Dreaming of Drarry

Chapter Eight: Tears and Slytherins

Draco sat next to Pansy, who was still shocked at Blaise's resorting. He had dragged her out to the courtyard entryway after she had attempted to go after Blaise when he had silently risen from his seat and calmly left the Great Hall. Draco knew his friend, and he knew that Blaise had just wanted to leave Slytherin house as quick and painlessly as possible.

"I can't believe that he actually has to leave the house." Pansy said solemnly, "I mean, this seems almost cruel, right?"

Draco put a friendly, comforting arm around his friend. "Don't worry about Blaise," he began, "he can take care of himself. What you should be worried about is poor Ravenclaw house!" The joke was meant to be soothing, but didn't seem to have much of an effect.

"Oh, I know he can take care of himself. It's just, we won't be able to see him as much!" Pansy elaborated.

"We can still see him, Ravenclaw has classes with Slytherin. And there's always off days, meals, after class, we can see him almost whenever!"

"But it won't be the same, will it?"

Draco didn't quite know how to reply in a manner that would be both truthful and reassuring. However, he never got the chance to, as a wailing noise seemed to be approaching at a tremendous speed.

"What on earth...?" Pansy inquired to no one in particular as she stood up to see what was going on. However, before she had the chance to stand fully upright, an apparently distraught girl charged into the courtyard, crashing into Pansy and sending both girls tumbling over the cobblestones.

"Pansy!" Cried Draco, still not sure what exactly had happened. Nevertheless, he moved towards the two girls sprawled on the stones.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

Pansy murmured something that sounded like "Do I look like I'm okay?" before heaving herself into a sitting position.

Draco released a sigh of relief that his only remaining friend in Slytherin was okay. Looking over at the other girl, who was still lying face down, he noticed that she was sobbing uncontrollably. Pansy, also noticing that the girl was sobbing, suddenly shifted from being comforted to doing the comforting.

"Oh my, are you okay?" She asked with genuine concern. "What happened?"

When the girl failed to respond, Pansy gestured to Draco to help her. The two of them then rolled the girl onto her back. Draco gasped at what he saw.

Laying in front of them was Hermione Granger, red-faced and tear-stained.

Draco's face formed a sneer at the girl out of habit, but once realising that she was now a fellow Slytherin, quickly dropped it.

"Granger? Granger, what's wrong?" Pansy demanded.

Before Hermione could respond, however, Ginny and Harry ran into the courtyard. Spotting Hermione on the ground between Draco and Pansy, they stopped short.

"Hermione, are you okay?", Ginny hurriedly asked, at the same time Harry blurted out "What's going on here?", clearly confused as to the presence of the Slytherins.

When Hermione merely gave a sob in response to both questions, Pansy spoke up.

"I don't think that she's injured, if that's what you meant by okay. Because other than

physically, she is most definitely not okay."

"Well, what's she doing laying on the ground then?" demanded Harry.

"Probably has to do with the fact that she came flying in here like someone had lit the tail end of her broomstick on fire and barreled into Pansy. Luckily for her, I think Hermione used Pansy to break her fall." responded Draco, desperately attempting to avoid talking like his usual snobbish self.

Seemingly satisfied with the response, Ginny attempted to help Hermione to her feet. However, she was unsuccessful, in part because Hermione was refusing to stand on her own feet, insisting between sobs that she would much rather remain on the ground alone, or something to that effect.

Finally, getting tired of the whole situation, Draco suggested that they simply carry her down to Slytherin house and lay her on a bed, or a couch, or anything, so long as they were out of the courtyard. Agreeing to the plan, the four of them each took one of Hermione's limbs and began slowly carrying her to the dungeons. Most of the journey took place in silence, punctuated only by the occasional choking noise from Hermione.

As they got closer to their destination, the path became ever more confusing. At one intersection of corridors, Ginny, who was holding one of Hermione's legs, asked which way to go. Harry simultaneously answered "Left" with Draco and Pansy, which earned him some strange looks from all coherent members of the party.

"And how would you know that, Potter?", Draco asked, immediately regretting his tone once again.

Harry uncomfortably adjusted his glasses with his free hand.

"Um, well, natural instinct I guess..." He mumbled under his breath.

"I'd put it down to a lucky guess." Pansy added, in a half-hearted attempt to save Harry from the awkward moment. "Well, here we are!", she proclaimed as the group came to a halt outside a seemingly random wall.

"I should really leave now," Ginny said, "I really don't want to intrude..."

"Intrude? They'll hardly notice you're there!", spoke Draco, more to remind himself that no one would attack him for carrying Hermione through the common room than to answer Ginny. "I mean, today's a tad chaotic in the house, and you would have a good enough reason!"

With Ginny reluctantly agreeing, Pansy muttered "Redemptio", revealing a passageway. As they walked into the passage, Draco looked over and saw Harry's face tense up, causing Draco to worry about what the reaction would be when Harry was spotted.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO CHASE ME WITH A PITCHFORK AND BURN ME AT THE STAKE FOR NOT UPDATING I WOULD NOT BLAME YOU but I mean if you did that who knows when I would update again? So I am REALLY sorry that it took this long and I have absolutely no excuse and I apologize for it. But I logged onto wattpad today and saw that 3.1K people have read this across 23 countries and that really inspired me to write this chapter because I think that's about twice as many reads as last time I checked (Also my friends have been continuously ordering me to write and I found the unfinished chapter today). So thank you for waiting, sorry for the wait, and feel free to rant about me in the comments. (Also any votes and other comments would be much appreciated!) And before I forget my editor is the same as all previous chapters and the creator of the picture is the amazing Agretfethr!