Born The Day You Kissed Me

Lyrics by Rascal Flatts

Journey to the West Wing

All he could see was blackness. His fingers reached out into the air in front of him searching for something...What? He didn't know, but he knew he had to find out. He could feel a light rain which could only mean he was outside, not to mention the air was consumed by the thick scent of pine trees. A low humming sound suddenly caught his attention, and he turned around abruptly, following his ears. The low humming unpleasantly vibrated through his entire body, and it was beginning to unnerve him. It was growing louder and louder, his hands were frantically searching but it was just beyond his grasp....

Draco shot up out of his bed, in a cold sweat. He threw the covers off of his body haphazardly, cursing the heavy comforter. He could still hear the low humming sound...was it really just a dream? He stood up out of the bed to go to the window, shaking his arms that seemed to be sore and rolling his head around in several circles. The rain had settled down, but he could still see droplets of water racing down the glass. He gazed at them, while replaying the dream he had just had. Why had that all seemed so familiar? "Talk about Déjà vu," Draco whishpered glumly.

He was just about to turn around when again he heard the humming sound clear as day. He knew he was not imagining this; the sound was too eerie to be unreal. Moments later he heard his bedroom door open, and in walked Hermione with apprehensive eyes.

Neither spoke, just looked at each other nervously. Hermione walked up to the window and looked out. The humming was starting to die down again.

"That's the third time I've heard that," she said not looking at him, "what do you think it could be?"

"How should I know?" he snapped at her.

"Well I've never in my seventeen years of living here heard it before," she pointed out.

He didn't reply, just turned around and got back under the covers of the bed.

Hermione rolled her eyes and stomped out of the room. "You're such a prat," she spat shutting his door harder than she meant to.

* * *

The next morning, Hermione barged into Draco's room carrying his robes. She tossed them on his head and retreated back into her own room. Draco woke up when he found it difficult to breath, and groaned out loud. He had a splitting headache. He got out of bed and dressed, and made his way to Hermione's room. She was sitting on her bed watching the contraption she called a television.

When she saw that she was no longer alone, she switched the TV off. "My parents went out to do some last minute Christmas shopping," she said to break the silence, "so you can go and grab a bite to eat if you want."

They each ate in a somewhat comfortable silence, until Hermione suddenly couldn't stand it any longer. Her curiosity was killing her; she needed to find out what was making those sounds the previous night. "Malfoy, I'm going to go and check out my backyard so I can see if I can find where that humming noise was coming from," she said as she stood to put on her cloak.

Draco stood up to follow her, and abruptly halted at her questioning glare. "What?" he asked.

"You're coming?"

"What else did you expect me to do?" he shot back.

"Fine, lets hurry though, I'd rather not be out in this mess too long," she said stashing her wand away in her robes.

They each made their way outside and began to look around. "What exactly are we looking for?" Draco asked sarcastically.

"I don't know," she said stopping to put her hands on her hips. "I was hoping that the sound would start up again while we were out here-"

As if on cue the humming started. Hermione's face lit up in a triumphal grin.

"C'mon," she said as she darted off towards the sound.

Draco trailed behind her, but he could tell she was beginning to have trouble figuring out which way it was coming from. His eminent senses kicked in as he motioned for her to follow him. They were deep in the woods, when something caught his eye...something that stirred his memory.

"Granger," he said as he pointed to something nestled in the leaves. It was a large black sphere, the size of a grown man's fist. It had elaborate silver outlines of a dragon with Latin words circling it. Servo amicitia propinquus...Servo hostilis propinquus. The humming sound had stopped now, and Hermione stared down at it.

"Do you know what it says?" Hermione asked kneeling down to look at it more closely.

"No," he said quickly.

She looked up at him questioningly. "Have you seen this before?"

"I'm not sure, but it looks familiar," he admitted.

"Well it looks like something that belongs to a Malfoy," she said matter-of-factly. "It's has the outline of a Dragon, it looks expensive, and it was generating an eerie humming sound, so obviously it contains Dark Magic," she concluded, kneeling down to examine it.

He knelt down with her to get a closer look at it, and grabbed her arm when she tried to pick it up. "Don't," he warned.

"I just want to get a closer look at it, maybe I can make sense of the words," she said as she picked it up.

Draco's grip on her arm tightened as he felt a familiar sensation of the ground leaving him. He faintly heard Hermione screaming, and he felt her bumping into his side. "Great, a portkey," he thought before darkness overtook him.

* * *

It took a great effort on Hermione's part to lift her eyelids slowly, trying not to stir the aching in her head too much. What in Merlin's name happened? she thought wearily. She shut her eyes and inhaled slowly, knowing oxygen would do her good right now.

As she breathed in she couldn't help but smell the wonderful scent of pine. She cracked her eyes opened once more and low and behold, she was lying at the foot of an enormous Christmas tree. Her brow scrunched up in confusion, and then she suddenly remembered picking up the black sphere Malfoy had told her to leave alone-

"Malfoy!" she gasped out loud. She spun around to find him sprawled out on the ground behind her, seemingly unconscious. She scurried over to him, pushing low tree branches out of her way. "Malfoy," she whispered, shaking his shoulder.

His eyes slid opened easily and he looked at her in confusion at first. He closed his eyes as he let out a sigh and tried to sit up on his own. He had hit his head pretty hard on the ground, and was having troubling seeing.

Hermione helped him to sit up, and watched his eyes scan the room they were in. It looked like something had just dawned on him once he was upright. "Where are we?" Hermione asked cautiously.

"We are in the East Wing of Malfoy Manor," he said a bit frantically. "I'm guessing you already figured out that the sphere was a portkey," he said turning his body towards her as his eyes quickly searched the room. Suddenly loud footsteps and angry voices could be heard storming down the hallway. They seemed to be heading for their direction....

"Quick! Hide under the tree," Draco said urgently. He helped raise the low branches so that they could slide under and hide. The tree was backed into the corner of the room, so the shadows concealed them enough to not be seen.

"That incompetent fool! He should have been back hours ago!" a low angry voice boomed outside the door.

"Lucius, calm down, I'm sure he will show up soon," a female voice cooed. Just then the door was thrown open carelessly. "Draco is a smart young man, he will be fine," she tried to calm down the irate man.

Hermione was listening so intently that she didn't even realize that Malfoy was tugging on her arm. She turned around, her eyes questioning him when she saw that he had opened a small hole in the wall, some sort or passageway. She silently crawled out after him, trying to not disturb the tree's branches so that they could escape unnoticed.

Draco crawled through quickly, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the dirty wet ground his hands were touching. Granger followed, and as soon as he could, he quietly shut the passage door.

"What is this place?" Hermione asked under her breath.

"An underground passage," Draco said, standing up and wiping his hands on his robes. "Lumos," he whispered, as he whipped out his wand.

"I'm assuming they were your parents," Hermione said, standing up with him.

"Yes, and if they found out that I was running around with a mudbl- I mean muggleborn they'd throw a fit," he finished lamely. Hermione had not missed his choice of words, and she could tell that he was looking more uncomfortable by the second at his slip. "I mean to say, I couldn't have just climbed out from under a Christmas tree with you, they'd think I'd gone mad," he mumbled, turning to walk down the passageway.

They each walked in silence for a while. Draco had to haunch over because the ceiling was increasingly getting lower, not to mention narrower.

Hermione was beginning to grow lightheaded, and she was sure it was from the lack of oxygen in the passage. She stopped for a moment and leanded against the wall, trying to catch her breath.

"Granger, are you okay?" Draco asked when he didn't hear her footsteps behind him. When she didn't answer, he made to turn around to see if she was okay. That was when he saw her plummet straight to the ground.

"Granger!" he shouted, surprised at the situation. He moved towards her as best he could with the tight space and knelt down next to her. "Granger," he said again, shaking her shoulder.

"Wha-?" Hermione mumbled. Everything was black and her head was spinning. She was panting in fast shallow breaths. She felt strong hands pulling her up to a sitting position and when she opened her eyes, Malfoy was leaning over her....and taking care of her.

For some reason this made her head spin and suddenly little butterflies started to dance around in her stomach.

"You alright?" Draco asked her in a low voice.

She looked up into his eyes and slowly nodded her head.

"Lets get you up then," Draco suggested. "Nox," he whispered, stashing his wand before he put his hands around her waist to help her up.

Hermione's cheeks flushed, hoping that he didn't notice that her body temperature shot up at his touch. She was still breathing in shallow pants, but whether it was due to her dizziness or to Malfoy's close proximity, she wasn't sure.

Draco's hands were still holding onto her to help her balance. He took notice that their bodies were closer than they should be due to the narrow passageway, and he knew he should step away, but something in him didn't want to let her go. He felt her step closer to him, and he suddenly felt two tiny hands rest on his broad chest.

"What are we doing," Hermione asked under her breath. Her body was tingling strangely, and the darkness seemed to bring out the boldness in her as she placed her hands on his body.

Draco lowered her head and felt her soft hair caress his face. The smell of vanilla filled his senses, and one of his hands slowly crept up to run through her hair. Suddenly, the image of Granger in her knickers and a towel wrapped around her vanilla scented hair bombarded his thoughts.

His heart rate increased as he played the scene over in his head, and that's when he felt a stir in his lower regions. He abruptly stepped away from her, and he instantly missed the warmth of her hands on him.

"We-," he tried to say but his voice came out to huskily for his liking. He cleared his throat and tried again. "We'd better get a move on."

"Yeah, you're right," she whispered.

"Lumos," he said again. He began to turned around and they both continued down the passage.

"Where are we going?" Hermione spoke up a few moments later. "I'm still not feeling very well."

"To the West Wing, where my bed chambers are. My parents hardly ever come over here, I have it practically all to myself," he explained. "We're almost there."

He was right, for not two minutes had gone by when he began to push on the wall. They each crawled through, Malfoy motioning for her to stay quiet. Hermione sat down on the nearest chair, breathing in as much oxygen as her lungs would let her. "Nox," she heard Malfoy whisper.

"I'm going to go and make sure the coast is clear," Draco spoke softly.

"I thought you said no one ever comes in the West Wing," she said.

"I'm just double checking. Wait here," he told her.

Hermione sat silently, waiting in the enormous unfamiliar room. However, when she heard voices outside the door, she broke out into a nervous sweat.

It wasn't until the door handle began to turn that she leapt under the desk.