Turning Points

Cursing under her breath, Hermione headed towards the Great Hall for lunch, per Pomfrey's orders. She really needed to start paying more attention to where she was going. Bumping into McGonagall and having her discover her almost skeletal frame put a big damper on her plans. Her daily cycle (wake up, go to class, read until curfew, break into restricted section after curfew, get a few hours of sleep after all research was complete for the night) was apparently having such a negative effect on her body that Madame Pomfrey had ordered her straight into a bed, where she had been for three days straight, all the while being filled to the brim with appetite-inducing charms and sleeping potions. Her lack of sleep seemed to be apparent, as well. Luckily they believed she was only stressed about NEWTS and therefore spending all of her free time studying instead of eating or sleeping. She happily aided this belief by complaining endlessly about how she was missing class or how she was surely going to fail her Potions NEWT now since her study time had been taken away from her. To make matters worse, Hermione was only allowed out of the Hospital Wing after she had promised Madame Pomfrey that she would check back in every couple of days so the nurse could make sure she was eating and sleeping properly.

"I'll just have to speed things up a bit. Why couldn't that old bat just have left me alone for once and let me get back to my books?" Hermione whined to no one in particular.

"Now which old bat would that be, Granger?" drawled an easily recognizable voice.

"Zabini! Just the wizard I was looking for. Look, I can't talk now but, meet me at the third floor corridor after lunch," she responded, turning to walk away.

"Explain to me why I would want to meet up with a filthy mudblood such as you on a fine day such as this?" he called after her. "Or any day, for that matter," Blaise added as an afterthought.

Smiling sweetly, she replied, "Because if you don't, everybody in school will know that this was a lover's spat, especially after I go back into Gryffindor tower bawling my eyes out because you refused to meet with me. There are plenty of people currently EAVESDROPPING," at this she shot threatening glares at everybody gawking at the sight of a Slytherin and Gryffindor having a conversation in the hallway, "Who I'm sure would be willing to spread the word of me crying a river over you because you failed to show up like you promised. You wouldn't want your precious pureblood reputation soiled by a stupid mudblood such as myself on such a fine day, now would you?" Grinning, Hermione turned around and purposefully strode into the Great Hall. She felt better than she had in days and knew Zabini would take her threat seriously. If everyone else still thought her the goody-goody Gryffindor, then surely he wouldn't know that she had secluded herself from anybody who would once have been willing to beat him up for her.

After waiting for Blaise to show up for half an hour, Hermione had had enough. She stormed through the castle searching for the dark-haired idiot. Upon finding him, she shrieked, "Blaise, darling! Did you forget about our little rendezvous? I've been waiting and don't think I can wait any longer!"

"Granger, you've gone crazy," he replied, sporting a bewildered look.

"Crazy for you, you big lug!" she said, slapping his arm playfully, "Now let's go get down to business, shall we?" The snickers that followed this declaration looked promising. Now she just needed him to follow her back to the third floor corridor looking like a lost little puppy and he would be ruined unless he promised to help her. Surprisingly enough, he did just that. He just added special glares for everyone who dared laugh at the situation.

Picking a random room at the end of the corridor, Hermione placed silencing and locking charms all around it. At this, Blaise had the decency to look a little scared. 'Students shouldn't be able to override the charms Dumbledore had placed all around the castle to prevent couples from locking themselves in a room doing Merlin knows what,' he thought to himself. Aloud, though, he asked, "What do you want?"

"Why Zabini, I thought that was rather obvious," she said, taking a threatening step toward him.

"Granger..." he said warningly.

"Fine, fine; you win. I want you to help me with something, but before I tell you what it is, you have to promise to listen and not tell a soul, even if you reject my proposal," she stopped here and seeing him nod his head, continued, "I plan on taking down Voldemort. To do this, I need at least one helper," she said, emphasizing the final word.

His incredulous reaction was enough to convince her that she had definitely picked the wrong pureblood.

"Stupid inbreeds," she muttered, shaking her head.

"If you for one minute believe that I would go against The Dark Lord, then you are bloody well mistaken. It has been my goal to be accepted as a death eater since I was born! My entire family has pledged their allegiance to The Dark Lord. You will never triumph as long as I am on my Lord's side. I promise you that--"

"Yeah, yeah," she said, uttering a silencing charm to quiet the shouting wizard, "Now which memory charm would work best on him?" After pacing for a couple minutes, she released the silencing charm and said, "Well, I guess now is as good of a time as any to practice the fundamental memory charms."

"Wha--," Blaise started.

"Obliviate."

"Now, now, Granger, that was rather dull, don't you think?" a new voice said.

"How the hell did you get in here, Malfoy?" she asked, perturbed.

"You're not the only one with special secrets, Granger," he smugly replied.

"What's your point?"

"Well, I was really just wondering why you would be wiping Zabini's memory, is all..." he asked with his typical Malfoy smirk firmly in place, all the while twirling is wand between his fingers.