Chapter 3: Cataclysm

Cataclysm: A violent upheaval that causes great destruction or brings about a fundamental change.

Hermione was dreaming, and she knew she was dreaming, but for some reason her mind just wasn't excepting that fact. She was running as fast as she possibly could through some kind of forest. By the thickness of the tress and the local flora she assumed it was the Forbidden Forest. Everything seemed to blur around her as she ran, so it was hard to tell.

Hermione wasn't entirely sure what she was running form, she just knew she had to as fast as she could. A scream was trying to tear itself out of her lungs but she just breathed faster, needing all the oxygen she could get to power her muscles and run just that bit faster.

'It's not going to work. Getting closer. God, I'm going to die,' her dream self thought frantically as they weaved on the uneven pass through the forest. A dark cloud seemed to appear form no where, tendrils reaching out towards her. The cloud approached closer and she could have sworn she saw a flash of light to her left. She turned to follow it and her eyes sight was swallowed by a haunting quicksilver color.

"I don't give a damn 'bout my bad reputation
You're living in the past it's a new generation
A girl can do what she wants to do and that's
What I'm gonna do
An' I don't give a damn ' bout my bad reputation!"

'Whoa, What?' Hermione thought, confused by the strange interruption. What was that dream about? She was so terrified, even now a layer of sweat coated her back and her hands were they had been clenched in her sleep. She rolled over, and remembered the reason for the loud interruption. It was her alarm clock. Her Muggle, radio alarm clock. It had taken forever but she finally got it to work at Hogwarts. In all honestly she was extremely proud with herself.

She got out of bed happily and let the music keep playing as she smiled dancing across the room over to her wardrobe. Hermione loved being up and alive in the mornings, and was even more so after a good cup of coffee. She pulled out the traditional Hogwarts uniform, with the pleated gray skirts, white dress shirt, and the Gryffindor colored tie. The shirt had been modified by Ginny to "fit" her better and she wore the tie loose. Over the summer between sixth and seventh year Hermione appeared to have embraced the benefits of being a woman.

She removed a night shirt and slipped into comfortable under things, all the while moving to the mad beat of the rock song blaring through her radio speakers. Half-dressed, with her skirt on and her shirt half buttoned her door was shaken on its hinges, something not unlike a werewolf pounding on the hard oak of the door. She ran over quickly and opened it, holding her shirt closed with one hand and looking for whatever emergency happened to be on the other side of her door.

Instead of some life threatening situation with Harry or Ron (or both) she was met with ice blue eyes that were currently glaring a whole through her forehead. It took her half a second for her to realize it was Draco Malfoy and another half a second to slam the door in his face. She wasn't even fully dressed and she was sure that Malfoy wouldn't hesitate to use a situation like that against her; especially not after what happened the afternoon previous.

She hurriedly buttoned up the rest of her shirt and immediately regretted picking one of Ginny's modified outfits today. It was shorter then a regulation shirt showing a strip of her tanned stomach and it had short sleeves showing off her toned arms. It was more form fitting then most of the stuff Hermione would normally wear. It couldn't be helped now and if she did anything else the prick would probably think she was trying to look nice for him. She went back to the door and opened it, struggling to pull on some wedge heeled black sandals.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" She demanded loudly, yelling to be heard over the music. She was leaned back a bit trying to adjust the ankle strap to go over her heal and to rest at it's proper space were ankle indented to meet the foot. She looked up through a curtain of curly brown hair at his absolutely livid face.

"Turn that rubbish down." His face was cold but she saw the mad anger that was in turmoil beneath the surface. She didn't know why Malfoy always seemed to push her over the edge. It happened more often even than it did with Ron. The way he had told her instead of asking her caused a spark to set off and as it was added with the events of the day before and the fact that he hadn't even bother to address her, like she was some kind of servant, caused the spark to grow into an inferno.

"No."

"No?"

"I know it's hard for you to understand a monosyllable word but I'll try to say it slow for you. Nnnnoooooo." She sounded them out individually, purposely drawing out the vowels to be as condescending as possible to him.

"No!" And now his teeth seemed to be grinding insistently against each other and she had a feeling that if it wasn't Malfoy his face would be turning a roaring red.

"Yeah, you should really get used to that Malfoy. As long as we share a common room you're going to be hearing it."

"You filthy little bitch! Why is it that you can't do what anyone tells you to do, not once? You act all high and mighty with your little Gryffindor angle act and really the entire time you break more rules and cares less about everyone else than the average Slytherin!" Hermione, if she had been given a chance, could probably have read about thirty different things out of that rant alone. But she really didn't have a chance. He had grabbed her shoulder and pinned her against the door hard. One hand applying more than enough pressure to bruise and the other buried about an inch into the wood beside her face.

'Did Malfoy just punch my door?' Hermione thought. If she had been thinking rationally she probably would not have said what she did next, but she was currently pissed off that shed have to get the house elves to get her a new door.

"Malfoy, you bastard! You broke my door! You filthy Slytherin! The only way you could care about anyone is if it was the means to an end." She ground out trying to struggle out of his grip. Her wand was lying useless on her bedside table and his hand was really starting to hurt on her shoulder. She faintly noticed that she had to have been held at least four inches off the ground for her eyes to be this close to Malfoys without him leaning over.

"Good, Granger. You're starting to catch on to our little game." And he dug his fingers in harder to the back of her shoulder, his palm meeting the pressure on the other side. She bit her lip to keep from screaming and her eyes were rolling back into her head as pain shot out from the joint. With a crack she heard the bone break and then everything went dark.