Disclaimer: I own nothing. I really honestly own nearly nothing in this chapter. A lot of it was from the books, though I changed some of it around. The title Prophecy belongs to Judas Priest.
Author's Note: Hey guys, guess what! You're getting this chapter on Monday instead of Tuesday! Isn't that exciting? Okay so it's because the library isn't going to be open on Friday and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get to the internet.. but if I do you should get a chapter on Friday too.
Chapter Nine - Prophecy
It was already daylight by the time Harry returned with Professor Dumbledore. Hermione could hear the door opening and Mrs. Black's muffled screaming start right away. She looked over at Malfoy and gave him a small smile. He'd promised to stay up with her until morning, and he'd nearly made it too. He'd only fallen asleep about thirty minutes prior to Harry's arrival.
Walking over to his side of the bed and pulled the blanket up so that he was covered and pushed the bed into a laying position rather than the sitting up position it had previously been in. "Thanks, Malfoy," she whispered as she finished settling him in. She walked out of the room, closing the door softly behind her so as not to wake him, just as Ginny came bounding out of their shared room.
"Hey, how long have you been up?" The redhead had noticed that Hermione wasn't in the room that morning, but she'd also noticed that the bed had been slept in so she knew that Hermione couldn't have been up for very long. "Did you sleep alright?"
Hermione hated lying to her friends, especially Ginny, but she couldn't exactly tell the girl that she'd been up half the night, and that she'd ended up spending the time with Malfoy. She smiled a bit as she thought about the previous night, how he'd spent his time trying to teach her how to play chess. She hadn't wanted to get the chess board from downstairs, afraid someone would notice her walking, or hear the chess board itself, so instead she'd drawn a diagram of one and Malfoy had spent a couple hours teaching her which pieces were which, which ones could move in what direction, and explaining the difference between check and checkmate.
Despite what she'd expected, she'd actually found herself having a good time. "I haven't been up too long. And yes, I slept fine." Hate it as much as she may, it was easier to tell the small lie than to admit she enjoyed Malfoy's company. "Come on, let's go wake up Ron and see what Harry's news is."
The two girls trekked downstairs and burst into the room where Ron slept, snoring loudly. Neither were bothered seeing Ron sleeping without a shirt on and they both ran over to the bed and jumped on top of the redhead. His breathing sputtered and he grabbed the first person that was on him, throwing them off of him.
Ginny made contact with the floor just as Ron sat up in bed and started tickling his other attacker. She knew that Ron had to have known which girl was which since he'd saved the torture of tickling for Hermione who was far more ticklish than she was.
The high pitched squealing that Hermione let out as she tried to bat Ron's hands away from her ribs could have shattered glass, so rather than gloat about the fact that she wasn't being tickled, Ginny ran over and grabbed Hermione away from Ron, smacking her brother on the back of the head to get him to let her go. "Come on, guys. Stop fooling around. I want to see where Harry was all night."
Tossing the blanket off of himself, Ron grabbed a shirt from the floor, whichever was closest, and gestured towards the door. "Ladies first." Ginny laughed and threw a pillow at her brother before heading out the door, Hermione's wrist grasped firmly in her hand. She began pulling the brunette out the door and with a grin, Hermione grabbed Ron's wrist and the train of Gryffindors made their way downstairs to the kitchen.
Ginny was the first one into the kitchen, and the first to wrap her arms around Harry. "Tell us everything!" The other two could only laugh, letting go of each other's wrists as they circled Harry so he could regale them with the tale of his night.
"Honestly, it wasn't that exciting," Harry said as he unwrapped Ginny's arms from around his neck. He nodded his head at Mrs. Weasley who had placed a large plate of food in front of him, then began placing one in front of each other the three other seats so that the children could have breakfast while speaking. "He just wanted me to help him persuade this old teacher to come out of retirement. Horace Slughorn?" He had a lilt in his voice that made it sound as if he was asking everyone if they knew who Mr. Slughorn was.
The teens were slightly surprised when they heard a "hmm" sound coming from Mrs. Weasley. But she quickly brushed aside their worries.
Ron, deciding that the name of the teacher wasn't exciting enough, turned away from his mother and back to Harry as he started stuffing food into his mouth. "Why would he want some old teacher to come out of retirement? What's he need a teacher for?"
Everyone else in the kitchen turned to look at the redhead with looks of astonishment on their faces. It lasted for quite a few minutes before Ron finally asked what everyone was staring at him for. "Oh you can't seriously be that daft, Ronald." Hermione rolled her eyes at the boy who'd been one of her best friends since beginning her schooling at Hogwarts. "Now that Umbridge as left, obviously we need a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, haven't we?"
Ron nearly looked like he wanted to smack himself in the head for not thinking about it first. As it was he turned bright red from embarrassment and turned to Harry to try and hide it from everyone. "So, erm, what's he like?"
"He looked a bit like a walrus," Harry replied as he began eating his own breakfast. "Apparently he used to be Head of Slytherin." He watched as all of the students grimmaced, no doubt thinking about the current Head of Slytherin, Professor Severus Snape. "Well he can't be any worse than Snape. Besides, at least this means Umbridge can't come back."
Molly made another tutting noise at the mention of Dolores Umbridge. It seemed that nobody liked her, nobody but the Slytherin's of course.
"And that's all that happened?" Ron looked into Harry's eyes and realized that the other boy wished to mention something else, but for some reason didn't feel like saying it in front of Mrs. Weasley. "Right. Well that's a bummer." He knew better than to try and push it while his mother was around. If anything, it would just make her hang around them more to try and figure out what they were saying behind her back.
The quartet waited until everyone was finished eating before heading upstairs. "Don't forget that you need to clean another couple of rooms today," she called to them when they were on the steps. Figuring that was the perfect excuse to get away from the matron, they grabbed their buckets and cleaning supplies and headed into one of the guest rooms that hadn't yet been cleared out.
"He's going to be giving me private lessons this year," Harry said conversationally as he shut the door behind them. Hermione's brow furrowed and Ginny bit her lip. "He told me so, this morning in your broom shed. I dont – I don't know exactly why he's going to be giving me lessons, but I think it must be because of the prophecy." He watched as neither of his friends moved, though their eyes had grown in size. All of them. "You know, the one they were trying to steal at the Ministry."
As if that was their cue, the three teenagers all changed position. Ron's fingers gripped their way through his hair, Hermione crossed her arms in front of her chest and Ginny stood with her own hands on her hips. "Yeah but it got smashed. Nobody knows what it said."
Harry let Hermione finished speaking before shaking his head. "The one that smashed at the Ministry wasn't the only record of the prophecy. I heard the whole thing in Dumbledore's office, he was the one he prophecy was made to, so he could tell me what it said." Hermione's eyes got even wider than they had been initially. Ginny began biting her lip again, and Harry couldn't even force himself to face Ron until he could get the last bit of what he had to tell them to escape his lips. Taking a deep breath, he pushed on. "It looks like I'm the one who's got to finish off Voldemort..." He ignored the gasp coming from Ron's mouth at the name and sighed. "At least, it said neither of us could live while the other survives."
Nobody spoke for a few minutes. Harry had finally forced himself to look up at Ron and noticed that the usually freckle-faced boy was paler than Malfoy and looked like he was about to faint. Honestly, none of the others looked like they were faring any better.
It took a few minutes but Hermione's coloring finally came back to her face and she nodded as if to confirm something to herself. "Well that explains it," she mentioned. Everyone turned her way because they had no idea what she was talking about. "That must be why Dumbledore himself is going to be giving you lessons. But I wonder what he's going to teach you. Really advanced defense magic, I'm sure. Powerful countercurses, anti-jinxes, general evasive enchantments would be a no-brainer..."
As Hermione continued to speak about what Dumbledore could have in mind while teaching him, everyone else's color started to come back. Hermione wasn't treating Harry's news any differently than she would have if he'd said that he was actually a pureblood wizard and secretly Voldemort's love child. Even if he'd said something as outrageous as that, she'd spend her time trying to figure out exactly how, why, and what that could mean for him. He was pretty sure that he'd never loved his best friend as much as he loved her at that moment for not treating him like he was contagious, knowing that he was going to have to be the one to kill the Dark Lord.
"Well at least you know that's one lesson you'll be having this year," Ginny exclaimed, giving her input. It was just like Ginny to try and make light of the situation. Even if it took her a little bit to jump in. "That's one more than any of us."
"I wonder when our O.W.L. results will come in," Hermione fretted. She had tried not to think about the tests that they had taken at the end of their fifth year, but she couldn't help it now that Ginny had mentioned lessons. She wanted to know what classes they were going to be taking when they began school in September. She wanted to know so that she could get started on the course material early.
"It can't be long now. It's been a month or so since we took them," said Ron.
"I think Dumbledore said our results would be arriving today," Harry said as he held back the grin at when he knew would be Hermione's reaction. She didn't disappoint. She started screaming at him, asking him why he hadn't told her earlier that the results were supposed to come today. She ran back downstairs, determination in her stride as she went to bother Mrs. Weasley about whether or not the owls had shown up yet.
Ron grinned as Ginny followed the brunette, probably to save her mother more than to do anything about Hermione. The two boys grinned at each other some more before Ron's smile dropped slightly. "Are you scared?" He didn't have to mention what he was talking about. Despite everyone thinking that Ron was the stupidest one of them all, he knew that Ron did pay attention.
"Not as much anymore. I was at first, but now it feels like I've always known that it was going to come down to this, you know?" Harry shrugged at his best friend and waited for his response. He knew that Hermione and Ginny weren't going to leave his side during this, but he worried slightly about Ron. No matter how close they were, Ron tended to run away when he was scared, even from his friends. "We'll get through it, Ron."
Ron didn't have a chance to respond though, because at that moment Hermione began screaming again from downstairs. The owls must have arrived. But the boys weren't going to go down until they knew for sure. They didn't want to have to deal with a hysterical Hermione fretting over whether or not she did well on her exams, when they both knew she'd done perfectly. "Harry! Ron! The owls are here!"
The boys ran downstairs to the kitchen where four owls currently stood on the kitchen table. One for each other the current [hopefully] sixth years in the house. Everyone stood by their owl and detached their results, Ginny waiting desperately to find out what they all got.
Harry looked over his paper and grinned. He'd gotten an Outstanding in DADA. He'd exceeded expectations in Care of Magical Creatures, Charms, Herbology, Transfiguration, and most excitingly, in Potions. The fact that he hadn't scored well in Divination hardly even phased him. The only other class he'd failed was History of Magic, but after listening to Binns for an entire year, he didn't understand how anyone could pass the class – save for Hermione of course.
Ron had even managed to pass seven of his classes, even if he hadn't received any outstandings. But the fact that he'd passed every class, except for History of Magic and Divination, put him in a better mood than he'd been in for a long time. Even better when his mother hugged him for receiving such good grades. "That's more O.W.L.s than Fred and George managed to get put together. I'm so proud of you, son." The redhead flushed, unable to hide his embarrassment at his mom's display.
Hermione was the only one that didn't seem genuinely happy with her results. She'd managed to get an outstanding in ten of the subjects that she had studied that year, and while that alone should have had her jumping for joy, she was genuinely disappointed that she had only received an exceeds expectations in Defense Against the Dark Arts. The boys rolled their eyes and Ginny grinned.
"You know what this means, don't you?" Hermione shook her head as she looked over at the younger girl wondering what she could be thinking. "It means that I will without a doubt pass my O.W.L.s. I mean, if Ron here can manage to pass, there's no possible way I can fail. I've never been so relieved in my life."
Hermione couldn't help but crack a smile at that, and Ginny grinned again when she noticed that Hermione's mood had lifted. "Well while you all celebrate, I'm going to go ahead and bring Malfoy his results." She tried to take the envelope from the bird, but it wasn't about to let her retrieve them. Knowing that Malfoy would be the only one would could get them, she held out her arm for the owl to climb up and then began walking upstairs.
By the time she made it upstairs, Draco was already sitting up again in bed and waiting for her. "I could hear your screaming from here," he said in answer to her questioning glance. He rose an eyebrow as she flushed and then nodded towards the bird which flew off of Hermione's arm and onto the bed beside him. "I guess I should assume that these are mine?"
Hermione nodded and then waited for him to pull the envelope off of the bird's right leg. Her foot tapped impatiently and Draco simply rose an eyebrow at her again. Knowing that that was the nicest way he was going to tell her to stop, she pulled out the chair from the desk and sat down on her feet so she wouldn't be able to move them. She even took to sitting on her hands as Malfoy looked over his results before sharing them.
Draco felt like he could breathe easier by looking at that small piece of parchment than he had been able to for weeks. He nearly broke into a grin too, but he didn't want to give away how happy he was with the results just yet. It was far more enjoyable to let Hermione sit in torture for a few more minutes. He kept his eyes on the paper's edge just enough that he could see her fidgeting in her chair. When he was sure that she wasn't going to be to stand it anymore, he turned to look at her. Her movements stilled and her eyes became the size of saucers.
"Did you do okay?"
Draco was touched that she actually seemed worried about the fact that he might have failed, but he pushed the feeling aside and just grinned. "Of course I passed. Though I doubt I passed as many as you, seeing as I refused to replicate myself just so that I could have more classes than anyone in the history of the school." He was almost afraid that he'd gotten to snide with his teasing until Hermione stuck her tongue out at him. "Let me guess, you passed all fifty classes that you were taking, no doubt with outstandings in everything."
She shook her head and looked down at the ground. "Not everything." Steeling herself, she took a deep breath and then looked back up at Malfoy. "I didn't get an outstanding in Defense Against the Dark Arts."
"Well then the instuctor was rubbish," he replied honestly. "Although, it's also rubbish that you're actually bothered by the fact that you didn't manage to over-achieve in every single class that you took. But the instructor was rubbish if you didn't. You're friends with Harry Potter. According to the papers you battled Death Eaters at the Ministry. Battled my father, even." He met her eyes and gave her a pointed look. "If you managed to survive that, then you shouldn't need a piece of paper telling you that you're outstanding at defending yourself against the Dark Arts."
A burning sensation began behind Hermione's eyes, but she didn't let the tears fall. She had a hard time believing that the boy who was sitting in front of her was the same Draco Malfoy she'd known her entire magical career. Without thinking about it first she got up from the chair, ignoring the wary look in his eyes as she got closer. Wrapping her arms around his neck, Hermione gave her biggest enemy a hug for the first time in her life. "Thank you, Malfoy."
Author's Note: Question for anyone who actually bothers to read my notes, and reply to them.. how many more chapters do you want before they get to school? Obviously there's going to be at least one, when they go school shopping.. But do you want there to be one for every week that he's bed-ridden? Do you just want me to hurry the heck up and get on with getting them to school because you're tired of Malfoy being stuck in bed? And also, if you guys have any ideas of what you would like to see happen, by all means let me know and I will try my best to incorporate them.