Hermione woke from her nap just after lunch. She didn't feel any better at all. She knew she wouldn't, until she was honest with Ron. She stared at the bags under her eyes in the mirror as she washed her hands after using the loo. She shut off the water and patted her wet hands on her cheeks and forehead, trying to feel a bit more refreshed.
She dried her hands and face and grabbed her bag, she would find Ron now. It needed to be done. She walked down the stairs and looked about the common room. She didn't see him anywhere. She went to the portrait hole, he must still be down at the courtyard or on his way back. She'd catch him on the way up and find a private place to talk.
McLaggen stepped behind her from somewhere in the common room. She hadn't noticed him. He followed her closely. "Hermione, hey. I was meaning to talk to you." He said, trying to sound casual.
She turned, startled by him. "Oh, Cormac." She looked around for anyone else who might see them together. But nobody was with them in the corridor. She looked back and he grinned at her wickedly.
Now she was alarmed, she reached for her wand when all of a sudden her hand stopped and the warning bells in her head disappeared.
She looked back up at him. His golden brown curls, his endearing smirk. Why had she not kissed him at Slughorns party? His lips looked so kissable. She dropped her bag and wand to the floor, needing to be unencumbered. She wanted to feel him, smell him.
He grinned evilly down at her as she slid her palms up his chest. "Lovely." He took her hand and pulled her with him down the corridor. "Come along, Hermione. I've got something to show you." She eagerly jogged to keep up with him.
Draco had been on his way back to the dungeons when he spun on his heels and furiously stomped his way up to gryffindor tower. How fucking dare she try and hide from this now. He would find her and tell her what he told Potter and Weasley. That if she wanted him to put an end to all of this, she would have to do it right alongside him and not try and use him as an errand boy like her other sidekicks.
He rounded the corner and intended to start pounding on the portrait of the fat broad until someone opened it, when he spotted a familiar bag and wand on the ground nearby. It looked like it had been dropped there haphazardly, the wand rolled slightly away.
He looked suspiciously around the corridor, seeing nobody around. He picked up the wand and examined it and the bag. She would not do this. She survived a war. She would not leave her wand behind, and on the ground. And he had just left Potter and Weasley. They couldn't be up here yet.
And McLaggen had been missing ever since he'd dosed Draco this morning.
He stuck the wand in the bag and threw it over his neck and across his chest. He drew his own wand, looking around. Which way would that fucker have taken her?
Probably not back the way Draco had just come. More opportunity to run into any of them on their way back to the common room.
He took off in the opposite direction, walking quickly and checking each door as he passed. When he made it to the end of the hall, he had to stop and evaluate. Every bone in his body was screaming to just run and start hexing. They were in a fucking castle, they could have gone anywhere. And he potentially would never be able to find them. Especially not in time.
He needed help.
He'd go to Mcgonagall now, tell her what he knew and then let her call aurors while he continued searching. He sprinted back the way he came. Potter and Weasley stepped off the staircase nearest their common room just as Draco rounded the corner toward it.
"Malfoy, you'd better have a good..." Weasley stopped dead as he saw the bag over Draco's shoulder. "What the fuck are you doing with..."
Draco cut him off "this was on the ground. Along with her wand, right here. I've just looked through every room on this corridor. I'm going to Mcgonagall now." He wasn't going to waste time talking. If McLaggen touched her. If he fucking dosed her with a potion for him this time...
"Wait!" Potter called as Draco started past them. He pulled out an old parchment and unfolded it, muttering something and tapping it with his wand.
A drawing of the castle appeared and Potter began to frantically flip through it. "Is that a fucking map? With our names on it?" Draco couldn't help but be intrigued.
"There!" Weasley jabbed at the parchment and sprinted away without waiting for them. Draco saw two little dots with both Granger and McLaggen's names next to them before Potter ran after Weasley, taking the parchment with him. Draco followed.
Hermione clung to Cormac's hand as he tugged her into an empty classroom. He checked the corridor before shutting and locking the door. He turned to her and set his wand on a nearby desk. She smiled up at him as he stalked toward her.
She felt hazy. She felt attraction to him. But it seemed off somehow. She felt like she was not supposed to be spending time with him like this, but she couldn't recall the reasons. So she just let the haze take over.
He grabbed her roughly by the back of her neck and yanked her mouth to his. She kissed him back desperately. Then he jerked her away again.
"I should have just forced you at that Christmas party. You'd be mine and nothing else would have happened. My uncle would still be on top and I'd still be in line for a promising political career." He was spitting angrily and Hermione couldn't understand why. She just nodded along, staring at his mouth. She wished he'd let go of her hair, it hurt a bit and she wanted to kiss him again.
He shoved her down and she hit her knees hard, grasping his legs for support. He still held her hair aggressively. She supposed if this was how he wanted it, she could oblige. As long as he was with her. That's all that mattered.
He began unbuckling his belt "you're going to suck my cock, Granger. And you're going to do it whenever I want you to from now on. I used Malfoy as a test subject. If you could go for him without issue then it would definitely work for me."
He took his flaccid dick from his underwear and began pumping it vigorously. She reached out to help but he smacked her hand away. She pouted, but waited patiently for him to get hard. It was taking a while.
Finally, he grabbed a fistful of her hair on the top of her head and yanked her toward his now erect cock. Her eyes watered as he pulled her hair but she eagerly opened her mouth wide, ready to take him.
The door handle started jiggling fiercely. McLaggen managed to get his dick back in his pants just as the door exploded into tiny splinters of wood and he was thrown bodily across the room. Hermione cowered on the floor for a moment, covering her head in her hands. She looked up when the dust settled at Malfoy, Harry and Ron storming into the room.
Hermione jumped up and rushed to block McLaggen's body with her own as Malfoy approached him. "No! Don't hurt him! Please!" She started begging.
Malfoy pulled a vial of the love potion antidote from his pocket and handed it to Harry behind him, not taking his wand off of McLaggen. "Here. The antidote."
Hermione shook her head furiously. "No! I love him! Please don't hurt him!"
Malfoy looked at her then, "why do you love him, Granger?"
She froze as she contemplated his question.
"Why do you love him?" He repeated. "What about him do you love? When did you start loving him?"
"he's... well because he... I..." her brain was short circuiting.
"Take the antidote. Now." He commanded. Harry handed her the vial.
She did so without further question.
As the potion haze fell away, she looked around at what was happening, remembering every moment. Hermione wanted to collapse at the image of Cormac about to shove his dick down her throat. She turned and retched all over the desk next to her.
Ron rushed to her side. Harry said "I'll go get the headmistress." Before running back out into the corridor.
Draco caught up to Weasley as he was shaking the handle of the door like an imbecile. Draco shoved him aside and cast one of his most powerful bombardas he'd ever done, shattering the ancient wooden door to bits. Then he blasted McLaggen's body hard into the wall behind him. Draco had been enraged at the brief glimpse of her on her knees before McLaggen, who had clearly just stuffed his dick back in his pants.
The overwhelming desire to murder him filled Draco to the brim. But Granger threw her self between them, begging him not to hurt their poisoner. Draco wanted to vomit at the sight. That's what she'd looked like about him.
He didn't want to stun her. He wanted her to recognize that she was under the influence of a love potion. He questioned her. He could see her little mind imploding at trying to come up with a reason.
"Take the antidote, now." He commanded. And she obeyed him quickly. She stared wide eyed at McLaggen for a second. Then she turned and retched.
Draco stared furiously down at the slightly stirring form in front of him. Potter left to get the headmistress. Now Draco couldn't murder him. There's no way he'd escape Azkaban if he did. His hand shook as he suppressed the rage bubbling so close to his wand.
"Draco." Granger whispered his given name. It was the most effective thing she could have done to get him to back down. "Don't. It's done. He's done now."
He looked at her then, her hair was a mess, it stood up like McLaggen had pulled her around by the top of her head. The rage flared up again full force.
"He didn't." She fixed her hair with her fingers as best she could. She looked to her boyfriend "he didn't." She assured him.
She turned back to Draco and stepped in between him and McLaggen once more. "You got here in time." She placed her hand atop his, pushing his wand down.
Draco let his arm drop. He pocketed his wand and removed her bag from around his torso. He held it out to her. "G..." he had to clear his throat and breathe a moment before he could try to speak again. "Good thing you dropped this. I knew he took you as soon as I saw it."
She looked to Ron in question. He just shrugged and stared down in disgust at McLaggen's unconscious form. She looked back at Draco. She didn't speak, but he knew the questions would come, later.
Potter and the headmistress arrived then, followed closely by the two aurors he and Granger had spoken with before.
The aurors arrested the unconscious McLaggen and took him to st mungos for healing before they incarcerated him. He would be thoroughly questioned under veritaserum and prosecuted accordingly. They took statements from Draco and the other three gryffindors before they left.
Mcgonagall repaired the door and the classroom, inviting Granger to accompany her to the hospital wing to be checked on. Granger refused, assuring her she was fine and glad to be finished with the horrible ordeal. The headmistress left them.
Weasley looked like he wanted to take her out of there, but didn't want to touch her or force her in anyway. He just waited patiently, carefully.
Granger heard Draco's statement, of getting dosed this morning, and of the party. Then of how he saw the bag and ran through the corridor, checking every room. Potter and Weasley left out the part about the map being how they found her, so Draco did too.
She shot a guilty look over at her boyfriend before she stepped up to Draco and reached out. She squeezed his wrist and whispered "thank you." She let go quickly.
He stared down at her for a moment, the feelings of anger and jealousy possessed him. Her wide eyes met his stare, fear and sadness in them. He tried to think of something, anything to say. Some clever quip that would diffuse the tension and excuse his behavior. But he couldn't. She dropped his gaze after only a second and stepped away from him, back to her boyfriend. Draco turned and left them without a word.
Draco stormed down to the dungeons. He was still enraged. And also a little confused at his extreme emotional reaction. His housemates were all still celebrating his win this morning and it felt like weeks had passed already. He suddenly wished for that mundane school experience he'd started the year with.
"Draco! There you are. Good news!" Blaise jumped up from the sofa where he'd been hunched over a table with Theo, Pansy and Daphne. Parchments strewn about. "Greg remembers where that room is and he got some hufflepuff chick to tell him how to open it. Party is on for tonight. Password protected. And we've coordinated arrival shifts so the professors don't catch anyone or get suspicious." He grinned wildly, proud of himself.
Draco turned his rage filled gaze around the room, searching for Greg. What the fuck is wrong with him? Why would he want to go back there?
"Is there a problem?" Blaise realized finally that Draco was not in the same mood from before.
Draco looked at his friends, the party plans spread out, excited grins on their completely ignorant and blissful little faces. He clenched his fists, "you're all fucking idiots. Want to know why I didn't tell you how to get into that room? Vince died there. His body is burnt to ash somewhere in that fucking room. While you lot were hiding down here like cowards. So forgive me for not wanting to go back there and celebrate over his ashes." He spat angrily.
His friends all stared at him, horrified. Theo said "how do you know that? Why did you never say?"
Draco sneered, uncaring, disgusted with them. "I know because I was there. So was Greg. Vince cast fiendfyre at Potter, Weasley and Granger. Vince died in the fire. Greg and I survived only because the golden trio saved us. I don't know why he told you about the room. But I won't ever be going back there. Don't fucking ask me again." He stormed off angrily down the stairs to his dorm, slamming the door shut behind him.
It was a good thing Greg was nowhere to be seen, because Draco would have hit him. He ripped open his desk drawer and downed half a bottle of fire whiskey. He had so much rage built up inside him and no outlet. He wanted to destroy something.
He turned his wand on Greg's four poster, blasting it to bits. He continued to destroy the room until the whiskey settled into his bloodstream, finally numbing him. He repaired his bed and sat, sweating and exhausted. He ran a hand roughly over his face and drank deeply from the bottle again. Then waved his wand and repaired the rest of the room. He finished the bottle and dropped it on the floor, drawing the curtains around his bed and passing out, finally.
A/N: don't worry. The reasons and methods for the love potion will all be revealed after McLaggen's interrogation. I know some of you will worry, but don't! I won't leave it like that!