A/N: I actually quite enjoyed writing this chapter, more so than the previous ones. I hope you enjoy!

Chapter Six

21st October 1998. Sunday.

He breathed in slowly; deeply. There were goosebumps rising on his arms as the cold night air chilled his bones. His breath misted in a silvery vapour before his face and he wondered once again why he was there.

The trees towered menacingly all around him, rising so high into the air that their height was indiscernible. Their branches were thick and obscured the sky which was almost certainly alight with stars and a shining full moon. He shuffled his feet nervously to generate warmth and heard twigs crack underneath his toes, breaking the uneasy silence. He felt feverish; there was a light sheen of sweat on his forehead and his white shirt clung uncomfortably to his skin even though he couldn't remember being so cold in all his life.

His instinct told him that there was something terribly wrong; he should leave this place. In the back of his mind, he was dimly aware that it closely resembled the Forbidden Forest, but even the one occasion he had visited the place had not filled him with as much fear and dread as this time. That was nearly seven years ago, and so much had happened since then that he felt, if possible, profoundly more unsafe than he had as an eleven-year-old schoolboy.

How was that possible?

Almost as if in answer, there was a pitiful whimper from ahead of him. His breath quickened with fear, and he raised his hand up to wipe at his sweaty brow, pushing blond strands of hair away from his eyes. His legs felt stiff and awkward as he stepped forward, following the noise as it came again. His hands balled into fists, his nails digging into the white flesh of his palm.

As he approached, the noise grew louder although he couldn't see anything in front of him. He followed the winding dirt path until the noise sounded as though it could have come from right next to him. Squinting, he caught a flash of silver lying next to the tree in front of him. He frowned and drew closer, crouching down to inspect it. It was some sort of blade; a knife. The knife-edge had clearly been filed recently, and appeared so sharp that he found himself flinching at the sight of crimson blood along the silver edge. Whatever, or whoever, had been attacked with the knife had not been stabbed; they had been tortured. The thought of what must have been done to have stained the blade in such a way made bile rise to his throat, and he dropped the knife as though it had burned him.

The next moan startled him, and he gave a short gasp as he realised whatever had emitted it lay on the other side of the tree, concealed by the thick bark. He could feel his heartbeat pounding erratically with fear and anxiety as he stood up straight and moved around the trunk to investigate further.

His attention was drawn immediately to a pale hand, almost silver against the dark floor of the forest, lying palm facing up with fingers curled in towards the centre of the palm. He clenched his eyes shut, feeling nauseous at the thought of what he could be about to face. He had never been able to stomach the torture he'd been so often forced to watch.

The shallow breathing of the person before him made him open his eyes again. They took in, once again, the deathly white hand lying on the floor, and travelled slowly the length of the person's body, before reaching their face. He took a sudden step back, his hand flying to clutch his throat before he could stop it, as he tried to will himself not to be sick.

"Granger?" he breathed.

She didn't respond, not that he'd expected her to. Her eyes were clamped shut, her face as white as her hand lying beside her. There were small beads of sweat on her forehead, and her shirt, like his, was clinging to the skin of her chest and stomach. She was slumped against the tree behind her, as if she'd sat down supported by it and then slid gradually to the floor over however long she'd been there; he didn't want to imagine. As he studied her, he searched for signs of the pain that must have been inflicted on her by the blade he'd found, but saw no sign of injury or blood. Even so, he would not allow himself to feel relief yet. After all, a person's head surely did not hang in such a way if there was nothing wrong.

He stood and stared at her for what felt like a long time. She did not move the entire time, and her breathing became shallower as the seconds ticked by. Seconds, or hours? It felt to him like it could be either.

He leaned down again eventually, as her breathing slowed to such an extent that he could barely hear it anymore. He crouched down beside her, his eyes travelling over her face, noting her prominent cheekbones and chapped, dry lips.

He raised a hand out to touch her arm and bit back a shout as her other hand flew up and gripped his wrist as if in an iron vice. Her eyes flew open and she took in a large gasp of air, as if she'd been shocked into consciousness. She met his wide eyes with her own terrified ones, and whispered, "Draco…"

He didn't answer, too stunned to form words. Instead, he watched her apprehensively as her face creased with apparent pain, and she looked away from him, down into her lap. He frowned and followed her gaze, panic coursing through his veins as he finally found her injury; he watched in horror as the blood seeped into her white shirt, spreading far too quickly for his liking. She pushed him away suddenly, and he stumbled back, almost losing his balance. From where he landed, he watched her pull up the hem of her shirt, push down the waistband of her skirt and look, bewildered, at five deep cuts on each of her protruding hipbones. He stayed where he was, frozen with shock, as she pushed her fingers into the blood pooling on her skin, gasping with pain as she did so.

She looked up at him again, her face blank and her fingers stained with her own blood. He wanted to ask her who'd done it to her, but his words wouldn't come no matter how much he willed them to. Her eyes began to swim with tears as she looked at him in near desperation. He wanted to move but he couldn't force his limbs to cooperate.

Her tears began to fall as she whispered, "Help me. Please."

Draco's eyes snapped open, his breathing heavy and erratic, as he lay in his four-poster bed in the safety of his dormitory. He took comfort in the silence surrounding him, relieved that he could not hear whimpers or moans coming from a dying girl anymore. He covered his face with his hands, sighing and trying to calm down. The sheets clung to his bare chest in a way that reminded him chillingly of the nightmare he'd just woken from. He pushed them away from him, quickly feeling the cool air in the room hit him.

He wasn't normally one to take meaning from dreams; it reminded him a little too much of Professor Trelawney and the ridiculous dream diary they'd once been required to complete. Besides that, it seemed like a lot of speculation and guesswork, so he had always been reluctant to read too deeply into his dreams. But this one had alarmed him in a way that a dream had never really managed before; it seemed too vivid to have been pure imagination. The pain and terror on Hermione's face had seemed too genuine to ignore, even for a cynic such as himself.

And the way she had whispered to him for help… he had never heard a more desperate plea in the real world, let alone the world of his dreams.

He reached over to his bedside cabinet and picked up the silver pocket watch that lay on the surface. It had once belonged to his grandfather Abraxas but Draco had received it on the day he turned seventeen, as was the wizarding tradition. He never wore it or carried it with him around the castle, and it had gathered dust since it had been left atop the cabinet on Draco's first night back at Hogwarts. Draco blew on it, scattering the dust through the air, and squinted to read the time.

It was half past three in the morning. Draco sighed and put the pocket watch back in its place. He normally left Hogwarts at seven on a Sunday morning to venture into the neighbouring village of Hogsmeade, and he wished it had been closer to that time; getting back to sleep did not sound like such an easy task.

He covered his body with the sheets again and closed his eyes, rolling over to lie on his side. It took him, as expected, a while to fall asleep; his head was alive with anxious thoughts about his dream and he couldn't help but wonder what could possibly cause Hermione Granger, the girl who had helped destroy the most dangerous wizard ever to have lived, such fear.

Hermione rubbed her eyes, yawning widely. She checked her wristwatch for the time, feeling like she'd been awake all night. It was four in the morning; she'd exercised from eleven until two, the guilt of casting spells on Victoria stronger since they'd had coffee, and then decided to get a head start on a lengthy Transfiguration essay for Professor McGonagall that she'd been planning to finish during the day anyway. She must have lost track of the time.

She rolled up the parchment after checking the ink was sufficiently dry, and glanced out of the window next to her, her eyes resting on the Forbidden Forest. She felt a strange, inexplicable sense of sadness as she looked out at the trees, as if she'd lost something important out there once but never noticed its absence before.

Before she crawled into bed out of sheer exhaustion, she stood in front of the mirror for another inspection of her body. She lifted her shirt in the familiar way, and gradually turned in a circle so she could see herself from all angles. She noted with a smile that she appeared to be losing weight. The strange sense of power she'd felt for the first time only a few days ago returned with full force as she watched her pale figure spin in the mirror.

She'd definitely lost weight, slowly but surely. Not enough though.

Not enough yet.

A/N: The dream scene turned out a lot longer than originally expected! I hope you enjoyed!

Please review!

WD,
xo.