before, at the tribute for the battle of Hogwarts. She had gone to him that day, to try to make him feel better. She was the cause of those feelings today.

She was so ashamed.

She felt terrible for the mean things she had said, merely because she was embarrassed that he had found out that she had a crush on him. It wasn't his fault that he got stuck here with her. At least he had reached out for her when she started to fall, which was more than her friends had done. The fact that he hid his identity made perfect sense, given the fact that she had become so angry when she had found out the truth, and really, what harm had he done? He had eventually told her the truth.

After holding her and kissing her neck.

She was merely embarrassed to have been found out, that was all. And perhaps the whole thing with her cat had been a ruse on his part, to make her notice him. Poor Draco Malfoy and his terrible social skills. He didn't know any better. He didn't know to simply come up and talk to her. He thought he had to threaten to have her cat killed to get her attention.

She looked back again, but he was no longer there.

The group of Hermione, Crookshanks, the lion and the scarecrow, walked all morning and into the afternoon. Finally, off in the distance, they saw a wonderful sight to behold: The Ruby City.

"Oh, look, Hermione, that's it, isn't it?" Harry asked, excited.

Ron smiled and said, "I can almost feel the courage washing over me the closer we get! I'm so happy!"

Hermione smiled weakly, and just as she had done all day long, looked back to see if she could see Draco. She couldn't. The truth was she was a bit worried about him. She said, "Now, if I remember this part of the story, this field is going to be turned into a poppy field by the evil witch. The poppies will make Crookshanks, Ron and I, all fall asleep," she looked at Harry, "but you'll not be influenced by it, Harry, so you need to call upon the good witch, Luna, to make it snow, and that should freeze the poppies, and we'll wake up. Got it?"

"You're so smart, and pretty, Hermione," Harry said, with a smile. He cupped her face with his hand. "I wish you weren't so sad. I'm sorry that the tin man lied to you."

"Don't worry about that," she said, with a wave of her hand. "If he was here right now, he would pass out, too, so what good would he be?" She tried to smile, but it felt as forced and feigned as her smile before, so she sighed instead. "Let's get started across."

They started walking across the field of beautiful flowers and sure enough, Hermione started to become overwhelmed with an extreme feeling of exhaustion and tiredness. She said once more, "Don't forget, Harry, Luna should make it snow without you calling for her, but just in case, yell out for the good witch, okay. Snow. We need snow."

"Snow," Harry repeated.

Little Crookshanks was already asleep. He curled up in a ball and was beside Hermione's feet. She sat beside him and was soon fighting a yawn. She lay down on her side and closed her eyes. She heard Ron fall over and then she wasn't aware of another thing.

Draco followed the group from a distance the entire way to the poppy field. He made certain that he stayed in the woods, off the road. He noticed that all day she kept looking back. Was she looking for him? Probably not.

He felt horrible for the mean things he had said to her, though he felt she mostly deserved them. Still, she had to have been surprised by his admission, and he had lied to her. He was surprised that she hadn't slapped him across the face the moment he announced who he really was. He knew she had one hell of a slap.

He stood at the edge of the poppy field. He placed a bubblehead charm over his mouth and nose so that the poppies wouldn't put him to sleep. He stood on the fringe as Hermione lay down gently on the ground. He watched as the big dopey lion went down with a thud. He knew as soon as the snow came, they would wake again, although that part of the movie confused him a bit.

He also knew that in the movie, the tin man didn't fall asleep in the poppy field, although he had rusted. Since he would have fallen asleep, and wouldn't have rusted, it was just as well that he had revealed himself to her before this scene. He also knew that in the movie the scarecrow didn't fall asleep, therefore, imagine his surprise and chagrin when the Harry Potter, look-a-like, scarecrow fell over in a heap right beside the lion and Hermione.

Draco ran into the middle of the field. Harry was out like a light, just like the other two. What in the world was going on now?


A/N: A fan of this story, Kip85, made some cover art for this story. Please visit my author's page to view it! Thanks to him!