Best Friend's Promise

The wails wrapped themselves around the walls of Hogwarts.

Hermione ran furiously towards the source of the cries, huffing and panting as she willed her legs to go faster. Ron and Harry trotted behind her, startled at the speed that Hermione pursued the noise.

She skidded to a stop at the foot of the stairs that led into the Slytherin halls, stumbling forward when Harry and Ron knocked into her, almost bowling her over. She drew her wand out before any of the students before her could register startlement at her sudden presence.

Hermione lunged forward fiercly, jabbing her wand towards the culpruit of the attacks: Draco Malfoy. Pinned beneath his foot was a squalling Ravenclaw boy, dust smeared all over his red cheeks. She placed her wand under Malfoy's chin with such pressure that Harry was afraid that she was going to stab her wand through his jaw and straight into the roof of his mouth.

"Back down, Malfoy," she snarled quietly, forcing him to step backwards as she thrust her wand upwards a little. She continued to manuever him back until he was a good foot from the small boy.

Please.

"Hermione," said Ron worriedly. "Hermione, calm down. We've got him. He'll get suspension for months at the very least for this."

"No," she said through gritted teeth. "That's not good enough. I ought to hex you into another dimension, Malfoy. You're nothing but a- a-"

She inhaled, her nostrils flaring. "There are no words in the English language low, dirty, and despicable enough to describe the filth you spawned from, Draco," she seethed.

Hermione, please.

"Hermione!" cried Harry. Hermione's skin was flushed, her cheeks glowing an unhealthy pink as she snarled at the angry and confused Malfoy. "Hermione, we caught him, come on, let's get Dum-"

Oh, Oh Gods, it hurts, Hermione, it hurts, please, make it stop-

"I can't," said Hermione quietly. She lowered herself into a defensive position, never removing her wand. "I can't. Padmini..."

"What?" demanded Draco angrily, trying to reach for his wand. She thrust one foot out and kicked his hand as he was withdrawing it, sending it spinning into the darkness behind her. "Who's Padmini?"

Oh, Padmini.

"She was my best friend," breathed Hermione.

Hermione had never had a friend before she started school, until she met Padmini. Studious, with a high, reedy voice, chubby little Hermione Granger was too shy to make friends until she walked into her first day of primary school and into Padmini's life.

She was Hermione's polar opposite, physically: Whereas Hermione was short with big round cheeks, fuzzy brown hair, and owlish eyes, Padmini was tall, bronze with a neat plait of glossy black hair that trailed straight down her back. Hermione liked maths better, Padmini loved writing and history. Hermione was reserved. Padmini was loud, boisterous.

The girls complimented each other perfectly, and became best friends straightaway. Every day, rain or shine, the two girls would be seen walking home from school, arms looped together and talking about what they had learned.

"Do you mean Padma?" asked Ron.

"No. Padmini."

Hermione soon learned that Padmini was from India, or rather, her father was; her mother was white. Hermione, being Hermione, had gone and found every book she could on India, and soon she and Padmini could be seen sitting in her mother's garden, reading about the journeys of Ghandi and fables from Padmini's father's homeland.

Padmini's father had died when she was still a baby, and her mother made ends meet as a seamstress. Padmini and Hermione spent hours romping in the sewing room, wrapping each other in lengths of gauzy silk and painting red dots on each other's forehead. Padmini's mother would come in and laugh helplessly at the sight of brown hair peeking sheepishly from underneath yards of lavender silk, with a shiny black braid drooping over her forehead where Padmini was lying on her back.

One of Malfoy's cronies started towards her, but one firm twist of her wand hand had Malfoy frantically motioning for his follower to stay back.

"What do you want, Mudblood?" he said cruelly. Hermione stared at him with eyes burning coldly.

"I want you to learn," she snapped.

"Hermione!" shouted Padmini gleefully, bounding into her house one afternoon. "Hermione, my mother is getting married, and she said she wants us to be in the wedding!"

Padmini dragged a dazed Hermione off her couch, where she had been napping, and proceeded to take her back to her small house two blocks down. "Hermione," she said happily, "I'm going to have a dad! And he owns the house three down from yours! We'll be neighbours!"

Hermione woke up at that and they ran to Padmini's house, where her mother laughed and wrapped them in a hug. Hermione and Padmini were to be flowergirls at her wedding.

Weeks passed, and the wedding came, hastily cobbled together but beautiful none the less. Hermione and Padmini walked down the aisle proudly, Hermione in a dark gold dress and Padmini in a bright blue and gold sari that her mother had made for her.

"You look beautiful," whispered Hermione as they walked down the aisle, scattering white rose petals.

"So do you," Padmini whispered back. "Much better looking than that old woman in that ridiculous hat, anyways."

Hermione was hard-pressed to smother a giggle.

As the girls stood there, Padmini looked on proudly as her mother and her soon-to-be-father exchanged vows.

No one really took note of the dark glower the man sent Padmini's way.

"I SAID what do you want, MUDBLOOD?" he shouted angrily. He yelped when Hermione stomped her full weight on one of his feet.

"Don't use that word," she bit off. "I'm not a mudblood. I have a name, and it's Hermione."

Two weeks later, Padmini came to call on a cold, rainy afternoon. She had the hood of her coat up. Hermione led her into the kitchen, then went to go dig out some jam for toast.

"I haven't seen you in ages, Padmini," she said, shuffling through the cabinets. "Have you been-" She turned around and dropped the jar, not heeding as it splintered into a hundred tiny shards.

Padmini's left side of her face was one massive bruise, a scar the colour of withered leaves right below her left eye. Padmini's eyes filled with tears as Hermione stared in shock.

"Sam hit me," she said quietly, crying softly. "He- he- he called me a Paki, and hit the side of my head. I hit my face against the wall, and then my cheek scraped the bottom of the kitchen table."

"Why didn't you tell me?" said Hermione, enveloping her friend in a hug. "Padmini, you can always stay here if things get bad, my parents think you're wonderful, you're my best friend, we can work something out." She led Padmini into a sitting room. "We have to call the police."

"No!" said Padmini emphatically, pulling away. "Hermione, he's my dad."

"My dad doesn't smack me," pointed out Hermione.

Padmini looked at her feet. "He makes my mum smile. She never used to smile before- well, before we became best friends. But he makes her happy, Hermione, and I can't take that away from her." Her face crumpled. "I don't understand why he doesn't like me! He calls me awful names! I don't even know what Paki means, and I'm not even from Pakistan, I'm from India! He laughed at me when I told him! He calls me things like... like... like BITCH and half-breed, because of my real dad...and..."

Hermione led Padmini me to the couch and looped one short arm around her shoulders. "We'll figure something out," she said gently, trying to make Padmini smile. "Best friends always do, don't they? Remember the time when we...."

Several hours later, the Grangers returned home to find Padmini and Hermione lying asleep on the couch, one chubby hand holding onto a slender bronze one.

"You don't get to hurt people anymore, Malfoy," she spat. "I'm going to make sure everyone knows about this. I'm going to get you expelled."

"You have no proof," sneered Malfoy, grinning. "That little bastard is smart enough to know to keep his mouth shut."

Hermione looked at the boy sideways. He was trembling, crying, looking at her in fear. Her face blossomed into a gentle smile, loving and determined.

"He's not going to do anything to you," she said softly. "I'll protect you. I'll make sure he doesn't hurt you."

The boy sniffled a little, still scared, but he nodded and tried to look brave, staring Malfoy in the eye.

"You lose, Malfoy," she said sharply.

"Why are you doing this?" asked Harry quietly. He'd never seen Hermione so angry or determined in her life.

"I told Padmini I would," she answered back, just was quietly.

The doorbell rang at half past the witching hour. Hermione was startled awake by her father, shaking her and telling her to get dressed.

"Hermione, sweetie," he said urgently. "Get up."

"Izzit time fo-for school already?" she yawned, blinking blearily. Her father hesitated, then stooped down to look at her.

"Hermione," he said gently, "Padmini's in the hosptial. She's hurt, really bad, and she's asking for you."

Hermione darted away, throwing clothes on as she raced down the stairs. Padmini's mother was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs, scooping her up before she hit the bottom step and running out the door.

They drove to the hosptial in silence, only the tinny strain of the radio accompayning them on their journey. As they pulled in, Hermione hopped out, and without waiting, ran into the hospital and flew down the hall, searching the names until she found the one she wanted. She burst in, and stopped.

Padmini was nothing more than a mass of bruises, flakes of dried blood mottling her once perfect skin. Her hair was in disarray, fanned out and knotted all over the sterile white pillows. She was breathing shallowly.

"Padmini, I'm here," she sobbed quietly, tenetively reaching for Padmini's unbruised hand. Her best friend's eyes opened slightly, and she smiled.

"You came," she croaked. Hermione smiled wobbily.

"Isn't that what best friends do?" she asked, gripping Padmini's hands. Her smile faltered and broke. "Padmini, why... I told you to tell someone...."

"I wanted my mum to be happy, I told you," she said quietly. A sob erupted from Padmini's mother's throat, and she knelt, weeping.

"Sam... Sam told me she had fallen... I knew something was wrong, but I thought- I thought they were just getting used to each other. Padmini, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, baby, can you forgive me?"

"It's not your fault, mum," she managed to choke out. She gasped suddenly, and her tears began to fall freely and quickly.

"Hermione," she cried, "Hermione, it hurts. It hurts, please, mummy, make it stop, it hurts so much-"

Hermione cried loudly, holding on to Padmini's hand and urging her to hold on as her friend began to cough and fade.

"Hermione-"

Ron's voice seemed to echo distantly somewhere in the distance.

"Hermione, why are you doing this?" asked Ron this time, confused and a little frightened as Hermione began to tear up slightly.

"Because," she said thickly, wiping viciously at her eyes. "Because that's what best friends do."

The doctors came in, and Hermione screamed as they began to move her away. She clung to Padmini, who held on to her and her mother despite the screaming pain of her bruises and cuts.

Hermione heard words through the fog of Padmini's pleas. Fractured ribs..... punctured lungs and spleen... blood pressure dropping... get her into the emergency room... destabilising... might not make it... internal bleeding...

"I love you, Padmini," she sobbed.

"I love you too, Hermione," said Padmini through her tears. She screamed in pain.

"MAKE IT STOP! MUMMY! IT HURTS, MAKE IT STOP! HERMIONE, MAKE IT STOP, MUMMY, HERMIONE, PLEASE PLEASEOHPLEASEOHPLEASE-"

Hermione bawled as a doctor heaved her up bodily.

"Hermione," bawled Padmini, "Hermione, don't leave me, promise you'll remember me. Promise it won't hurt anymore."

"I promise, Padmini," said Hermione, and tore herself from the doctor, hugging her friend fiercely. "I won't let him hurt you anymore. Best friends promise, and best friends promises are forever."

Padmini's mother led her from the room, and as they rushed Padmini down the hall, Hermione's eyes were filled with the blood-stained face of her friend being wheeled into the emergency room.

She never came back out.

"Hermione....?" said Harry gently, breaking her out of her reverie.

"A best friend," she mumbled, crying openly.

She dropped to her knees at the gravestone of her best friend, weeping. Her knees scraped against the marker, where she lay in eternal silence next to her father- her real father.

"I won't let it happen again, Padmini," she whispered solemnly, crossing her heart. "I'll make sure no one ever gets hurt like you. I promise. Best friends promise."

"A best friend," said Hermione firmly, raising her head, "keeps their promises.

"And I'm keeping my promise."