Times Of Surrender

Alright, so this is one of those chapters I was talking about. You know the ones that have the same text but are set in a different place. If you remember correctly this chapter was held at Hermione house, but this time it isn’t. Anyways, do enjoy!

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Chapter Two

Hermione paced anxiously before the fireplace in her living room. Harry and Ron had sent Faith back with a letter saying that she could apparate to the Weasleys’ house a ten pm. After three hours of waiting Hermione was almost up the walls and she had nearly run herself ragged. She couldn’t sit down for more than three minutes without moving again, wringing her hands and glancing at the clock.

A slow ache had begun to throb just behind her eyes. She sat down for a few moments and pressed her fists against her eyelids. The pressure relieved the pain ever so slightly and she sighed quietly. It had been a long afternoon and the night promised to be even longer. But she needed somebody that she trusted to talk to. She couldn’t even fathom turning to her parents with a situation like this.

She had just managed to relax some when there the clock stuck ten and began to chime loudly throughout the room. She jumped up from the comfy white couch, pulled on a heavy black cloak and placed her wand securely in the pocket. Sighing, she spun in place and was pulled into a world of darkness. Moments later she stood before the fence around the Weasley’s house brushing dust off of her cloak. She focused on brushing each particle of dirt off and she knew that she was only wasting time dawdling in the front yard. With a sigh she ignored the cloak and walked through the rickety gate into the yard.

Before she got to the door it was pulled open and both Harry and Ron had bound out of it toward her with worried expressions. Ron got to her first and said, “Hermione, what’s the matter?”

Hermione’s thin shoulders shook in silent sobs and Harry quickly wrapped an arm around her to lead her into the house. She sniffled and wiped at her tear stained face. Harry had pulled her through the open door and had directed her into a chair within the kitchen. Her small hands trembled when she tried to unbutton her cloak from around her throat and Ron pushed her hands away to assist her. She said a soft thanks and pulled her wand from her cloak pocket.

“Hermione, is everything alright?” Harry asked. He had busied himself with fixing all of them a hot cup of tea. The kettle had filled itself up with water and had drifted over to sit over the open flame of the stove. Harry had pulled three large mixed colored tea mugs from the cupboard.

“No, everything is hardly alright. Before I can even tell you what the problem is, I’m going to have to explain the whole story to you. If I don’t you two are going to bombard me with a million questions at once. I’m not proud of myself for not telling you two sooner, but it was something I felt like I needed to keep to myself.” She sniffled again and turned her watery eyes toward the boys. Ron had leaned himself against the counter beside the busily working Harry.

“You can tell us anything, Hermione, you know that. What’s the matter?” Harry asked, putting the sugar, tea, and mugs onto the table..

“Well, I’ll have to go back a few months.” And Hermione’s story slowly unfolded.


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Flash Back

Four weeks had passed and Hermione found herself oblivious to the small comments the other students were making about her personal life. So what if she was a virgin, it was a personal choice that she was happy with. Many had stopped talking about it, only Malfoy and his friends made comments whenever they saw her. She didn’t feel like she was going to die of embarrassment anymore and she didn’t have to scold the other students for being immature. She was back on her normal schedule, doing the same routine, and acting like she normally did.

Hermione, top student of her year, was sitting quietly in Transfiguration taking notes as Professor McGonagall spoke before the class. The professor was droning on about transfiguring some of the hardest objects into some of the most amazing creations in the wizarding world and Hermione loved every moment. She knew all about the spells required for some of the most advanced magic around. Nevertheless, she still paid close attention to see if there was something she might have missed in her reading escapades. She completely tuned everything else out that was going on around her.

Her two best friends were sitting on either side of her. Neither of them was paying much attention to what their head of house had to say. They both wrote notes back and forth and passed them in front of her to one another. She looked at them disapprovingly from time to time and gave each a scowl. They were going to get her in a load of trouble if McGonagall caught them passing notes in front of her. The professor might think that she was involved.

“So for the next three weeks we are going to be studying the background of all sorts of transfiguring spells. I’ve decided that the best way to go about this is to have groups of two working together. This way your grades will be based off of partnership as well as individual knowledge when it comes time to do speeches.” Professor McGonagall paused and looked around the faces of her pupils. Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley were of course not paying any attention to a thing she said. She sighed and cleared her throat loudly.

Both boys’ heads snapped up from what they were doing. Each had a guilty look on their faces. McGonagall smiled cynical at them and continued, “Each group will be assigned four different transfiguring spells. You will be expected to write the history of the spells, any details that might be important, create a demonstration, and a presentation. I am also giving each person a report journal that must be written in each day. This will give me some enlightenment of how well each person is doing on their part.”

Hermione raised her hand into the air and anxiously waved it around. She practically danced out of her seat until the professor looked at her in acknowledgement. “Professor, will we get to pick out partners or are they assigned as well?”

“I’m glad you asked that question, Miss Granger. I have decided that it would be more appropriate if I were the one to assign each student a partner. So I have made a list of students that will be working together. I’ve made sure that each person will work with somebody that they typically wouldn’t work with.” Her soft heels made little noise on the stone floors. She plucked a role of parchment from her desk. “When I read your name from the list please take a seat beside your partner. Lavender Brown and Vincent Crabbe, Seamus Finnigan and Millicent Bulstrode, Harry Potter and Tracy Davis, Ronald Weasley and Pansy Parkinson, Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy…” The teacher trailed on with other pairs but Hermione couldn’t hear what she was saying. Hermione had turned her head to stare in awe at Draco Malfoy. His silver eyes stared back at her angrily.

“Erm…Professor, I hate to foil your plans but I cannot work with Granger.” Draco crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the thick-haired girl accusingly. He couldn’t possibly work with a virginal mudblood!

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Malfoy, but you’re in no position to tell me who you are and aren’t going to work with.” McGonagall had turned toward Malfoy with a raised brow.

“I won’t do it! I cannot work with the likes of her.” Malfoy leaned back in his chair and stared at the Professor defiantly.

“Then you’ll find yourself failing this class, Mr. Malfoy.”

“Professor McGonagall, I don’t feel that I’ll be able to perform my best with Draco Malfoy as my partner. Can’t we exchange?” Hermione sat on the edge of her seat. The look on her face seemed painfully eager.

“No, Miss Granger, you cannot. I have paired you all up how I deem fit and you will be studying with Mr. Malfoy for the next three weeks. Therefore, unless you want to find yourself in detention for that long I suggest you move over to sit next to Mr. Malfoy.” The professor turned her back on the class stopping any retorts from either of the unhappy pupils. She promptly gathered rolls of sealed parchment from her desk.

Hermione glowered at the professor’s back for a long moment. How could she put one of her owe house with the likes of Malfoy? She knew that Malfoy was one of her biggest rivals. They had always hated each other and everyone knew it. Submitting to defeat, Hermione snatched her book bag from the floor and slowly made her way to where Draco Malfoy sat. Pulling out the chair a few feet away, Hermione slumped into it.

“Wise decision on both of your parts.” Professor McGonagall stated as she sat a parchment roll onto their shared desk.

Draco gazed at the rolled parchment irritably. This couldn’t be happening to him. He was a bloody Malfoy for pity sakes! He could imagine how his father would feel knowing that his son was working with a grimy little mudblood. His train of thought was derailed when he saw Granger reach over and grab the paper from where McGonagall had set it. He watched as she popped open the seal and began reading it.

“What the bloody hell do you think you're doing, Granger? You can’t have the papers to yourself.” Draco snatched them from her hands and held them out of her reach. Silver eyes flicked down and scanned the paper hurriedly. “ Inclintulus, Infletus, Mutaformam, and Vicissilitas?”

Hermione glowered at her infuriating partner. Of course he didn’t know what the blazes they were, his IQ was probably no higher then a twelve-year old's. “They’re advanced transfigurations spells, Malfoy.”

“No, I didn’t know that, Granger,” Draco said sarcastically.

“Alright, now let me give you the last bit of information for your reports before you come up and get a journal from my desk. After you’ve done that you are free to go. I expect everybody to spend two hours each day with their partners outside of class starting today. The only days you won’t see your partner will be the weekends. I expect each study session to be recorded in your journals. Your reports will be due Friday the twenty-second and your oral presentations will be given on Monday the twenty-fifth. Now, everybody come up, grab a journal, and then head to lunch.” McGonagall said to the class and then took a seat to grade homework.

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“Hermione, I don’t really see how our end of the year reports we did for McGonagall is an emergency.” Ron said, throwing Hermione out of her story and back into reality.

“Well that isn’t the problem, Ron, but the problem started right there. It was the result of that report Professor McGonagall assigned to us.” Hermione bit her lip knowing her friends had no idea what it was that she was really talking about.

“What do you mean result of the report? You and Malfoy got outstanding marks for the work your two did, and it’s surprising that Malfoy did any work at all.” Ron crossed his arms over his chest and looked at her.

“Well if you’ll let me finish the rest of the story, you might understand what is happening and how big the result of that asinine report really was.” She glared at her redheaded friend and began where she had left off.