Enemy Anonymous

TWO

The Missing Portrait

***

The corridors were dark at this time of night. Only the flaming torches gave off light, strategically placed every few metres. Each stride that Hermione took sounded like a riotous commotion to her ears. Although she had permission to be out of bed, she instinctively continued to be vigilant for any sign of Mrs Norris. Upon reaching her new quarters, she breathed an involuntary sigh of relief, closing the door quietly.

Her new room was spacious. It was certainly a unique chamber - crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, winking at her from above. A round coffee table surrounded by chintz armchairs proved to be the room's main focal point - no doubt these were donated by the philanthropic Trelawney - clearly, the table could be moved to reveal a set of floorboards fit for dancing on. In the corner of her room stood her faithful four-poster. The miniature library that was her book collection seemed to be depleting an entire corner of her comfortable room... she would have to buy some bookshelves. Slumping blithely into a chair, Hermione opened her book.

As she flicked to the first page, she felt a sense of dread. A diary:

"Reader, we are facing tribulations at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, or - as our current headmaster would say - we are "broadening our minds by means of ordeal." If that is the case, then why is it that we Gryffindors find ourselves retreating into Hogsmeade to avoid school so often? Alicia swore that even Draco Malfoy, a Slytherin -"

A jolt made her impulsively stand up - she threw the book across the floor as though a particularly nasty-looking spider had been nestled in its pages. Muffling her voice with her shaking hand, her heart was beating so rapidly that she was convinced that it was going to burst. Had she just seen what she thought she had seen? Taking a few deep breaths, she attempted to calm herself. She left the book where she'd thrown it: what if it was hexed? Mr Weasley would have told her to, after all. Yes, that was the most rational thing to do.

***

At daybreak, it took Draco a length of time to stir. For a while, he simply grumbled as rays of sunlight streamed through his common room window, burying himself under his quilt. It was so much warmer here, in front of the fire, than in his common room. What a strange dream... It had involved a tornado ripping down a city made out of toothpicks and crisp packets, sitting on the back of a complaining android (Muggle studies) named Marvin. He was just about to go back to sleep for a while when somebody pulled his quilt away.

Shivering, he sat up, eyes wide in an instant.

"Granger, what in the fiery, red chasms of hell are you doing in my common room?" He had been aiming to shout, but his voice had presented itself in a gravelly whisper.

"Why, you're looking tousled today."

"That's the most ridiculous comment I've ever heard, you know, coming from a girl who never seems to brush her hair."

Hermione more felt than saw the anxiety that Malfoy was experiencing from being in public with an untidy composure. To her, he looked rather endearing - he needn't have worried. "You're not much of a morning person, are you?"

Yawning, he stood up. "Not really. And I'm seriously violating rule number four-hundred-and-sixty-five of the Malfoy Code: A Malfoy must, whilst in the public eye, appear utterly refined in attire. I'm presuming that wearing my pyjamas in front of a Mudblood's breaching it a little."

All sympathy dissipated, Hermione thrust her book into his chest. "You're impossible. We need -"

"What the heck is this?" Draco interrupted sullenly.

"We need to get it to Snape - it's a book with your name in it."

Raising an almost invisible blond eyebrow at her, Draco began to open the red cover.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," she reproved.

"And why's that?"

"Because it may be hexed."

Having spent one of the most tedious periods of his life in St. Mungo's due - quite insufferably - to a malicious lantern, existing solely to burn him to cinders, he dropped the book instantaneously. "I think I'd better get dressed."

"I think you'd better. Everybody will have been waiting for you."

"Do you seriously think that they want me here? Everybody but Snape hates me. I'm used to it, Granger. And before you say anything: don't get too concerned - it scares me. Plus I don't mind - you're all below my level of concern."

Sauntering off, Draco's perfectly moulded nose was high in the air. Ten minutes later Hermione was still waiting for him, quite patiently. He had gone to breakfast without her.

***

When Hermione finally entered the Great Hall, she was slightly out of breath. She had attempted to show Snape the book... Disconcertingly, he had almost thrown something that looked horribly like a cauldron of undiluted bubotuber pus over her head. As a result of this she had ran from the temporarily smelly, humid dungeons to breakfast. She could always try again, later... even though Snape had looked as though he could have bitten her to death then and there. She wondered whether it would make any difference if Malfoy did come with her.

Hermione put on her most flattering Breakfast Smile for him.

The people sitting around the table greeted her, Dumbledore making a chair appear from thin air.

"Did you sleep well last night? It's nice to have you down here with us, for a change." Flitwick asked her as she sat down.

"Perfectly well," Hermione lied.

"I trust that your new quarters are acceptable?" McGonagall asked anxiously.

"My room is wonderful! I especially love my flowers and plants, Muggle and Wizarding, with healing herbs -"

"Mine!" Madame Pomfrey interrupted proudly, obviously pleased with Hermione's reaction.

"Yes, and the books. The books are wonderful. I'm going to save up for some shelves."

"All sorted," McGonagall said promptly, "they're arriving today from the library. I was amazed at your collection, Hermione - now I know where you're getting all of those quotes from."

"Thank you so much..." Hermione said, happily. "I can't tell you how -"

Swooping low over the table, the postal owls dropped a solitary letter and a package onto her toast.

"A letter!" squeaked Flitwick, almost falling backwards out of his chair. "But you must share it with us, Miss Granger! The owls haven't been in for weeks..."

McGonagall looked at him from underneath her spectacles. "Now, really. There is no need to become exited over two pieces of parchment and a box. I suppose that Hermione is to be allowed her privacy?"

"Why - yes, yes, of course." Flitwick collected himself, buttering a croissant, but Hermione could see him watching her out of the corner of his eye. She slit open the letter with caution.

It was from Ron:

Wotcher, Hermione! (Ginny forced me to write that).

I heard on the train back home that Malfoy's still at Hogwarts, too. He

really is a prat, isn't he? Always turning up where he's not wanted.

Don't let him get you down! If he does, write me a letter. If he doesn't,

write me a letter. In fact, just write me one.

Crabbe and Goyle have allegedly disappeared from the face of the Earth

(we wish). Another story is that they've left for a nudist's beach in Spain.

I feel sorry for the Spanish. So does Ginny.

Romania is good, by the way. Hagrid seems to be enjoying it more than

anyone... Mum's absolutely petrified of dragons.

See you soon,

Ron (and Ginny).

Seeing Ron's untidy scrawl made Hermione feel strangely nostalgic. She pocketed the letter, making a mental note to write back later on.

"Well?" Flitwick enquired excitedly. "What did it say?"

"Nothing much," she answered, quite sincerely. "It was from Ron." Malfoy met her eye.

"Is Mr Weasley enjoying his holiday?" Dumbledore asked.

"Yes, he is," she said, watching Draco busying himself with a bowl of porridge.

"I can imagine that Hagrid is," sighed Madame Hooch, darkly. "He's away in Romania, too."

"He did mention something about that to me, a few weeks back. I thought he was joking," commented Professor Sprout.

Polishing off the remainder of her toast, Hermione waited impatiently for Draco to stop talking to Madame Hooch.

"Miss Granger." A cold voice pierced her from behind.

It was Snape.

Turning slowly, she waited for a bomb to fall, for the ceiling to cave in, or to be covered in bubotuber pus. The whole table had fallen silent. She swallowed.

"Professor, I didn't - didn't mean to get in your way, earlier, sir!" Hermione stammered.

Snape's mouth twitched at the corner, as though he was little amused.

"Are you ready for us, professor?" Draco asked, having entirely abandoned his breakfast. To Hermione's surprise, his face was straight - she would have laughed at his unusual sobriety if it were not Snape's tendency to threaten her with undiluted bubotuber pus.

"Mrs Sebold is stirring the potion for you as we speak."

***

Watching Hermione's stocking-clad legs swing back and forth as she sat on a desk, Draco attempted with all his might to keep his eyes on her face. Disconcertingly, his eyes were drawn down as though magnetised. She moved with a lithesome elegance that made him horribly conscious of his own actions. Perhaps he ought not to be thinking such a thing, but there was no doubt about it - Hermione's legs were, well, sexy. They would be so smooth to touch-

"Watch it; you're burning the bloody potion!" Draco moaned at Mrs Sebold for the nth time that afternoon. Even when you weren't in the company of an idiot-hag, the dungeons were a bleak sort of place. "You don't know what it tastes like burnt. The closest thing that I could describe it to is sick."

Mrs Sebold confidently stirred the frothing broth, looming over the table, distinctly reminding Hermione of Snape. "My Malfoy, I have been a potions mistress for almost eleven decades. If you think that you could do any better, come and do it yourself. And the potion tastes of chocolate, just as you asked for it."

Hermione was intrigued. "Chocolate?."

"She's lying." Malfoy sneered, gazing at his complexion in a somewhat antiquated mirror. "You know that kind of acrid, rancorous muck that you smell on farms? That's what it tastes like. Think of Weasley's bedroom."

"Careful," Mrs Sebold cackled. "Your face will stick like that!"

"Excuse me, Malfoy, but Ron's bedroom smells of cookies and lavender."

"What, you've been in there?" Vociferously whispering and standing directly behind Hermione, Draco felt - was that a hint of jealousy?

He inhaled the scent of her hair. "Weasley scum," he muttered, cursing Ron.

"Weasley scum?" Hermione swivelled round to ask him, forcing him to jump backwards. Startling both herself and Malfoy, she reached out and touched his arm fleetingly to calm him, surprised by his sudden jerk.

So close. Those legs were so close. He found himself wanting to reach out, wanting to touch her again. For a second, he had felt her warm breath graze his cheek. Still feeling reverberations travelling through his arm where she had briefly made contact with it, Draco sought desperately for something to say.

"Snape's not going to like -"

"What have you done, girl? Those shelves were organised perfectly well!" Upon entering the room, Snape eyed Hermione haughtily.

She sniffed noisily, but allowed Snape to cross the room to adjust the livers unscathed.

"So, wait a second. Snape's not actually making this stuff - he just gets someone else to do the hard work?"

"I research the ingredients, Miss Granger," Snape hissed through his teeth.

Shrinking back from Snape, Hermione sat down once more.

"The substance that you would least like to drink is there in that bowl." Draco explained. "For Dumbledore, it's Pensieve water. God knows why, so don't ask me. For me, it's avitus investigatio, a legendary potion that makes you go back in time to your family's younger lives."

In unadulterated scepticism, Hermione stared out at Draco. This boy was not the Draco she knew. He could not be Draco for several reasons. For a start, Draco Malfoy would never do something for a good cause unless he would benefit from it.

"What is it for you?" Hermione asked Snape directly.

"Veritaserum."

"Really?"

"Do I look like a liar to you, Miss Granger?" Snape snarled.

"She wasn't even suggesting that, Severus. Don't you get all worked up," sang Mrs Sebold, whizzing around as though floating on air, stroking Hermione's cheek dotingly. "Leave the poor girl alone."

Snape ignored her. "In the headmaster's office, there is a missing portrait. It has been empty ever since he started working here. He needs to know who this was. He believes it might be one of the Dark Lord's relatives - what might he have done to whoever was in that portrait? There are no records of a headmaster from the years 1620 to 1621; everybody had always assumed that there was controversy surrounding the appointment of a replacement headteacher. Due to the fact that the Malfoy family is pure-blooded, members of his family have been attending this school from its opening day."

Hermione's cheeks reddened - she was perfectly aware of the so-called cleanliness of Malfoy's blood. He had been kind enough to remind of the fact almost every time that they had ever met.

"There is bound to be a generation of Malfoy attending the school at some point during this man or woman's brief headship of the school."

In spite of himself, Draco felt a touch of pride at his one-hundred percent Slytherin genes. His pride, however, diminished somewhat when Snape had to stop to attend to the raw, throbbing mark on his arm alone in his office.

Snape dressed the identifying mark, which had been recently hurting him so acutely, in linen. As much as Dumbledore guiltily urged him to go to Madame Pomfrey, Snape was sure that it could be best managed by himself. Whenever he refused to answer Voldemort's summons, the skin on his arm inflamed so badly that he had once thought about cutting the entire limb - but that would have been the easy route to take. He took pain relief potion as a regular drink, instead... As Dumbledore said, the easiest route was not always the right one. How many times had he had to tolerate pain like this?

"Don't start without me with you!" Shouted Snape from his supply cupboard. Now pouring out a flask-full of what looked, to Hermione, like bubotuber pus, Mrs Sebold hummed gently.

Draco psyched himself up for whatever what was going to happen. Feeling much like a human sacrifice, he approached the tester table... He had done this countless times, each time telling Snape what needed to be improved.

"Right," Snape said, his tone oddly business-like. He rushed out of his office. "Right. Mr Malfoy, whenever you're ready."

Draco grimaced as the liquid ran down his throat. Chocolate? Who did they think they were kidding? His head swirled around, his own body slowly becoming less and less in control...

As Draco walked his first few steps into the past, the first thing that he felt was a downpour of rain soaking him through. A chill cut through him, extinguishing his body heat in an instant. In this forest, in this great storm, he was alone.

He even doubted himself.

The trees loomed; they were evanescent, twisting claws reaching out into the sable night. They held the glowing orb that was the moon within their grasp, ready to eliminate Draco's only light reserve. He saw the silhouettes of dense foliage, their shadows indistinguishable against the forest floor. Sifting through feathery, gossamer strands of cobwebs, he disturbed countless creatures, which scuttled away noisily.

What was this? A light... Far away. Many lights... all radiating from one place. Hogwarts...? He made his way towards the gentle glows - the only thing guiding him. But he was not afraid.

Yet.

Tripping over branches, he clambered through the forest, slipping on leaves and sliding through patches of mire. A decidedly more heated source of air dishevelled his wet hair further, like the exhalation of a second, more vibrant source.

A startling heat began to seep its way through his toes. It travelled through his body, to the very top of his head, which began to throb unbearably. Streaming down his face, the water made it impossible to see. It hailed mercilessly from the branches above. Blundering, he stumbled over. He groped for support to pull himself upright, but caught merely air. Tears of frustration and finally fear blinded his eyes. He was no longer cold - he was burning hot!

"There's something here!" He called, half hysterically. "You need to get me out!" He held his arms up to his face, shielding himself from the attacking winds. In one last attempt to get up, he rose to his knees and saw no more.

From the minute that Draco had disappeared, Hermione had been pacing the floor. He had arrived back lying on the floor, breathing hard.

"Malfoy! Are you alright?"

Snubbing Hermione, conscious of the tears still pouring from his eyes, Draco got up silently and went to the medical room.

That had been his first time in the forest. In other instances, he had ended up in the lake; in a square, doorless, windowless room; in a locked greenhouse and - ironically - a pensieve. But never in the Forbidden Forest, where he could have easily met somebody.

"Malfoy, wait for me!" Hermione sped up the corridor to catch up with him. "Why's Snape's hated potion Veritaserum, Malfoy? Do you know?"

"You don't even know half of what Snape's been through," Draco said, fiercely. "I respect him, Granger. You'd be scared of telling the truth if you'd been through what his life's been like. Now leave me alone. I'm sure you've got better things to do."

***

As she jumped into the pool-like tub, Hermione's water gave an almighty splash. She surfaced for air, pulling her hair away from the front of her face, only to find that bubbles were floating about the room in their thousands. Merlin. She had only wanted to try the tap out. By the end of this, her paper would be soaked.

Hermione reached over the side of the bath and started to write her letter to Ron.

Dear Ron,

I feel much better today and have a lot to tell you when you get back.

I'll stop there and tantalise for tantalising's sake.

What happened to Harry? Isn't he going to write? Maybe Hedwig's on

one of her long hunts.

Hermione

Most people during their seven years at Hogwarts visited the prefect's bathroom: some by means of sharing, some just given the password by a largely accommodating friend. Last term alone there had been more than just a few unauthorised parties. Hermione, feeling sorry for Ginny, had shared the password - Ginny hadn't been made a prefect in her fifth year. Hermione had been sorry for it later when Ginny had pasted the password onto the Gryffindor's common room notice board. It was quite disturbing to imagine that say... Dean Thomas had once been standing on the same floor as you, stark naked.

The only girl in a line of boys, the baby of the family and now the only sibling not to have become a prefect. Well, there was always Fred and George, but nobody was ever going to condemn the Weasley twins for being 'prefect material.' And although Ginny claimed that her fondness of Harry was now at equilibrium, Hermione knew otherwise. She had heard the way Ginny's voice altered when she spoke to him. The way that she held herself differently in his presence. Seeming not to notice how attracted she was to him, Harry had yet to admit that he was attracted to her. Ever since he had dealt with his crush on Cho he could hardly even hold a conversation with Ginny without blushing. If she happened to touch him, even lightly, he ceased to speak at all. Hermione wished that they would come to terms with the fact that neither of them wanted to be just friends.

After swimming a few lengths of the pool, washing herself and her hair, Hermione clambered out of the bath and draped a towel around herself. When she was fully dressed, , she studied her reflection in the tall mirror. Surely she wasn't that terrible to look at. She might have had hair that could save her from the apocalypse, but he had practically been drooling over it when it had been straight at the Yule Ball. Yes, she was so small that she could fit into the same jumpers that she wore five years ago, but it wasn't as though she was completely out of proportion. Why did she care, anyway?