Chapter Five
Hermione looked up as the portrait opened and Ginny, Harry, Pansy and Ron tumbled in.
"Training…killer…ugh." Ginny uttered as she buried her face in the couch pillows, tracking mud everywhere. Pansy smirked casually, but her steps did not carry the same poise it did in the morning, as she climbed up the stairs to her room. Ron and Harry were much more direct about their weariness. Though being veteran's to Moody's trainings, he always seemed to find new ways to put their bodied to the limits, resulting in them feeling immensely tired. Ron curled himself in his sofa and promptly fell asleep, while Harry sat stretched across Ginny's couch as she attempted to push him off. She did not succeed and resigned to leaning on him, putting great effort in subtly rubbing more mud onto his already dirty clothes.
"Ginny! What are you doing?" Harry roared, fining his clothes speckled with mud.
"Making myself comfortable." She replied innocently, rubbing more mud off her clothes, which conveniently landed on him. Harry smiled slightly. Repeating the cleansing spell which Hermione had taught him earlier, he proceeded to void Ginny and himself of all specks of dirt. "No fun! You just took out all the joy of my warm bubbly bath I was envisioning!" Ginny stated, sitting up. "I can help you there." Harry replied, kissing Ginny on her lips. At this moment, Ron took the liberal to wake himself out of his slumber. Hermione had suspected all along that he was never really asleep but quietly waiting just in case Harry and Ginny got out of hand. Hermione smirked at her best friend's antics and hurriedly tried to break the build up of tension.
"I am starved!" She uttered, stretching her hands up, and curling her back slightly. "Me too" Ron replied, jumping off the couch, all this while never keeping his eyes off his younger sister and best friend. "hmmmmm I think I am comfortable right where I am. Care to join me Harry?" Ginny questioned, her eyebrows raised suggestively, Ron fell for it, hook line and sinker. "I don't think so Virginia, you look awfully starved to me." Ron replied, hastily dragging his perturbed sister of the couch and out of the portrait. Harry cracked a smirk.
"You were enjoying you're self weren't you Harry?" Hermione questioned a smile on her lips.
"Couldn't say I wasn't." he replied, breaking into a chuckle.
"You think I should call Pansy down for dinner?"
"Nah,that Slytherin is capable of taking care of her self, com'on grandmother, dinner is going to get cold if you continue to worry." Hermione nodded. Thinking off her findings over the course of the day, her brow darkened even further. "Hermione!" Harry called already half way out of the portrait. "Coming!" Hermione quickly shot back her reply, rushing to her table, she hurriedly grabbed her penned notes off the table and hastened out after Harry.
"Harry?" Hermione called out perturbed as she turned the corridor. He was no where in sight. Hermione sighed in frustration as she ran down the corridor. Where could he be? She thought, as she began the climb up the stairs which she found at the end of the corridor.
Hermione looked about in frustration. "HARRY!" she yelled out, hoping that he would pop out from behind a pillar, doubling over with laughter, to no such avail. Hermione turned back, hoping to retrace her steps. She started her decent down the stair wall, when suddenly the earth under her shook. She hurriedly latched herself onto the banister as the steps started to spiral downwards. It finally stopped. Hermione stepped off the stairs slightly shaken.
She looked around at her surroundings. She had thought that she had seen and had travelled all over the entire castle, yet her surroundings were completely unfamiliar. She immediately deduced that she was somewhere in the dungeons. The air around her was still and carried a cool damp feel, further more she had felt the stair wall moving downwards, not up. Slightly more confident, she took a step forward, off the steps. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a slight movement in the shadows. Unnerved, she brought out her wand, illuminating the surroundings around her. She blinked, her eyes getting use to the sudden change in lighting. She then held the light up to the walls of the corridor. They were bricked, moss encased the linings. Hermione shivered in discomfort, before starting to walk down the corridor in search of a familiar route.
The corridor seemed never ending, slightly annoyed by its immense length, Hermione broke into a slow jog with hope to quicken her pace. It hardly made a difference. Her rumbling stomach reminded her of the meal she was missing and the corridor never seemed to open out. Finally, Hermione found herself at a fork in a corridor. To her right, there was a door, slightly ajar, and the corridor continued ahead of her. Hurriedly she placed her hand on the door knob of the door to turn it open, but to her astonishment, the door was forced open from the inside, roughly pushing Hermione into the corridor wall.
"snortGranger?"
Hermione had braced her self to face any form of opposition which was going to pop out at her and now seeing who it was, she could not help but curse fate under her breath. She would have rather taken on a troll than have to deal with the teenager in front of her. Not that the two were any different to begin with, except perhaps in intellect, the troll won Goyle hands down, any day.
"Surprise, it's me." Hermione stated monotonously.
"Watcha doing her'r"
Hermione cringed at his sentence structure.
"Looking around" she replied. No, she was picking daisies, didn't he know that the dungeons had the perfect climatic features which stimulated their growth.
"O' I thot you wrev lookin for the slytherin common room."
Hermione groaned, of course she had nothing else better to do than to search the entire campus for the slytherin common room, which she whereabouts had known about in her 2nd year.
Then it struck Hermione, Goyle had no reason what so ever to be in school during the holidays. Perturbed she questioned him. "Oh, er, I left somthin in the common room." Hermione knew a lie when she heard one. Nobody was allowed back to Hogwarts on a free access basis. Hermione ran her eyes over Goyle, he was sturdily built and look strong enough to do her massively bodily harm, regardless if she had her wand or not. So, throwing caution to the wind, she tried a different approach, one on later thought she would have deemed the stupidest move in her entire lifetime, she tried to co-operate with Goyle.
Initially it went alright, Goyle being the dense being he was, had failed to make the connection between helping Hermione and betraying his cause as a newly initiated death eater So, he led Hermione through the Slytherin common room and towards the front exit. Yet, what Goyle fail to register and what Hermione failed to notice because she had let her guard down long ago, was that Goyle had not come alone. No, when Goyle came back to the common room for the sole purpose of doubling checking the whereabouts of a certain Malfoy junior, he had been accompanied by another student. One, who was sitting in the common room couch, waiting for Goyle to return from checking the dungeons.
"Goyle, where are you going?"
Hermione froze in mid step, it had completely slipped her mind that there was a high possibility that Goyle had been accompanied. So preoccupied she was in trying to weasel the reason of Goyle's arrival from him that she had forgotten to weigh the situation that she getting herself into.
"And who is that with you?"
Acting on impulse, Hermione shot a quick spell in the person's direction, hoping to stun him and make a quick escape. Needless to say, her attacker had also thought along the same lines and shot a spell in Hermione's direction, hitting Goyle and stunning him.
"Shit" Hermione cursed under her breathe has she hid behind a couch. She had rolled towards it, when her attacker had first fired.
"Come out, Come out where ever you are." Blaise called out, forcing aside a couch with the flick of his wand.
Hermione shuddered, as the couch to her right was pushed away. Silently, she waited, waiting for the right moment to strike back. She peered from behind her couch; Blaise's back was towards her. Perfect. She jumped up, "Expellirmus!" She yelled.
Blaise turned around to face her, but it was too late, his wand was already in Hermione's hand and with one fluid movement, she whispered a spell, breaking it in two.
"Impressive, mudblood." Blaise replied, eyeing her.
"Give it up Zambini!"
"Oh no I am scared." Blaise replied imitating a shiver.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Shut up"
"Make me, Granger, and you're not going anywhere."
It was Hermione's turn to laugh. "Oh really Zambini? What on earth makes you think I'll stay here with you? I am going to Dumbledore right now."
"Just you try Granger. You have no clue of the password so there is no way you're leaving here."
Hermione was getting very annoyed with Zambini and his remarks.
Uttering the spell to bind him, she left him bundled up on the floor before searching the room for the portrait. Finally finding it, she attempted to open it. It did not budge. She applied her weight against it and pushed hard, nothing happened. Taking in a breath, she aimed a swift round house kick at the portrait, hoping to break it. She only succeeded in bruising her ankle badly. Letting out a string of curses, she went to find Zambini, hoping to vent out some of her anger on the boy.
"Zambini. What's the password." She uttered pointing her wand at him.
"Granger, you're not very intelligent are you? First you threaten me, then you man handle me and now you're asking me a favour? I don't think so." He replied, sneering at her.
Hermione bent down and picked him up by the scruff of his neck. "Zambini, I don't think you understood, I didn't ask you a question. Either you tell me the password now, or, I'll get it out of you the hard way." She uttered harshly before letting him fall back on his face.
Blaise turned his face up to her, spitting out the carpet lint. "No, you see Granger, I don't think you can get the password from me, because you are too nice a person to kno-"
Hermione turned suddenly, sensing movement behind her. It was too late, before she could raise her wand in defence, Goyle had already attacked, and everything went black.
When Hermione awoke, she felt her head throbbing. She tried to raise her hand to massage her head, but to her astonishment, she found her hands tussled tightly behind her. She opened her eyes. She was tied to a chair facing the Slytherin common room.
"Blaise, She awaken" Hermione heard Goyle utter and minutes later, Zambini appeared in her vison range. "Granger, Granger, Granger, what did I tell you?" Hermione groaned and let her head fall to her side, Goyle's blow had cut her head and blood was trickling down the side of her face. Her head was still throbbing and she could not think straight. "Granger did you ever learn to look at people when they are talking to you." Hermione felt a face being wrenched forward and she was looking into Blaise's blue eyes once again.
"Now where was I? Yes, Granger, is Draco in the castle?"Hermione murmured under her breathe.
"Granger I am asking you a question." Hermione kept her silence.
"You see Granger, don't think that now that I don't have my wand I still can't hurt you. There are so many ways for me to inflict pain." Blaise gave a soft chuckle, Hermione shuddered involuntarily. "Now that I have got my point across, is Draco here?" Hermione felt something hard pressed into her back, leaving a stinging pain in its wake. Hermione winced, trying not to show her pain, she shook her head slightly in reply. "Hmmm? No? Then Granger, have you ever heard of a book?"
Hermione raised her head and smirked. Finding her voice, she spat out, "Zambini, of course I have heard of a book."
"Granger, what did I say about testing my patience?" Hermione felt the knife travelling up her back, tearing her skin. She screamed out in pain.
"Have you heard of the book of truth?" Hermione shook her head.
"Then why on earth do you have these in your pocket?" Blaise drew out a stack of papers. Hermione recognised them, they were the notes she had written today while doing her research on the book. "So tell me Granger, were you lying? Because I despise liars." Hermione braced herself for another spasm of pain.
"er, Blaise?" Hermione looked up on hearing Crabbe's voice. Upon seeing who had arrived she dropped her head in despair.
"Draco, how nice of you to join us" "Blaise, what are you doing here?" Draco questioned, his wand was already raised, in one glance he had taking in the room and Granger, inducing what was happening. "Now now, you can put that wand of yours done Draco, after all we are on the same side." Hermione's head shot up in disgust. Malfoy was a bloody traitor. Her anger towards the boy surged. If that was the case, the only way she could escape was if she helped herself, she thought, trying to formulate a plan. First she had to get out of this horrid chair.
Slowly she began to try and loosen the ties on her hands. If Zambini had tied them without a wand, then she had hope on loosening them.
Meanwhile Draco surveyed Blaise with a look of disgust etched into his features.
"I will never grovel at the feet of Voldermont Zambini." Blaise's face turned pale upon the mention of Voldermont's name. Quietly he murmured to himself as if trying to decide what to do. Then, with a sudden yell, he lunged at Draco. "Participio Pasado" Draco uttered with a lazy drawl. Blaise froze in motion. Stubbornly he tried to move but to no avail. He struggled, trying to free himself of the spell, looking very much like a fish out of water. Realising that he was not going anywhere, he lashed out in anger. Hoping to bait Draco he yelled, "Why Draco to scared to fight me like a man? Com'on where are you're guts Malfoy. I dare you. Fight me fist to fist."
Draco snorted, He knew that Blaise was just riling him up; but all the same he really needed to shut him up. With a amused smirk he uttered "Try not to bore me this time" and released him. "Male chauvinism" Hermione couldn't help but murmur under her breath as she rubbed the insides of her wrists together, fraying the rope.
Blaise wasted no time and lunged at Draco with his arms outstretched. With a quick side step, Draco jumped out of reach. Blaise dealt another blow, and this time it hit its mark, cuffing Draco in the jaw. "Bloody arse" Draco swore, before dealing a straight punch to Blaise's gut and a sharp kick to his knee. Blaise doubled over in pain. Draco let a smirk graze his face.
Meanwhile, Hermione had managed to free herself from her bonds. Seeing that Malfoy was keeping Blaise occupied, she took the liberty to attempt to escape from the way she had entered the common room. Just then Goyle; who was busy cheering Blaise on, with a few grunts of encouragement, caught her attention.
The blood from her blow in her head had now hardened and was stiff, but still the pain was still on her mind, like the bad after taste. Slowly she crept up to him. Grabbing a vase from the mantle above the fireplace, Hermione smashed it over Goyle's egg shaped head. "Revenge is sweet" She uttered, a smile on her face.
To her amazement, Goyle did not collapse in agony or pain as she had expected him to. Instead he shook his head slightly and turned around to face Hermione, blinking. "Oh gods he's got an awfully thick skull." Hermione muttered as she swiftly scampered out of his way, Goyle started to lumber towards her, slightly disoriented after the blow. Hurriedly, Hermione looked around hoping to find something to defend herself, or even better, to find her wand.
"Draco, did you think you got rid of me?" Blaise's scathing voice cut through the room. Hermione peered out from behind the couch, where she had hidden previously, to see Blaise lunging at Draco with a knife drawn. The knife was covered in blood. Her blood, Hermione realised as she reached out with her hand to touch the open wound on her back. She winced in pain.
Draco swiftly sprung to his side."I knew you never could play fair Zambini." He uttered, retrieving his wand from where he had slipped it up his sleeve. Seeing that he was outnumbered and outwitted, Blaise pushed Goyle, who was lumbering towards Hermione's direction, into Draco before hurriedly jumping into the fireplace and disappearing from the room.
"Damn him!" Draco yelled, as he managed to untangle himself from Goyle's immense bulk and found that Blasie had jumped ship. Draco smashed his fist on the adjacent table and hurriedly withdrew it, when he realised it was now covered in splinters.
Turning around, Draco surveyed the damage that had occurred. The sofa was overturned and the plush chair which Granger had been tied in was covered in blood. Pieces of a broken vase littered the floor and there were splinters of the smashed antique desk which Draco had thrown Goyle against.
"Granger!" Draco yelled out.
Hermione groaned in pain. She had not been able to find her wand, exhausted and suffering from immense loss of blood, (she just realised how deep the wounds on her back were) she felt that it was better if she sat down. Now all she could see was a slight blur and there was the constant pounding of blood in her ears. All she wanted to do was to close her eyes and try and block the numb pain which surrounded her.
"Granger!"
She tried to raise her head, perhaps she was in heaven already and that was her name being called by the sweet angels above. Slowly she opened her eyes and was met by a warm glow. Her vision cleared slightly and she saw Malfoy standing in front of her. She groaned as he observed her with an unreadable smirk on his face.
"Can you walk?" He questioned.
"Of course I can!" Hermione shot back, attempting to stand up. Pain shot up her back and she fell back to the floor in a heap. The pain. She had been numbed to it just now, perhaps due to all the excitement, but now it came to her in waves. She cried out in pain as the cloth of her t-shirt made contact with the open wounds on her back. Hermione felt as if she was going to die. Never before had she felt so helpless in her life. She could not walk, she could not even stand up. All she wanted to do was to close her eyes and get away from the pain, and even that she was hardly succeeding at.
"Granger you're bleeding."
Her frustration evolved into immense irritation as Hermione heard Maloy's remarks. She really wanted to hit Malfoy. Hit him very hard. Of course she was bleeding; she was bloody stabbed for goodness sake! Her anger was making what little blood she had left rush to her head. Slowly Hermione began to feel giddy and soon she had succumbed to the darkness. She did not feel the pain ebbing away.
Draco sighed as Hermione's head dropped to her side. He then withdrew his wand, watching as the last tendrils of blue light swept over Granger's body before it was swallowed into its tip. Straightening, he looked around to find Goyle seated on the couch, staring off to space. He growled sullenly; only Goyle could sit, stoned, at a time like this.
"Goyle, make yourself useful and carry Granger."
Goyle looked up, seeing Draco he grunted in assent and picked up Granger, throwing her over his shoulder. Draco smirked as Granger's head bobbed along with Goyle's steps. That girl was going to get a horrible headache when she awoke
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