Gone Astray

**BIGGEST HUGEST THANKS EVER to Lilly Evins for betaing insanely fast and to all of you who reviewed the first chapter!!**

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“Granger…” Draco wheezed, running towards Hermione’s softly echoing footsteps, his head bent forward against the wind. “Stop…. I’m dying… holy Hell… fastest woman alive…” He made it a few more steps before he doubled over, coughing and gasping for air as if he had just smoked four cartons of cigarettes before participating in a triathlon. A little ways away, Hermione heard all the obnoxious heaving and retraced her steps to see what all the fuss was about.

“Now that’s just sad,” she stated bluntly, shaking her head in amusement. “What happened to Mr. Quidditch star?”

“Last… I checked… he killed… Voldy… and now… he takes… it up… the ass…”

Hermione smirked at this. It wasn’t often that Draco admitted he wasn’t the best at anything, especially when compared to Harry, though the snide remark about Harry’s newly discovered sexual orientation canceled out the almost compliment.

“What Harry does in his personal time is none of your business. At least he can keep up with me,” she replied, leaning casually against a tree.

“I let… you win…” he huffed out, still trying to catch his breath.

“That would be a lot more convincing said by someone who doesn’t sound like a chain-smoking asthmatic.”

“You cheated… you’re a freak…”

She rolled her eyes, stomped over to him like it was against her better judgment, and hooked her arm around his. “Come on,” she grumbled, pulling him along. “There’s something you’ve got to see.”

Nearly ten minutes later the trees had thinned out, and bits of sky were visible beyond the bare branches.

“This was where I was when I heard you hyperventilating. We’re almost out!” she squealed excitedly.

“Of course we are. I told you we weren’t lost,” he replied, his haughty exterior renewed from the much slower walk.

“Oh shush,” she said half-heartedly. Everything seemed much funnier now that she knew they weren’t lost. Her step gained a little skip to it and she started to hum to herself, as the stars overhead twinkled merrily down at the pair, the trees becoming fewer and far between.

“Why are you humming?”

“Because I don’t know the words… Obviously.”

“Well would you stop?”

“Of course,” she responded sweetly. “Gone astray, is a new bird… Here today, is a blue bird… La-la-la-la-la, the Eskimo way… Walking in a winter wonderland…”

“Granger, what exactly do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m SINGINGGG!!!” she yelled into the night air, twirling around so her cloak billowed out around her, her arms raised as if welcoming the slowly falling snowflakes. Draco found it hard to keep the straight face necessary in order to effectively mock her.

“Oh right, how silly of me, I thought a hoard of mandrakes were dying,” he stated flatly.

“Oh bugger off, where’s your Christmas spirit?”

“At home in my nice warm bed, with my 400 thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets.”

“You’re a spoiled little brat. You do know that, right?”

He took a few quick steps to get ahead of her, one step sideways to cut her off, and spun on the spot. Not expecting him to stop so suddenly, she stumbled into his unmoving form, and had to grab his waist for support.

“Walk much, Granger?” he snickered down at the top of her bushy head, placing his hands on her shoulders to steady her.

“Sorry, I didn’t know you were trying out for the part of ‘Brick Wall’ in the upcoming performance of ‘Hogwarts Final Battle on Ice,” she muttered into the front of his robes, trying her best not to notice how good he smelled. It must just be the bitter cold meddling with her neural functions, though it wasn’t as noticeable with Draco shielding most of her body.

“Ha, ha, you are so funny,” he scoffed sarcastically. “Actually, I just realized I couldn’t let you be misinformed about something, because I know how much you like to be right about everything and anything. I am not spoiled, I’m cherished. There’s a difference.”

He was still holding her. Why was he still holding her!?

Damn it Hermione! Think of something funny… Think of something funny…

I wonder if the rumors are true…

No, gross! Bad thoughts… bad thoughts… bad thoughts!

“Hello? Earth to Granger!” Draco broke her trance, waving his hand in front of her face.

“What do you want for Christmas?” she asked sincerely, completely out of nowhere. Their eyes met, and he placed his hand back on her shoulder, though she had gained her footing minutes earlier and his support was no longer necessary. Her lips were pursed in concentration, his tilted in his trademark half-smirk. She was frantically searching his crystal grey pools for some kind of truth, but they remained unreadable.

Neither seemed to notice that they hadn’t moved or spoken in quite some time, and that their lips, red from the cold, were slowly inching towards one another. Their noses gently touched, she could smell the sweet mint on his breath, see the wayward snowflakes that stuck to his thick blonde lashes… Her eyes fluttered closed…

Draco turned his head and coughed into his hand, startling Hermione, who instantly took a step backwards, awkwardly straightening her coat.

“Nothing, Granger,” Draco mumbled hoarsely. “There’s nothing I could ask for that I don’t already have.”

“Oh,” was her simple, crestfallen response. “We should get a move on, it can’t be much farther now.”

He didn’t reply, just took a step around her, and ran full out towards the edge of the trees.

“Try and beat me now!” he shouted over his shoulder.

“Cheater!” she called back to him, taking off at full speed.

He did beat her, but only because they didn’t have that far to go, and because he hadn’t played fairly to begin with.

It took a second for their brains to adjust to what it was they were seeing. They were standing on the edge of a vast, frozen lake, covered with a light layer of snow. It stretched as far as the eye could see by the light of the moon, everything else was a blanket of black.

“Just our luck to get stuck on the far side of the Black Lake, this will take forever to walk around,” Draco moaned.

“No,” Hermione whispered softly. “It can’t be.”

“What do you mean ‘no,’ where else could we be?”

“I don’t know, but this isn’t the Black Lake.”

“How would you know? We can’t even see the other side.”

“Have you ever read Hogwarts, a History?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.

“What do you think, Granger?” he sneered back.

“Fine, well then, if you had read it you would know that this can’t be the Black Lake, because the Black Lake can’t freeze!” she yelled exasperatedly, a note of panic clearly evident in her high-pitched voice.

“Ok… Then where does Hogwarts, a History say we are?”

“It doesn’t.”

“Then where are we?”

“I have no idea.”


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Ok so there’s chapter two! And if you listen closely you can hear it calling ‘Review me, review me, review me!’

Well, you heard the story, review it!