Chapter Six

Gryffindor Strikes Back

Hermione and Ron left the common room at ten in the morning, calling out their good-byes to Ginny and Harry, who were sitting together on the couch, chatting about Quidditch. It was a bleak day and the majority of the school had gotten a lot of homework, so the common room was nearly filled with people studying or else goofing off indoors where it was warm. Dozens of people saw Ginny and Harry sitting together in the middle of the room, just as they'd planned.

Ron and Hermione went to the library. Hermione checked out some books and they left a little before noon. She started kissing Ron in the hallway outside the library, glad to lose herself in her boyfriend and forget the things she'd done with Snape, which still grossed her out. Ever since her last visit to his office, her logical side kept trying to go back to the day and explain away her feelings and emotions and actions, or get her to examine them; her stubborn, more humane side, however, was perfectly happy to never ever think about what she'd done again.

She didn't even hear Snape when he first arrived, lost as she was with Ron. Between the prank war, homework, Ron's Quidditch practices and Hermione's meetings with Snape, she hadn't gotten to see her boyfriend as much as she liked.

"Weasley! Granger! Stop that at once!"

Ron reluctantly pulled away, and Hermione pouted and tried to pull him back down to kiss her before Ron turned to glare at Snape. Remembering the plan, Hermione spun around, trying to act like she usually would if she'd been caught snogging her boyfriend by a teacher like Snape.

"Ten points from Gryffindor! Each! Follow me!" Snape growled. The two sighed and followed him down to the dungeons. Everything was going according to plan.

Not far from his office was a shadowy alcove, where Malfoy lay face down, immobilized by the Full Body-Bind. "Did he see you?" Hermione whispered.

"No," Snape said, changing his voice to hide his identity. He handed them an inkbottle, which had been changed into a Portkey. "The Quidditch pitch is clear, the closest person to it is Hagrid, but he's hung over and asleep," Snape added.

"Did you have to take points off?" Ron asked Snape sourly. While he knew the whole Snape/Hermione thing was a good idea, he hated Snape and he hated the thought of Snape spending time with Ron's girlfriend even more.

"Yes," Snape said, smiling coldly.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Not now, guys, we're behind schedule," she said. She placed the inkbottle on Malfoy's back, her and Ron each keeping a finger on it. Hermione handed Snape her library books as the Portkey activated.

As they landed near the Gryffindor-side goalposts, Hermione and Ron pulled up the hoods on their cloaks, so that they wouldn't be recognizable from a distance. "I'm not looking forward to this part," Ron muttered as they rolled a furious, petrified Malfoy over.

"I'll do it," Hermione told him reluctantly. Ron shot her a grateful look and turned his back. Hermione smirked down at Malfoy and began to tug off his clothes. The spell was starting to wear off, enough so that he could twitch his fingers and make faint facial expressions, and he looked absolutely enraged. He managed the choke out the word "kill" as she removed his knickers, doing her best not to look but eventually looking anyway, blushing as she did so and casting a furtive glance in the direction of her boyfriend's back, making sure neither of them could see her expression.

She put her old, fraying underwear on his chest, chanting a spell to make it the right size for him and slipping it on him, which was a bit difficult to do to a rigid person and involved a lot of embarrassment and lifting and flipping him over. He was quite dirty by the time he was dressed.

Another spell lifted Malfoy into the air, golden ropes that appeared to be pure light and energy binding his wrists and ankles. She cast a Silencing Charm, then a counter curse to the immobilizing spell. Malfoy immediately began screaming, but no sound left his mouth. Hermione grinned as, with a motion of her wand, the ropes extended and dragged Draco to the center goalpost, fastening him to the pole lightly, giving him the appearance of a ritual sacrifice awaiting the dragon to come feast. Hermione and Ron laughed as they picked up the empty inkbottle.

"Hufflepuff Quidditch practice in fourteen minutes and counting," Ron said. The Portkey would return them to Snape's office ten minutes before the Hufflepuffs' practice.

Hermione nodded and cast the minor truth spell she'd found the day before. It wasn't very powerful, but if during the casting the victim wasn't prepared, and if they weren't very good at shaking off mind control spells like the Imperius Curse, it would work for a short time. Malfoy's eyes glazed slightly as it took effect. Hermione's smile widened as she lifted the Silencing Charm.

"Malfoy," she said cheerfully, "you're going to tell me exactly how you played that little prank on me and Snape. Aren't you, Malfoy?"

Malfoy nodded stupidly and began to speak. "The prank took six and a half weeks to plan. I even worked on it over the summer. Pansy Parkinson, Crabbe, Goyle and I made Polyjuice potion, and stole Lavender Brown's hairbrush during Care of Magical Creatures class to get her hair. The sleeping potion took me three weeks to make, so I brewed it at the same time as the Polyjuice one. I diluted the sleeping potion in the same dose for both of you, knowing Snape would get farther than you, based on body weight and physical strength. He made it to his room; you made it up the stairs in the entrance hall. The day before, we followed Snape and got the password to his private chambers, and then we tailed some Gryffindor first years, found out where the common room was and what the password was. Then we gave you and Snape the potion and followed you out of the Great Hall. We waited for you to collapse. Goyle picked you up and carried you to a secret passage in the dungeons. I took all your clothes and your wand and gave them to Pansy. She took Crabbe—as a lookout, mostly—and went to the Gryffindor common room, drank the Polyjuice potion with Lavender's hair, and put your stuff on your bed. I checked to make sure you were definitely out cold—"

"How?" Hermione asked suspiciously. Something in the way he'd said it—smiling, even through the mental fog the spell created—gave her a sickened feeling.

"I touched you. Goyle and I had a good laugh about it."

"Where did you touch me?" Hermione roared. Oh, gross!

"Oh, nothing will prevent me from killing you," Ron growled, his neck and ears red and his wand out. Hermione put a restraining hand on his arm, though she wasn't sure if it was to keep Ron from getting into trouble or to prevent him from kicking Malfoy's ass before she could.

"It was nothing major," Malfoy said, smirking. The spell was wearing off; he was regaining some of his emotions. "Just ran my hands over her awhile, then I broke into Snape's room and carried her in myself. Goyle stood watch. Snape had passed out on his bed, so I turned him over, used a spell to remove his clothes, and arranged Granger on top of him. Put the blanket on them and left."

Hermione couldn't think straight. Her hand tightened around the inkbottle until her knuckles turned white. He had drugged her, kidnapped her, stripped her, put his hands on her body while she slept, and then put her in a compromising position with Snape! Snape of all people! She would kill him, she would kill him kill him kill him—

She took a step forward, but before she could get her wand up, she felt the familiar tug behind her navel as the Portkey activated, and she was thrown against Ron as they landed in Snape's office. "How did it go?" Snape asked eagerly.

Hermione didn't answer. She regained her balance, turned and headed for the door. "I'll kill him," she whispered. "I'LL KILL HIM!"

Ron stared at her, having never seen her so angry. Snape—a former fairly good Quidditch player—had enough reflexes to get over his shock, run to her before she could reach the door, and throw his arms around her waist from behind, lifting her up and halting her. "I'LL KILL HIM!" she shouted again and again, kicking and flailing as she fought to reach the door, nearly overturning the spindly Snape.

"Calm down!" Snape growled, wrestling with her as she struggled to get free.

"Easy for you to say! Malfoy wasn't touching you in your sleep!" she yelled.

Ron, who couldn't help finding the entire scene very comical, did his best not to laugh at the disgusting mental picture of Malfoy running his hands over Snape while Snape snored. "Hermione—" he began slowly, trying to reason with her—after all, he could kill Malfoy later, provided Hermione didn't get there first, so he had to calm her down.

"I'LL KILL HIM! I should have guessed when he looked down my shirt yesterday—"

"Listen to me!" Snape hissed, too busy trying to detain her to let the shock of that statement sink in (Ron, however, now looked nearly as angry as Hermione; he was obviously struggling not to go marching off himself). "You can't kill him, so stop trying. If you want to go to Dumbledore about it, we can try, but you'd have to explain a lot of things that are going to be difficult to explain. We can, however, get revenge. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, prank for a prank—it's the uncut version of the Hogwarts way. Understand?"

Hermione stopped kicking and Snape set her down. Malfoy hadn't stared at her the other night any more than some of the other guys at Hogwarts—hell, she'd caught Ron and even Harry looking down her shirt or up her skirt, staring at her chest or her rear before. She didn't really think it warranted her filing a complaint, especially not when her shirt had been half open. But touching her in her sleep was unacceptable. It would warrant much stronger revenge than a prank. What would happen if she complained about what Malfoy had done? Would his mother's connections get him out of it? Narcissa Malfoy, who had never been a Death Eater, had done a lot to restore the Malfoys' reputation after Lucius's death, and still had plenty of ties to the Ministry. Plus Draco wasn't out of school yet, so the majority of the punishment he would have faced from the Ministry would be nullified anyway. Sure, she could press formal charges—but the Ministry had ways of making her admit that she'd just tied Malfoy to a goalpost in a bra and thong, even if she tried to lie at a trial. And had he even been telling the truth? The truth spell wasn't very potent, and he had shown emotion under it… was that really natural with the spell? She didn't think so; people regained their emotions pretty slowly as the spell wore off, and surely the spell would have lasted longer than that. Malfoy could have faked the whole confession, telling her half-truths, lying just to piss her off—that was exactly Malfoy's style. She didn't doubt what he'd said about how he'd executed the prank, but touching her in her sleep… she wasn't exactly Malfoy's type (at least she sincerely hoped she wasn't), and something told her Malfoy wouldn't do that; his animosity towards her had probably kept him from caring about anything but the prank, and Slytherins weren't ones to look at Muggle-born witches and see anything but a Mudblood. It was possible he'd added the whole touching thing in, knowing she'd be upset, maybe… of course! Malfoy assumed she would tell Dumbledore the truth if she thought Malfoy had done something that horrid to her, and then the story of Malfoy's prank would be all over school, and she'd get nailed for the crime of tying him to the goalpost while he went free because he hadn't really done anything. She was becoming more and more certain that the spell hadn't worked at all… and Malfoy wouldn't have told her he'd done that if he really had; he didn't exactly want to get expelled.

So he probably hadn't felt her in her sleep. Still, he had acted in a way that was unsavory enough to unleash her complete fury. She wouldn't go to Dumbledore, but whether or not he'd touched her, she'd get revenge on him as if he had. There was still the matter of him checking her out in the hallway, too; trivial or not, she wasn't going to let that go…

"Hermione? Are you okay?" Ron asked tentatively.

"I'm fine," she said absently. "I was just thinking…" She told them her ideas, and both Snape and Ron agreed. They started to talk about ideas for revenge, which was a lot more awkward with Ron there. Before they could come up with any plan of action, the fireplace flared with green fire and McGonagall's head appeared in the flames.

"Severus!" she said excitedly. "It's just like what we did to Potter and Black! Draco Malfoy is hanging from the Quidditch goalpost in women's underwear!" she said gleefully. She blinked when she caught sight of Hermione and Ron. "I mean… uh… it's horrible! When w-we discover whoever did this, we'll have to—to, um, severely punish them. Most of the school is out there, now, and… we better hurry and see. Er, see if we can discover who did this, of course."

"Right," Snape said dryly. McGonagall's head vanished. "Same old Minerva… you're just like her, Granger. Come on, you two; let's go 'look for the culprit.'"

Draco screamed in frustration as Granger and Weasley disappeared. He'd been hoping his fake story about what he'd done to her would piss Granger off enough that she would stay on the pitch too long and get caught. Her lame truth spell was utterly useless; he might not be the smartest person in school but he was a Death Eater's son, for crying out loud; resisting mind-altering spells like the Imperius Curse and truth agents had been part of his elementary magical training. He hadn't thought they'd actually leave him on the pitch—he'd figured it was an empty threat to get him to confess to the prank, and as such he'd told her what he'd done, then made it sound worse to make her even angrier (though he'd tried not to make it bad enough that they'd kill him). Oh, the look her face… on Weasley's face…

"All right, team," a voice said from the direction of the locker rooms, "let's practice like it's the Quidditch World Cup!"

Oh, no. What was that Weasley had said about the Hufflepuff team practicing soon?

Seven Hufflepuff Quidditch players came into view a few seconds later, catching sight of him almost immediately. They gaped at him for a good long while before all of them burst out laughing in unison.

"I've got to go tell Hannah," Susan Bones gasped, turning towards the castle.

"Wait!" Ernie Macmillan, captain of the Quidditch team, called her back. "We can't just run off and tell our friends, that wouldn't be right!" Draco stared at him in disbelief, and then groaned inwardly as an evil gleam appeared in Macmillan's eyes. "Susan, you go tell every Hufflepuff you see. Eleanor, tell the Ravenclaws. Kevin, you take Gryffindor, and make absolutely sure you tell Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and the Weasleys. Laura, go for the library, Rose, you take the Great Hall, and Zacharias—"

"I'm staying with you," Zacharias Smith interrupted. "This is great! Besides, you don't want anyone to accuse you, and they might if you're standing out here alone."

"All right—hey, and Susan, while you're in the dorms, grab my camera!" Ernie called after the departing Quidditch team.

Draco vowed in that instant that no matter what it took, he would make Granger pay for this, and pay dearly.