Unexpected Union

Chapter 28

He held his wand aloft and muttered "Lumos" to light his was. He had no idea where Harry and Ginny had gone off to, but he didn't see them behind him. They must have gone to the other way. As he approached a large bin, he heard the squeak of a rat, and then a high-pitched squeal before a mass of blonde hair rushed out from behind the dumpster screeching, "get it off, get it off," as she ran away from him down the alley. Before Draco could react, he heard "incarcerous" and the flailing blonde dropped to the cold wet ground. Ginny and Harry stepped forward, lit by Harry's wand. Ginny had stunned whoever it was now laying on the cobblestone.

"Well done," Harry said to his girlfriend as they all approached the blonde heap.

Ginny reached down and pulled the hair away from struggling girl. "Lavender? What the hell? Why did you run?" Ginny asked in shock.

Draco reached down and took the girl's chin and not so gently turned her to face him, "Where is Hermione?"

"I...I have no idea what you're talking about," Lavender said, "Why would I know where that little tramp is?"

"You're lying," Harry accused, "Why were you lurking in the alley behind the Three Broomsticks?"

"I was taking a shortcut and then you three startled me," Lavender said.

"You look like you've been crying. What happened?" Ginny said. There was no concern for Lavender evident in her tone.

"She....she said some awful things to me, Hermione did." Lavender said.

"So you did see her? Which is it?" Draco demanded.

"She hauled me out into the alleyway and told me that Won-Won was hers and that she was going to make sure that he'd break up with me, so she could have him all to herself," Lavender cried.

"Well, now I know you're lying. You never were very smart Lavender," Ginny said with a huff.

"Tell me now. Where. Is. Hermione?" Draco yelled as he grabbed the blonde's shirt front and lifted her off the ground by it, "Tell me!"

Lavender's eyes went wide with fright and her mouth began working open and closed like a fish out of water. "I swear, if you don't tell me what happened, I'll drag you to the dungeons and interrogate you with veritaserum." Drago threatened. "You can save us all a lot of trouble if you just speak now. The truth. What did you do to her?!"

Draco's eyes were nearly black with rage. It was taking all of his control to not fly off the handle and torture the blonde for the information. He knew she knew more than she was saying. His entire body shook with the effort to control the fury within him.

"Draco, mate, put her down," Harry said. He had never seen the young Malfoy quite like this before. He too was worried for Hermione, he had a bad feeling that something was quite wrong, but he also knew wringing Lavender's neck wouldn't find her, as much as he'd like to right then.

Draco looked over at his former rival, and let out a long breath in order to calm himself as he set the girl back down on the ground, where the invisible binds from Ginny's incarcerous spell still held her immobile. Ginny leaned over the other girl and got right up to her ear before whispering, "If you tell us now, we'll go easy on you. If you keep up this charade, I'll let Draco do all of the terrible wicked things that I'm sure he's imagining right now."

As Ginny pulled back from Lavender's ear, her mouth pulled into a satisfied smirked when she saw the abject terror written plainly all over Lavender's features. "Okay. Okay. I'll tell you. It was just a prank. Just some revenge to get her to stay away from our men," Lavender started.

She was interrupted by Draco, "What do you mean 'our men'?"

"You and Ron," Lavender answered quietly, "Pansy said this would be foolproof. She'd never bother us again. I could be with Ron, and she could be with you."

It was Draco's turn to now feel fear. If Pansy was involved, there was no telling how much danger Hermione was in. He knew firsthand the level of ruthlessness that Pansy was capable of. "Where? Where is she? What's the plan?" He demanded.

"I was just supposed to tell her that Ron was going to jump off the Astronomy tower and get her to go there alone. She said she'd take care of the rest," Lavender sobbed.

Draco took off running, not even paying attention to what the others were doing. He darted out of the alley to the Quidditch store around the corner. He pointed his wand and yelled, "Accio broom" at the new Nimbus 3000 displayed in the window. The broom crashed through the large pane of glass with a resounding smash and then zoomed through the air to him. He did not hesitate to launch himself on it and flew as fast as he could in the direction of Hogwarts.

Terror unlike anything he'd ever experienced before gripped Draco as he flew through the cold dark winter night. If anything bad had happened to her, he didn't know what he would do. He had no idea what Pansy had planned, but he knew her well enough to know that it was bad. If she wanted Hermione out of the way, she'd stop at nothing.