Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Somewhere in Time	By : serpentinred Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Hermione/Voldemort Views: 64471 -:- Recommendations : 6 -:- Currently Reading : 8
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and I don't make any money from these writings.

Chapter List
- 10
- 11
- 12
Disclaimer: Names that you don't recognize, I've made up through the help of online lists of surnames and names. The names are, in no way, intended to ridicule others with the same name (although I did do an online search and nothing came up). Nevertheless, if you have that name or know someone by that name, I didn't know about it so I'm not talking about you (or him). The spells were created by the usage of an online English to Latin translator and me, tweaking the words.

~-0-~

Chapter 11

The desks inside the classroom were in disarray. The parchments on the teacher's lectern looked as if they would crumble to dust if someone touched them, boasting the number of years they had stayed in the room. The liquid inside the inkwell had long since dried, leaving a rock-hard condensation at the bottom of the bottle.

Hermione wondered idly why there were so many classrooms in the castle. Most of them, like this one, were never used. She had no doubts that the last time it was used, Hogwarts had just begun taking in students.

The house-elves, nevertheless, managed to keep the place clean, though perhaps not to the standards of the classrooms that were in use.

Her eyes settled on Harry and Draco, who were standing as far away from one another as possible. With a sigh, she gazed out of the window, wishing that everything was just a horrible nightmare that she would wake up from soon.

"Well?" Draco suddenly spoke up.

She looked towards him, startled.

He drew in a breath impatiently. "Are you ever going to tell me why you've pulled me in here?"

"We ... just wanted to know how everything is between you and Riddle," Hermione explained, a blush staining her cheeks.

"Lovely. Just like a walk in the gardens," he answered mockingly.

"Malloy," Harry growled, making Draco sneer.

"We're not here for a fight, you two," Hermione reprimanded resignedly.

The two of them looked away from one another.

She turned towards the blond, "I just wanted to know how things are going. I know it's hard to be in the same common room as him—"

"I'm sure you would know," he spat out. "I'm sure the two of you would know exactly what it's like, when I'm the one who has to put up with the pressure he places on us everyday while the two of you are cozily ensconced in the Gryffindor common room—"

"Worrying about you and Ginny," Harry cut in loudly.

Draco stopped talking and stared at them, a bit surprised. A tinge of pink appeared on his cheeks before he glanced off to the side. The three of them stood there, immersed in their own thoughts once again.

"Did Riddle try to get information from you?" Hermione asked, finally breaking the uncomfortable silence.

Draco nodded after a moment of hesitation.

"Last night," he muttered. Perhaps he was a bit taken aback by Harry's comment, but he was speaking to her in a politer way.

"Did he ...?" Hermione bit her lower lip.

"I told him we transferred from Durmstrang," he answered. He shuffled his feet, betraying his unease with having a civilized conversation with his former enemies. "It's easier to lie to him than when we were in the future, without him being a Legilimens."

Hermione nodded and the three of them fell silent again. It surprised her that Draco would be willing to talk about, or at least allude to, what had happened between him and Lord Voldemort.

"You should be careful. He might try to test you and see if you really are from Durmstrang," she warned.

Draco stared at her, a bit flabbergasted that she was actually worried about him. "Father was going to send me to Durmstrang a few years earlier," he replied, a bit more willingly than before. "I've read quite a bit about it and Father had told me some things about the school. I think I can handle his questions."

"Riddle can be a bit intimidating so—" Hermione started to say, but was cut off by a snort from Draco.

"Granger, 'a bit intimidating' is one of the biggest understatements I've ever heard," he shook his head.

Hermione only felt pity towards him at that moment. She could only imagine what he had gone through the night before.

"He gave you a rough time last night, didn't he?" she asked softly.

"Abraxas spoke up for me ... but I don't think that he really believes me ..." he trailed off, staring out the window again.

"But?" she inquired. Draco snapped back to reality and shook his head.

He answered, heaving a sigh, "To some extent, he's even scarier than back in the future. He … looks one way but acts another. You never know when he's going to curse you."

"Did he curse you?" she asked carefully, her eyebrows furrowing. He looked at her, as if he was trying to tell if her concern was genuine.

"No," he replied slowly. "I think he was about to, but as I said, Abraxas spoke up for me … and I don't think Riddle's too keen on doing things that might push one of his strongest followers away from him."

She let out a sigh of relief, which caused a look of amusement to appear on his face.

"You're not afraid of him?" Hermione asked, bewildered.

Draco gazed at her as if she had suddenly grown three heads. "Granger, wouldn't you be scared?" He rolled his eyes.

"But you laughed as if you're not."

"Granger, you've never been under the scrutiny of the Dark Lord before." He paused, searching for the right words. "Showing how scared I am right now would only make things worse. He knows how to use others' weaknesses against them." Looking away, he continued, "I was just thinking about how weird this situation is. I'm supposed to be your enemy, but you actually care about my safety."

"Malloy, we're in this together. If something happens to one of us ... well ..."

He smirked, but did not answer.

"Have you told anyone that we're from the future?" she questioned after a while of silence, lowering her voice a bit, lest someone was standing outside the classroom.

"You don't know who you can trust and who you can't." He shook his head. "I mean," he said with a frown, "even my grandfather. He was a big supporter of the Dark Lord and irritatingly stubborn. I don't think he'd take it very well if I went up to him and told him he's following the wrong person." He sat down on one of the tables, crossing his legs at his ankles. "The other Slytherins are not worth my time. They're all too busy trying to gain the favor of You-Know-Who."

"Instead of you," Harry commented before he could stop himself.

Draco raised an eyebrow at him, questioning Harry's sanity with his eyes. Hermione gave Harry a disapproving look, causing him to blanch.

"I'm more concerned about the Dark Lord learning Legilimency though," Draco commented, his frown deepening.

"Do you mean he's learning it right now by himself?"

"He's been borrowing a lot of books from the library these days. I think he's using other books as a cover up, since they weren't about Legilimency—but … many of them talked about it … Legilimency, that is."

Hermione furrowed her eyebrows in thought. "It's not taught in school, so I doubt there would be step-by-step instructions on how to learn Legilimency in the library. I suppose he had to have learned it from somewhere, though …"

"Let's just hope that he doesn't learn it before we leave school," Harry sighed darkly.

"Of course, seeing what a horrible Occlumens you are," Draco drawled, raising an eyebrow at Harry, who sent him a furious look.

"Malloy," Hermione warned with a tired expression.

The blond shrugged and with a half-smile directed towards her, he confessed, "Couldn't resist it." He then stood up from the table and smoothed out his robes. "I think I should return to the common room. He'll be suspicious if I don't get back there on time."

Hermione nodded and gave him a small smile.

"Malloy," she suddenly called out before he opened the door.

He turned around, looking at her questioningly.

She took a deep breath. "I'd like to talk to you again about the truce I've suggested a few weeks ago."

Draco rolled his eyes.

"Do you really have to be so formal about everything, Granger? If I wasn't willing to have a momentary truce with you, I wouldn't've told you as much as I've told you tonight." With a smirk, he pulled open the door and walked out.

"You know he's only doing this because he's afraid," Harry fumed as they walked back to the Gryffindor common room.

"Harry …"

"It's obvious, Hermione. Why else would he suddenly accept our suggestion? He probably got frightened by Riddle last night. That's why he's willing to open up. He's a Slytherin, Hermione," Harry continued.

Hermione stopped and looked at him.

"Harry, does it even matter why he opened up to us? What's important is that we get out of this alive," she admonished before she continued to walk towards the Gryffindor tower with Harry at her heels. "I don't see why you're so angry about it anyway. You were never friends with him so why do you care what his motives are?"

"Because I'm afraid that he might betray us," he replied through gritted teeth. "And who knows if he's accepting the truce because Riddle told him to?"

"There's only so much we can do, Harry. He knows quite well that he's in more danger than we are," she said before she gave the password ("Bumblebee") to the portrait. "And I honestly think that you should give people a chance before you jump to conclusions, Harry. This happened with Professor Snape already."

Harry's eyes dimmed at the mention of their former Potions professor. Hermione mentally sighed, feeling slightly guilty. Although Harry never told anyone, she knew that he regretted the nasty comments he had made about Snape throughout the years. Nevertheless, she knew that it was crucial for her to bring her point across, lest he do something that would harm either him or Draco.

"I'll see you tomorrow morning," Hermione said softly, to which he nodded.

Before she entered her room, she glanced at her best friend as he was entering the seventh year boys' dorms.

Hopefully, the tentative comradeship can be maintained after this frightening trip into the past.

~-0-~

If Potions marked the time for war between Tom and Hermione, then Defense Against the Dark Arts had to be labeled as the dueling time for Hermione and Augusta. Hermione had no idea when it had started, but whenever she had Defense, the period always included some kind of competition with the Head Girl.

Joseph and Gareth were correct in saying that Merrythought's classes were some of the most interesting and stimulating. Whenever they started a new topic, they would spend the first couple of days mastering the new spell and practicing in pairs with their fellow classmates. Once the professor felt that they were ready, they would duel against magically Transfigured creatures. If their spells managed to hit their targets, numbers would hover above the creature, displaying the accuracy and strength of the spell. Hermione had momentarily wondered if Lupin had been inspired by Merrythought's methods of teaching, but quickly remembered that the professor had retired long before he went to Hogwarts.

The day that the students anticipated the most was what they dubbed the "hunting days". On these days, Merrythought would take them to a different classroom. The inside reminded Hermione very much of the haunted houses she had seen in movies. The classroom was magically enlarged to become five floors. Four students entered it at a time and were allowed to freely explore the "building", which was filled with different dark creatures they had covered in class. The students would have to depend on their skills to repel the creatures and to earn points for their Houses. Hermione suspected that half of the reason why the Gryffindors and Slytherins enjoyed the hunting days and why no one taught the Defense classes like this anymore was because students were freely given the chance to hex one another without being penalized for it.

That particular Tuesday, they filed into the Defense classroom, wondering what kind of creature they could expect to encounter the next hunting day, which was scheduled for the next Tuesday.

"Today, we will learn Yeti deflecting spells," Merrythought announced in a sweet, angelic voice, causing a flurry of murmurs across the room. "Who can tell me where Yetis are found in the world?"

Hermione and Augusta's hands immediately shot up in the air.

"Miss Granger?" Merrythought called with a gentle smile on her face.

"Most Yetis, also known as Sasquatch or Bigfoot, are rather shy, which makes it impossible to document all possible locations where they could be found. The countries with the largest populations of Yetis, or rather, where they are most 'outgoing', are Nepal, Bhutan, China, Canada, and the United States," Hermione recited.

"Excellent, Miss Granger. Five points to Gryffindor," Merrythought rewarded her. "As those of you who have read ahead in the textbook already know, there are five different ways to hold off a Yeti, created by wizards from each of the five areas Miss Granger mentioned. We will only learn two of them, since I think that most of you are probably uninterested in learning the correct pronunciation of Chinese, Sanskrit, and Nepali words. Pronouncing the spells incorrectly could lead to some unpleasant situations for the caster, and I'm sure none of you want that."

"Bet you've already studied how to correctly pronounce those Chinese, Sanskrit, and Nepali words, haven't you?" Harry teased Hermione in a whisper.

"Hush," she hissed, though the blush on her face confirmed his words. Defense had always been her weakest subject—so what if she had taken extra time to study for the class?

"We will learn the Skoocooms Deflector today and the Sasquatch Repelling Spell in our next class," Merrythought said, walking around and tapping the wand in her hand.

She proceeded to separate the class into groups of two. Much to Hermione's dismay, she was, again, paired with Augusta. Harry cast her a look of sympathy before walking over to the Ravenclaw he was assigned to work with.

"Aim for the pads and only the pads. I trust that all of you are responsible enough to follow these directions. Whoever purposely aims to hurt a fellow student will serve detention with Hogan for the rest of the year."

The students involuntarily shuddered at the thought of having to face the Hogwarts caretaker until the year ended.

Hermione turned around and faced Augusta. Upon noticing the sneer on her face, Hermione swallowed her words of courtesy and eyed Augusta cautiously.

"Shall we begin?" Hermione asked.

"Sectum ferumanus!"

Without warning, Augusta flung a curse at her, nearly hitting her shoulder.

"Sectum ferumanus!" Hermione quickly cast back at her.

Augusta was becoming more and more vicious with each class, causing Hermione to wonder if she had been placed in the right House. Augusta never followed Merrythought's rules about aiming for the pads whenever the professor's back was turned towards them.

"Quite lithe for someone who's not a pure-blood," Augustus Rookwood commented, quiet enough so that Merrythought did not hear them.

"Now's not the time to be complimenting her, Augustus," Augusta replied without taking her eyes off Hermione.

"Of course," he smirked, halfheartedly throwing the spell at Mercurius Rosier.

"Watch it, Augustus," Mercurius warned through gritted teeth, ducking away from the flash of light.

"Pardon me," Augustus apologized, still concentrating on the battle between the lionesses. He eyed Hermione with a sneer. "You think you're so intelligent, don't you, Granger? Competing with the Head Boy and Head Girl in every single class?"

Hermione ignored his comments and continued blocking Augusta's curses.

"Are you trying to catch Tom's attention?" he asked, causing Augusta and Mercurius to snicker. "Because it's not working. He's not going to like someone like you."

"That's terrible. I'll just go hide in my room and cry my eyes out then, shall I?" Hermione replied wryly, blocking another spell sent at her by Augusta.

"Did you actually think he would like you?" Augustus continued to taunt her. "Did you think that with so many girls in school who like him, he would choose someone as plain as you?"

"Of course. Isn't that how romance novels are written? Plain, simple witch meets tall, handsome, ideally filthy rich wizard. They fall in love and live happily ever after," she said mockingly. "Oh, how dreadfully romantic."

Mercurius and Augustus stared at her, both rendered momentarily speechless by her answer. Alphard, who was practicing beside them, laughed. Hermione grinned at him before returning her attention to the spell-casting.

Luckily for her, Augustus made no further comments (perhaps due to the fact that he could not think of anything more interesting to say) and she only had to concentrate on not getting maimed by Augusta.

"Such a steadily developing friendship you have there with the Rookwoods," Harry teased when they sat back down at the table.

"I'm completely enamored by them. How have I lived so long without them?" she replied in mock horror, glad that the period ended without her getting seriously injured.

"I'd be careful if I were you," Joseph leaned over and whispered. "Rookwood is known to be quite vindictive when provoked."

"And with Augusta backing him up, he almost always escapes punishment with merely a slap on the wrist," Gareth wrinkled his nose.

"You've had a run-in with him before?" Harry questioned.

"More than a run-in, Harry. They're practically at each other's throats," Joseph snorted.

"Why?" Hermione asked.

"Because he," Joseph pointed at Gareth, "fancies Delphine Gamp."

Gareth immediately covered his mouth.

"Shut it, Joseph," he hissed, looking towards Delphine, who was talking with two other Slytherin girls.

As if by cue, she glanced over at Gareth. She lowered her dark blue eyes, and a lock of dark brown hair brushed past her cheek at the same time a pink tinge appeared. Almost immediately, she turned around, once again immersed in a conversation with her friends.

"And why would Rookwood care?" Harry snorted.

"He fancies Delphine, too," Joseph answered with a smile.

"Who does Delphine like?" Hermione asked.

Joseph shrugged. "Don't know for sure, although Gareth swears that she gazes at him."

"Joseph!"

"The only problem is, he's a Gryffindor and she's a Slytherin. Not many people in her House are fond of old Weasley over here," Joseph continued, ignoring his Gareth's protests. "So the two of them, Gareth and Rookwood that is, are constantly dueling one another in secret."

"Well, that's nothing new, is it?" she asked pointedly, raising an eyebrow.

Gareth grimaced and was about to answer when Merrythought began to give out homework.

"I've heard from Galahad," Gareth admitted as they walked out of the classroom. "You saw them in the hospital wing, didn't you?"

Harry looked at Hermione questioningly. She had not told him yet about the "interesting spectacle" she had seen while she was in the Infirmary.

"Yes, I did. When did you actually plan to tell us about it? After we got secretly hexed in the hallways, perhaps?" Hermione huffed, shaking her head and walking slightly ahead of them.

"It's for your own good, Hermione. You're only going to be here for one year, so there's no point in pulling you into it now," Joseph spoke up.

"Wait, so Slytherins and Gryffindors are secretly dueling?" Harry asked.

"Keep it down, Harry," Joseph immediately warned. He leaned closer to the two of them. "The professors aren't supposed to know."

"Should be worrying about that when you're dueling with them," Hermione said in a singsong voice.

Joseph and Gareth continued giving excuses all the way to Gryffindor tower.

"I mean, look! Black—Cygnus Black, that is—got detention when he was sneaking back to the Slytherin common room last night and he still didn't say anything to the professors," Joseph pointed out.

"Just two words, Joseph. It's stupid. It's too easy for you to get caught and then you'll be stuck with Hogan for the rest of the year, or worse, expelled," Hermione rolled her eyes and gave the Fat Lady the password.

~-0-~

"You know, this is frustrating," Harry grumbled later as he closed another book and threw it on top of the steadily growing stack on the table.

Feeling uncomfortable about the fact that he had not done anything that would help their situation, Harry had decided to lend her a hand.

"You weren't the one who sat in here for the last four weeks looking through books, Harry," Hermione reminded him.

"I was preoccupied," he replied sheepishly.

"Uh-huh. With Quidditch, Exploding Snap, and so on," she commented, though she was not really bothered by his activities, since it was a sign that he was slowly regaining his usual enthusiasm after Ginny's incident.

"Hermione ..."

"I'm not blaming you, Harry, but we really ought to find the way back as soon as we can," she said in a lower voice. He sighed and nodded before he glanced at the clock hanging on top of the doorway of the library.

"It's ten minutes before curfew. We should probably get back to the common room before Hogan catches us after hours," he suggested.

After replacing the books on the shelves, they walked back to the common room in silence, each immersed in their own thoughts and worries.

When they entered the common room, Gareth ran up to them, closely followed by Joseph and Galahad.

"Hermione, Harry," Gareth panted, looking at them frantically.

"What's the matter?" Hermione asked, uneasiness stirring in the pit of her stomach.

"Madam Pomfrey sent a student here a while ago, requesting the two of you. Something about Ginny."

~-0-~

A/N: Many thanks to my betas: Lildaani, Noybate, Hajnalmadar, and matterhorn.
- 10
- 11
- 12
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Somewhere in Time