**Disclaimer:  Everything belongs to Rowling, nothing to me.

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Chapter 26:

“And just how exactly do you propose we test it?”

Draco glanced back over his shoulder at Hermione who was trudging a few steps behind, holding up the hem of her robe to keep it from getting splattered with mud.

She looked up at him, “I mean, why exactly are you dragging me out of the castle into this muck? Do we even have a plan?”

They had spent most of the evening yesterday translating the spell that she hoped would somehow save her precious Potter and maybe some other people too from the tide of dark wizards that were approaching. They had worked out the spell and practiced the spell. They had gone over and over their pronunciation. They studied until their eyes hurt and the flames in the fireplace had dwindled to nothing but smoldering ashes. And yet, somehow, Draco had managed to convince Hermione to meet him very early that morning on the steps to entrance hall.

He was now leading her across the grounds of the castle. The dawning air held a bit of a chill even though the weather had warmed up considerably. The sky was full of low, ominous clouds that foretold of a later afternoon shower.

Neither of them had gotten much sleep the night before and, in Draco’s opinion, Hermione was a little cranky for it. She stopped abruptly and Draco turned back to wait for her. She was eyeing the Forbidden forest that loomed in front of them.

“We won’t go very far in,” Draco said simply.

“I wish we didn’t have to go into it at all.” Hermione frowned at him, “have you forgotten the last time we got close to the Forbidden forest?”

Draco had certainly not forgotten the time that they spent together in that half-giant’s hut. But looking back on it, Draco admonished himself for wasting so much time arguing when there were other things that he could have been doing with Hermione in that hovel. He smirked to himself.

“Don’t worry, the manticore is dead, we have nothing to fear.” He said firmly, fighting back his smile.

“There is something else,” her face became very pale and there was an anxious gleam in her eyes. “I was walking here, the other day, and I thought that…that someone was watching me.”

“Watching you? Hermione, I never knew you were so self-centered.”

“I’m not joking Malfoy!” Her voice snapped and Draco noticed that she began to nervously pull on one sleeve of her robe.

“Don’t worry, I’m here, what could possibly go wrong.” Draco gave Hermione his brightest Malfoy smile.

In response Hermione crossed her arms and gave him a look that reminded him of what could go wrong.

“Look, if you want to run back into your glorious Gryffindor tower and hide behind your precious Potter then have at it!”

Draco had given up trying to wheedle Hermione into accompanying him. He was a Malfoy, and that meant that he would never beg. He turned back and forged ahead into the dark trees. He was pleased though when he could hear her behind him still, walking along muttering darkly under her breath.

They proceeded for a long time like that, him leading her deeper into the forest, farther away from the castle. Draco knew that the sun must have come up by now, but the brilliant waves didn’t manage to breach the canopy of trees and he doubted if the sun had even managed to chase away the rain clouds that were waiting so patiently over the school. He finally decided that they had come far enough into the darkness to do what they needed to do.

“I think this will be a good spot.” He said simply.

“A good spot for what? You still haven’t told me how you plan to test this spell.” Hermione started to pull leaves out of her hair, Draco had led them through several thickets of dense trees and Hermione’s curls had managed to snag several little leafs as prisoners in their brown locks.

Draco watched her closely and then said, “a good spot to teach you the Cruciatus curse.”

Hermione froze, her willowy fingers entangled in a knot of russet. She raised brown eyes to meet his gray. She didn’t even ask him how he knew the spell or who had taught him. Hermione never for a moment seemed to doubt his ability. She simply began to brush a few more leaves out of her hair as if she hadn’t heard him.

“Hermione,” Draco began.

“No,” she interrupted flatly. “There’s another way. There is always another way.”

“There isn’t any other way, if the spell works against Crucio, then it will more likely then not work against Avada Kedavra since they both work under the same principle.” He argued.

“I’m going to the headmaster,” she snapped and turned around to head back towards the castle.

“No you’re not,” Draco easily caught up with her and grabbed her shoulders, “look, we’ve come this far, I’m not about to turn over what could be the most important discovery in modern wizarding times to some bumbling old professors!”

“This is ridiculous,” Hermione snapped shrilly, “and illegal!”

“It’s the only way,” Draco said firmly.

“Well if you think it’s such a good idea then,” but Hermione paused and bit her lip, looking away. “If you think it’s the only way, you should cast Cruciatus.”

Draco let go of Hermione’s shoulders and stepped back, he had never even considered doing it that way.

“Absolutely not,” he said finally, his mouth strangely dry.

Hermione stood where he had left her, head down, her face lost behind a wave of hair. “It makes more sense, to do it that way. You already know how. You’ve probably already done it at least once.” Her own voice sounded very far away.

“I said no, we’re doing it the way I had planned.” His voice was firmer than he felt.

“But Draco, it would just be easier if you would…”

“I said no!” Draco yelled at her.

He couldn’t tell her that the very idea of him casting such a spell on her made his stomach turn. The thought of someone else doing it made him want to kill. But he couldn’t tell her this; he couldn’t tell her that if the spell didn’t work, he would never be able to forgive himself for hurting her.

“It’s better if you do it,” he said finally, “that way if O’Leary’s spell doesn’t work, it won’t be very bad. No offense Granger, but you’re not very gifted at the dark arts. The best you could do is give me a bit of a headache, and that’s only if the defense spell doesn’t work.”

Hermione was extremely pale, “I don’t even know how to cast it.” She whispered.

“Oh it’s easy!” Draco said with a hint of forced gaiety, “even Longbottom could do it!”

A light patter of rain began to fall, sending Draco and Hermione grasping for their wands.

“Umbraculum” they said almost simultaneously, and a burst of color shot out of their wands and formed small, hovering clouds above their heads. Hermione’s was blue, and not surprisingly, Draco’s was a dark gray.

“All you have to do,” Draco started again, “is to point your wand at me and say the spell. You already know all the right inflections. That’s all.”

“Is it really that simple?” She asked him surprised.

“There is a reason why it’s the most popular torture spell.”

“I can’t do it,”

“You have to,” Draco turned from her and walked a few feet away, “I’m ready now.”

Hermione raised her wand and pointed it at him, the tip beginning to shake. The damp air was making her already unruly hair even wilder and droplets of water were starting to drip from the ends of its tendrils. Her eyes were wide and frightened, “Draco, I can’t,”

“Do it now Granger!” Draco snapped at her angrily.

She opened her mouth to argue but then closed it again. Hermione tightened her grip on her wand and a look of resolve came into her face. Draco immediately began repeating the counter-curse in his head, knowing that she was going to do it.

“crucio”

The spell sounded so wrong coming from such an innocent voice, but Draco only had a spilt-second to think about that as he shouted out the only thing that might protect him.

“arma immeritus!”

He knew when the spell hit; the impact was strong. Later, Draco would marvel at this, he had never imagined that Hermione was that potent of a witch. But for the now, he could only think of one thing, there was no pain. A shimmer of light surrounded him, it was clear but the dull morning light glinted off of it at slicing angles. Dimly he knew that Hermione still had her wand pointed at him, maintaining the spell, but he felt his energy quickly beginning to drain. His iridescent shield was wavering. A low burning sensation was beginning to grow and Draco knew that he had only a moment longer before he would be feeling the full affects of the Cruciatus curse again.

Hermione lowered her wand.

It was over. Draco sensed his knees buckle and knelt down into the mud. He felt like a thousand dementors had just walked past him. Every ounce of positive feeling was gone, drained away by the spell. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath that was knocked immediately out of him as Hermione crashed against him, throwing her arms around him.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Draco I’m so sorry.”

Draco looked at her. Hermione’s eyes were filling those shiny tears that he hated to see.

“I didn’t want to do it, I knew that I shouldn’t have.” She broke into tears and pulled back from Draco, almost as if afraid to touch him.

Hermione was kneeling a foot from Draco, her head bowed, sobbing into her hands. Draco thought that she might be mumbling incoherently under her breath, but it was hard to tell as she had just begun hiccupping.

Draco took a steadying breath, trying to regain some of his strength. He reached out his hand and grasped Hermione’s, pulling them away from her face.

“Hermione,” he said gently, “it’s all right. You didn’t hurt me.”

The racking sobs began to die down and Hermione muttered, “I didn’t?”

Draco forced her chin up so that he was looking into her face. Tears still clouded her eyes but for the moment she was containing them, “no, you didn’t hurt me. The spell worked.”

Her eyes went wide and she stopped crying completely, “really? It really worked?”

Draco smiled sleepily at her; he was exhausted. “Yes it worked, takes a lot out of a wizard, but it works.”

Hermione’s lower lip began to tremble and she wrapped her arms around Draco’s neck and gave him a tight hug, tears beginning to fall freely. “I thought I had hurt you,” she mumbled.

Draco patted the top of her head awkwardly, “no offense Granger, but you seem to be awfully high-strung lately.”

“High-strung? You think I’m high-strung?” Hermione pulled back from him. “We’ve got finals soon, not to mention OWLS. We’ve spent all week talking about dark spells this and evil wizards that.” Hermione had gotten to her feet and had begun pacing angrily through the misting rain, her little umbrella cloud unable to keep up with her. “And you’ve dragged me out here and made me cast not only a dark magic spell, but an illegal one at that! And then, of course, there is whatever this thing is going on between us. And don’t look at me like you’ve haven’t got the foggiest idea as to what I’m referring to! Merlin’s beard! It’s no wonder if I’m a bit edgy at the moment.”

Draco couldn’t help but snort slightly with ill-contained laughter.

“Oh you think this is funny?” Her dark hair was almost black because of the rain and it was beginning to plaster itself to her face and neck. “What if I had hurt you? I don’t think I could bear it.” Her tirade was finished and Hermione sat back down next to Draco, the anger gone from eyes.

“Why couldn’t you bear it?” Draco was feeling better now; her furious rants almost always amused him, even when they were directed at him. But now he was asking a dangerous question, and all amusement was gone from his voice. Draco wasn’t entirely sure if either of them were ready for the answer.

“Because…I don’t want you getting hurt. And I certainly wouldn’t want to be the one hurting you.” Her words seemed to have been chosen very carefully.

Draco settled back against a tree trunk. They obviously weren’t about to make any more revelations today, and perhaps that was for the best. He wasn’t sure how he would have responded if she had asked him the same question. There was a strong breath of wind and the branches all swayed sending a cascade of droplets down. Draco closed his eyes as they hit his face; he knew that they should probably head back to the castle soon before any of her blessed friends realized that she was missing. But the continual rain began to fall harder, and Hermione moved towards him and much to Draco’s surprise, she settled herself against him. Draco decided then that Potter and Weasley could send out a whole team of aurors for all he cared.

“So it really worked?” She asked him again after a few moments of quiet.

“Yeah,” He replied drowsily.

“You really think that this could stop Avada Kedavra?” Hermione sounded a little anxious.

“I’m making an educated guess that it will. O’Leary hasn’t been wrong so far.”

“That’s awfully optimistic of you.”

Draco glanced at her, “well you’re the one always complaining that I’m too pessimistic. But if you want proof, let’s teach it to Potter and then the next time Voldemort tries to kill him, we’ll know for sure. We’ll probably only have to wait a week or so knowing Potter and his knack for being in the right place at the right time.” Draco grinned at her, but Hermione glowered at him.

“I don’t think that’s funny.”

Draco smirked and then leaned in to kiss her, one hand lightly squeezing the back of her neck. He withdrew a millimeter or two, “yeah, I know.” He said before kissing her again.

Hermione smiled against his lips and put her arms around him, pulling him closer. She broke the kiss, “remind me to be angry at you for that later.”

“Oh don’t worry, I’m sure that if you’ve forgotten it, I’ll probably just end up saying something equally as witty to get you angry.”

Draco shifted so that he was above Hermione; he surveyed her for a moment. Her wet hair lay in smooth damp locks around her face and shoulders, her equally dark eyes seemed even deeper than usual due, he believed, to all the tears she had shed recently. She was really almost too pretty sometimes, not that he would ever tell her that. Draco smiled down at her and kissed her again, losing himself in the warmth that she possessed.



The rain was still falling freely as they walked the steps to Hogwarts. The grounds had been deserted because of the inclement weather and Draco was thankful for that little slice of luck. As if the rumors weren’t bad enough already, for the two in question to stroll across the grounds looking like they had just taken a tumble into the lake together would be unthinkable. Not that they had actually taken a tumble in the lake, but they might as well have considering how wet they were. The only dry part of either of them was their bags.

Draco was once again pleased that unlike most witches he had known, Hermione had used the time-consuming repelius charm to ward water away from her backpack rather than a fashionable robe or a stylish pair of shoes.

Hermione caught him looking at her and smiled at him. Her eyes were bright and a rosy hint colored her cheeks. As she continued to meet his gaze, the glowing hue deepened to a bright blush and Hermione looked away biting her lip. Draco smirked to himself as the idea to drag her back the way they had just came and do even more things with her occurred to him. Not that she would let him, but Draco could imagine.

He stopped at the great doors and turned to her, “you’d better go first. We don’t want anyone to see us together.”

The warm glint in her eyes seemed to fade and Draco was about to ask her when she pushed quickly past him. “You’re right, of course, should have known.” She snapped at him before pulling the door shut behind her.

The rain began to fall harder and a rumble of thunder could be heard. Draco stood staring at the door in dismay. He was never so inept when dealing with Pansy, or any other girl for that matter.

“Maybe it’s a muggle-born thing.” He muttered to himself as he finally entered the school after giving Hermione enough of a head start to not seem planned.

He got a few strange looks as he made his way down to the Slytherin dungeon. But no one had the nerve to say anything. Even without Crabbe and Goyle, Draco was rather fearsome. All of the lesser years did their best to stay out of his way.

The dungeon seemed empty, most students preferring to stay in the higher and drier parts of the school today because of the dreary weather. This suited Draco just fine though; he wasn’t really in the mood to socialize at the moment. All he wanted was a chance to get clean.

The steam in the showers clouded the air and Draco lost himself in his own thoughts as the hot water washed the mud from his body. Most of these thoughts had to do with a certain brown haired Gryffindor girl. Draco especially liked the one where she somehow managed to sneak into the dungeon and join him in the shower and…

Draco turned the water off with a wishful sigh. He had to stop thinking about her. He knew that he had to let go of this fixation that he had on Hermione. It was really becoming very bothersome. She always seemed to be afflicting his thoughts. Half of the time these thoughts were completely innocent. It seemed that the tamer thoughts happened almost as much as the naughtier ones, which didn’t seem right since he had only entertained the latter of those two thoughts when it usually came to witches.

Lucius had once told him that it was all right be obsessed with something. Obsession was a driving force that could be shaped to one’s own will. But Lucius had warned him to not let anything get too far out of control because a want could easily become a need.

Draco knew that he couldn’t let things go much further. She was already beginning to affect him in ways he never thought possible. He had become more concerned with the plight of the wizarding world. Not to say that Voldemort hadn’t been on his mind before her, but then he had only been preoccupied with his own safety. Now though, he was becoming preoccupied with her own. Someone had to be since she obviously wasn’t. And perfect Potter didn’t have enough sense to keep his friends out of harms way. Why, it was probably Hermione’s good fortune that she had been spending so much time with Draco this year; he had kept her out of harm’s way. But when she wasn’t with him, how to keep her safe when Potter got her into trouble? Maybe he could teach her a few more dirty tricks; she had handled the Cruciatus curse admirably. Draco smirked slightly when he tried to picture Hermione’s reaction to a lesson in the dark arts.

He pulled on a clean, dry robe and ran his fingers through his wet hair, slicking it back. His grin faded. He needed to distance himself from her before it was too late. It was one thing to lust after her, but he was beginning to think that there was something much larger going on. In the back of his mind, he could hear Lucius.

“Needs make you weak.”



Another letter had come from Lucius. It was as enigmatic as the others. His mother condition had worsened, but not terribly. It was a bad case, but the doctors remained hopeful. Although Draco couldn’t see any doctor in St. Mungo’s being brave enough to tell Lucius Malfoy that his wife was going to die.

For the first time in a very long while, Draco actually wanted to go home. He had to know if she was sick or not. And he doubted that there was anyway to do that without contacting Lucius. His letter was short, to the point, and as carefully worded as any letter that Draco had received from Lucius. He asked simply if he could arrange to come and see his mother. When he was finally satisfied with the dispatch he headed to the owlery.

He selected a dull brown school owl to deliver his letter. His own owl was off somewhere but Draco didn’t mind. The eagle owl that Lucius had given him the day he left for Hogwarts was always a bit too excited to be delivering letters for Draco and he had often wondered if the owl ever stopped back at the Manor to give Lucius updates on his son. No, Draco preferred using the school owls.

The letter was secure and Draco watched from the window as the laden owl disappeared into the dark storm clouds that surrounded the school. He had just turned to go back when over the familiar sounds of many hooting owls, he heard something else. Draco surveyed the dark room looking for something that didn’t belong. And then, emerging from the doorway, a young woman wearing school robes appeared, a letter clasped tightly in her hands as if she was afraid that a stray breeze might try to capture it and spirit it away. As the figured neared, Draco realized who it was.

“Pansy,” Draco said simply.

The other Slytherin jumped back with a cry of alarm. She hadn’t expected anyone else to be here.

“D…Draco,” Pansy returned as she quickly shoved her letter deep into a pocket. “Where have you been this morning? You never made it to breakfast.”

“I had things to do,” Draco responded carefully.

Pansy’s eyes narrowed faintly but then a warm smile melted the cold lines of her face. “I understand,” her smile deepened, “you’re going through a hard time right now, what with your mother and all. My mother is worried sick to tell you the truth, she’s been to St. Mungo’s four times already and she comes home even more distraught than before.”

Draco said nothing to this; he found Pansy’s sympathy to be rather worrying.

“I know that I’ve said this before,” Pansy walked up to him and placed a hand on his arm, “but if you need someone to talk to, I’m always available for you.” She smiled and tightened her grip. “We don’t even have to talk if you don’t want to, there are other things that we can do if you’d rather.”

Pansy languidly ran her hand up his arm and then back through his hair. Her fingers tightened and she pulled him down to meet her lips. They were slick and glossy from whatever it was that she always had on them. Once Draco had once found it strongly appealing. But there wasn’t any of the heady, uncontrollable passion that he felt when he kissed Hermione. He could never get her close enough. But kissing Pansy was just as it had always been, premeditated and cold.

There was a sudden sound that seemed out of place in the dark room. Draco pushed Pansy back from him and scanned the shadowy depths of the owlery. He thought that perhaps the door had just clicked shut, but he couldn’t tell. Pansy tried to wrap her arms around him again but he pushed her back.

“Get off Pansy,” he snapped.

Pansy stumbled back furiously and hissed at him, “what, afraid the mudblood might see?”

Draco flinched for he was, in fact, worried that this might get back to Hermione. “Don’t call her that.” His voice was firm and cold. He had used that voice to keep Crabbe and Goyle in line, to frighten the younger years, and intimidate some of the older ones. But Pansy only smiled.

“You’re worse off than I had thought, aren’t you Draco?”