Chapter 13: An unexpected turn.
Even though it was true that Hermione had felt something during her reunion with Viktor, it wasn't as strong as she had initially feared. It wasn't a massive swarm of golden butterflies fluttering in her stomach from love, but rather a few dancing in her chest from the nostalgia and affection she still held for him.
No, she hadn't felt that first-time infatuation, yet there she was… kissing him passionately in his room while clumsily unbuckling his belt with poorly contained urgency.
She recalled in astonishing detail how good a lover Viktor had been years ago, and now she couldn't help but feel immense curiosity about how much more experienced he had become over time.
Her subconscious wondered why she didn't feel uncomfortable thinking about Viktor's past conquests, but she could feel a pang of unjustified jealousy just seeing Malfoy walking with Daphne through Hogsmeade, like the happy and perfect couple they were.
"Enough!" she exclaimed, and Viktor stopped biting her neck and grabbing her bottom with his large, open hands.
"Did I hurt you?" he quickly asked, distressed by the possibility of having hurt her.
Hermione shook her head, feeling stupid for not only being unable to control her feelings but now her own mouth as well. As ridiculous as it seemed, she hadn't yelled at Viktor but at herself.
She needed to focus. She had spent the entire day trying to build a brick wall around her feelings for Malfoy, which kept collapsing because she couldn't stop thinking about him. If she kept her mind off the boy long enough, maybe just for the duration of this encounter with Viktor, she could build the wall high enough never to look inside again.
"No, no" she said, eager to resume their activity as soon as possible.
Hermione grabbed him by the lapels of his khaki shirt, trying to pull him back to her, but Viktor stopped her, holding her wrists tightly and immobilizing her.
"What are you thinking about that isn't this? Am I missing something?"
She freed her hands from his grip and quickly pulled her shirt over her head. She puffed out her chest and struck a provocative pose, aware that his eyes had flown to her breasts and the thin black fabric of her bra.
"This is what you're going to miss if you keep asking questions."
And the threat worked out.
Viktor growled like an animal and lunged at her, stripping off her clothes and tossing them over her head until she was completely naked.
When she had finished undressing him as well, he carried her to the bed and covered her with sporadic kisses, running his tongue over her neck, collarbone, and breasts...
When he gave her nipple a gentle bite, Hermione moaned with pleasure. She needed sex as urgently as she needed air for her lungs.
She writhed on the bed with impatience, and Viktor identified her need almost immediately.
She was very wet when he slid a couple of fingers inside her.
Hermione threw her head back, flooded by the pleasurable sensations his fingers provoked as they entered and exited her body, over and over again.
Everything was fine, but her biggest mistake was closing her eyes because, in doing so, she gave her imagination free rein to fantasize about her deepest desires. And then it wasn't Krum giving her pleasure anymore, but Malfoy.
She imagined him over her, with his bad boy smirk and delighting her with the full splendor of his nudity while satisfying her. His fingers were skillful and rhythmic, drenched in her. They penetrated her in circular motions, then withdrew to caress her clitoris, wetting it more and more, only to start again.
Hermione lost control of her fantasies when she imagined Malfoy spreading her legs and positioning himself between them to go further.
Her intimacy throbbed more intensely at this illusion, ignited by the fire and lust of feeling his erection pressing against her vagina, and this almost led her to abandon herself to the spiraling pleasure that was leading her to orgasm.
She came close to touching it with her fingertips, but it slipped away as soon as the voice of reason infiltrated her unconscious.
"What are you doing, Hermione?"
Yes, what was she doing?
The fact that she was fantasizing about Malfoy while in bed with Viktor only indicated she was taking advantage of him, making her feel like a vile, ruthless creature. One without feelings, willing to trample over anyone to get what she wanted.
Did she really need to sleep with Viktor to forget about Malfoy? Where were her values and convictions to let her reach this point? She wasn't thinking clearly.
And she wanted... no, she needed sex desperately, but not like this. Not out of spite, and definitely not with someone whose face, body, and name she was changing while they were intimate. It was disrespectful.
Suddenly, she felt dirtier than ever, and when she opened her eyes and saw Viktor above her, about to penetrate her with his erection, she felt anxiety tingling in her fingers and pressing on her chest and knew she couldn't do it.
The word escaped her lips in a nearly torn scream.
"Stop!"
She put her hands on his chest and pushed him away, and he fell to the side of the bed while she got up and started picking up her clothes from the floor.
She began hyperventilating, tears stinging her eyes.
"Oh my God, Viktor, I'm so sorry," she started saying between gasps. "I... I... Oh my God, I can't believe it. I'm so sorry, truly, but... but I... I can't."
She was so embarrassed she couldn't look at him while she dressed, nor when she headed to the door, opened it, and left like a whirlwind.
Merlin, she was a horrible person!
A tear escaped, and she angrily wiped it away. She couldn't believe what she had done and had almost done. All because of a senseless crush that wasn't even reciprocated. Was this what rejection felt like? And why did it hurt so much?
"Granger?"
She still had her back against Viktor's door. She looked up and felt a shiver seeing the object of her recent distress observing her: Malfoy.
He was a few meters away, in front of Snape's office door, and he must have seen her storm out of that room. Although, of course, he had no reason to know it was Viktor's assigned room during his stay at Hogwarts.
She must have looked horrible and disheveled. Her clothes were wrinkled, her tie misaligned, and she wasn't sure if she had buttoned her shirt correctly. Not to mention her hair was probably more tousled than ever. Because of all this and more, she was tempted to run in the opposite direction but gathered courage, ran a hand through her hair to tidy it, and walked towards him, who gestured towards the door behind him.
"Snape nearly had a fit when I told him the solution to the curse you discovered. He didn't say it, but he surely hated not reaching the same conclusion before you," he said. "He's taking me to St. Mungo's tomorrow."
Hermione looked at him and tried to fake a smile, but it didn't even come close. Although she suddenly had an idea.
"If that's the case, can you take this letter to my mother?" she said, pulling the letter she had written to her mother from her bag. "She'll worry if it doesn't arrive soon, and the castle's owls aren't known for their speed. The address is on the back; you just need to drop it in the mailbox."
The boy stared at the letter she was holding out to him but didn't take it. Hermione shook it a bit before saying:
"You owe me a favor, remember?"
He then nodded, took the letter, and put it in the inner pocket of his robe.
"Alright, but I warn you I'm not very good with Muggle addresses."
"You'll do fine."
They fell silent for a moment.
"Okay. And... well, how are you?"
It hadn't even been a day since they were free again; she had no idea why she was asking that. She knew it was a harmless question, and precisely because of that, it felt unnecessary. Were they friends now? They were no longer condemned to be together; they were supposed to go back to their lives, their independent lives paused because of the punishment.
Actually, hadn't he already done that?
Suddenly, she felt irrational hatred towards him growing inside her. Hatred that was merely a reflection of her discomfort with herself for not being able to have him and not knowing how to handle the situation.
Never had anything slipped out of Hermione Granger's neat control like these raw feelings killing her at that moment.
"You've gotten back with Daphne, haven't you? I saw you two taking a nice walk through Hogsmeade."
Great, now her mouth was also acting on its own to reproach him for things she had no right to feel hurt about... because they had never been anything! When would she understand? Probably when all that emotional chaos stopped hammering her ribs and let her think clearly.
"What? I...," the boy started, but then his brow furrowed, and the words died in his throat when something behind Hermione caught his attention.
She looked over her shoulder.
It was Viktor, who had come out of his room with disheveled black hair and flushed cheeks. The same room she had just stormed out of.
"You know what? Never mind."
And he walked around her to leave.
Hermione let herself be carried away by sadness during the night, but she promised herself that she would get up in the morning and face the day as she always had. Adversities had never defeated her, and this time would be no different. So she pulled the covers up to her chin to avoid being heard by her roommates and cried and cried under the sheets until she had no more tears left to shed.
And the next day, she got up early, took out the tracksuit she never wore from the back of her wardrobe, and went for a run around the castle grounds.
It wasn't something she usually did, not even occasionally. In fact, it was the first time in all her years as a student at Hogwarts that she did it. However, after everything that had happened recently, she felt a terrible urgency to exercise a bit to free her body from stiffness and her mind from unwanted thoughts.
It wasn't a long run, but surprisingly, she discovered that the fresh morning air had never felt better.
When she returned, she took a shower and had a quick breakfast before the first class. Her legs were sore and she was a bit tired, but she also felt miraculously renewed in some way.
It must have been the endorphins.
Luckily for her, that feeling lasted longer than expected, and her head was so clear that she hadn't thought about Malfoy for a single second.
However, she had thought about Viktor and the apology she believed she owed him.
She promised herself that she would offer him an explanation after lunch to ease the guilt weighing on her conscience. She would tell him that she hadn't been entirely honest when he asked if there was someone else the previous evening. Because there wasn't; she wasn't seeing anyone. But there was a certain Slytherin boy she couldn't get out of her head, and that had caused her not to be able to let go during their encounter as she should have.
Hermione was heading to the Great Hall to satisfy her ravenous hunger when she felt a strong tug on her arm, so strong it almost dislocated her shoulder.
When she turned around, Pansy Parkinson was already dragging her to a more secluded spot.
"Where the hell have you been?" she snapped in a way that, for a moment, made Hermione feel like she had done something horrible without knowing it.
"What's wrong?" she asked, alarmed.
"What do you mean, what's wrong? I've been looking for you like a madwoman for at least… I don't know, ten minutes!"
Hermione made a strange face.
"Don't you think you're exaggerating a bit?"
"Exaggerating? No, darling, it's just that we don't have time!"
"Time for what?"
"To carry out the plan! Now is the perfect time to transform into Daphne."
"Yeah… and can I ask why?"
"Because I don't know what's eating Daphne today, but she's been acting weird all day, with teary eyes and in a bad mood. The thing is, during Transfiguration class, she refused to go to the board when McGonagall asked her, and not happy with that, she got snippy when the professor took points from Slytherin for her behavior. Now she's in her office, punished, so we don't know how much time we have… but it's the ideal moment to be her, as she won't cross your path while you extract information from Astoria."
Hermione thought for a moment about what she had just been told.
She did know what was wrong with the girl, but she couldn't tell Parkinson because what was eating Greengrass was called "Draco Malfoy going to the Muggle world to sleep with someone else."
That would irritate any girlfriend, right? Especially her, with a history of insane jealousy. She was probably having horrible thoughts trying to imagine the girl her boyfriend would choose to break free from his curse. Would she be blonde? Brunette? Would she have a nice smile? Where would would he meet her? And why would he choose her over all the others? Could it be that he liked or was more attracted to her than his own girlfriend? More than… her?
She shook the thought from her head because she didn't want to start feeling uncomfortable thinking about what Malfoy was doing out there. She had no right to do so and wouldn't. Mainly for the sake of her lately fragile mental health.
Parkinson pulled out a small vial from inside her robe, its contents appearing to be Polyjuice Potion.
"It's ready, I took some hairs from her pillow this morning. Come on, do it now."
"Now?"
"Yes, now. You don't want Astoria to run into two Daphnes at once, do you? Hurry up. And put the device I gave you in your ear so I can hear the conversation and help you if you need it."
The voice of logic should have spoken up at that moment, telling her not to go through with it, to go straight to the Headmaster and let the adults handle the situation. However, a few minutes and some horrible retching later, she was walking through the corridors of Hogwarts with Daphne Greengrass's long, dense blonde hair hitting her back with every step she took.
She was very aware that she was breaking quite a few rules that could easily lead to her expulsion, but deep down, she wanted to be the one to find out what the hell had happened to Neville.
Hermione sighed with lips that weren't hers.
That hero complex again.
Why did she always want to save everyone? It was definitely something she needed to work on.
She detoured to a bathroom near the dungeons before going to find Astoria Greengrass. She had thought she would never set foot in the Slytherin common room again... and now she needed a moment to come to terms with it.
She leaned on a sink and tried to calm down.
No one was going to discover her.
No one could know that beneath that porcelain skin and pure-blood appearance was Hermione Granger.
Parkinson had pointed her wand at her and changed the color and badge of her robe to make it Slytherin, then spent a few minutes using some makeup products she had "borrowed" from Daphne's makeup bag to give her the look the girl usually had: glossy lips thanks to peach lip gloss, rosy cheeks from blush, and infinite eyelashes after several layers of mascara.
She put the tiny magical earpiece in her ear, told herself once more that she could do it, and then left the bathroom.
She was determined to get to the bottom of this strange matter and find the missing Neville.
"Hermione?"
She had just turned the corner when she saw him.
Neville was there, standing in front of her, looking at her with narrowed eyes.
She put a hand on her chest, feeling it race with pleasant surprise. She wanted to scream, but as she had gone mute, she just ran towards him to hug him.
Neville was back, and he was safe and sound! She couldn't believe it!
"Where have you been all this time? You had me worried!" she said, full of emotion, as she hugged him tighter.
She knew it! She knew he was alive somewhere, and surely there would be a good explanation for his disappearance that he would proceed to tell her right away. Everything would be just an anecdote they would laugh about in the future.
However, once the initial shock of seeing him again wore off, she began to notice that something wasn't quite right.
He wasn't hugging her back. He had gone rigid.
She slowly pulled away from her friend as a cold sweat started to run down her spine, gradually realizing an important detail she had overlooked.
"Hermione?"
Had he called her by her name? How had he recognized her? She had just looked in the mirror and confirmed that she still looked like Daphne Greengrass to everyone else.
When she pulled back enough to look at his face, she could see an absolute void in his eyes. They were an abyss, a bottomless pit.
Neville stretched out his arm and placed his fingers around her neck, pushing her back until she hit the wall. Hermione's eyes widened in surprise. Suddenly Neville had an inhuman strength.
And he was squeezing more and more.
What was happening? Why was he attacking her? She could barely breathe!
She could hear her own gasps for oxygen, but she knew she wasn't getting enough to her lungs and was close to passing out.
Even so, she was horrifyingly aware when her feet left the ground.
How was he doing it? How was he lifting her with one hand?
She kicked in the air and hit Neville with her hands, desperately fighting to free herself, but small black spots had appeared in her vision, growing larger and larger until, finally, her body collapsed and she no longer felt the adrenaline, the fear, or the suffocation.
Until she felt absolutely nothing and went to a place unknown, dark, and cold, not without having the horrible premonition that what would come next would be as uncertain as it was terrifying.