Sunday

Hermione sighed as Zacharias sat petulantly on his chair, ignoring her. It had taken her two whole hours to track him down, and it was just to remind him that she had detention with her. He had been sitting alone, surprisingly, in the library. It had taken some coercing just to get him to stand up. She decided to use the astronomy tour as the detention space for today.

"So how long am I staying here again?" Zacharias asked with a groan as he slumped his way to the end of the room.

"Just an hour. You don't have too long left." Hermione told him.

He sighed and slammed his face against the wall. Once. Twice. Three times.

"Zach, please don't try to hurt yourself. Mafame Pomfrey isn't back yet."

When he turned around to face her, she saw a bruise beginning to form on his forehead. Feeling rather sorry for him she took her wand out and walked over to him. He saw her holding the wand and shrunk back, wondering what she was going to do to him. He then took his own wand out and pointed it at her.

He smirked at her. "Two can play at this game."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Honestly. Stop crouching back, Zacharias! You've got a bruise on your forehead."

His face softened. "On my pretty face? Really?"

She crossed her arms, trying to think, ignoring his comment. "I don't know if there is a spell to fix bruises." She said her thoughts out aloud.

Zacharias laughed. "Merlin! So there is something that Hermione Granger doesn't know!"

Hermione gave him a glare. "Do be quiet, I can't think with you speaking so much!"

"Well, I've got cream." he mumbled.

"What?"

"I've got cream. Muggle cream. My mother sent it to me yesterday. Thought I might need it. Turned out I did."

Hermione held her hand out. "Let me have a look. You know how you magically people are when it comes to buying muggle products."

Zacharias laughed as he stuck his hand into his pocket and gave it to her.

Hermione rolled her eyes as she saw what he had given her.

"Crap! Wrong packet!"

He took back the condom from her and gave her the cream packet.

"I find it funny how we're always fighting and then making up." He said to himself as she read the information on the packet. "Do you think we'll be like this for the rest of our lives?"

"This is the right cream." Hermione muttered, ignoring his comment. "Let me put it on for you."

She saw the beaming look on his face as she opened the packet. She dabbed her finger into the cream before attempting to dab some onto his bruise. Although he wasn't too tall for her to be unable to reach, she didn't want to have to stretch her arm, rather bending it when dabbing it onto him.

"Zach, could you bend down a bit? Or maybe just sit down on something."

He chuckled and did as she told him to. Sitting on the windowsill nearby, he looked at her. "I'm ready. Just don't press too hard!"

She took a couple of steps over to him and found herself in between his legs. An awkward position to be in... but they were just friends. There was no harm in standing close to each other right? But she made sure that she didn't stand to close to him as she dabbed her fingers into the cream again before rubbing it gently onto his bruise.

"Do you like ferret?" Zacharias suddenly asked her. "I saw what you two did yesterday. Did you like his kiss?"

Hermione sighed. "That was nothing, Zach. Can we just ignore it?" She slapped his shoulder as he shuffled a bit. "Stop moving so much. You're getting the cream all over the place!"

"You're the one who's dabbing it on the wrong places!"

She dabbed some onto his nose.

"Hey! What was that for?" he asked with a squeak.

Hermione laughed as she dabbed some onto his nose again. "Nothing."

Zacharias grabbed her hand but ended up falling forward, bringing her down with him. A blush formed on his face as Hermione lay below him, but he didn't seem too fazed by it as he had now grabbed the cream and started dabbing them all over her. Hermione giggled as she tried to push him off of her, only to find that her strength was leaving her through the constant giggling.

"Am I interrupting something?" a voice asked, surprising both Hermione and Zacharias.

The sudden interruption caused Hermione a sudden spasm of panic, causing her to bump her head against Zacharias' forehead. He groaned in pain, but hadn't gotten off of her yet, grabbing his forehead instead. She turned around and found herself going pale as she realised. who was standing by the door.

"Cormac!" She pushed Zacharias off of her and stood up.

"Hello." He said, raising an eyebrow at the two of them. He looked over to Hermione. "Is this what you do with all of the students during your detention sessions, Ms. Granger?"

Hermione sighed and found herself flustered. "It isn't what it looked like. I was only dabbing cream onto his forehead."

"Okay."

Okay? Hermione thought, wondering how lightly Cormac was taking it. She was honestly surprised by his response. She had expected a big show of how so and so did that and blah blah blah like boys normally would react, an example being Zacharias. She hadn't remembered Cormac being so... calm.

"What are you doing here?" Zacharias asked him.

"I'm here to supervise Ms. Granger's detention." Cormac said. "You do remember what happened during your potions class right?"

"Right." Zacharias didn't look convinced.

Hermione blinked. She had forgotten about her detention.

"Your session with Ms. Granger is over now." Cormac told Zacharias. "You may leave."

Zacharias gave him a look before heading for the door, muttering something about how stupid Cormac McLaggen was. He waved Hermione goodbye before completely disappearing, leaving Hermione alone with Cormac.

"I'm surprised you decided to use the astronomy tower as your detention base." Cormac said, sitting himself on the very windowsill Zacharias had sat on.

"It was the first place that sprung to mind." She told him. "I usually use the empty room next to the library."

Cormac laughed. "Typical of you."

"Excuse me? That wasn't very nice!"

Cormac looked to the floor and shook his head, smiling at a thought that was going through his head.

"What are you smiling about?" Hermione asked.

"What's this I hear about between you and Malfoy?" He asked, scrunching his face up at his name. He then made a smooching sound and blew a kiss towards her.

She rolled her eyes. "Things do go around pretty fast."

"So you like him?" he asked, grabbing at his shirt where his heart was. "I'm hurt."

"No I don't. I was only telling him to 'piss off'."

"By surprising him like that?" He said. "I'm stung that you didn't leave any kisses for me."

She blushed before clearing her throat. "What am I going to do during this detention session?"

"Screw the session," he said, giving her wink. "Let's go for a fly about."

"What?"

He grabbed her hand before dragging her with him, almost roughly, causing her to bump into a couple of the objects that lay on the floor. He then jumped onto the sill and told her to wait, facing her as he stretched his arms out into the shape of a cross.

Hermione had a feeling she knew what he was going to do. She gasped "Don't jump!" as he let himself fall backwards, only to find him springing up again on his broom.

"Hop on!"

"You joking?" Hermione said with a frown. "You call this a detention session? What if Professor Snape sees us?"

"Who cares? I can take all the blame for you." He smirked as he added. "Beside, your detention session with Mr. Smith was just as interesting."

She shook her head. "No, this isn't right."

She tried to pull back as he grabbed her hand, but he was too strong for her. He pulled at her until she fell forwards, falling ungracefully into his arms. She blushed as he looked at her, and looked away as he helped her up. He was doing most of the moving so the broom swayed unsteadily for a bit,

"Not the bum!" she hissed, as he gave her bum a quick squeeze.

He chuckled. "Woops."

She started screaming as he shot forward in full blast, making his way over to the forbidden forest. She hadn't realised how far they had gotten to the core of the forest until she opened her eyes and saw the distance between the school and where they were.

"Have you lost your mind? We shouldn't even be here!" she said. "If we get in trouble, I'm going to tell them I have been kidnapped."

Cormac chuckled. "Say the hell you want. All I know is that you won't regret this after you see what I really want to show you."

He pushed them on forward, causing a somewhat rough breeze to smack at her face. As they went on, she noticed how he kept getting closer to her on the broom, causing her to move forward until she was at the very tip. The broom suddenly flipped forward from the imbalance of weight, causing her to find herself hanging onto his pants for dear life, as he in turn held onto the broom with... one hand?

She screamed as she found herself falling even more after a sudden whipping sound was heard. His pants had fallen, or rather, torn from her weight.

"Granger! Hermione! Stop moving! You're going to cause the broom to go all crazy!" Cormac screamed as the broom started to go mad.

"You're the one who's lost control of the broom!" she screamed, beginning to cry.

The broom went from side to side, up and down, like that of Harry's broom back during one of his Quidditch games.

"Well that's because you kept moving forward!" Cormac screamed again.

"I knew we should have stayed at the astronomy tower!"

"What! Don't put the blame on me!"

"I never said anything about blaming you!"

"You just ruined my detention schedule for you today-"

Hermione closed her eyes as she suddenly lost grip of Cormac as his pants completely tore. She began to fall, and opened her eyes to find Cormac still going crazy with the broom.

Oh God... Is this how I'm going to die? She thought as she closed her eyes again. I survived all sorts of crazy things. The three headed dog, Voldemort... and now I die from falling...

"Shit!" she heard Cormac yell into her ear as she felt arms go around her.

She found herself in the complete hold of Cormac McLaggen as they continued to fall. She couldn't believe how high they had been as it seemed like they were falling forever. She noticed how he still had a hold on his crazy broom, which probably explained the lag in falling.

He then suddenly turned so that Hermione was on top and suddenly the crash came.

She could feel the friction of the floor against Cormac as they slid across the ground, before finally coming to a halt after he hit a rather large rock.

"Shit." he groaned, grabbing the back of his head.

Hermione blinked before getting off of him, worried that he was hurt and that she only had a couple of scratches.

"Cor-Cormac! You're bleeding!" she said, noticing that the cuts on his cheeks and arms were bleeding.

"Surprised much," he muttered, rolling his eyes. "Aww, fuck. It really hurts."

"We should try and get back. Quickly. I don't want to have to spend the night here." Hermione muttered getting up. "Do you think you can walk like that?"

"Where's my broom?" Cormac asked. "We could fly back."

"ARE YOU CRAZY?" Hermione asked. "I'm not flying back on that thing again!"

"We've got no other choice. Apparating doesn't work here, remember?" Cormac said. "Can you even Apparate yet? I failed my exam."

They both turned their heads around in search of Cormac's broom to find that it was completely destroyed as it lay burning from the earlier friction on the floor by the small tree a couple of meters ahead of them. Cormac looked as if he were about to burst to tears as he stared at his annihilated broom. Hermione felt sorry for him, firstly because she had ruined his chance of getting into the Quidditch team with the very broom that was now destroyed, and now because of her, he had totally lost his broom.

"I guess we'll have to walk back." he muttered, squinting suddenly because of the spasms of pain. "But I think I broke my leg or something." He sighed and tried to bend his leg but to no effect. "Fuck. He suddenly said. "I left my wand in my room. Didn't think I needed it for your detention session."

"I've got my wand." she said, as she looked around, noticing how dark it had gotten. "I'm just worried about what might be out there."

He nodded, suddenly looking freaked out.

Hermione took her wand out and pointed her wand towards the sky. "Periculum!"

A red light shot towards the sky and exploded.

"Owwww." Cormac groaned, squinting his eyes.

"Hopefully, somebody from school notices the light. I honestly detest this forest."

Hermione suddenly remembered that Cormac was injured on the ground and bent down to his level to heal him. She did all of the spells she could ending up with "Episkey" as the last spell she could cast onto him. She had tried other spells such as 'repairo' on him, and it somewhat did fix up his bones.

"I think I should wrap some of your cuts up or something." she muttered more to herself than to him. She then remembered that she somehow still had Zacharias' cream packet with her and remembered that it said that it helped with cuts too. She muttered a quick "Ferula" and quickly rubbed some cream onto his cuts before picking up the bandages she conjured to stick onto his many cuts.

"Well my legs gotten better. Doesn't hurt as much. Cuts don't hurt too." Cormac muttered, as he attempted to get up. He needed Hermione's help to stand comepletely up. "Still going to limp I think." His eyes suddenly dilated. "Merlin! I don't have any pants on!"

Hermione blushed as she too, realised that Cormac was only wearing his boxer shorts to cover his certain bit. She turned around and looked away from him. Trying to rid the image in her head. They didn't say anything for a while as Hermione tried to come up with how to fix up the problem. Soon an idea came to her head.

"Cormac, is there a torn piece still on you?" she asked, still facing away from him.

"Yeah. But it looks like a belt on me since only the top bit managed to cling onto my feet when we crashed."

"Give it to me."

A few seconds later, their hands fumbled awkwardly as they tried to pass the piece of fabric over to the other. Once Hermione managed to get a hold of the piece of fabric, she casted 'engorgio" onto the fabric so that it now looked like a skirt.

"This will do" she told him, tossing it over to him.

"You joking! I'm too manly for this!"

"Put it on!"

"Oh, all right!"

Hermione laughed when she turned around to see him in his new 'skirt'. It had lightened the mood. For now.

"Well, let's get moving then!"

Hermione frowned. "No. I think we should stay here. I fired the spell up from here remember?"

Cormac looked at her like a frightened puppy. "Yeah but then what about all of those creatures around here?"

Hermione stared at him, wondering where all of the bravery he supposedly had was.

"Don't give me that look." he told her when he noticed the look on her face. "I feel threatened without my wand."

"Whatever you say."

After a long debate, they did end up walking forward much to Hermione's chagrin. They were soon covered in complete blackness with only her wand as a source of light- and a source of attracting deadly creatures. They couldn't walk that fast because of Cormac's limp, so if they were attacked, they were in for big trouble.

Next day

Hermione and Cormac had found a rock with a nice large hole underneath and had spent the night there. Hermione had casted the protective spells she had learnt a couple of months ago so that they weren't disturbed at all, put aside Cormac's constant moaning and snoring. After beginning to walk again in search of going back to school, not much progress was made except for the constant bickering between the two about who was right about what and how to get where and other things.

"Honestly, Cormac!" Hermione groaned. "For the last time, I told you we should have gone left!"

"Shut up will you! Girl's don't have a map in their heads, it's in our blood. I know where we should be going."

"The only reason why we supposedly don't have a nice little map in our heads is because we actually do have something in them!"

"I'm hungry."

"So am I. You've told me for the hundredth time already!"

Hermione felt a sudden brushing next to her thigh and felt that her shorts were somewhat lighter all of a sudden.

"OWWW!" Cormac screamed, as Hermione stamped on his foot.

His loud screaming caused the flying creatures that had been sitting on trees to fly towards the sky in panic.

"What was that for!" he hissed. "My leg is still hurt you know!"

"Give me back my wand! You can't just take it from me like that!"

He smirked. "What wand?"

Hermione crossed her arms. "This isn't funny Cormac. We could be killed if you don't give me back my wand!"

They argued for a bit more and played a game of slow tag as she tried to get her wand back from him. He walked fast even with his limp and hid himself behind a tree. Hermione sighed as she caught up with him, rolling her eyes as she found him laughing his head off.

"It's not funny Cormac. I really want to get back to school. They're probably looking for us now."

He crossed his arms and sighed. "True. You probably want to go back into the arms of your boyfriend."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Zacharias Smith. He really likes you."

Hermione ignored his comment as she fired another 'periculum' spell into the sky.

"We should stop moving so much." She told him. "They'll find us easier that way."

"He really likes you."

"And what about him liking me?" Hermione asked, finally giving him to his repeating of the subject. "I don't see why it concerns you in any way."

He raised an eyebrow as he leaned against the tree, looking at her curiously. "It does concern me. You're going out with me aren't you?"

"Only for the Christmas date." she told him. "So I do not 'belong' to you in anyway."

He sighed. "Really?"

"Yeah."

He grabbed her nose and squeezed it, smiling to himself as he did so.

"What was that for?" Hermione asked, rubbing at her nose as if to check if it were all right.

"Nothing."

"Does it still hurt?" she asked, suddenly. "Your body."

"Yes it does. A lot." he paused. "I'm just pretending that it doesn't so that I don't need to worry you. When we get back to school, I'll get myself fixed up by a professional. The spells you know cleaned me up halfway. I'm actually surprised you even managed to heal me up a bit."

"Thank you."

There was a sudden pounding of hooves and Hermione gasped, wondering if some creature was going to attack them. She slapped Cormac.

"Honestly! Give my wand now!"

He cocked his head. "What?"

Hermione wondered if he could hear the hooves pounding at all. "CORMAC GIVE ME MY WAND!"

She turned round and saw a horse like figure flying towards them. Cormac still didn't give her wand back to her. Hermione closed her eyes, bracing herself for the blow but was surprised when she only felt wind blow in his face.

"Ms. Hermione Jean Granger?" a deep voice asked. "And Mr. Cormac McLaggen?"

Hermione looked up to see a centaur facing them.

"What the hell is that?" Cormac asked suddenly dragging Hermione, or rather slamming her against the tree behind him. He pointed his wand at the centaur. "Stay away from us! Or I'll hurt you! I mean it!"

The centaur laughed. "I like your spirit kid. I'm Firenze. Rebeus Hagrid sent me out to search for some missing students? It appears that you two have been missing for almost two days."

Hermione shoved at Cormac, forgetting that he was injured and caused him to trip over. He landed with a splat onto the dirt ground. "Honestly Cormac!" She snatched her wand from his hand before later helping him up.

"Hop onto my back. It's a long way back to school."

Hermione sighed as she bobbled up and down on the centaurs back with Cormac sitting behind her with his hands on her waist- for balance of course.

"What did I tell you about staying on one spot, Cormac?" Hermione said, as they made their way swiftly back to school. "We would have got back sooner!"

"I was only trying to help!"

"Hush children."

"I am not a child!" Cormac growled.

The centaur laughed. "You may have the body of a young man, but you have the mind of a young one."

"Whatever."

The centaur began speaking again after a while. "Everybody's been searching for you back at school. The teacher's that is. You see, the Forbidden Forest has got special magical properties that makes it hard to detect much within the forest. It also has other magical properties that protects what's within it, which is why we have to go on foot into the forest to find you two."

A silence soon descended on them, put aside the pouding hooves and mother natures noises in the background.

"What exactly did you want to show me?" Hermione asked Cormac.

He didn't say anything for a while. "Unicorns. I spotted a herd, even from the distance when I was flying about in the Quidditch pitch. I thought you'd like to see them."

"Oh..."

Hermione wanted to say some more but couldn't as a bright light shot into her eyes, indicating that they were out of the forest. They were greeted by a crowd of teachers and worried friends of theirs as they hopped off Firenze. It was lunch break right now, which explained the crowd.

Hermione spotted Draco and Ginny in the crowd, standing almost side by side, put aside the space in between them, before spotting that Harry, Ron and Lavender were there too. She felt her heart drop when she realised that she couldn't find Zacharias.

"Ms. Granger and Mr. McLaggen?" Proffesor McGonagall suddenly said, appearing seemingly out of nowhere from among the crowd. "In my office. I want a word with you two."

Hermione gave Cormac a glare before grudgingly following her Head of House into school.

"Please sit down." Professor McGonagall muttered, as two seats conjured in front of her.

Hermione took a seat and ignored Cormac as he too, hesitantly sat down.

"Now please explain why you two were in the Forbidden Forest, alone?" she asked.

"Homework." Cormac muttered. "I'm studying unicorns for my class with Hagrid, Professor. I wasn't paying attention during class so I went looking for them on my broom."

Professor McGonagall surprisingly bought his story, although Hermione had a feeling that she knew it wasn't the true story. "And Ms. Granger? What do you have to do with his homework?"

"I sorta kidnapped her." Cormac answered for her. "Didn't want to go alone."

Their Head of House sighed. "Mr. McLaggen. It would have been easier for you if you just admitted to Hagrid that you hadn't paid attention. I am fairly disappointed in the both of you. Fifty points off."

Hermione sighed.

"Each. I won't be giving you two detentions because I trust that you two will not do it again." she added.

When Professor McGonagall dismissed them, Hermione and Cormac found themselves attacked by their peers, who questioned them on what had happened. Cormac seemed to enjoy the attention and began answering their questions, whilst Hermione made her way out of the crowd hoping to get out. She only made any real progress after somebody had grabbed her hand. The hand continued to drag her until they were away from everybody. When the hand let go, she managed to see who had rescued her.

"Zach!"

"Hey." he said, with a forced smile. "Had a nice trip?"

She frowned. "I'm tired."

He put his hand into his pocket and took a bag out. "Here. It's my left over sandwich from lunch. You look hungry."

She rolled her eyes but accepted it anyway and took the bag. "Thanks."

"Classes are going to start soon. But it's our free time, so we can do whatever we want." He suddenly brought her into a hug and sighed. "I missed you. You had me worried sick when I out of all people couldn't find you."

She grinned. "I missed you too."

A/N Hope you enjoyed this! Don't know when the next chapter is up! Flames and reviews both accepted.