Thanx for the reviews!

I quite like this chapter even if it was random. Haha.

Here's chapter 5!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. JK Rowling does.

Chapter Five

Hero

Causing trouble with Harry seemed like fun ten minutes ago when they left the park. But now, standing outside a convenient store while Harry went inside to yell and run through it, Hermione felt like she made a big mistake. She had no idea what she was doing following a troublemaker around. Harry had told her to come in with him. She did and he said, "Just do what I do." Hermione could see that there were quite a few people in the store as she watched Harry run and yell, knocking some things off of the shelves. Hermione widened her eyes, not wanting to put herself through this embarrassment, so she turned around and went outside as she saw many people looking at her and Harry.

Harry was having fun running around and knocking boxes of condoms off of the shelves. He laughed and yelled, "Come and get me! You can't catch me!" The convenient store owner eventually figured out what was going on and began to go after him, "Hey! Get out of here or I'm going to call the police!"

"Whoa!" Harry laughed. However, he did not see Hermione in the store. Thinking she left him, he ran out as the owner was chasing him. "Gonna have to catch me first!" He got out of the door, but the owner was still going after him. He saw Hermione standing off to the side. "Come on!" he yelled to her. She followed him anyway and they ran down the sidewalk as fast as they could. They turned a corner and ran into an alley. They pressed themselves against the wall. Harry was laughing as hard as he could. Hermione was giving him a disapproving look. "Are you mad?"

"Yes," he said sort of truthfully.

"That was so embarrassing," she said tucking a strand of hair behind her ear not looking at him.

"You did not even run and yell," he reminded her. "If anyone should be embarrassed its me."

"Harry, that was childish and foolish. I mean, who does that? You could have been arrested!" she exclaimed to him.

Harry muttered to himself, "Wouldn't be the first time." Hermione chose to ignore it, still angry at him for embarrassing her. He turned to her off of the wall. She took a step forward, too, off of the gross, London alley wall. Harry could not believe her.

"You mean, you've never had fun before? You seemed to be having fun running and yelling after the pigeons in the park," he told her.

"Yeah, but that was a public place and no one else was there. And we weren't in danger of getting arrested!" She huffed, not wanting to look at him.

Harry noted that she was scary, yet adorable, when she was frustrated. "Listen to me, you are eighteen-years-old, Hermione! You're only young once! My childhood was taken from me. This is my revenge! I would risk getting arrested for living. That-" He pointed back in the direction to the convenient store. "-was living. That was me being eighteen. I don't have many things to be happy about. To smile about. To laugh about. I just want to live and be happy that I'm alive. Don't you ever feel that way, Hermione?"

He was right, but, "But you still embarrassed me."

"I'm really sorry for that. I thought you would go for it. But you know what? You should not be embarrassed about everything. Or even most things. I try to not get embarrassed anymore. Just laugh it off. Live while you can," he preached to her.

Hermione thought about all he had said. He was right...about everything. She was eighteen. She was only eighteen for three hundred sixty-five days. She already lost over a month of it. She wanted to "live while she could", as Harry put it. She smiled. "Shall I choose the convenient store?" Harry grinned and nodded. They were about to leave the alley when they heard noises from deeper in the alley.

"Whoa, where are you two going?" they heard a male voice call out.

Harry grabbed Hermione's hand. "Come on, let's go." However, two gang members appeared at the entrance into the alley. They were big men who looked like they could crush Harry. They walked forward towards the two, "pushing" them more in the alley out of other people's sights. They both had black hair and dark eyes.

One other gang member came out from the back of the alley. He was a bit smaller than the other two and had blonde hair and grey eyes. However, small he looked, it was obvious he was the leader. "Well, that was a lovely speech." One of them started to clap. Harry recognized each one of them. He recognized this alley. "Oh, shit," he muttered to himself. 'Of all of the alleys in London.' Each member looked to be around their age.

"Look, Crabbe, there's a bitch with him," one of the dark-haired boys said to the other.

"An ugly bitch, Goyle, nevertheless, she'll do," Crabbe said back to him.

"Stay the fuck away from her!" Harry said strongly, having deja vu.

It seemed they were, too. "I know that voice!" the last one, the leader said. "Am I going mad?"

"No, Malfoy, I know what you're talking about. This guy's voice sounds familiar," Crabbe said.

"Who is he?" Goyle asked looking at Harry trying to figure out who he was.

"Remember a few months ago in this exact alley? This one got us arrested," Malfoy told him. He laughed coldly. "But then he ended up getting arrested himself. Dumbass."

Hermione looked up at Harry confusedly. She heard him say he had been arrested a few minutes ago but was too mad to register what he had said. What had he done? What had she gotten into? Was he one of them? Was everything that happened in the last four hours a set up to lead her here to get raped and get killed? She began to get scared and thought this was it. This was how she was going to lose her virginity and die.

"Stay the fuck away from us!" Harry said pushing Hermione further and further behind him against the wall, protecting her. Was this an act Harry was pulling off? Was he pretending to protect her and then corner her? She could not move, though.

"You're going to pay for what you did. We're going to beat you up and then take your bitch, push her up against the wall and fuck her...while you watch," Malfoy said with a smirk.

Hermione whimpered as they advanced towards them. She squeezed her eyes together, waiting for them to grab her but it never came. Instead, she heard grunts and yells of pain. However much Hermione did not trust him at the moment, she hoped it wasn't Harry that was in pain. After a few moments, she opened her eyes and gasped. All three of the gang members were on the ground unconscious. Harry was standing there panting, a cut on his lip that was bleeding. He looked at her. "Come on," he said angrily grabbing her arm and they left the alley quickly.

He had no idea how he did it. The two burly boys were almost twice his weight. He knew he could probably take down the leader, but he had no idea he rendered the giants unconscious. He just knew he would not let them touch Hermione. He could not let them touch her. He was so angry that they were so close to grabbing her and raping her.

"Harry!" she called to him as he pulled her along. "Harry, wait! What was that back there? Who were they?"

"Come on, we have to get far away from them as we possibly can," he said not answering her. "Please, disract me!"

"Erm..." She had no idea what to say. She could not think very well right now. Then she noticed his lip was bleeding. "Your lip is bleeding!"

She watched as his tongue peeked out from his mouth and licked the blood off of his lip. However serious of a situation this was, she would have rather liked it to be her that licked the blood away. She shook her head of these thoughts and pulled her arm from his tight grip and stopped. "Wait, Harry! Tell me what's going on!" she demanded. He stopped, too, and looked at her.

"I will, but we have to get off of this street so they don't see us when they wake up," he told her.

She took a moment to bite her lip and think about that. She guessed she could wait another few moments until she found out the truth. She nodded and took Harry's hand again. They ran across the street and onto another.

As they ran, Hermione just realized what had just taken place. 'Harry saved me. He saved me from being raped and killed. He wasn't one of them. But how did he know them?' Eventually, Harry led them to a small, casual resturant where they served hamburgers. "Come on, let's get a bite to eat. I'm starved. I'll tell you everything, I promise, when we eat."

Hermione nodded and realized that she was indeed hungry. It was almost midnight so there weren't that many people in there. They sat at an empty booth and a waitress immediately walked over to them and gave them each a menu. "Hello, welcome, can I get you anything to drink?" She gave Harry and second look. 'Probably the busted lip' he suggested to himself.

"Erm, do you have Vodka?" Hermione asked without hesitation looking at the alcohol choices on the menu. She had had a rough night.

"Yes, we do."

"Good, can I get a Cherry Coke mixed with it?" she asked. "And I would also like to order a cheeseburger and fries."

"Okay, then, and for you, sir?" she asked Harry after writing all of this down.

"Erm, make that two." They each gave her their menu.

"Okay, it'll be right out," she said and left.

"Do you think she thought we were mad?" Harry asked with a smile once she was out of earshot.

Hermione looked at him confusedly. How could he ask that at a time like this? She was almost raped, for Christ's sake! "How can you be calm at a time like this?" she asked. "You were just beaten up!"

"I was not beaten up. I was only hit!" At "hit" he pointed to his bleeding lip.

That was when she noticed it was still red. "Oh, you're still bleeding. Come here." She grabbed a napkin from the napkin canister by the window and leaned forward and cleaned his bloody lip for him. "Ow!" he cried out when she pressed down on it.

"Oh, don't be such a baby!" she chastised.

While Hermione had her full attention on his lip, Harry looked somewhere else. He looked further down and stole a peek down Hermione's blouse. He turned red when he realized what he was doing and he looked away, but not before stealing one last glance. "Here, keep some pressure on it," she let him take the napkin and hold it against his busted lip. Harry watched her as she watched him. He wondered what she was thinking. 'She probably hates me. She's probably mad at me and never wants to see me again. I don't blame her. It's all my fault. She was almost raped and killed. It's all my fault. If I had not ran into that convenience store and acted foolish, we would not have had to run into the alley and stumbled upon them. How did they even get out of jail?' he thought to himself.

They were silent until the waitress came with the drinks and food.

"Thank God," Hermione muttered as her drink was set in front of her and she took a large gulp of it. Harry slightly smiled amused.

"Enjoy, just let me know if you need something," the waitress said and left.

"Okay, thank you," they both said.

Hermione took a bite of her cheeseburger and swallowed, then she said, "Okay, so tell me what happened. Start talking."

"What do you want to know?" he asked as he took a bite as well.

"Well, start at when you were arrested," she replied eating a french fry.

He nodded, swallowed, and said, "Okay, you are probably thinking that you made a big mistake coming with me. I'm sorry. But, I just want you to know that I've had the most fun tonight than I've ever had in my entire life. I hope you can understand that."

Hermione nodded and listened to her hero as he proceeded to tell her something he had never told anyone.

TBC...

Well, there's chapter 5! Haha. Cliffie. I'm evil! This wasn't as long as I wanted it to be.

I had never intended them to get cornered. It kind of just happened. Do you all like how I put Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle in here? I was going to make them actual gang members with names like "Cougar" and "Ice Man", like in Top Gun. Haha. But then I remembered Malfoy and company.

Next chapter: Harry's explanation

Pleez review!

DREWHHR