Chapter Sixteen:

A Series of Assumptions

Hermione couldn't contain herself as she fell off the bed and backed away in horror. She looked around, feeling dizzy, and searching for her clothes. She couldn't understand how this happened. What the hell was going on? Was this a dream? She anxiously did a top to bottom search of her room, finding her clothes below the bed, and throwing her self out of the room and into the bathroom.

She kneeled upon the floor, her messy locks of brown hair covering her eyes, and she slowly began to cry. Everything was wrong, everything hurt, and everything was a mess. It had been bad before, but this time she didn't know how she'd even get up. She cried into the cold floor tiles as she felt the joy in her heart fall with a deep drop of confused guilt.

She rushed over, feeling an illness run through her veins like an electric shock, when she turned and rested her head upon the seat of the lavatory. She slowly began to gag on her thoughts of the previous night and wished to God that it had been a dream, only a dream, for she would never had been so stupid and done something like that. She began to choke and eventually coughed up the whiskey she had drunk.

She let out a piercing cry, feeling everything inside her die, and coughing into the shallow bowl. She pulled her hair back, swearing at herself, and finding the need to want to die. She had betrayed him, but she insisted to tell her self that it might not had been what it looked like. She wanted to throw herself within the tub and drown her sorrows away, but she couldn't draw herself into doing so. She coughed again.

She couldn't look, she didn't know what to think, and she didn't understand what had happened. She was blank. Her sorrow began to fill to the extent that she felt the need to no longer breathe and it hurt to do so. She began to choke as if the air was taken from her, and coughed her self onto the icy floor and began to cry out as if Harry had been listening, but it wasn't Harry.

"Hermione?" A voice said outside the door. She had grabbed a towel quickly and wrapped it neatly around her.

"Go away." She cried.

She gasped greatly, breathing freely for one splint second, and then letting the pain worsen as if daggers were stabbing her from every angle possible. She gasped again, each shock of regret hitting her fiercely and expanding immensely. She drew her head down hard into the tile, hoping she could harm herself enough to forget, and did not move when the door had begun to creak open.

"Hermione, are you alright?" He asked, looking in behind the solid oak.

"Look at me," she cursed. "Of course I'm not alright." She hissed.

"Hermione, why are you doing this? Is it because of last night?" Draco asked, walking towards her.

"Of course it is, Draco!" She cried. "Look what we've done, but most of all look how much I've ruined things. I don't love you, nor do I understand what happened."

"I don't suppose you would, after all you were…" He stopped himself.

Her eyes had sprung to meet his, each dripping with regretful tears that poured like an angry dog's bark. She looked at him with anger and fear and she stood within her deep crimson red towel and faced him with a look of anger. She stood her ground in front of his pleasure-full eyes as she began to realize this as if it were a plan. She stood there, breathing anger, and opened her mouth.

"You… you set me up!"

"Oh, come now." Draco said with a cold laugh. "How in the world could I have set this up?"

"Well, first you come off as if you want to be friends when my entire life at Hogwarts you put me through hell, and then randomly it's a strong bond and you fall in love with me? Me, a muggleborn, and thus you create a grand annoyance through the years as every Slytherin called me a mudblood. So then you spring this news on me and I get side trapped in the moment and I kiss you, and thus I began to drink away my pain through Fire Whiskey and get an unexpected visit from someone, and basically here I am, wearing my ENGAGEMENT ring and finding out that I woke up next to you." She breathed deeply after talking so quickly she felt the anger rise higher than imaginable. Half of it no one could even understand, for it hadn't made sense.

"So you cheated on your fiancé, and yet you yell at me when you were the one that was drunk." He said, folding his arms.

"You took advantage of me! You should have just brought me back to my room and refused to sleep with me and just walk out." She growled. "That's what friends do."

"I wanted to be more than your friend at the time," he said sadly. "And as sadistic as it sounds, if I didn't allow myself to you I would have regretted it for the rest of my life, knowing I would never know what it might have been like when I had the chance to find out."

"You're a pig."

She angrily left the room, walking back and forth without knowing how to act, or what to say to him ever again. She begun to felt a weird prick in the back of her mind, like a burst of fear, for what if Harry found out? She'd be ruined, and thus she would find herself alone in the world, just because of this fate. She stopped dead in her tracks. She faced him with utter fury.

"Now I understand it. What have you done to me?" She demanded.

"What are you talking about?" He said instantly, as if she was going crazy.

"The dreams… they were you. The dreams I've been getting over and over and over again." She said anxiously. "This was a plot, for you needed to find a way to break us apart! You're the one that dared me to bring in the Whiskey, you're the one that made me so mad with stupidity that I was driven into drinking it, you're the one that kissed me, and you are the one who took advantage of me. You used me!" She growled. "So then I would maybe follow my dreams and allow service to the Dark Lord and thus be the only one to make Harry Potter weak."

"I…" He was interrupted.

"I'm not finished!" She snapped. "You slipped a page under my pillow a few nights ago that was directions to finding a book of poisons in the restricted section. I know it was you, for you are the only one with access to this common room. Then a few nights ago, by the fire, I told you about the time I told Harry how much I was fascinated with Vampires and I'd give anything to feel the same way one does just for a day, so you gave that information to your master." She pointed, stepping one foot fiercely in front of him. "So your master would think that in exchange for Harry leaving me I would desire revenge and make a deal with the Dark Lord, he would turn me into a vampire and in exchange for the gift I'd have to successfully kill the Great Harry Potter. Only then could the Dark Lord rise to power and be indomitable." She took deep heavy breaths.

"Not a bad assumption." He noted, setting only of the old smirks across his face.

"I knew you hadn't changed." She sneered.

"You know nothing, Granger, nothing." He snipped.

"I know more than you give me credit for." She said angrily, walking towards the bathroom door again. "I will not let the Dark Lord get to me, and I will not allow myself to ever associate with you."

"Okay, but if you must know Granger it's not as bad as it sounds. You were drunk, but already passed out on your bed and when I walked in you woke up. You did come on to me, but I gave you a sleeping drought and I just made it look like we had shagged all night, and I was awake when you woke up. And I, knowing that you wouldn't check to see if I was wearing clothes or not, laid there waiting for your reaction. Nothing happened, you just assumed." He held his silver eyes away from her, looking at nothing in particular, and look back to see her amazed look.

"Why would you do something like that?" She asked, amazed.

"It was the task I was given, and I had to fulfill it." He said. "It was only you that wanted it to be more than a task. How fast Fire Whiskey kicks in is amazing, but I'm sure you already knew that."

"So I was right, but why did you make it look like we had done something, instead of actually doing it and ruining my relationship?" She asked, confused.

"Because," he sneered. "Who could ever love a Mudblood?"

Hermione has showered with a feeling of embarrassment in her, but felt also a bit of joy when she had entered the common room and found Draco's room completely empty and every trace of him gone. The only thing that hadn't made sense is for some reason she felt like a big piece of happiness just left, and seemed like sadness had disguised itself as happiness.

She felt betrayed and dumb with the fact that she had ignored everyone she ever loved and everyone who meant more to her, to be with someone she had believed changed. She felt stupid and a slight tinge of regret for not listening to Harry, when he had warned her all along to not trust him. She, though, was stubborn and let Draco enter and ruin the beginning of her relationship.

She entered the room, and as soon as she stepped in she felt pressure upon her shoulders, as if something bad was about to happen. She walked in, finding the very center and falling to her knees upon the silver rug and only then did she feel like she was in his shoes, afraid. Possibly there was more to him, maybe that wasn't really his task, and only him trying to break free.

She then felt heavy with thoughts about what really happened. The greatest one though was what if Draco was just afraid that the Dark Lord would kill him if he didn't fulfill his task, and then tell her those things just because he was told to? What if he was actually in the process of a rebellion? What if the dreams were not given to her by him but by Voldemort instead? What if he…

She looked up, staring at the green walls in shame and then she tilted her head low again, no. No way, he was a Malfoy and there was no way he could have actually felt anything but disgust towards her. She felt this room was the exit to happiness and into a troubled life and once, for the first time in her life, even after he had done something wrong, did she admire and pity Draco Malfoy.

She closed her eyes for a mere minute of thought and felt a rush hit her as her sadness was melted away and her happiness returned. She opened her eyes and looked around at what was revealed. The walls looked exactly like hers, in which the red and gold had brightly made a difference, and she turned. Every trace of Slytherin was gone. She had suddenly lost her breath once again in the troublesome day.

Her eyes filled with tears and her sorrows drifted away into nothing but pure ecstatic humor as she stood. She stared for a mere minute, in shock, but also in happiness as she found her self immobile. She found herself too shocked to move, but she wanted to run, for the time had passed. The room was the way it should have been all along and there in the doorway stood Harry.

"Hermione," he spoke as he dropped his bags instantly.

"Harry!" She cried in relief as she finally found the strength to run to him.

She wrapped her arms so hard around his neck that he had began to stumble backwards, and fallen upon the couch. He was weak, but he couldn't tell her that, for it was only her that could ever give him strength. She kissed him hard on the lips as the misery of his absence began to evaporate. She smiled between each kiss, not wanting to talk, but just to make up for lost times.

"Harry," she smiled through her tears. "Oh God have I missed you so." She said eagerly.

"And I you," he smiled. He kissed her one last time upon the lips and smiled. "I promise to never leave you again, and I'm sorry for what has happened."

"It's not you're fault," Hermione said instantly. "Ron was just…"

"No, no, no, Hermione," Harry stopped her. "I'm sorry about what happened here, between you and Malfoy." He said with a frown.

"How… How did you know?" She asked, amazed. "I'm guessing Dumbledore told you, for that man knows everything."

"No…" he said, surprised. "Actually it was Malfoy. He told me that he had to tell you something, but you would refuse to see him, so he gave me the message."

"I don't think I want to know." She said, fearfully. "But, let's hear it anyway, just because it will bother me later."

"Okay, well, he told me to tell you that the difference between the inside and out when it's raining is that when you're inside the rain tempts you to go out, but when you are already out you are nothing but free." He said and Hermione thought for a bit. "Then he said something about the rain doesn't lie to you or someone else when they are in the rain, or something, but then he was taken away."

"By who?" Hermione wondered.

"The same guard of the prison that brought me here." He stated. "He was actually very kind for being a guard of a prison."

"How so?" Hermione asked, sensing a bit of sarcasm.

"He kept telling me that if I didn't shut up he'd put me back in there." She started to laugh. "Yeah, worse part it, I wasn't talking. It was some random parrot that was attached to his hat, but kept talking to me." She only laughed louder.

"Oh my," she kissed him. "I am just happy you're home." She smiled. He had kissed her back and back and forth did they begin, when she had stopped. She realized that in the rain had she kissed Draco, and then did he mean it was not a lie. "I love you, Harry." She smiled, kissing him, and then pulling away. "Oh! I almost forgot!" She said instantly, "come, I have something to show you!"

She pulled him from the couch and into her room. She sat upon her bed and he lay beside her, practically melting into her voice that he had missed so much. She smiled down on him as she showed him the palms of her hands and the face of a girl erupted and in a shriek of joy had she made when she saw Harry, and then leisurely calmed down. Harry looked up at Hermione, with a smile, as she looked into the spidery script.

"Rayne, we have so much to tell you…"

Author's Note:

Hey everyone, I realize I'm EXTREMELY late for when I promised to update, but I haven't exactly been having a great time, for a lot of things have been going wrong in my life and I just needed time to collect myself before I started writing again. I'm terribly sorry though.

Once again, I am REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY………… REALLY REALLY sorry:(

To My Reviewers:

sakura-sweeti – You are the only one who reviewed my last chapter and I thank you, because it honestly means the world to me. It make insanely happy to know that someone out there appreciates my writing, for my parents keep telling me that if I keep writing I will then be a "starving Artist" and then basically waste my life. I don't think I am an awesome writer, I do not think I am a wondrous writer, and I sure don't think I am better than anyone else. I am just good. I'm an okay writer, but it's twice as hard to say that when your parents believe that your sadness is their happiness. Maybe I should stop writing.

I don't know if I want to go any further with this or not, depends on my mood and how much people want me to update. And also you're probably annoyed with this message for I randomly open up to you and let a thousand people read this, but I know you'll read it, and I know I can trust you. Thank you, for listening.

UPDATED: (SATURDAY) NOVEMBER 11, 2006 – November Birthday wishes!

1. Happy Belated Birthday to Chris Rankin who plays Percy Weasley. His Birthday: 8th

2. Happy Belated Birthday to Brendan Gleeson who plays Mad-Eye Moody. His Birthday: 9th

3. Happy Almost Birthday to Alfonso Cuaron who directed Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. His Birthday: 28th

That's about it!

Airalynn

Quote:

"Most of us go to our grave with our music still inside of us. It's the one thing that never dies." Me