DISCLAIMER: I do not own any recognisable characters.

This story was inspired by AkashaTheKitty's Dramione story, The Bracelet. The story made me fall in love with Theo Nott, therefore creating this "Themione".

Chapter Six – Champion

Hermione jumped as an ice-cold hand gripped her upper arm in a vice-like grip. Wheeling around, she was met with the furious face of Draco Malfoy.

"We," he spoke through clenched teeth, "need to talk."

Without another word, he began hauling her to the end of the station, where there were few people and plenty of dark corners.

When they reached one of the secluded corners, Malfoy forcibly spun her so that she faced him, before releasing his first huge bomb.

"What the bloody fucking hell did you do to Theo last night?"

Hermione covered her ears and took a step back. Malfoy advanced, keeping the exact same distance between them.

"Answer me, Hogwarts girl," he sneered. "Or you'll be paying."

Hermione couldn't answer, couldn't unlock her tongue to answer, to follow her mind's bidding. She had frozen.

Malfoy suddenly reached out two pale, strong hands, and held her upper arms like pincers.

"Answer me," he demanded, shaking her roughly. "Answer me, goddamn it! I know you had something to do with it!"

His violent actions loosened Hermione's tongue.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" she squeaked.

"Don't know what I'm talking about?" he roared. "I'm pretty damn sure you know exactly what I'm talking about!"

Hermione didn't even notice that Malfoy's hands had left her shoulders until one had bunched into a fist and collided with her jaw.

She kept from moaning in pain by biting her lip. She wouldn't show her weakness, although it hurt so bloody much. Malfoy had practice, that much was obvious.

"Now," he said, much softer and calmer, the voice of someone who had all the time in the world and they knew it. "Tell me exactly what happened last night. Tell me exactly what was said between the two of you."

When she didn't immediately reply, Malfoy obliged by sending out another fist, this one higher up. Hermione could feel the corner of her eye throbbing.

Malfoy waited another ten seconds, before landing another blow, almost exactly on the same spot on her jaw. He counted down another eight seconds, then landed one on the centre of Hermione's face.

This time, Hermione couldn't stop a small groan from slipping out, and she doubled over, clutching her nose. Something warm and wet was trickling through her fingers.

The pain was so much that she didn't even jerk away from Malfoy when he bent over to whisper in her ear, "Tell me exactly what happened that made Theo want to leave us."

Hermione tried to tell him, "It's got nothing to do with me," but the blood was pouring freely through her nose.

"What's that?" Malfoy asked, sounding almost polite, before aiming a kick at her shin.

Hermione gasped at the pain. She reached down to hold her shin, and realised that was what Malfoy wanted; to have her on her knees.

"Don't lie to me," he hissed in her ear. "I know he suddenly had quitting ideas after talking to you."

Pain exploded on the other side of Hermione's face as Malfoy thumped the other side of her jaw.

"You can't quit," he whispered menacingly. "Once you're in, you can't ever get out, and no girl can ever interfere, especially a Hogwarts girl like you."

Her temple throbbed again. Malfoy was an expert at aiming and striking; he knew perfectly well that hitting the same spot with the same pressure over and over would hurt more and more. And he also knew exactly how much force he had to use—the pain was never enough for Hermione to pass out.

"I can't even see what he sees in you," he said softly, as if mightily curious. "You're just a lower than average girl with lower than average looks, and certainly lower than average intelligence if you thought you could come in between Theo and the gang."

Hermione wished Malfoy would get over the taunting bit. Couldn't he see that she couldn't reply anyway, seeing as he had damn near almost broken her jaw with all the fists he'd thrown at it?

"So here's a piece of advice," Malfoy concluded.

He grabbed Hermione's shoulders and forced her to stand up. He aimed another kick at her other shin, then dragged her to stand up again when she dropped back down.

"You will stay away from Theo," Malfoy ordered. "You will not say a word to him, no matter what he says to you. You will reject his calls, block his number, and ignore his texts. You will not contact him ever again. You will stay out of his life, and he'll stay out of yours."

When she didn't reply or even look up at him, he pushed a finger under her chin to force her to look up at him, before striking her other temple.

"Or I'll promise a repeat of this. And when I make a promise, I don't break it. Remember that, won't you, Hogwarts girl?"

He pushed her roughly towards the tracks, and Hermione thought he was going to throw her in front of the oncoming train. Instead, he caught her and steadied her before she fell in, then pushed her on the train and walked off with his hood up.

As Hermione sat down on the train and pulled a scarf out of her bag to hide half of her face, she suddenly realised why Malfoy had gotten her on a train before him, and why he had bothered at all.

Malfoy knew she would take him seriously, and she would cut Theo out of her life before he became too big a part. He knew that she wouldn't dare tell anyone what happened because he'd go after her again. He didn't want to run the risk of someone finding her alone in a secluded part of the train station, and have some sort of official police investigation to find out who beat her up. If everyone pretended everything was normal, nothing more would get out of this.

Hermione craved normal right about now.

Of course, the concept of everything blowing off and becoming normal stopped right about the time that she got off the bus from the train station.

As she walked through the campus to the table where her friends sat, everyone openly stared at her and whispered to each other. Almost everyone knew her because she was running for school president next year, and she had to deliver a speech in front of the whole school as to why they should vote for her. A lot of people asked if she was okay. She just shrugged and walked on.

But she couldn't shrug away her friends. As one, all their faces turned to stone at the sight of her, their furious faces carved into concrete. Ginny looked shocked, yet resigned, Ron was furious, but Harry was livid. It was he who first broke the silence.

"What the fucking hell happened to you?"

AN:

I've changed the rating for this story. I know this was a bit over-the-top violent, but Malfoy is just very scared of losing his one trustworthy friend, and over a girl at that. Humor me.

HannahJCullen: This isn't technically a "full length" story, its more like a veryyy long one-shot divided into chapters =] Thanks for your review.

Thanks to my most faithful reviewer, Drizzle Me Some Drake. I look forward to reading your reviews every time =)

Review if you want to keep this story rolling.