Roman Holiday

Chapter Fifty-Four

One minute, there was nothing. And then there they were, staggering and shaky-kneed and staring wildly about them in the darkness for glimpses of their invisible attacker. Hermione felt a maelstrom of dark energy swirl out of the pendant as they left it with an almost audible hiss, like air escaping from a punctured tyre, and reeled in shock at her body’s sudden feeling of lightness.

She was reeling for other reasons, too.

About certain things, Sal had been right on the money; obviously the Initiates didn’t remember their sojourn in her robe pocket, or for that matter realise that any time had passed since their last moment by the lake and this one. He had, however, been slightly misleading about the adverse side effects of the process. He’d said they’d be dizzy and disoriented, but only after months in Entrapment, and now Hermione cursed herself for believing him so readily; the effects of the Slytherins’ imprisonment, combined with their pre-Initiation nerves and Hermione’s sneaking up on them from behind, had pushed them over the edge from mere apprehension into pure blind panic.

She ducked a little lower behind her sheltering snowdrift and watched in horrified fascination as they went to pieces; fumbling for wands, whirling and stumbling in the heavy knee-deep snow that had been, to them, only a bare glittering crunch of frost under their feet mere seconds earlier. It was too dim to see clearly, but Hermione caught glimpses here and there as they staggered and shouted and fired random panicked curses into the darkness.

The friendly-fire casualties were mounting at an alarming rate, inflicted as often by fists and elbows and feet as by their wands. Goyle, poleaxed by Avery’s Stunning Spell, wavered unsteadily for a moment and then pitched sideways into the snow, managing to take Crabbe down with him. Simone MacNair, one of the seventh-year prefects, lost her footing just as she shouted a Disfigurement Hex; Pansy, who had taken the full brunt of the curse, shrieked as her skin came alive with angry red weals, and began frantically, mindlessly, to claw at the lesions on her face.

Pansy had laughed at her, two years ago under similar circumstances, down in the Potions corridor - Hermione was sure that she would remember that afternoon, and that humiliation, for the rest of her life. Now, however, she couldn’t find it in her soul to derive enjoyment from Pansy’s suffering.

After all, in a way, she’d caused it.

And Millicent Bulstrode, whom Hermione had never liked much but who had, from that first moment on the castle steps, been the most frightened and miserable of them all, took one wild-eyed look around her, stumbled a few steps away from the mêlée, went down on her knees, and vomited into a virgin snowbank.

Hermione couldn’t take it anymore.

“Stupefy!” she cried, stepping out from behind her drift of snow - and stared for a moment down at the Slytherins’ suddenly prone bodies, her lips trembling.

For all her high-minded idealism and righteous indignation, Sal had been right about one more thing. His was by far the kinder way to do it.

She closed her eyes and lifted her wand with a shaking hand. “Obliviate,” she said clearly into the morning stillness, then opened her eyes again and took a good hard look at the unconscious recipients of her good intentions.

Would she do it all over again? Maybe.

But now that it was done, she thought fiercely, she was never using the Trapping Spell again, as long as she lived.

**

She used the Keyhole to beam herself straight into Elysium, threw her robes into a hamper and herself into the shower, and scrubbed her skin viciously until it felt raw. By the time the cold, unhappy little band of Slytherins had been found by Hagrid on the grounds and shepherded back up to the Great Hall, she’d been at breakfast for fifteen minutes, ignoring the platters of food heaped temptingly along the table and staring morosely into a glass of milk.

The Gryffindors were in emotional flux, which Hermione would have found amusing if her mood hadn’t been so foul. Harry’s relationship with Ginny clearly hadn’t taken a turn for the better during his two-week stay at the Burrow. They were pointedly ignoring each other; Harry with his head in a well-thumbed copy of My Lover, My Snitch by the much-fêted, much-feinted Wronski, Ginny with her hair finger-combed over one shapely shoulder, fluttering her lashes at the Slytherin table and taking time out for a wink in Hermione’s direction.

Hermione managed a wan smile, but Ron wasn’t remotely amused.

“I swear,” he muttered in Hermione’s ear, “I wish Fred and George were back to make her see reason - she’s got less sense than a flobberworm, that girl.” He sent a narrow-eyed glare in Draco’s direction. “And if he thinks he can take advantage of her infatuation, well, I’ll …”

Oh, for heaven’s sake. Hermione sighed heavily. Enough is enough.

“Ron,” she said, “what are those things on either side of your nose?”

He blinked. “Sorry?”

“You know,” she said patiently. “Partly white, partly that greeny-gold colour, little black dot in the middle, fringe around the edges?”

He looked blank. She sighed again.

“Your eyes, you idiot.”

“What about them?”

“Do you use them for anything except avoiding Bludgers? Or have you not been avoiding them often enough?”

He scowled at her. “What are you getting at, Hermione?”

Well, it’s already been a lousy day, Hermione thought. Might as well get everything out in the open, while I’m still in a bad enough mood not to care what happens afterwards.

“Ron,” she said. “Ginny isn’t interested in Draco.”

This earned her a contemptuous smirk. “What, are you blind? She’s arse over teakettle.”

“Yes, but not for Draco,” Hermione said. “For Harry. And he for her, though they’re both being thick about it presently.” She squared her shoulders. “Besides, Draco already has a girlfriend.”

“Who?” Ron demanded suspiciously, looking torn between the revelation that his best friend wanted to make it with his sister and the promise of new gossip. “Parkinson? That hag.”

“Me,” Hermione said shortly, and almost laughed when his mouth fell open.

“You’re joking.”

“I assure you I’m not.”

“You? You? With Malfoy? You’re having me on.”

“I’m perfectly serious.”

He was laughing now. “Prove it.”

Hermione made a disgusted sound in her throat. I can’t believe I’m about to do this, she thought, then slapped her hands on the table and stood up. “Fine,” she bit out, and stalked purposefully over to the Slytherin table without another word.

Draco was reading over the assigned chapter in his Charms textbook and placidly shoveling in oatmeal. He looked up when she tapped him on the shoulder, and lifted one eyebrow in mild surprise.

“Hi,” he said, looking faintly apprehensive. “How are you?”

“Tired of sneaking around,” she said, and cupped one hand possessively around the back of his neck.

Before he could reply to this, or comment on her state of mind, she was already kissing him.

**

It wasn’t particularly lengthy, or particularly deep, or for that matter particularly enjoyable. As kisses went, Draco thought, this one was pretty thin on sensation.

Who cared? It was public.

Hermione Granger was kissing him in front of the whole school.

As she drew away, he caught a glimpse of Ron Weasley’s open mouth, and the empty seat next to him. Aha. That’s why.

But just when he’d steeled himself for her to leave, to abandon him for the Gryffindor table, she pulled up a chair opposite him and slid into it, blithely ignoring the curious stares and scandalised whispers sweeping the Great Hall.

“Do you mind?” she asked, and dug into his oatmeal with an extra spoon without waiting for his answer. “I’ve had a terrible morning.”

Wordlessly, he pushed the cereal her way and wrapped both hands around the bowl of his water goblet, his heart too full to speak.

Maybe - just maybe - she loved him, after all.

**

Hermione saw Lucius Malfoy that afternoon, sweeping up the staircase to Dumbledore’s office in the company of some other angry-faced witches and wizards, looking like - as her grandmother would have put it - a cancer cell on its way to the brain stem. He saw her, too, and paused long enough to give her a lengthy and extremely unpleasant stare. She returned his look with as much equanimity as she could summon, then turned her feet reluctantly toward the Arithmancy classroom.

She’d give anything to be a fly on that wall.

She wouldn’t mind knowing what transpired in the Initiates’ interview with Dumbledore, either - but though rumours abounded, nothing concrete was to be had via the student grapevine. All anyone really knew for sure was that they’d gone straight from the Entrance Hall to the Headmaster’s office, and straight from Dumbledore to the hospital wing, where they were presently in seclusion - presumably for exposure.

After a few days, they returned to class, but in a highly subdued state; Hermione noticed that the four sixth-years in the group tended to travel in a worried little clump, avoiding contact with other students, and that Millicent in particular still jumped at sudden noises.

Others had noticed this, too; Hermione herself discovered Dennis Creevey with a lighted Filibuster firecracker, ready to toss it in Millicent’s direction. By the time she’d finished her taut-faced, whispered tirade, he accepted the fifteen points she deducted from Gryffindor meekly, tripped over himself getting away from her, and avoided her the rest of the week.

She wished she could deal with her own guilt so easily.

But then, there were other things to think about as well.

Ron, for example, still turned pink and incredulous whenever he looked at her. Her attempted jump-start to the Harry-Ginny romance hadn’t even gotten their relationship out of the driveway. And … whatever the Death Eaters had said to Dumbledore, that first afternoon of January classes, Hermione was certain it wasn’t good.

Security was being subtly tightened, to a degree that it hadn’t been since Sirius Black’s escape from Azkaban: the professors were supplementing the prefects’ nightly rounds with patrols of their own; all students were required to be inside the castle by dusk; Harry reported that he’d seen Hagrid deep in conversation with a centaur, a few nights previous, and that Hagrid had walked away from the conversation and gone straight to Dumbledore.

As for her research project, it had taken a sudden leap from the theoretical to the practical. A great cask of powdered malachite had been shipped to Hogwarts, express, and she, Draco and Snape were spending every free moment they had in mass production of the Protection Potion.

Something - something big - was about to happen. Hermione just wished she knew what it was.

**