Anmarie Island

Outside the wind blew ominously. Hermione shivered. She was growing tired of the foul weather, but was excited nonetheless about starting her garden. Unlike the other students, she was actually looking forward to this project.

Draco walked briskly in front of her and she quickly averted her eyes to the dirt path she was treading on. Harry walked silently beside her, a stone-cold expression on his face. Hermione couldn't take the painful silence anymore, so she asked, in her friendliest tone, "Want to look for plants with me, Harry? It'll be fun." She smiled, awaiting his response.

Harry sighed and gave no answer. His mind was elsewhere and he hadn't even heard Hermione's entire question. He realized she was talking to him when she said "Harry." He didn't bother asking her, "What'll be fun?"

They reached Hermione's hut and she grabbed Harry's arm to stop him. "You never answered me, although I'm sure that's what you intended to do," she snapped rather moodily.

Harry sighed again. "What was the question?"

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. "Do you want to collect plants with me for our gardens?"

Normally he would have said yes, normally he would have been delighted, but today was far from normal. "Go collect plants with Malfoy," he said bitingly before turning and leaving.

Not knowing whether to feel angry or hurt, Hermione shook her head and started toward her garden.

Harry, muttering under his breath, took a glance at his own garden before plowing into the nearby forest. He had gone in to search for plants, but stared blankly at each specimen he passed, not caring one bit about this new project. From somewhere to his right he heard Malfoy's arrogant laugh and absentmindedly headed in that direction, tightly clutching the wand in his pocket.

As he neared a small clearing, he spotted Malfoy and Blaise having a friendly chat. Right, Harry thought, like Slytherins ever have "friendly chats." They were each staring at a bizarre yellow flower when Harry decided to enter the clearing.

Draco spun around quickly upon hearing a new person enter. The smile he had just shared with Blaise was gone, replaced with a contemptuous sneer. "Who invited the Gryffindor?" he asked to Blaise, who let out a hearty chuckle.

Harry kept quiet, pretending to study an oddly pulsating pink vine. He was just waiting for Malfoy to say the right thing to set him off.

Draco glared at Harry, no doubt awaiting a response. "What's this?" he said sarcastically with a smile. "Is the boy-who-lived too good to have words with a Slytherin such as myself? What'll it take then, Potter? Should I poke fun at the Weasel? Perhaps that oaf Hagrid?" He paused here, his smile widening as he neared Harry. "How about Hermione?"

That was what Harry had been waiting for. He whirled around and withdrew his wand more quickly than Draco, shouting, "Petrificus Totalus!"

Draco's limbs snapped to his sides and he teetered before toppling to the ground.

Harry advanced on the still form in front him, his wand pointed at Draco's chest. "If you dare go near her one more..."

"HARRY POTTER!"

Harry's head snapped up as he searched for the source of the voice. Hermione Granger stood ten feet in front of him, literally seething with anger. She advanced on him slowly, Harry stepping backward for every step she took forward.

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded. "You have absolutely no right to pick who I may or may not associate with!"

"But..." Harry tried to speak.

"I was under the impression that I was the one who gets to choose my friends, not you," she spoke over him.

"But Hermione..." Harry's back was now pressed against a tree.

She continued to ignore the fact that he was speaking. "Apparently I was wrong because you've chosen to attack someone I now consider a friend! Are you mad?"

"Hermione, it's Malfoy!" Harry could not contain his outrage anymore. "The same Malfoy who's tormented you since first year, calling you 'mudblood,' the same boy who would hex you rather than help you! Are you mad?"

They were now face to face.

Hermione shook her head slowly. "No Harry, it's Draco," she said icily. "And people change." She gave him a piercing glare before turning to Draco and muttering, "Finite Incantem."

She offered the newly freed Draco her hand and, after a moment, he took it and she helped him up. The pair stood, looking at each other, when Blaise said, "Draco, leave Granger. C'mon, let's go."

Still gazing at the girl in front of him, Draco replied softly, "No Blaise, I believe her name is Hermione."

Hermione smiled and Draco grinned back as he reached for her hand, leading her from the clearing.

Harry, still dumbfounded, turned to Blaise and asked, "Did that actually just happen or did I drink too much butterbeer at lunch?"

Blaise shot the Gryffindor a disgusted look before stalking off toward the huts.

After a moment Harry followed in the same direction, too dispirited to even think about beginning his garden now.

Hermione and Draco continued to walk through the forest, stopping occasionally to collect unique plants for their gardens.

Pausing at a tree, Hermione said, "That reminds me of the tree I found the clabbert colony in, except smaller. I think I'll send it back to my garden. Laverarti." She waved her wand in a circle and the tree turned bright blue before disappearing.

"Why would you want something that reminds you of that hideous creature?" Draco asked, shuddering at the memory.

Hermione shrugged, "I don't know, I like them." She glanced at her watch. "We need to be heading back," she said, and they turned in the direction of the huts.

When they reached her hut, Draco and Hermione paused. "Well I guess I better apologize to Harry. I was pretty harsh," Hermione said, not looking at Draco.

"You'd think wonder boy could handle it by now," Draco muttered. "We Slytherins have been hurling insults at him for years and he's always recovered. It's the Weasel you've got to watch out for."

Hermione frowned, ready to reprimand him, before Draco's eyes met the tree Hermione had chosen and he said, "Ew, it's that thing again."

Hermione whipped around and saw the clabbert from the night of the scavenger hunt grinning at her, showing all of its pointy teeth. "I guess it decided to move in," she said offhandedly.

"That's a shame," Draco shook his head. "It would have been a nice-looking garden without it."

Hermione looked at him suspiciously. "Was that a compliment?"

"Might have been," he said mysteriously before walking toward his own hut.

"Now for Harry," she sighed looking toward his hut regretfully. "Maybe I have time for a drink fir..." She stopped mid-sentence as she noticed a horrible scene in front of her. A giggling gnome had just hopped out of her bedroom window holding of her Sleak Eazy's Hair Styling Potion. "Why you little..." she said, chasing it as it scampered off into the woods.

Five minutes later Hermione advanced on the cornered gnome. It had given her a grueling chase, but now it was trapped. She walked toward it and said menacingly, "Give me my potion." The gnome gave a terrified squeak and as she reached for the potion something to her left caught her eye. She turned and noticed a thin line of green smoke trickling through a gap in the trees. Curious, she walked toward it, the potion now forgotten. Delighted, the gnome took its chance and embraced freedom with its new possession.

Hermione found herself facing a hut no bigger than a bathroom that blended in nearly perfectly with the trees. The smoke coming from its top was now unmistakable. "That's floo powder," she muttered, "I know it. But I thought this island wasn't connected to the floo network." Cautiously she crept forward, careful not to make any noise. As she approached she heard a voice speaking and her ears perked up.

The easily distinguishable voice of Mme. Bargs was saying, "...is almost complete. Seedly has no chance of being taken back to Hogwarts."

"But there is a traitor unbeknownst to you," a male voice replied. Hermione stifled a gasp. The voice was unmistakably that of one Lucius Malfoy. "The Dark Lord is not happy with my son."

"That can easily be taken care of when my position at Hogwarts is secured," Bargs responded.

"Good, the Dark Lord will be..."

"Shh! I heard a noise outside," Bargs cut him off. "You better go. That damn hurricane is on its way anyway."

As quickly and quietly as she could, Hermione fled to her hut, fearing being seen by her curses and charms professor.

Bursting out of the forest, she saw all of the other students gathered around Snape in front of her.

"You're late Granger," the potions master sneered. "Ten points from Gryffindor."

"But professor I didn't know we were meeting," Hermione protested.

"Make that twenty," he replied. "As I was saying, everyone is to report to their cabins immediately. Do not leave until I personally come to collect you. Leaving your hut at any time during the storm could be life threatening. Do not chance it." He turned on his heel, his robes whipping around, as he stalked toward his own quarters. Glancing around nervously, the students followed his lead and returned to their own cabins.

Hermione immediately sought out Harry and called out to him, "Harry wait!"

He gave her a blank look before turning back and walking toward his cabin.

She ran over to him and physically halted him, her hands placed firmly on his shoulders. "Harry, it's really important. You won't believe what I just heard."

"If it's so important then why don't you go tell dear Draco?" he spat at her as he tried to break free of her grasp.

"No, Harry, this is really important. Please listen to me," she begged.

Hearing the true fear in her voice, he looked at her begrudgingly and said, "What is it Hermione?"

Just as she opened her mouth to speak Professor Seedly approached them. "Now, now, now...no time for chit chat, you can talk later. The storm is due to hit any moment so head to your cabins," he said with a squeak in his voice that reminded them of Professor Flitwick.

Hermione glanced up at Harry. "I'll tell you later," she muttered in an undertone before darting to her cabin.

Hermione found herself sweat-drenched and able to hear her own heart beat that night. The combined effects of the hurricane and the conversation she overheard were exhausting her mind. A rumble of thunder tensed her muscles. She glanced through her window to the cove outside, which had changed from calm turquoise to choppy gray. The sky was ink black.

She opened one of her windows and checked on the clabbert, whose forehead was blinking as it paced frantically in the branches. She reached out to it and it wrapped itself around her arm, chattering nonstop. A sudden gust of wind rocked her hut, sending chills down Hermione's spine. She magically closed all her shutters and headed toward her common room.

Rain pelted down now as she settled into a comfortable chair to read Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. She gently stroked the clabbert's horns as it grew later outside. Her eyelids grew heavy after a while and she blew out her lamp, heading back to bed. Eventually she drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

Hours later, she bolted upright as a crash of thunder exploded in her ears. She could see the vivid lightning through the cracks in the shutters and a moment later her hut shook as an enormous weight hit it. She heard a splintering crash and the clabbert frantically buried its face in her should as she screamed.

She opened her bedroom door with difficulty and found that the tree in which the clabbert made its home has smashed through the room and demolished her common room and second bedroom.

Running from the cabin, she headed for Harry's hut in the pouring rain. Water soaked her to the bone and she nearly fell when she slipped on a slimy patch of mud. The tears finally came as she hurried up the steps to Harry's hut. Flinging the door open, she tried to remember which side his room was on. She finally bolted to the left and ran into a pitch-black room, dropping the clabbert onto the ground once inside.

A figure, awakened by Hermione slamming his door, shot out of bed and stood quickly, cautiously looking around the room. She hurried over to Harry and flung her arms around his neck, sobbing quietly. He did nothing to comfort her and instead stood rigid.

After a moment longer, Hermione stepped away from him and wiped salty tears from her red eyes. "Harry it was awful," she choked out as lightning pierced the sky yet again.

The figure stepped forward and the face of Lucius Malfoy was suddenly illuminated by lightning.