Left Behind 3: Curses

Blame

"Hermione," Ron's voice came towards her slowly, like a sound traveling through sludge. Her name, repeated over and over in the dark. Other words there too, like 'come back' and 'don't leave us' and 'we need you.'

I need you, Draco's voice this time, in her head, yet loud and clear.

She had to wake up to find him.

Hermione blinked open her eyes. 

As before, everything was blurry and painful. She pushed away the fog, clawed it back.

"Hermione!"

"Ron?" 

Her friend's face came into focus slowly. He wore a gentle expression, nothing like the Ron she had seen in Draco's memory. Nothing like that hateful Ron from her dream.

"Hermione, thank Merlin you're alive," Ron squeezed her hand and then, sat back in his chair. "When Harry said you woke up I almost didn't believe it, but then I came to see you and those veins had started getting smaller."

The veins were getting smaller?

A flicker of triumph passed through Hermione, she really was winning.

"Water," she managed the single word. Her throat was dry and her mouth felt like she had been chewing on cotton balls all night.

With everything else going on, she was happy to know that the veins were getting smaller. A part of her had wondered if she was making any progress against the dark. Ron's words added the comfort to her heart of believing she was genuinely fighting the Darkness back and killing it in those strange dreams.

The lines between reality and dream were blurring for her.

Everything inside her head felt so real.

It also felt like she had been fighting the darkness for weeks....which meant it could be since she'd seen Draco...or months. She wasn't sure how time worked while fighting off a curse in her head.

Ron handed her a glass of water and she took it in her shaking hands drinking several sips letting the cool liquid run down her parched throat. 

She was careful not to drink to quickly this time. 

Ron's steadying hand on the glass should have been a comfort, but given everything going on inside her all she wanted to do was pull away from him.

You shouldn't feel that way, she told herself. Even if you have feeling for Draco it shouldn't change the fact that you care about Ron.

I do care about Ron, her mind answered back, but what he did to Draco casting that curse...Hermione remembered the look she had seen in Ron's eyes while viewing Draco's memory of the attack.

"Am I dead?" she asked the words falling from her mouth even though it hardly seemed a logical question to ask, a part of her needed to ask it anyways.

"Nope," said Ron shaking his head. "It was pretty close though. We found you in Draco's room..." Ron swallowed for a second seeming to hesitate before saying the next part. "On his bed.... Somehow he managed to force the curse from himself onto you."

Force the curse on her?

Hermione snorted mentally, as if. Draco had begged her to keep away from it. If anything he was probably pissed off at her for not listening to him...again.

He knew what he was getting into when he went and fell in love with you.

In Love.

Draco had told her that he loved her.