Adamo Fidelitas

Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling and Scholastic Books. This is a work of fanfiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story.

Adamo Fidelitas 11
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Draco Malfoy drew the blanket more tightly around himself, as he continued to shake uncontrollably. He wished fervently that he would just slip back into unconsciousness, where he would be blissfully unaware of both the physical pain and the boundless humiliation that he was presently enduring. Draco\'s face turned almost as red as a tomato as he peeked through the folds of the blanket to watch a very tight lipped Professor Snape gliding towards him with a steaming teacup.

\"Drink this, Draco. It contains a painkiller, although I do still think that you should allow me to summon Madam Pomfrey for you,\" Snape told him, as he offered the teacup to his student.

Draco tried to raise the cup to his lips, but his shaking hands seemed to be splashing more of it over the rim of the cup than he was going to get in his mouth. After having been frozen in such a tensed moment for nearly a quarter of an hour, every muscle in his body was both fatigued and aching. Other sensations were even more unpleasant, and he couldn\'t even bring himself to try to straighten his body out from the nearly foetal position that he now was curled in. His shallow panting was dangerously close to hyperventilating, and his burning eyes watered with pain.

The throbbing eased as the hot and bitter tea spilled down his throat--the warmth of the magic pooling in his belly as his body began to relax and the unbearable screaming from his raw nerves began to subside. He sipped the tea greedily, as it continued to ease the physical side effects from his gruelling ordeal. His thoughts began to clear further, as he grew increasingly aware of his present situation, and the scariest thought he could imagine became crystalline in his mind. \"Y-you a-aren\'t going to tell my father about this, are you, Professor?\" Draco stammered, with eyes larger than a house elf\'s.

Professor Snape balked, turning if anything more sallow, before pressing his lips into an even thinner line and shaking his oily head slightly. \"No, I think this is one moment that it might be best not to inform your father of. That does not however mean that I intend to just drop the matter without further word.\" Professor Snape stalked over to the lacquered dresser across from Draco\'s bed, as he spoke.

\"You did not by any means lure your…ahem…companion into my supply closet against her will, I hope,\" Professor Snape asked, raising one of his high black eyebrows in question.

\"Of course not!\" Draco shouted indignantly. \"She was the one who…\"

Professor Snape waved his hand to signify that he did not wish to hear any disturbing details, and Draco realized how close he\'d come to saying something that would reveal Hermione\'s identity.

\"I do not wish to hear the particulars of your blatantly stupid indiscretion, Draco,\" the Potions Master chastised bluntly. \"I am merely trying to discover the reason behind you ending up in such an indecorous state. I will be quite amazed if the trauma of what I\'ve witnessed this morning ever wears off,\" Professor Snape continued, squirming and rubbing the bridge of his hooked nose as though hoping to somehow dislodge the recollection of finding his favourite student laid out in a compromising position in the cupboard from his memory entirely. It was his most desperate wish that he could Obliviate every detail of what had transpired since--after, of course, wringing the neck of the person responsible for today\'s discomfort in the first place.

Draco winced, burying his golden head behind his long fingers. He had no explanation for what he termed \"Granger\'s psychotic turnaround\", and it was making it damnably difficult for him to think of a story to feed to Snape. A deep and abiding fury grew inside him, as he continued to think about it.

\"I\'m only concerned with who hexed you in the closet and why,\" Professor Snape announced distinctly. \"Am I mistaken in the assumption that it was your female partner who left you as such?\" Professor Snape inquired, trying to ask as tactfully as possible.

At Draco\'s continued silence, the Slytherin Head of House looked over to see his student lost in thought and seething. \"This is a matter of importance, Draco. What was done to you was a torture not far below the Cruciatus Curse! If I hadn\'t found you when I did, you would be in a St. Mungo\'s ward for permanent spell damage! I could not only have the person responsible expelled, but I could have them sent to Azkaban for such a stunt,\" Professor Snape railed, his long hair flying as he punctuated his speech with angry gestures of his hands.

\"No!\" Draco shouted instinctively. He couldn\'t have looked more paed ied if there had been a dementor in the bed next to him. \"I don\'t want anyone else to know about it! I don\'t want to testify, and I won\'t! Please, let me handle it myself, Professor! I promise I can handle it myself! Please, Professor!\" Draco begged, his anger temporarily forgotten in his terror of everything that could be revealed if Snape pursued this.

The thin professor looked his pupil over critically. Even in his own embarrassment over the situation, Snape felt as strong an empathy with the boy as ever. He had no wish to either cause Draco further mortification or to exacerbate the already tenuous situation that apparently existed around the boy at the moment. Perhaps the best course of action would be for he and Dumbledore to let Draco and Granger settle it between them. Snape could easily identify the long brown hair on the collar of Draco\'s robes. He still had to maintain proper control of the situation, however, for the safety of both students. Dumbledore would have to be given both names, so that the situation could be monitored, and Snape wasn\'t sure how Draco would be able to cover in any event.

\"To make this perfectly clear. I will still need to know who the guilty party is so that I can inform the Headmaster that I am allowing you to settle the dispute amongst yourselves. I also want it clear that under no circumstances are any more students to turn up petrified in compromising positions anywhere around this school. The consequences would be severe indeed,\ofesofessor Snape warned coldly, as he placed the small bottle of potion that he\'d mixed into Draco\'s tea onto the bed table.

Draco\'s expression became one of gleeful malice. \"I understand Professor,\" Draco promised him. \"While I was otherwise engaged, Granger came into the cupboard looking for something. She was the one who cast the spell, and my partner got scared and ran off. Father would be humiliated if it came out that a girl of no wizard family was able to catch his son off-guard like that,\" Draco snarled, his anger flaring back to life. \"I\'m tired of being humiliated by that Mudblood,\" Draco whispered, knotting the blankets in his fists.

\"And did Miss Granger give you any reason for her actions?\" Professor Snape questioned, keeping tight control of his reaction. His mind raced to put together the pieces of what had transpired.

\"No,\" Draco replied sullenly. \"I not not done anything to her,\" he added, trying to think of what could have precipitated this morning. \"Unless she\'s blaming me for her room, which I didn\'t have anything to do with,\" he finished vehemently. \"I will find out though,\" he swore.

\"I shall inform the Headmaster at once,\" Snape informed him with a stiff bow. \"I will be heading up to the Great Hall for some lunch. Should I bring you back something to eat?\" Snape added, in a voice that was a strange mixture of curtness and concern.

\"I\'ll be up soon enough, Professor,\" Draco assured him, looking off into space with a serious expression.

\"Very well,\" Snape spoke quietly. He hurriedly made his way from the room, although he knew that his student was barely aware of his passing. After the door to Draco\'s dungeon room closed between them, Severus Snape finally released the tight reign on his emotions. He felt as though all hope had been sucked out of him. He hadn\'t seen Draco Malfoy look that malevolent in so long that he\'d forgotten how greatly Lucius had affected the boy. \"Have we lost him, Albus?\" He whispered to himself, before heading up the stairs to find Professor Dumbledore.

Hermione sat quietly beside Harry and Ron in the Great Hall. They\'d both tried to no avail to get out of her where she\'d been instead of Defence Against the Dark Arts, and a frustrated silence had fallen over their section of the table. Hermione felt alone among her peers, and she had the creeping sensation that the teachers were staring at her strangely. Snape in particular seemed to be staring at her more than usual. Hermione looked up to see Ginny quickly finishing her lunch and leaving the table alone.

\"What\'s with Ginny?\" Hermione quietly asked Harry. She quickly looked back at her plate when Harry stared back at her with an expression that said, \"Why should I answer your question if you won\'t answer ours?\"

Ron grimaced slightly. \"Let\'s just say Ginny gets pretty upset when threats against Muggle-borns start turning up on the walls. I\'m sure you can understand why,\" Ron confided, the edges of his mouth pushed into a forced grin.

\"Ernie MacMillan said somethinout out the Chamber of Secrets to her on the way back from Herbology today,\" came a voice over Hermione\'s shoulder. Luna Lovegood stood just behind Hermione and Ron, and as the Ravenclaw girl cocked her head the trio got a spectacular view of the strange model beasts dangling from Luna\'s earlobes. They were brown with woolly fur and had spurs of bone that looked like crumpled tins rather than any normal sort of antler. \"I told him to shove off, and I brought her back up to the castle,\" Luna finished with her standard unnatural calm.

\"Umm….\" Ron began, unsure what to say. \"Ummm… are those new earrings, Luna?\" He asked, awkwardly.

\"Oh yes,\" Luna beamed with great enthusiasm. \"They\'re Crumple Horned Snorkacks. Father\'s latest pictures of them should be appearing in the next edition of the Quibbler. It was very nice of you to notice, Ronald,\" Luna added, leaning in towards Ron to presumably give him a better look at the large ornaments hanging from her ears.

\"Uh, yes… They\'re lovely,\" Ron commented, shrugging at Harry across the table, and Hermione rolled her eyes. The fact that Luna and her father had actually found the beasts that Hermione insisted didn\'t exist was still a sore point for the rational Gryffindor.

Hermione tuned out the rest of their conversatias sas she wrestled with her own guilt and doubts. She felt nauseous with shame and nerves, and she rather envied Ginny\'s hasty retreat. Hermione was repulsed by her own actions and scared by the fact that for the first time her hurt emotions had overruled her judgement. \"What have I done? What have I done,\" she repeated in her mind, as she saere ere ignoring those around her. She had never behaved so recklessly and foolishly before, and Malfoy was paying the price for her mistakes. The queasiness of her stomach intensified, as her self-recriminations ate away at her.

After Malfoy hadn\'t turned up in the closet, she\'d rushed to the hospital wing to see if someone had found him. The hospital had been completely empty, and Hermione was horribly worried. She was terrified that whoever had found the Slytherin hadn\'t known to take the spell off him or that someone who had reason to hate Malfoy had taken him from the closet to get revenge on him. A sick swoop of fear filled her stomach at the thought that the person who had vandalized her room might have taken him.

Deciding it was a useless pretence to even sit in front of her meal, Hermione pushed her untouched plate away and rose from the table. She wanted to make a further search of the castle while the halls were still fairly quiet. She didn\'t know the location of Malfoy\'s room, but she felt that setting out in search of it was the next logical step. If she couldn\'t locate him this time, she would simply have to go to Dumbledore and confess everything. Whatever it took to make sure Malfoy was safe she was willing to do.

\"Hermiowherwhere are you going?\" Harry asked, breaking away from his conversation with Ron and Luna. He gave a disapproving look at her full plate, and Ron goggled at her in surprise.

\"I have a project that I need to be working on, so I\'m going to get back to it,\" Hermione told him, slinging her satchel over her shoulder.

\"We\'ll walk you there,\" Ron told her, in a tone that said no arguments would be accepted. Luna and Harry nodded in agreement, as they all fell into step together. A few others students were lingering in the hallway beyond, and Hermione felt rather reluctant to head back to the dungeons with her friends in tow.

The door to the Great Hall opened and closed behind them, and a cold, quiet voice echoed in the nearly deserted corridor. \"Miss Granger,\" Professor Snape called out, \"a moment if you please.\"

A knot formed in Hermione\'s throat--a lead weight as though she had swallowed all the flatware at the table. She turned to face the stern face of the teacher who had called her. \"Yes, Prof-\"

\"Granger!\" bellowed a loud and furious voice from the end of the hall. Hermione swirled to see Malfoy bearing down at her with a murderous look contorting his features. \"You unbearable, bucktoothed harpy! You vile excuse for a witch! You treacherous shrew! You damnable hellcat!\" he thundered, cursing non-stop as he stormed towards her.

Hermione wondered if he really might be intending homicide, as her relief at seeing him alind wnd well mixed with a very genuine fear for her own life. She froze certain that this was the view that a small fluffy bunny would have of the Hogwarts Express hurtling towards it at full speed.

\"Hermione!\" Ron yelled, digging for his wand as he threw himself into Malfoy\'s path to protect her from what looked like certain death.

\"Expelliarmus!\" Draco roared with a flick of his wand, and Ron exploded through the air and crashed into the wall across the hall without the Slytherin even missing a step.

Luna rushed to Ron\'s side, calling his name, and Harry reached into his pocket for his own wand. \"Don\'t just stand there, Hermione! Run!\" he shouted at his motionless friend. Torn between wanting to explain things to the furious juggernaut on his way toward her and a deep-seated survival instinct, Hermione turned to dash up the hallway.

\"Keep your wand where it is, Potter,\" Professor Snape interjected loudly, grabbing Harry by the wrist.

Draco took the opportunity to close the distance between himself and Hermione in several large strides, reaching out for her and catching a handful of her long hair in his fist as she began to run. Hermione squealed in pain, coming up short and reaching back to claw her way free from his grasp, as Draco began to drag her by the hair towards the dungeons.

\"He\'s going to kill Hermione! He\'s going to kill Hermione!\" Harry protested, struggling aga Sna Snape\'s iron hold.

\"Mister Malfoy,\" Snape growled. \"Do not forget the terms under which the faculty is allowing you to settle this dispute between yourselves!\" Snape ordered angrily. \"Miss Granger is to be returned to this spot within half an hour, and you will control your temper as befitting a Head Boy.\"

Draco released Hermione\'s hair and grabbed her by the arm with a grunt, as she tried to escape by kicking him in the shin. \"Yes, Professor,\" Malfoy replied, glowering down at the tiny Gryffindor, who was putting up a much betteruggluggle than before. Pursing his lips in displeasure, Draco angrily pinned Hermione\'s arms to her sides before hauling her up over his shoulder like a sack of old laundry. Then to the catcalls of several amused and perplexed students he carried her kicking and screaming back down to the dungeon.

Ron had finally managed to sit up, although he was mostly lying propped against Luna\'s shoulder as she dabbed away the blood that had mixed with his already red hair. He and Harry were both shouting every unpardonable phrase they could think of at Snape, who turned his full attention on them. \"Malfoy\'s going to kill Hermione! You can\'t just let him…\" Harry shouted hoping that someone nearby would go after Hermione, in case he couldn\'t break free from Snape.

\"Mister Malfoy is under strict instructions not to harm Miss Granger. The situation is very much in hand without your interference, Potter. After the prank she pulled today Miss Granger is exceedingly lucky that she is not on her way to the newly refurbished Azkaban,\" Snape jeered, fixing Harry with as full a look of loathing as Harry had ever seen from him.

Professor Dumbledore made his way towards Harry and Professor Snape, closing the door to the Great Hall behind him. His purple and green paisley robes dragged the floor as he stepped forward. \"There seems to be some great deal of commotion out here, Severus,\" he said in a calming voice, as he glanced at Harry with a gentle smile.

\"Professor, Snape is going to let Malfoy…\" Harry began, frantically gesturing in the direction that Malfoy had dpearpeared with Hermione.

\"It\'s all right, Harry,\" Dumbledore assured Harry. \"Mister Malfoy is quite angry at the moment, but if I thought that he truly meant to do her harm I would never have agreed to let Miss Granger into his custody to resolve the unfortunate incidents of this morning. I do suspect that what he has to say to her will be most unpleasant though,\" Dumbledore added with a tired sigh.

Dumbledore turned his silver bearded head towards Luna and Ron. \"Miss Lovegood, if you will please be so kind as to take Mister Weasley up to the hospital ward…\" he suggested. \"Harry, you may wait here with Professor Snape for our Head Girl to be returned,\" he added, motioning for Snape to release his grasp on Harry\'s arm, leaving Harry in complete befuddlement at this new development. \"Faith, Harry,\" Dumbledore told him gently. \"Have faith,\" he instructed with warmth and sympathy in his face and voice, as he raised his kind blue eyes to regard Professor Snape and share a hels los look.

Hermione let out a little gasp, as Malfoy set her down just outside Snape\'s cupboard, taking her wand before letting go of her arms. \"I thought it appropriate to return to the scene of the crime,\" he told her menacingly. As she protested incoherently, Draco ripped open the door and shoved her inside.

Hermione hugged herself tightly, watching Malfoy slam the door behind them and cast a silencing spell. Hermione ran through all the atrocious things he might intend to do to her, as he stalked towards her. Hermione flinched as he drew up to within inches of her, convinced that he intended rape, violence, mutilation, and murder. \"Don\'t you dare touch me!\" she threatened in a shrill voice that made him raise his eyebrow and grin. \"If you so much as lay a hand on me, I\'ll scream!\" Hermione promised, knowing that it would be nearly pointless with the silencing spell in place.

\"You can scream all you want, you traitorous whore,\" Draco told her, the frighteningly cold grin spreading wider, \"but I don\'t intend to lay a hand on your filthy little body anyhow.\" His blonde hair fell into his eyes, as he continued to stare at her like she was the most detestable thing he\'d ever laid eyes upon.

\"Malfoy, I swear I didn\'t mean…I didn\'t intend…\" Hermione began, as the tears spilled over her lower lashes and cascaded down her cheeks in salty rivulets.

Draco slammed the flat of his palm into the edge of the storage shelves hard enough to send a shelf\'s worth of beaker sets crashing to the floor in a spray of glass, HermHermione shrieked, hiding her face behind her hands. \"You didn\'t mean what!\" Malfoy demanded, his face nearly purple. \"You didn\'t intend for me to survive long enough to face you? You didn\'t intend to nearly send me to St. Mungo\'s irreparably insane? You didn\'t intend to trick me into being alone with you in this closet, so that you could torture me?\" He challenged, his voice shaking with fury.

Hermione looked up from her hands, crying and shaking her head. She knew that she had acted stupidly out of hurt, and that she hadn\'t really thought through her plans. She fully felt the weight of her guilt already for what had happened, and she couldn\'t think of a single thing to say to make him understand.

Draco mimicked the shaking of her head, goading her to speak as he copied her movements. \"Well, I guess you did intend that last one, didn\'t you?\" he finally drawled coldly, straightening to his full height as he continued to glare at her.

\"I only planned…up the steps…turn around… only two minutes…but Filch…came back…gone,\" Hermione managed to choke out between sobs. \"Honestly, it was an accident,\" she burst out.

\"Why don\'t you try two minutes like that!\" Draco roared, causing Hermione to back up as he raised his wand menacingly. He quickly recovered his control, clenching his jaw so tightly that Hermione could hear the grinding of his teeth. \"You know, since coming to this eff-ing school I have become a connoisseur of being humiliated,\" Draco continued, his eyes seeming nearly red from crying and completely feral in the shadowy room. \"I have been behind you and your friends in everything from Quidditch to academics. I have been turned into a ferret, mauled by a hippogriff, chased by creatures that nobody with half a brain would breed--much less expose a class of students to. I have been hit with hexes that should never be combined, stuffed into luggage racks on the train, and just left there like baggage,\" Draco listed in an affected tone of calmness. \"But today is without any doubt the most humiliating experience of my life. Would you like me to tell you about it?\" he asked cheerfully.

\"Malfoy, I\'m so-\" Hermione began.

\"SHUT UP!\" Draco yelled, shaking his head so that his golden hair swung back and forth wildly. \"After you made your charming little departure from this room, I spent a good bit of time just laying in the dark…in pain…unable to move…unable to scream. But if I could have screamed, I would have screamed until my throat bled. In fact, I did quite a lot of screaming once the spell was removed, but I\'m getting ahead of myself there,\" Draco said closing his eyes tightly, and pressing his body against the wall as the memory surfaced again.

\"By the time that the door was opened I was too incoherent to even realize that someone was there…\" Draco continued with an empty laugh. \"Then I remember hearing those glorious words, \'Finite Incantatum,\' and nothing had ever sounded as sweet to me before in my life. Of course, once my body had finished where it had been so rudely interrupted, I discovered that after you\'ve been in that position for a bit the pain doesn\'t just go away,\" he continued to laugh, mirthlessly. \"I also discovered that my saviour was none other than Professor Snape! After that it\'s a jumble of screaming uncontrollably, losing consciousness, and drifting in and out of things as I was brought to my room,\" he said with a wave of his hand. \"Luckily, Professor Snape had painkilling potions in supply, and he gave me a very strong one,\" Draco told her, his face alight with hatred.

\"You have to know that I never intended for any of that to happen!\" Hermione swore, gathering her courage to take a step towards him. She reached out her hand to stroke his cheek comfortingly, and Malfoy jumped, backing away from her touch as if she were trying to burn him or attack him.

\"You stay the bloody hell away from me, Granger!\" he spat. Draco shuffled further away from her, keeping his back pressed tightly against the wall. Hermione could dec decide if he were afraid that she might harm him or that he would harm her if she got too close. In either event he presented all the signs of being on the verge of panic, and she kept a distance between them rather than push him further.

Draco\'s words sank in, and Hermione gasped,\" Malfoy, did you just say that Professor Snape…\"

\"Yes, Granger,\" Malfoy replied, returning to the frighteningly affected voice. \"That is exactly what I said,\" he confirmed, leering with a mean-spirited shine to his eyes.

\"But what did you tell him?\" Hermione bawled. \"If he knows that I hexed you…\" she whispered mostly to herself, her face flushing redder than the stripes on her Gryffindor scarf. \"You didn\'t tell Snape… well you didn\'t tell him everything, did you?\" she pleaded, covering her mouth for even speaking the words. Draco raised one of his pale brows, and Hermione took a step away from him, so that her back was up against the narrow end of the shelves.

\"What if I did Granger?\" he coaxed, having regained his control of the situation. The shards of glass crunched under his feet, as he sauntered over to her. He grasped the supports of the shelving unit on either side of the worried girl and leaned in closer to enjoy her embarrassment. \"What if I told him exactly what you were doing with your mouth before you hexed me? I might have mentioned something about the fact that you had me halfway down your throat and were gobbling me like you\'d never tasted anything so good before in your miserable life. What if I told him that I\'ve had you moaning and quivering underneath me, while I dicked you, all over this bloody castle?\" Malfoy asked in a silky threat.

Hermione squeezed her eyes tightly shut, unable to stand the look of hatred and fury on Draco Malfoy\'s face. She fought hard to resist the urge to slap him across the mouth or spit into his eyes for what he had just said. \"Just… shut… up,\" she ground out, covering her ears with her hands and shaking her head. \"Just shut up! Just shut up!\" she screamed at him picking up speed as she repeated it several times.

Malfoy looked quite satisfied with himself. \"Don\'t like the idea of having your personal life exposed, do you?\" he asked softly, when she finally lowered her fists back down to her sides. \"I\'m certain it would be humiliating for you for every single one of those teachers who respect you now to know all the nasty things that you\'ve enjoyed doing with me, and we both know you have enjoyt,\"t,\" the Slytherin continued, the threat clear in his voice.

\"I said to shut it!\" Hermione screeched at the top of her lungs. Her hair snarled around her shoulders, adding to her already dishevelled appearance. \"I hate you,\" she added in a small, broken voice.

The Slytherin\'s fury seemed to diminish, and he relaxed his menacing posture slightly. \"Don\'t worry, Granger,\" Draco told her, placatingly, \"that part of your reputation is still in good standing at least.\" He ran his fingers through his messy white-blonde hair, balancing his weight on one arm instead. \"I told Professor Snape that you walked in on a tryst that I was having, and then you hexed me,\" Malfoy admitted. \"I was more than a little confused as to the reason why you decided to come up with a way of getting back at me that would be on a level with the Cruciatus Curse, so I improvised with you blaming me for your room. I suppose what you just said is all I need to know though,\" Malfoy said seriously, with a trace of an emotion Hermione couldn\'t quite place in his voice.

Hermione\'s eyes widened, as she remembered what she had said. She\'d been so furious that she had to say something hurtful, and Malfoy had accepted the statement without question. \"I didn\'t mean that,\" she told him softly. \"I was just so angry…\"

\"Don\'t bother, Granger,\" Draco replied. \"We promised to never use this against each other, and you broke the golden rule. It changes everything, Granger,\" he explained.

\"But if you would just let me…\" Hermione broke in, trying to explain everything to him now that he seemed more rational and less terrifying.

\"No,\" Draco cut her off firmly. \"After this morning, I\'ve made a new decision, and you do not get a say in it,\" he announced, pushing away and resting the back of his head against the stone wall. He didn\'t seem angry anymore, just weary and a little sick. \"This is never to be spoken of to anyone, not teachers, not family. If you go gloating about your clever prank to your little pack of Gryffindor friends or anybody else, I will kill you,\" He told her simply, that coldness burning in his mercurial eyes.

Hermione stared at him in shock. Did he really believe that she would do something like that? She tried to wrap her mind around the threat he\'d just delivered with utter sincerity. She felt like the axis of her world had just shifted radically, leaving her lost in the lurching chaos of a world that suddenly seemed completely alien to her. \"I wouldn\'t!\" she shouted at the tall man next to her.

\"Because you\'re just so trustworthy,\" Draco snorted. \"I never want to speak with you or be stuck in your presence again for as long as I live,\" Draco told her flatly. \"I don\'t care what you do to try to fight the potion, but there will be no further meetings between us. I don\'t care if I go mad. I will cut off my own hand before I ever reach for you again,\" Draco vowed, chucking Hermione\'s wand at her and striding towards the door.

Hermione swayed, clutching her wand tightly yet unable to sense its weight or texture in her fingers. She felt like Malfoy had reached inside and pulled out a huge chunk of her, leaving a bleeding hole in her chest and abdomen. Why did she feel like it would have been more merciful for him to have simply killed her outright?

\"Move your arse, Granger!\" Malfoy ordered from the door, \"Professor Snape is waiting for me to return you to the main hall.\" The surly young man closed the door behind them, stalking off down the hallway at a pace that left Hermione nearly jogging to keep up.

\"Malfoy, I understand why you hate me for what I\'ve done,\" Hermione called out, as she struggled to keep up with him. \"Please just hear me out though!\" she called.

\"I said I didn\'t want to hear another word from you,\" he replied without slowing his pace. Draco felt exhausted, and all he wanted at the moment was to get this over with so that he could be alone.

Harry let out a yelp of relief when he saw Hermione heading back up the hall. Her eyes were puffy, and she was crying quietly, but she seemed completely unharmed. \"Hermione!\" Harry shouted with a wave of his arm, and he rushed to her side.

Hermione threw her arms around Harry\'s neck with a particularly loud sob, and he hugged his friend tightly. \"I swear if you did anything to hurt her, Malfoy,\" Harry threatened. His green eyes blazed with loathing and distrust, awakening one of the now common stabs of pain from his scar.

\"Sod off, Scarhead,\" Draco responded. \"I accidentally knocked over some test-tubes, Professor,\" he said to Snape, ignoring the look of outrage from Harry. \"I\'m sorry, and I\'ll clean it up. If it\'s all right, I think I need a bit olie-lie-down first,\" Draco told him. He swayed on his feet, feeling like he could possibly pass out where he stood.

\"Perhaps you should go to the hospital, Mister Malfoy,\" Professor Dumbledore answered in his placid voice before Professor Snape could speak.

\"I think I just need some sleep in the privacy of my room, Professor,\" Draco told him, praying that the Headmaster would not force the issue. Catching the look of disapproval on the old wizard\'s face, Draromiromised to go to Madam Pomfrey if sleep did not solve his present dilemma.

\"You are excused from your afternoon classes, Draco,\" Professor Snape agreed. \"Just don\'t forget to collect your assignments from your teachers tomorrow.\"

Draco nodded, turning back the way he\'d come. Still holding Hermione tightly, Harry looked after him and shouted, \"I don\'t know what you\'re playing at Malfoy, but leave Hermione alone!\" He drew his brows together in a perplexed expression as the Slytherin walked off without the slightest retort.

\"Harry, it\'s not Malfoy\'s fault,\" Hermione told him. \"I really am the one who stepped over the line this time,\" she continued, as The Boy Who Lived looked at her in disbelief.

\"Hermione, there is no way that you could be to blame when it comes to a fight with Malfoy,\" Harry assured her. He\'d been proven wrong about so many of the things he believed in the past few years, that he seemed to need for Hermione to be in the right.

\"I\'m not saying that he didn\'t do something to make me angry, Harry,\" she promised, \"but I did something very horrible to him for revenge. I got so angry at him the night that my room was torn apart, and I decided to play a prank on him to get even,\" she sobbed.

Harry nodded to show that he was listening intently, as he brushed her wild hair out of her eyes and tried to wipe away the remainder of the tears clinging to her cheeks. \"I didn\'t think it out well, and it went terribly wrong. Malfoy could have ended up…\" she paused afraid to admit just how dangerous a prank she had played. In a small whisper she added, \"Malfoy could have ended up in St. Mungo\'s with Neville\'s parents.\"

Harry\'s eyes grew rounder with those words, but a look at Hermione\'s sad face brought his need to comfort her to the forefront. \"Hermione, I know you would never intend something like that,\" Harry reassured her, rocking her gently. \"Even if you did lose your temper and do something a little stupid, Malfoy brought it on himself probably by provoking you,\" he added. \"Now why don\'t we head up to the hospital to see if Ron and Luna are still up there?\"

\"Oh, Harry,\" Hermione exclaimed. \"You just don\'t understand at all! Malfoy really has good reason to hate me now,\" she continued. \"I\'ve botched things up so dreadfully, and he has every reason to hate Muggle-borns now!\" Hermione cried out. Forgetting the presence of the teachers in the hall, Hermione broke away from Harry and rushed off towards the Gryffindor tower. She didn\'t know how she was going to do it, but she couldn\'t give up until Malfoy understood and forgave her.

Back in his room and secure in the fact that he was finally alone, Draco crawled onto his bed and curled back into a ball clutching his stomach. He had vented his rage upon Hermione with all the ferocity of a storm-tossed ocean. He had learned the answer he\'d been looking for. It had all left him with a pain that no potion could touch, and he had no idea how he was going to deal with it. He felt like some emotion down in the core of his being had broken, and there was no way to fix it. He promised himself that he would never allow anyone else close enough to do this to him again. He cursed Hermione Granger for what felt like the millionth time, and cursed himself for trusting her. Then Draco Malfoy did something he hadn\'t done in a very long time. He cried himself to sleep.
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Author\'s Notes: I\'m so happy that I finally got to include Luna and the Crumple Horned Snorkacks in this chapter. I loved her in OotP, and I\'ve wanted to work her into the story for several chapters now. In some ways she\'s such a nut, but I think she\'s probably right about some important things in canon. She also makes me feel better about some of the crazy jewellery that I wore at her age.

There really isn\'t much known about the full body bind from canon. I tried to look up some details about it, but since it\'s not like real petrification via a basilisk I improvised. Since it\'s referred to as a full body bind, I decided to keep to the idea that only the body can\'t move while the person is still aware. All fanfiction is improvisation at its core, anyhow.

*hands out Draco plushies to those who guessed that it was Snape who found him* After all, it is his closet. I think poor ol\' Snape really would be traumatised upon discovering a scene like that in his cupboard. I\'m not sure that a year like this wouldn\'t send Snape into early retirement. He and Dumbledore will have more of a chance to react in the next chapter, as things continue to unfold.

For those reading this on AFF.net, the chapter title \"I shall do thee mischief\" is a quote from Shakespeare\'s A Midsummer Night\'s Dream. It\'s from Act II Scene I, where Demetrius is fighting with Helena and trying to drive her away. When she threatens to pursue him into the woods he tells her, \"I shall do thee mischief in the wood.\" In light of all the threats and the fall out from Hermione\'s prank, I found myself drawn to the line.

Thank you, WickedWitch, for introducing me to the song \"Finally\". It really does go so well, with this chapter. You\'re right; I could see Draco in the final scene very well with that song playing.