Author's Note: I am so sorry... I thought I would have this up sooner, but life got all busy all of a sudden. And I have to admit I got hooked into Legend of the Seeker. Anyone watch that? Anyone absolutely head over heels in love with Darken Rahl? Aka Craig Parker? Well, anyway, I've added Snape to the pole. And again, if you've already used the poll, feel free to keep voting in your reviews. Finally another chapter for you, and be aware a bit of a WARNING. Not really graphic, but if you are uncomfortable with attempted rape you might want to steer clear. Thank you all for your reviews. And another slight warning, this chapter might seem a bit off and kinda jumpy. That's how I feel when I read it anyway... Hope you enjoy though.

Chapter 9

September 6th, 1996

It hadn't taken long for the Gryffindor's to turn on her, the only ones on her side was Ginny and Neville. While the younger students didn't have the nerve to slam down her spirits verbally, they're hateful looks were enough to send her reeling. And the Slytherin's weren't any better. Hermione knew the boys and Pansy were getting mowed down. The fact that they hadn't sworn they're allegiance with Voldemort was the first step, now that they had her around, they were subject to even more viciousness and cruelty.

But, while the Slytherin's called her harmless names such as mudblood and muggle scum, it was the Gryffindor's who hurt her worse.

A day was all it took.

She had condemned herself by sitting at the Slytherin table. But, she wasn't blaming the four Slytherin's. They all had a bond. One that even her, Ron, and Harry could never have. They'd been beaten and bruised. Bloodied up by Death Eaters who were masters at what they did. Torture, Rape...

The first person to actually say anything had been a fifth year. Romilda Vane. She was obsessed with Harry and his Chosen One status. And she didn't even reign in her words, not even when she knew Hermione was a prefect.

Hermione had just gotten out of potions when someone shoved their shoulder into hers harshly. The incident didn't go unnoticed by the other students, Theo and Pansy asking if she were all right. Harry and Ron just looked at her while the dark haired girl who'd done it turned around and sneered at her.

She didn't understand why someone who wasn't a Slytherin was looking at her in such a way. But then Romilda opened her mouth. "You are such a whore," she said and Hermione looked at her in complete surprise.

"Excuse me," Pansy said and stepped forward. Hermione knew Pansy was used to being called such things, but now a days with this new school year, talk of her had dwindled.

"Not you, Parkinson," Romilda rolled her eyes dramatically and smiled flirtatiously towards Harry as if the Golden Boy would actually be interested in her. Before her death glare returned to Hermione. "Granger, what's it like, hm? To turn yourself over to their side," she said and nodded at her Slytherin friends. Hermione just stared at the younger girl with utter disbelief. Romilda took a couple steps forward and she felt both Pansy and Theo take her hands for support, their bodies tensing and ready to retaliate. "Oh, look," Romilda continued looking down at Hermione and Theo's entwined fingers. "Is this your new boyfriend, Granger? How do you like it when he whores you out to the other monsters in his house?"

Hermione just stared at her, her eyes still wide. Was she really being accused of being whore? Really? She, a whore? Before she could say anything or just ignore it, Pansy lurched forward and slapped Romilda hard across the face. "Watch what you fucking say, you little twat!" Pansy hissed, pointing a finger in Romilda's surprised face.

"What is going on here?" The low baritone of Professor Snape's voice broke the silence and everyone looked around to face him. Most of the students began leaving the hall, most likely to gossip about it somewhere else.

Romilda Vane made an attempt to leave. "Don't even think of leaving, Miss Vane," Snape snapped. "I want to see you in my office. You too, Miss Parkinson," he said, before turning around with a billow of his robes. Pansy gave Hermione's hand a squeeze, before she kissed Blaise's cheek and set off with Romilda in tow.

Hermione looked over to where Harry and Ron still stood, only they were glaring at the boys who surrounded her. Theo still held her hand, his cool skin warming her own. Blaise stood at her other side, while she could practically feel Malfoy's warmth behind her.

"Thank you so much, for sticking up for me," she said, her voice saying enough about how she felt. Throat thick, eyes full, and while she didn't have the sarcastic edge, the sadness was there to fill in it's place.

Harry and Ron looked to her when she spoke, their expression softening only momentarily before they left down the corridor. She looked up at the ceiling for a moment, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Muttering a small 'thank you' to the boys. She took her hand from Theo's and went to her next class.

/-/-/-/

September 10th, 1996

The days after only got worse. The small flame Romilda had set alight with her words, only getting fueled in the gossip mill of Hogwarts. She was gaining a steady buddy system. The only Gryffindor's who talked with her were Ginny and Neville. Everyone else, the people she called her friends, were ready to attach her with those vicious lies.

Parvati, Lavender, Dean, Seamus, all the others. They were so horrible. Dean actually told her she was a disgrace to every Muggleborn. While Seamus made lewd gestures and Parvati and Lavender decided to take it upon themselves to be the narrators on what her supposed sex life was like.

And Harry and Ron were no where. Not when it counted. They just sat there when she sat with Ginny at the Gryffindor table, the redheaded girl her only defense as she usually took to acting like she just ignored them. But, it seemed her indifference just put more gas to the fire. They wanted to break her, they wanted her hurt.

Were they really so afraid about the coming war, they could accuse her of such things.

It seemed so.

Hermione's only getaway was the library. Gryffindor's rarely ever picked up a book, until the very last moment. So, when she sat down to a nice book one night, putting curfew off as if it were summer once again and she didn't have a care to the world about someone interrupting her unless it was Blaise and Theo in need of help with their homework. She lost herself in a book. A romance novel that Pansy had insisted she read. And one that actually had an interesting plot that brought her into such a foreign world, she wanted to be apart of it. The fact the male lead was supposed to be a blonde haired, silver-eyed man just made it easier for her to lose herself away from reality.

The footsteps went unnoticed, the presence of the person only brought to her attention when her book was snatched from her fingers. Only then, did she see the blue eyed blonde, looking at her like he was starving and she was his next meal.

He turned the book around and started reading aloud the scene she'd been reading. "Lucas was the one person she found she could be herself with, he was the only guy she'd ever met who seemed to understand her. But, he was dark. He was evil. He hated her. But, God, did she love him, and his touch." Hermione's glare was fierce towards him. How dare he? When she stood to grab the book away from him, he jumped back and held it out of her reach.

"Give it back, Cormac," she said, her voice would have been calm, but the edge showed she wasn't up for this. Just another Gryffindor to add onto her list of teasing monsters.

"Or what?" Cormac asked, leery down at her.

It was that look that made her heart stop in fear. It was way too similar to the one she'd received right before.. No, she wasn't going to allow herself to grow weak in front of him. Her weakness would only bring on more harassment.

"Or I'll hex your balls off," she said, her voice that dangerous tone that scared Theo so much, but her words were straight from the Ginny Weasley phrase book.

Cormac's grin only widened, though. "Oh, I bet you could do something more productive with them," he said and stepped closer. Throwing her book off to the side and out of her reach.

The fact she was backing up didn't even catch her notice until she was cornered by his looming body. Her blood sizzled in fear, her eyes widening while her personal space grew nonexistent. Her jaw clenched when his hand drew up to her hip, his lips moving so fast she couldn't tell the spell he was saying until her body froze, literally.

"I bet you bring your Slytherin pimps here to have some fun, don't you Granger," he said, his hands starting to trail over sides, while her eyes welled with tears.

This wasn't happening. It wasn't. It couldn't. Not again. And this seemed worse. Because this time she hadn't even put up a fight. She was trapped inside her own body, about to relive the worst experience of her life. She couldn't even beg for mercy, she couldn't scream for help..

Oh god...

His hand slipped under her skirt. And she couldn't even close her eyes, she had to look at him while he defiled her. A lone tear slipped down her cheek, but it was soon follow by others. Help me, somebody please... Would anyone come? Would anyone save her? Her skirt was pulled up and the sound of his zipper being pulled down was loud in her ears. Oh god, it was going to happen again...

But then he was ripped away. Pale fingers had grasped his upper arm and turned him around, his pants falling around his ankles, while he grunted at being punched in the gut.

Draco Malfoy would never look more like a white knight, then he did in that moment. His other fist swinging around and clipping Cormac across the face, before he pushed the other boy to the floor and kicked him in the rips. Then he turned to her. Her own mind hesitated as he stepped closer, and she panicked when she saw his hands coming forward.

He pulled her skirt down, and straightened her blouse that Cormac and ripped opened when he was feeling her up. Then he took out his wand and cast the counter-curse. Finite, never sounded sweeter then when it came from his lips.

Hermione's shoulders sagged and she let out the sob that hand been strangled up inside her throat since the moment Cormac cursed her. She didn't even know she had thrown herself at Malfoy and wound her arms around him in an embrace, until she felt his arms encircle her body.

"It's okay, Granger," his voice said, soothingly. If she'd been in any right state of mind she would have found it surprising. But her arms only tightened their hold, she didn't have any plans of letting go.

Her face pressed into his chest, her ear to his heart. She felt the rhythm, heard the furious thump thump thump of his heart. When he spoke, she closed her eyes and listened to that baritone that always left her heart weak. "What the bloody fuck do you think you are doing, McLaggen?" While his words weren't the sweetest, the venom in them were music to her ears. "Did you really think you could could get away with rape?"

While Cormac had been groaning on the floor, now a wheezing laugh came from his lips. "She's a whore, she would have been screaming my name by the end of it."

Hermione's arms tightened even more so when Malfoy made to move forward, her embrace stopping him. After a second though, it didn't take long for him to get his cool back. "How could she scream if she was in a full body-bind curse, you measly scum!"

"She's a mudblood!" Cormac insisted. "What does it matter what I did to her? You should know, Malfoy," he said, and started to push himself up to his feet.

/-/-/-/

Draco had to pry Hermione's hands off of him to get at the boys throat. Once his pale fingers had a grip on his throat he pushed him up against a bookshelf. "Don't you ever use that term in front of me. Rape isn't something you will get away with, not even attempting it. I hope you find Azkaban homey. Because I will be sure that you get room and board."

Cormac's eyes grew twice their natural size. "A-Azkaban," he gasped out, shaking his head. The movement a weird jerk as Draco held him tightly around the throat.

"Yes," Malfoy sneered, leaning in so he was eye-to-eye with Cormac. Silver to blue. Fierce and terrifying to weak and terrified. "I think you'll fit right in with the dirt that are held in those cells."

Cormac started pleading, and Draco could only roll his eyes as the sniveling boys attempts. How could most of the Hogwarts female popular think this was a manly specimen? With his wand still in one hand, he sent a patronus to the Headmaster's office, telling him to get to the library quick.

With a swift move, Draco cast the same spell McLaggen used with Hermione. Stepping back, he let him fall onto his side with a loud thud and then turned back towards the girl.

Her hair looked in disarray, as always. Her clothes making her look like the bookworm she was. He'd never seen something more beautiful. Her body was still as she looked onto McLaggen's body. Her head at a tilt and her eyes hallow. That mere look told him exactly what he had suspected when he first saw her at the beginning of summer. She had been assaulted and in the sexual means, and that made his blood boil. He wanted to kill the bastard who dared to touch her. But, there was no way of asking her. Not without bringing up the worst memories. And he wouldn't do that to her. He couldn't.

Before he could step forward and offer any sort of comfort, he heard footsteps. Then Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Snape were on the scene. McGonagall led Hermione away, although not to the hospital wing, as Hermione refused. And Draco was left to tell what he walked in on, his voice ever short and clipped, but to the point and telling all.