Clairvoyance and its Consequences

Chapter 10______________________________________________________________

It was well after lunch before Hermione thought it would be best to tell Dumbledore of the strange occurrence she had experienced while visiting Harry. Ron had been the one to persuade her to go as she had confided to him and Ginny after Draco had left to go to Quidditch practice. As she left his office an hour later, however, she wasn't extremely reassured.

Dumbledore had, yes, confirmed that the hearing of Harry's voice without him capable of speech might very well be a new aspect of her gift. He was also able to share a new theory with her about Harry's condition.

"It is my belief, Miss Granger," he had said, "that Voldemort may have sent Harry not into unconsciousness, but an alternate world in which he is able to comprehend everything that is going on around him as he lay asleep in the hospital wing. If my theory is true, the world Voldemort has sent Harry into allows him to be aware of every possibility, every theory that has been said around him within the real world. He is unaware of his own unconsciousness and is still living life - just not in this realm."

Hermione frowned at this as she remembered. It was a mere theory, but Hermione didn't understand it at all. In fact she found such a theory, even from Dumbledore, impossible. How on earth could Harry be lying, completely solid and unconscious in the hospital wing and be in an alternative world where he was still in perfect shape and able to walk around, talk and know exactly what was being said in the quarters? It seemed impossible and yet she still believed it...

Hermione cleared these thoughts from her head as she walked into the common room. Draco sat on the couch there, looking both miserable and in a towering temper.

"I can't stand Quidditch anymore," he said spitefully as she took a seat beside him. He was still in his Quidditch gear and his broom lay abandoned on the ground. "Really, if I regret getting with you for any reason, it's because I've lost my own houses' respect."

"Oh, Draco," Hermione said, "I'm sorry. I thought that maybe they'd have gotten used to it by now..."

"They have, Hermione," Draco said, entwining his fingers with hers absently, "but that doesn't necessarily mean they accept it or are willing to become friendly with me again. I mean, Crabbe and Goyle are an exception. At least they still sit with me in class and treat me like I'm human."

Hermione smiled at Draco. "Just don't worry about it, Draco," she said. "Ignore the others and only focus your attention on the fact that Crabbe and Goyle don't really see you as something different."

"They're probably too thick to have noticed, though," Draco said and Hermione smiled slightly. "Even with everyone talking about the fact I've 'betrayed' all Slytherins, they're still trying to work out the meaning to the simple 'Hi' someone says to them."

Hermione laughed and looked at Draco carefully. "At least you can joke about it," she said softly.

Silence followed this pronouncement. Draco's eyes had locked on hers and the grey contents were swirling warmly in their depths. "I could never regret getting with you," he said quietly and he leant in and rested his lips on hers in a soft kiss. "I love you."

Hermione didn't verbally reply; she circled an arm around his neck and brought his face back to hers, their lips meeting hungrily. There was a shuffle of movement as they lay down next to each other on the couch, their lips not breaking contact during the action. Draco moaned as Hermione's fingers traced through his hair and he rolled them over so he lay on top of her.

"I love you too," Hermione mumbled before kissing him again, the feeling of Draco against her overwhelming her senses and causing her to realise just how much she missed him. Draco's kisses in response to hers were so hungry and fierce it was almost as though he had been starved of them. He groaned into her mouth, tracing her lips with his tongue and welcoming the shiver that ran through her by reason of his action. Her lips parted and it was her turn to moan as his tongue danced over hers.

"Oh, seriously!" a voice said indignantly from the doorway leading to the staircase.

Draco and Hermione broke apart immediately, turning their heads quickly to find the source of the voice. Ginny waved sardonically as they looked at her, both evidently annoyed with having been interrupted.

Ginny sighed irritably. "Really, could you two at least make sure there is no one around for you to be caught?" she asked, looking from one to the other with a look of disgust. "The way you act; it's like you're both deprived of contact with one another, which you're not. Malfoy, you have a bedroom all to yourself; can't you two get ... cozy ... up there - with the door locked and Silencing Charms all around it? I'm just glad I came down now and not in fifteen minutes time because I somehow feel you two would've been too occupied for my liking..."

Ginny headed around Draco and Hermione and out of the common room. They waited until they could no longer hear her footsteps before they spoke.

"You know what," Draco said in a tone that showed he was clearly very annoyed as he climbed off Hermione, "I think Dumbledore only put her in here to stop us doing anything that is rather discouraged."

"She did have a point though, Draco," Hermione said pointedly. "We probably should make sure no one can walk in on us before things get out of hand. You and I - then - we ... well..."

"And who can blame me?" Draco snapped slightly. "Hermione, it's been weeks! Ever since we moved into these bloody quarters we've had - what - one night together?" He ran a hand through his hair and sat down. "Every single time I've approached you with the intention of spending some time with you, you're in the study doing NEWT revision and even when I go in there thinking maybe I can drag you away from it, Potter's there! And then the other day, I actually thought it was going to happen, but no, the Weasley girl had to interrupt just like she did now! I can't stand it, Hermione!"

Hermione stared at him, alarmed. She knew he had been rather deprived of sexual attention lately, but she hadn't thought he was that stressed by it.

Slowly and carefully, she made her way around the coffee table to where he sat; Draco was watching her process with narrowed, curious eyes. She stood before him, pulled him to a standing position and pushed away a strand of hair that had fallen into his eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispered and she leant up, kissed him on the lips firmly and entwined her fingers with his.

She silently led the way out of the room and up the stairs into his bedroom. Breaking the contact with his hand, she turned and closed the door, locked it securely and placed a Silencing Charm upon the room with her wand. Once finished, she placed the wand on the bedside table and turned to him, her fingers tracing the hem of her light blue jumper. She pulled it up as Draco sat on the bed and she placed it to the side once her body was ridded of it. She un-tucked her shirt and approached Draco in a slow walk, noticing the way his tongue kept appearing to lick his lips.

Prudently, she rested her weight in Draco's lap as she straddled him, loosening the length of cord that held his Quidditch robes together around his chest.

"I love you," Hermione said affectionately as she pushed the green material off his shoulders.

Draco didn't speak, but instead, freed his arms from the robes and wound them around Hermione's waist, pulling her closer, his lips meeting hers with the same amount of passion and intensity that she had grown so familiar with.

*

It was after dinnertime when Draco and Hermione began to think it might be wise for them to abandon the warmth of Draco's bed and head down for something to eat, but the temptation to stay wasn't allowing it to happen. Draco lay, dozing with his head on a pillow as Hermione ran her finger softly over the surface of his bare chest, causing light shivers to run through him.

"You're beautiful," Draco whispered to her as she kissed the skin about an inch below his nipple.

Hermione smiled up at him and, reaching up, she kissed him firmly on the lips. "We should get up," she said softly for about the sixth time that evening, "the others might be wondering what's keeping us."

"I'm sure Ginny knows," Draco said absently, "she can tell the others..."

Hermione stared at him with a small amount of shock on her face. "That was the first time I have ever heard you say her first name!" she claimed with a shadow of excitement in her tone.

"Yeah - well - I might've confused you with 'Weasley' and 'Weasley Girl' sounds a bit mediocre, really," Draco said drowsily.

"Oh," Hermione said, deflating slightly, "well, I still think we should head down; we can't lay here forever and we do still need to sleep tonight. I didn't get a single piece of schoolwork done today and I need tomorrow to catch up."

Draco let out an exasperated groan and threw the covers off the bed, revealing his highly attractive and naked form as well as Hermione's.

"Come on, then," he said, pulling on his boxer shorts and trousers. "But we're making up for the time lost later," he added.

Hermione smiled, slipped off the bed and got dressed. She and Draco headed out of the room and down the stairs into the common room, where they found Ron and Luna on the couch, doing what Hermione supposed had started as studying nothing but the books in front of them. Now, however, they seemed to be taking turns in studying the books and then each other. Ron looked extremely nervous as he glanced sideways at Luna.

Hermione, stifling a smile sat down next to him. "Hello Ron - Luna," she said.

"Hi Hermione," Ron said, his ears going slightly pink and he pulled his attention away from Luna, who had looked up at the sound of her name as though she hadn't noticed anyone else's presence in the room.

"Oh, hello," Luna said airily before moving her protuberant eyes back to the book in front of her, which at second glance Hermione realised wasn't a book at all but an issue of magazine The Quibbler.

"Where have you been?" Ron asked, as Draco sat down beside Hermione, making the couch extremely crowded. Ron scooted closer to Luna to get create more room. She didn't look up or show any real sign of having noticed Ron's sudden closeness; a smile just floated onto her lips.

"Draco and I have just been ... busy, you know," Hermione said, flushing pink.

"Oh yes, I'm sure you and Malfoy have been very busy," Ginny's voice said as she entered the room closely behind Neville. "I hope you finally decided to do it somewhere a bit more private?"

A look of disgust came onto Ron's features and he looked away from Hermione. He muttered something under his breath, but Hermione could only distinguish the word - or rather, name - "Harry".

"We just went and saw Harry," Ginny said, sitting in one of the armchairs and sighing. "Still no sign of life, but Dumbledore happened to be there and he told us a little theory of his. Hermione, would you care to tell us why you never bothered telling us?"

Hermione looked at her with a disgruntled expression. "I only found out this afternoon," she said, "and I didn't really understand exactly what Dumbledore's theory meant."

Ginny nodded before telling Ron and Luna, who were the only people in the room who didn't know. Ron looked extremely confused while Luna was interested and began talking about far-fetched beliefs of alternate universes her father had told her about.

Soon, midnight had come and went and the six of them all headed upstairs to their bedrooms. Heading into her, Ginny and Luna's room, Hermione grabbed a pair of old tracksuit pants from her trunk and headed out again to sleep with Draco. As she climbed into bed, she tied her hair in a rather tight bun on her head and snuggled closer to Draco. The red tank top she wore was warm against his bare chest and he pulled her closer.

"Goodnight, Hermione," he said in a voice full of sleepiness. "I'll see you in the morning."

Hermione smiled as she remembered his comment earlier: "...we're making up for the time lost later" - it looked like the morning would have to serve as later. Contently, Hermione closed her eyes and leant her head on the fluffiness on the pillows. It was strange that for the first time in over a week, she didn't have a worry or care on her mind. What was even more strange, however, as she fell into a dreamless sleep, was she didn't know that in a couple of hours she would be woken abruptly by a sensation of something like a hook jerking at her navel. She didn't know that the next sight she would see would be Lord Voldemort's red eyes staring at her with a cruel expression twisting his white face...

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