I DO NOT OWN THESE CHARACTERS: J.K.ROWLING OWNS THEM. This is just a fanfic by a huge HP fan.
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Hermione stirred under Draco’s grasp, and that was what woke him up. When he looked down, his eyes still groggy and full of sleep, he noticed that she wasn’t awake yet, simply stretching a little bit. She was curled up on his lap, her small form tucked up underneath his long arms which wrapped around her and pulled her into him.
Draco couldn’t help but smile. He had finally admitted to himself, before he fell asleep that he really had fallen head over heels for this girl. He wasn’t sure he loved her, as his mother used to tell him that love was a strong word, and should only be used when it was meant, so for now he settled for liking her a lot.
Looking down at the gold watch he was given for his seventeenth birthday, he noticed it was early morning, around 7 am. He figured she must have slept the whole night through; otherwise, wouldn’t she have woken him up to go to her own bed?
Draco drew her closer to him, as close as she could get and as gently as possible so not to wake her. He put his lips to her head and kissed her scalp gently. Her hair was smoothed down from the previous day’s memorial service, but he wouldn’t have minded if it had been its usual bushy self. While his face was this close to her, he breathed in her sweet scent and melted like chocolate in the sun.
He wanted to kiss her right there and then. He wanted to kiss her on the lips. He wanted to snog her senseless until her lips were as red and as swollen as tomatoes. He wanted to sweep her off her feet and take her to his room. He wanted to take her clothes off and... No, he couldn’t think like that, she was still innocent and pure. But the rest he wanted to do, and he just hoped that she wanted to also.
Who would have known that the Muggle-Born girl he had met at age 11, taunted and teased for all their teenage years, would be the girl he fell for at the age of eighteen. He wouldn’t have thought it even possible. Heck he wouldn’t have even thought of it, especially because of her blood status. But that didn’t matter anymore, blood isn’t everything, and Draco knew that now.
She stirred again about half an hour later before she started moaning. He started to chuckle when he heard this. Hermione moaning, now that was a sound to hear. But when he started to hear audible words, he stopped laughing and listened closely.
“Don’t...no, no, no...Stop it! Please! Don’t hurt him, PLEASE!” All of a sudden she started crying in her sleep, wailing and screaming too. Draco stood up with her in his arms and laid her down on the couch, where she lay thrashing around, trying to scratch something with her hands that wasn’t there.
“Hermione! Wake up! Ugh... Not again.” Draco thought this to be exactly like the last time she had a nightmare, she wouldn’t stop screaming and crying. Now it was worse, and he had no idea what to do.
“Please! GET AWAY FROM HIM YOU BASTARD!” She screamed some more. “NOOO!” Draco was frantic now, not sure what to do. He grabbed his wand from the table behind him and was about to splash water on her when he heard the words that always sent chills down his spine. And frankly, he was glad there was no wand in her hand.
“AVADA KEDAVRA” And as she said them, it was as if she had been struck by lightning as her body jolted quite high from the couch and her eyes opened. They were frantic and darting around everywhere. Draco put his hands either side of her face to make her look at him, to see that whatever had just happened in her dream, was no longer there and that she was back in reality.
“Hermione, look at me. It was just a dream babe, look at me. You’re fine Hermione, you’re awake.” He honestly wasn’t so sure of himself. Draco thought that perhaps she was still sleeping, just in a trance but when she look directly into his eyes, she seemed to calm down a little. She jumped down from the couch into his arms, which he had taken from her face and opened wide.
She hadn’t even hesitated when sinking into him. He was probably the only thing reminding her she wasn’t in a dream anymore. Draco was seriously worried for her, as she was shaking quite a lot.
“Hermione, look at me. What the hell was going on then?” He didn’t want to sound bossy or grumpy, so he kept his voice smooth and calm.
“Bad dream, don’t worry about it.” She said simply.
“Don’t give me that bad dream bullshit. You were screaming again, you were talking in your sleep and trying to maul someone who wasn’t there. Don’t tell me I’m not to worry about it, what the hell were you dreaming about?” He sounded a little bossy then, and she turned while still being wrapped in his arms and faced him.
“It was about... Blaise and Goyle this time. Harry and Ron were gone, as I had killed them and then Blaise and Goyle came after you, so I tried to fend them off, but I couldn’t... and they killed you. I had to g-get them b-back for killing... you.” She burst into tears and didn’t stop for a long time. He couldn’t believe what he had just heard. Why the hell had she been dreaming of such horrible things?
Draco thought it mustn’t be good to be screaming the killing curse in your sleep. What if she had been extremely skilled at wand less magic? In fact, he thought, could she do magic without a wand? She was the brightest witch of her age after all... He was worried now, very worried.
“They aren’t going to get you now Hermione, they are locked up, they can’t touch you.” He spoke softly into her ear.
“I know they can’t get me, I just wish their sentences had have been normal, you know, like a lifetime imprisonment alone for using the unforgivable curse and then extra for Dennis’s death. But those stupid bans aren’t back in place yet and they have flaws in them. Stupid, stupid law...” Hermione spoke quickly, but Draco listened closely.
“Well they will be back in place February 14th. I read it in the paper a couple of days ago.”
“That’s the same date as... what a coincidence.” She mumbled quietly, but loud enough for him to hear. A shiver overtook his body as he thought about that day and what it would entail, his father’s trial.
“Yes, quite so. Anyway, I’m taking you to Madam Pomfrey right now. These dreams aren’t right.” Draco stood up, much to her protests and scooped her up bridal style into his arms and walked through the portrait door.
As he walked past the sneering Snape, he wondered whether or not the old Potions master would know anything about horrific dreams, so he asked him.
“Professor, do you know anything about dreams? Hermione has been having terrible ones, screaming out loud, trying to scratch and maul people that aren’t there and shouting out the killing curse as if it were a simple word like ‘dog’. And the contents of the dreams are horrible too.” It was the most he had said to the old Professor in a while, and he wasn’t sure if he was going to answer. But his face changed when Draco stopped talking and it almost looked like he was worried and concerned.
“Get her to Madam Pomfrey now. Dreams like that aren’t good for a witch or wizard... at all.” That was all he said before the portrait disappeared just as the wall had. Draco wished he had have elaborated a bit but Snape was never one to tell you anything in full detail.
Hermione had stopped her crying, but her eyes were red and swollen, just like tomatoes and just how he wished her lips had have been instead. And his for that matter.
Walking through the halls at this time of the day on a Sunday morning, there was hardly anyone in sight, and this he was glad of as he didn’t exactly want to create a scene. It didn’t look good the Head Boy carrying the Head Girl through the school, herself looking like utter crap.
As they were about to near the fifth floor corridor to where the new infirmary was held, he bumped into the one person he used to hate bumping into. Now, he didn’t really care. It made Hermione happy that they were being civil and talking and frankly, Draco was glad to have people to talk to these days.
Draco watched as Potter’s eyes went wide as he saw the scene before him. He ran up to them from the end of the corridor frantically.
“What’s happened? Is she alright?” His asked quickly.
“She’s alright; I just want to get her checked out.” Draco explained the dreams she had been having and what Snape had said at their common room door.
“You should have told us Hermione! We could have helped you. Never mind, you’re getting looked at now.” They were nearing the door to the hospital wing when Potter stopped and turned on the two of them, confusion all over his face.
“Did you just say Snape is the portrait to your common room?” Hermione and Draco gave each other a frantic look. They shouldn’t have even said that, as they had discussed it before and they were both sure that McGonagall was hiding something in their common room. Draco had even looked around the whole room but they couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary.
“He didn’t say that. He said Shakespeare told us to see Madam Pomfrey.” Hermione spoke before Draco even got a chance to think up a lie.
But unfortunately, whoever Shakespeare was, Potter didn’t buy it. “Why the hell would Shakespeare be guarding your common room? Don’t lie to me. I really want to speak to him and he’s not even in the Headmistress’s office on the wall where he should be.”
Draco and Hermione looked at each other once again, and by the looks of this one, they both knew they wouldn’t be able to get out of this situation.
“Look, we will tell you where he is but later okay? Let’s just see if there’s anything to these dreams of mine. But don’t say anything to anyone, got it Harry?” Hermione said. Harry nodded in agreement, and his face seemed to have lit up considerably. Why the heck would he want to see the man that tormented him most of his school days? Draco couldn’t figure out why, and he honestly thought he was a bit bonkers.
When they entered the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey rushed over to them, and asked what was wrong. They explained everything and the old woman seemed confused as to why she would have needed carrying up here. She was however, also concerned about these dreams as Snape had been. Potter seemed to eye Draco up at this moment too, as Madam Pomfrey had, but he tried to ignore it as best as he could and plonked her down on one of the beds. As he stepped back, Hermione was settling herself up on the side of the bed, her long legs dangling over the side.
Draco was picturing them bare again, like they had been that night of the Halloween party but he hadn’t realised he was staring directly at them for an unhealthy length of time. Potter started snapping his fingers in front of Draco’s face, but he just swatted them away.
“Miss Granger will need privacy with me please, so both of you wait outside the door. We may be a while.” She said, shooing the two boys out of the bed space.
“Draco, explain the portrait and our common room to Harry!” Hermione said as the door shut behind them. He was a bit flustered at being pushed out of there so quickly. He thought that he would at least be able to stay in there with her, seeing as he was the one who brought her down there in the first place, and was the one who had been waking her from these dreams.
Draco got lost in his thoughts, and Potter started being a prat again, but this time waving his hand in front of Draco’s face.
“God, would you stop that Potter, it’s bloody annoying.” He said, anger licking his words.
“Well I have to, you keep spacing out. So where the heck is Snape?” Potter was standing beside him, piercing holes in the side of his head with those green eyes of his. Draco causally lent on the wall, a habit he got from all his years of trying to ‘look cool’ around all of the other Slytherin’s.
“Right. Well, you see Snape hasn’t been allowed to be hung up on the walls of the Headmistresses office because of past offences he committed, even though the Ministry know he was on your side the whole time.” Draco noted how Potter’s eyes seemed to narrow when he spoke about Snape being on ‘their side’. He considered himself to be on the good side now, the right side, but it doesn’t make it his. He had been on the wrong side for a long time.
“Carry on.” His words were short and clipped, annoyance in his tone. ‘Stupid Prat’ Draco thought.
“So he has been given the ‘most important job in the school’ as McGonagall puts it, which happens to be guarding our common room.” Draco continued.
Potters eyebrows came together in confusion. “How is guarding your common room the most important job in the school? And where exactly is this common room?”
“We don’t know. Hermione and I have been trying to figure it out. We thought perhaps there was something hidden in there but we’ve searched up and down, side to side and haven’t found anything.” Draco was trying to avoid the second part to Potter’s question but he was pressing him to continue. “It’s on the seventh floor.” ‘If Potter is smart enough, he could guess the rest’, Draco thought.
“There’s no new rooms up on the seventh floor.”
“Think again.” Was all Draco said.
“There isn’t. And besides I would have seen Snape’s portrait by now, I’ve been up there several times this year trying to get up into the Room of Require... No way.” Draco smirked as Potter finally figured it out.
“Are you serious? You two live in the Room of Requirement?” Draco was slightly disappointed that it hadn’t taken him longer to figure it out and he hoped that others wouldn’t be able to figure it out as quickly as he had.
“I don’t tend to joke about this sort of stuff Potter. Yes, I’m serious. And having Snape as our bloody password portrait gets annoying on a daily basis. You can guarantee a rude or snarky comment at least once a day. Or the silent treatment and that can sometimes be worse.” He genuinely smiled at the prat this time, and Potter returned it. But Draco didn’t want him thinking they were going to become best friends, yet he didn’t want to let Hermione down either.
“Wow. How come when I try to get in, nothing at all appears?” Draco rolled his eyes, knowing a lot of questions would be on their way.
“Because only the entrance to our Room shows up now, and all the other rooms have been sort of ‘blocked’ and you can’t access them. There’s also only three of us who can get into our common room or at least make it appear, so don’t go up there and sit outside it all day to see if it will show up.”
“Three? McGonagall as well I’m guessing?”
“Correct.” Draco said as he pushed the door open slightly to see if he could hear any of their conversation. But the one bit he did manage to catch, he wish he hadn’t. It was something about her period, and that was a detail he wanted to know nothing about. Silently, he shut the door again with Potter’s judging eyes on him the entire time.
“Can you get me up there? To see Snape I mean?” Draco snapped his head around to Potter, wondering why on earth he was asking him a favour.
“Why should I? There’s nothing in it for me.” Potter rolled his eyes at Draco.
“Slytherin’s, always thinking about themselves. Well there may not be anything in it for you, but if you want me to keep your little secret silent, you may want to take me up there.” Now he had Draco just plain confused. Why on earth would he have told Potter any of his secrets?
“What are you on about you prat?”
“Oh you know, the secret of you falling head over heels for Hermione.” His jaw dropped. Draco was fuming. He couldn’t seem to understand how he knew this one secret that he had only really discovered the previous night. There was no way possible that he would have known that.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Draco said calmly, regaining his composure and making his face impassive. But he had feared it too late and knowing what a prat Potter was, and he knew he wouldn’t give this up.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know anything. I see the way you look at her. Your eyes sort of gravitate around her. And that carrying her down here thing? Smooth Malfoy, you’re so going to score a date with her that way.” Draco was fuming and ready to punch Potter in the face when Madam Pomfrey opened the door.
“You two can come in now, she’s asking for you both.” Her head popped back in the door. Potter went to walk inside but Draco grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and held him against the wall. Potter kept a little smirk on his face that Draco just wanted to smack off.
“You breathe one word of this to anyone, and your dead, got it? Follow me up after dinner tonight and I’ll take you up to him.” When he dropped Potter, the smartass saluted Draco and walked in before him. Draco regained his composure and entered the Hospital wing.
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