Grr. Argh.

"Whoa! You were almost a Jillbo sandwich!" - Barry, Resident Evil

*

Hermione took a step towards the door. She was surprised at how difficult it was to move. The confusion faded in a split second, and was replaced with terror when she realized the reason for her difficulty.

A zombie. There was a zombie holding her ankle. She yelped.

Draco, who was already almost out the door, pivoted, and pointed his gun at Hermione's foot.

"Don't!" she cried. She'd seen Draco shoot, and his aim was horrible. There was a good chance he'd hit her foot, and not the zombie if he shot.

"Sorry, I didn't realize you two were friends."

"Malfoy, you idiot, I'm closer to the zombie. I'll shoot it myself, thanks, since I'd rather leave this place with both my feet." She fumbled with the gun, her hand sweaty and shaking.

Draco came closer to her. "That's the guy we saw when we first got in here."

"Five points for Slytherin!" Hermione was still struggling with the gun, trying to aim at the zombie's head. She was startled when she heard a shot.

Draco had shot the thing in the back, and it twitched, letting go of Hermione's ankle. While she backed away and sat down on the floor, Draco emptied his gun into the zombie until it stopped moving.

She peeled her sock away from her ankle. Already, there were dark red marks circling her flesh, like a twisted bracelet. She touched one and flinched.

"That was close," said Draco, who'd come to sit down beside her. "I think, from now on, we should just shoot any body we come across."

"We should make sure they're dead before we shoot," Hermione said calmly, still tenderly fingering her ankle.

"Fine. Are you ready to go, or are you going to sit there and lick your wounds for an hour while the rest of the zombies in the building attack us?"

"I'm so sorry. Next time I won't check to see if my ankle's sprained."

"It's not even bruised. Get up."

Draco offered a hand, but Hermione ignored it, and pushed herself up. The book she'd been holding under her arm had fallen when she'd been grabbed, and she went to pick it up.

It was open, and she could see two words scrawled across the page: "Itchy. Tasty."

She pulled a face. "I really don't want to know what that's all about. The book can stay."

"Hermione Granger, willingly leaving a book behind? What has the world come to? Next thing I know, you'll be telling me you're in love with Snape, and cheated in Transfiguration."

She winked at him. "I have layers."

His mouth dropped open, and she laughed. He glared, and walked to the door. She followed.

"I'm really ready now," she said. "No false starts. Shall we check out the rest of this floor before going back down? There might be something else to help us."

"I'd rather just get out of here, actually. I don't think we're going to find anything other than zombies."

"We found guns in here."

"Right, which means we don't need to find any more guns."

"But," Hermione countered, "we do need more bullets. We've used most of the box we found already. I tried replicating them, but it didn't work. Whenever I tried, the box would flash "Convenient Plot Device" and snap closed. It was irritating."

"All right, we search the building." Draco gave her a nasty look. "Do you have to be right about everything?"

"Yes. Second floor first?"

"Fine."

Draco took the lead once again. Hermione walked behind him, gun held in both hands. She imitated a style she'd seen long ago on an old American television show. Something about angels.

The hallway was still dark. Draco had cast Lumos, but Hermione's own wand was tucked away. She rather liked the two-handed gun hold. It gave her more control, and anything that would improve her aim was definitely a good thing.

Draco rounded a corner in front of her, and called for her. "Hermione, there's another body."

He was standing away from it, staring down suspiciously. "How do we tell if it's dead or not? I don't want to touch it."

"Are all Slytherins such sissies?" Hermione stepped in front of Draco and kicked the body softly, quickly jumping back.

"Gryffindors are handy to have around," he drawled.

The body didn't move. Hermione knelt down to feel for a pulse. There was none.

"Shoot it," she told Draco. A beat. "But wait until I've moved."

She stepped back, and he shot, hitting its head on the first try.

"You've gotten better, Malfoy. If only you showed such promise in Charms." Hermione turned her face from the splattered zombie.

"I'm not in danger of being murdered by Flitwick if I don't learn charms now, am I?"

"You never know. I wouldn't underestimate him." She looked at him. "Is there anything else in this hallway?"

"I haven't seen anything, but the light from my wand isn't that strong. I haven't heard any zombies coming, at least."

She nodded. "Good. I think we're running out of bullets, and I don't want to be running on empty if we should happen upon any moving zombies."

"How did they get this way, anyway?" Draco asked.

"The zombies? I don't know."

"You're not serious. You were a walking encyclopedia downstairs. 'Don't be silly, Draco, zombies don't eat people, they just like to play with them!' 'Wands can't kill zombies, Draco.'" He spoke in a whiny falsetto that was especially insulting.

"I do know about zombies. But there are different kinds. They're not all alike. Some are people who've been brought back from the dead intentionally. Though I don't think that's what these are. That kind is usually a bit more intelligent. They walk more like people. They've just got crumbling flesh."

"Delightful, I'm sure. But you said those aren't the ones we're dealing with. Move on."

"Right, sorry. It's possible that it's a virus that feeds on flesh, slowly killing cells, and then reanimating them. That's very rare, and has only happened in Muggle communities where experiments in chemistry went horribly wrong. The Ministry's had to clean them up. I've only heard of one incident in the past century, though..." Hermione trailed off, getting lost in a sea of thought.

Draco's hand on her shoulder brought her back, and she blushed. "Sorry."

He coughed. "So it's a virus."

"It might be. I can't tell for sure."

"How can we be sure that we don't catch it ourselves, then?"

Hermione looked aghast. "I hadn't even thought of that. I have no idea." She slowly backed further away form the dead body. "I think that... not touching the zombies would be a good place to start."

Draco laughed.

"It's not funny!"

He stopped for a moment, and looked at Hermione gravely. Then he again burst into laughter.

Hermione gritted her teeth. "I'm glad you find this so amusing, Malfoy. I'm sure I'd be laughing just as hard if the zombie had touched your ankle."

"No, it's not that. The look on your face!" His voice was smothered by giggles.

"You know, you're in serious jeopardy of ruining your reputation as a tough guy if you keep giggling like a girl."

That shut him up. She smiled, baring her teeth. He scowled.

"That's more like it!" she said.

"Shut up."

"Gladly."

Hermione was ahead of him in the hallway, now. She held her wand, and cast Lumos. She was glad to see that hers was a great deal brighter than Draco's. She looked back at him, hoping to hit him with a smug look of magical superiority, but his eyes were fixed on a point some distance ahead of where she stood.

"What?" she asked him.

"There's another door. Up there." He pointed.

Indeed there was. "Good eye, Malfoy." Hermione smiled at him.

They started walking towards the door. "Wait," Draco said. "Do you hear something?"

Hermione stopped. She did hear something, though it didn't sound like a dog, and it certainly wasn't a zombie. More of a skittering, like a crab, trying to find purchase. A really big crab.

"Yes," she said. "And it sounds like it's coming from the ceiling."