Clairvoyance and its Consequences

Chapter 3_______________________________________________________________

The next day passed uneventfully. Being Sunday, there were no classes to attend and for those who didn't have homework to complete before the week ahead, students often took refuge to outside, as the weather was slowly starting to fine up, though cloaks still needed to be worn. Seventh-years, however, weren't given such a luxury of enjoying their days off outside, for their NEWTs were some five months away and they had no escape from schoolwork.

Hermione sat in the study, her new surroundings sending plenty of light towards the half-filled scroll of parchment in front of her. Draco sat beside her, reading from a book filled with Restricted Potions and Remedies. The book was open to a page headed with The Polyjuice Potion and he very softly ran a dry quill along the words as he read them. Only the scratching of Hermione's quill on her parchment broke the dull silence of the small, library-like room surrounding them.

The Polyjuice Potion was part of the Advanced, NEWT Potions class curriculum. They had done a fair amount of theory on the potion back in their fifth year, but it seemed that it was only just coming into use. Snape, being the evilly cruel Potion professor he was, had assigned them with a five-foot long essay on it for the weekend - to be handed in on Tuesday and not a single seventh-year was willing to leave it to the last minute.

"This is seriously a waste of reading," Draco snarled, slamming the book shut and pushing it away abruptly. "I've still have two feet to write and I have nothing more to write!"

Hermione looked up from her fourth foot of writing and at him. She dropped her quill and placed her hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him. "I'm sure there's something you can add to it, Draco," she said soothingly. "Have you written about its ingredients yet?"

Draco looked down at his work and nodded. "A bit."

"Well, extend it a bit," she said. "I filled over a foot writing about the various ingredients and what they cause to happen in the potion."

Draco looked at her with boredom. "I need a rest, Hermione," he said. "Come down to the kitchens with me for something to eat."

"Draco, I real-" Hermione was cut off when Draco kissed her lips and grabbed her hand.

"You can finish your bloody essay after a break," Draco said, and he kissed her again before she refused. He pulled her to her feet and led the way to the door. Reaching it, he swung it open and made his way towards the staircase with Hermione on his hand and started heading down.

As they entered the common room, Hermione trying to pull away from Draco in a slightly playful yet serious manner, and Harry looked up at the noise, visibly annoyed.

"Where are you two going?" he asked rather irritably.

Draco smirked. "The kitchens, Potter," he stated. "We're going to demand my old house-elf for some food. Wish for us to get you something because I promise to take my dear time to spit in it."

Both Harry and Hermione glared at Draco. Draco looked at Hermione strangely. "What?"

"House-elves are not creatures who should be demanded of doing anything, Draco," she said seriously. "They toil away for countless hours, being ordered around when they should be free to do as they will, but -"

"Hermione, why don't you just give up on all this house-elf rights ramble and realise that's the way they like to be treated?" Draco asked, reminding Hermione, quite ironically, of Ron.

Hermione ignored him and let go of his hand. "I'll help you finish your essay when you get back," she said blankly, heading over to the couch and sitting down next to Harry, who had an odd gleam in his bright green eyes.

Draco looked at her, disgruntled before shrugging and heading on out of the room to exit the quarters.

Harry and Hermione watched him leave before Harry, unknowing to himself, placed a hand on Hermione's thigh. Hermione's eyes shot up to meet his, her eyes' brown depths wide and questioning but Harry merely smiled.

"What was that all about?" he asked, nodding his head towards the archway behind him, which Draco had disappeared through.

Hermione relaxed slightly. "I - I don't know. I just didn't really want to go with him and - and you know how I get with house-elf rights."

Harry frowned, then smiled and moved his hand away to work on his own Polyjuice Potion essay, leaving Hermione to sit in silence until Draco returned. She only wished Harry would try and make more conversation with her.

It was true - the two of them, along with Ron had rekindled their friendship over the past weeks, but her friendship with Harry now was so much different from how it used to be. Ron had welcomed her back as a better best friend then she had ever been, but Harry... Harry seemed to have been having trouble treating her like he always had...

Harry turned to look at her as she stared blankly into the fire as thoughts of her problems relating to her friendship with Harry circled her head. A sparkle was in them and as Hermione looked into them, she knew exactly what it was in an instant. It wasn't the mixture of warmth and care she saw months ago when they had been truly best friends, it was something different - something Hermione had seen in there before: desire, longing and hurt all mixed together as one.

Hermione looked away and tried to forget - something that proved impossible.

> * <

A thirteen-year-old Hermione walked across the grounds from her Care of Magical Creatures lesson with Harry and Ron. Hagrid walked beside them sadly, sobbing about the future of Buckbeak the hippogriff.

"... That Committee's in Lucius Malfoy's pocket. I'm jus' gonna make sure the rest o' Beaky's time is the happiest he's ever had. I owe him that..."

Hagrid finished his short speech and gave a great sob. He turned abruptly and hurried back to his cabin, his tablecloth-sized handkerchief covering his wildly bearded face.

"Look at him blubber!" a cold voice smirked from the front doors of the castle. Draco stood just inside the doors with his over-sized cronies, having just, quite obviously, finished listening to Hagrid speak. "Have you ever seen anything quite as pathetic? And he's supposed to be our teacher!"

Hermione's ears were ringing and her heart was pounding with hatred towards the Slytherin. All she wanted to do was dash forward and slap him straight across the face and leave him a permanent scar to ruin his perfect complexion she scandalously dreamed about at night. She knew Harry and Ron would make there own moves but she couldn't just stand there and cheer them on ... she wanted to cause the pain upon him and show him how much she hated him, despite all the times her mind had wandered to forbidden thoughts about him...

Suddenly, she found herself in front of him and her arm was moving against her brain's instructions.

SMACK! Her hand hit his pale cheek with all the strength she could muster and it was enough to make him stagger backwards, leaving her friends and his side-kicks to look at her flabbergasted. This only encouraged her to raise her hand again.

"Don't you dare call Hagrid pathetic, you foul - you evil -"

"Hermione!" Ron's voice sounded from somewhere beside her and she felt his hand try to grab hers as she swung it back.

"Get off, Ron!" she cried and she pulled out her wand and watched with a shadow of triumph as Draco took a step back, looking at it in a slightly fearful way. She said and did nothing as he ordered Crabbe and Goyle away with him and they disappeared quickly, Draco throwing Hermione a bewildered look before they headed into the dungeon passageway.

Hermione opened her eyes and looked around at her surroundings. She was in the common room, lying on the couch. A slightly shallow breathing could be heard from above her and she looked up to see Draco sitting there, her head using his lap as a pillow. A hoarse whisper exited his mouth and Hermione sat up.

"Hermione," he sighed breathlessly and then his head lolled back as a small moan escaped his lips.

Hermione rested her back against the couch. She reached forward briefly to grab the drink Harry had given her the night before and took a single sip to finish it. Thoughts were invading her brain and she didn't know what to think of this latest dream. It was obviously not one of clairvoyance of the future as the events of it had happened some four years ago, when she, Draco, Harry and Ron had been in their third year. But it was a form clairvoyant dream because it showed the exact reality of that confrontation.

Hermione gazed into her empty glass. It was strange - she never had dreams set upon confrontations with the Draco she hated ... and she had in fact forgotten all about that particular one as memorable as it may have seemed...

Draco stirred beside her and she looked around at him. He was opening his eyes, a great yawn escaping his senses. He drowsily looked around at her and gave her a rather goofy smile. He leant forward and kissed her temple murmuring in her ear that he wanted his dream to be completed.

He traced his hand over her much smaller one and entwined their fingers. Leaning forward again, he kissed a sensitive spot below her ear, causing her eyelids to flutter closed as a soft moan escaped through her lips. That gesture was enough to know what she hadn't completed in his dream - it was like Draco's way of translating exactly what he wanted to her without words. He did it all the time.

Hermione moved around so he could access her mouth comfortably and he kissed her lips slowly, placing his hands on her hips and moving her swiftly so she straddled him.

"I love you," he said softly between kisses.

Hermione moaned as his tongue slid against hers, overwhelming her senses completely and ridding them of thoughts of her dream instantly, knowing, somewhere inside, that they were bound to return at a later date.

She sighed as Draco traced his lips across her cheek to her neck, kissing and licking lovingly and she took a moment to find the breath to return her feelings in words. "I love you, too..."

Over by the door leading towards the dormitories, Harry felt his heart pounding frantically in his chest, the sight before him inflicting pain upon every inch of his body. He had come down for no more than a glass of water from the cooler jug in the corner of the room and yet, even without that drink, it felt like he had drank a glass of some heart-breaking poison. It hurt to see his worse enemy getting exactly what he wanted off the girl Harry loved. Just the scene before him caused Harry to believe he would never have Hermione in the way Draco had her at that moment. Any realism in the thought that he would seemed as though it would forever belong in only his dreams - his dreams being the reason he needed a glass of cold water.

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