You Don't Know

Chapter 5 - Tattooed Mind

Hermione met up with Ron and Harry at the foot of Gryffindor tower. They greeted her with warm smiles.

"Did you find it?" asked Ron, Hermione replied with a shake of her head. Earlier that night a bracelet her mother had given her had slipped from her wrist.

"Didn't you look," questioned Harry.

"Malfoy was there," replied Hermione heading up the stairs.

"So, didn't he say something egotistical then leave?"

"That's the strange part, he just sat there," said Hermione.

"Freaky," exclaimed Ron.

"What do you mean?" questioned Hermione stopping in her tracks on the staircase.

"Well on the train today he was acting all out of the ordinary," explained Harry.

"He's up to something," added Hermione

"Unquestionably, but what," said Ron screwing up his face in thought.

The three of them made the rest of the trip focussed on their own thoughts of the day's events.

Only a few stray students littered the Gryffindor common room. The bulk of the students had gone to sleep after a full and exciting day. In the corner were a group of 5^th years playing a game of exploding snap. There was the odd 1^st year wandering around in a daze from the brilliance of the common room. Colin Creevey was even indulging a group of first and second years to a tall tale about the TriWizard Cup, which over the years had turned from fact to mostly fiction, where Harry Potter was a 6 foot tall muscle clad hero. Whenever Ron caught wind of this story he would burst out in laughter, but not tonight, he was too weary from the long and hectic day.

"I'm so drained. I need to get some sleep if I'm going to stay awake through Charms," yawned Ron.

"Are you coming Harry?" asked Ron.

"I'll be up in a minute," he responded.

"I'll see you two in the morning," said Hermione tiredly heading up the stars to the girls dormitories.

***

Harry said goodnight to both of them before settling down in front of the fireplace. It was reaching the late hours of the night and the common room swiftly emptied until he was alone. He sat in silence void of any thought, when his scar broke out in an unbearable pain. It was only for a second, but that was all that was needed. The pain still lingered in his head. He remembered long ago, his scar had been a warning for danger, a warning that Voldemort was coming. But he had long been destroyed. Then again like before he had been believed gone and reappeared twice before. Yet, peculiarly this wasn't the same sort of pain he had felt before, it was something different. Nevertheless if it was a warning, but for what? It had been so long since he had felt pain in his scar, but it still remained tattooed to his memory. It puzzled him. In the past he had turned to Sirius, his Godfather and friend, but this was a trivial manner that need not concern him 'It's nothing,' he told himself. 'It was just for a second, it can't mean anything that bad,' Harry said to himself, trying to convince his mind that it was nothing. But he could not stop a strange, fearful feeling from creeping into the back of his mind.

***

Hermione quietly opened the door to the dorm as not to wake the other girls. Although they were friends she wasn't as close to them as she was to Harry and Ron. She dressed in her nightgown, gave a little shiver then crawled into bed. It was toasty and warm as usual. She pulled the covers close up around her head. Her eyes pierced the darkness. While the rest of the room slept her mind remained awake. He thoughts drifted like a stream until it got caught on one particular though, one particular person. The person that it was surprised her, she never though that he would cross he mind. But somehow he kept coming back into her thoughts. This infuriated her, the harder she tried to push him from her mind he kept coming back. That jerk Draco Malfoy was now overrunning her thoughts.

'What was his problem anyway? Last year he didn't go once without saying something rotten and know its like 'I'm not in the mood.' Bastard, who does he think he is anyway, the pope?' thought Hermione.

There was no one in this world that she disliked more then Draco Malfoy, he had made her life hell ever since that day on the Quidditch pitch where he had said the word that she has come to loath. Mudblood. Even saying the word herself made her cringe. It was tattooed in her mind never to be forgotten.

***

Stillness fell upon Hogwarts castle. The last of the students and teachers had retired to bed. All that was left was the odd house elf sneaking in the shadows. A large shadow covered the castle as clouds shifted over the bright light of the moon. Far off in the distance at the edge of the Forbidden Forest shadowy figures moved in the newfound darkness. They moved as though they glided. They moved across the grass towards the castle, they gathered speed as they got closer and closer to it. At they approached the north wing, the moon pushed through the clouds, spilling white light upon the castle grounds. A hiss rang out throughout the castle arousing its occupants. The hiss came from the shadowy figures as they retreated back into the dark cover of the forbidden forest, where they would wait for the darkness to come again. And come again it would.