I Learned Your Pulse

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

"Hermione," said Potter. He seemed incapable of fulfilling his sentence, but it had said enough. Inside it had been all the despair Hermione had shown when she thought Potter had been dead, but it was paired with the knowledge that he'd probably have to watch as it happened. His one, quiet word made the rest of the sentence irrelevant, and it was echoed, though not quite as strongly, throughout the hall. Draco had seen enough of that happen to none other than himself.

Professor McGonagall and Professor Yasmen raced toward the hysterical Champion, but McGonagall reached her first. With a surprisingly motherly worry, she wrapped her arms around Hermione and hushed her, rocking back and forth while the barely-adult tried and failed miserably to control herself.

"Who put her name in?" bellowed Yasmen, louder than Draco had heard anyone speak.

"Nobody did," Kingsley said, disgruntled to the furthest degree. "I watched every name and every person myself. Nobody put her name in."

Everyone let this news sink in, and Hermione's gasps and wails were the only sound besides McGonagall's occassional "Shh, shh."

"Then how did it choose her?" Yasmen screached louder than before. "How did she become a Champion?"

Kingsley looked to Potter, who would not look back, and then to McGonagall. "We knew it was acting up," he said, his voice low. "And her name didn't come out of it like the other names did. Her image did."

"Are you saying it took her presence and turned it into an option?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

There was no sound.

A Ravenclaw second-year stood up abruptly. "You can do it, Hermione!" she shouted, her meek voice powerful in its passion. "We know you can!"

She was followed by a chorus of similar encouragements from a group of fifth-year Gryffindors, who stood up and began to clap. and then Hufflepuffs year one through three stood up, and then the entire Slytherin table, after which everyone was standing and clapping and shouting their belief of the Head Girl falling to pieces in front of them in the arms of the Headmistress.

Draco fought his way through the throng of students, in an undetermined effort to reach Hermione and help, help in any way, to stop her from falling to the fate that was a very possible outcome of this Tournament. He'd managed to push his way close enough to hear, through the chaos, the voice of Potter, half-dead with fright and anxiety.

"Please don't make her," he was choking at Professor Mcgoagall.

"As I'm sure you remember, Mr. Potter," said Mcgonagall, his tone matched in hers and tainted with maternal concern, "the Goblet creates a binding magical contract you cannot escape from. She is, from this day forward, a Triwizard Champion."

She stopped holding Hermione and put her hands on the girl's shoulders, looking her straight in the eye. "And she will be the best one yet," she said in a whisper Draco had to strain exceptionally hard to hear. "You, Hermione, will not let us down. You can live through these challenges and you will pass them with flying colors, like you pass everything else. You are strong enough. Remember that, and it'll be true."

And with that, she set a grim smile on her face, and pumped Hermione's fist in the air, proclaiming: "We have our Champions!"

Hermione tried very, very hard to look like she was fine, and that she was going to make it, but she couldn't. Her brave face was no longer brave. It was broken, and so was Potter's, Weaslette's, Neville's and Luna's.

That aroused his curiousity. He'd never known Luna to be broken before. She was spunky, she was. Impossible, incorrigible sometimes, but she was strong in her beliefs and proud of herself, now more than ever. But Draco watched as the dirty blonde stood and moved with jerky, not fluid, motions toward Hermione as Neville reached for her, and then embrace her with starch-like movements; sharp, jagged and nothing like her normal, floating, flourished ones. Hermione nestled her head into Luna's shoulder and remained extremely still, even as the cheers wound down.

Luna was joined by Neville, who leaned his forehead against Luna's and whispered comforts to both girls. Weaslette looked beyond horror; Weasley, on the other hand, looked drained. Completely drained. Couples all around them were embracing at the possible loss of the only girl in and the brains of the Golden Trio and Weasley was all alone, sitting on a bench, mourning his brother and could-have-been wife, though she wasn't dead yet.

Luna and Hermione, heads down, began exitting the room, waalking slowly but assuredly across the floor. They were soon joined by Weaslette, who, for maybe the third time in her life, looked ready to cry.

Draco had the horrible feeling he was watching someone walk to their death, and when Hermione riased her head and looked toward him, he thought he saw Pansy bading him goodbye for one last time.