Save The Date (A Drarry FanFiction)

Chapter Five (II)

II

The sound of Hermione's heels hitting the stone floor echoed off the walls and filled the whole corridor. No one but she and Ron were up at such a small hour of the morning it seemed, but they had no reason to fear reprimand.

They had been summoned.

"What on Earth do you think happened?" Ron hissed anxiously as he drew his dressing gown tighter around his body, his slippers thwacking on the floor. Hermione had elected to at least throw some clothes on when McGonagall's patronus had come to fetch them, but Ron had been in such a flurry he'd done well to pull his own dressing gown on and not Hermione's.

She shook her head. "You heard the same message I did." Which was that Harry, after going missing from the feast, had been found unconscious, deep in the Forbidden Forest, sometime in the last hour.

"What the hell was he doing out there?" Ron wondered angrily out loud.

As they approached the hospital wing, Hermione jutted her chin. "I think we're about to find out." At least, she hoped.

They pushed through the doors, then pulled up short. It appeared they weren't the only ones that had been called from their dorms. Pansy Parkinson was sat rigidly by one of the beds, holding its occupant's hand between her own as if it were made of paper. She looked up from the sleeping form of Malfoy, and took them in with her dark, almond eyes.

Hermione hated herself for not being able to stop the attempt to flatten her wild curls. But even in the dead of night, Pansy had still managed to find time for lip gloss and blush, her jet black hair was styled in a perfect bob, her blouse was without a single crease, and yet she had still beaten her and Ron to the hospital wing. Hermione hadn't even bothered to brush her teeth.

Her face was pinched. "About time," she drawled dispassionately, indicating Harry's unconscious form in the adjacent bed with a slender hand. "They're still alive at least."

Hermione could feel Ron beside her looking between Harry and Malfoy with his whole head. "What the- Why-"

"They were found together?" Hermione supplied, addressing Pansy directly. She sat the other side of Harry, so she and Ron could face the Slytherin with the two sleeping boys between them. She mirrored Pansy, and took Harry's cold hand in her own. "What happened?"

Pansy glanced off towards Madam Pomfrey's office, but it seemed she hadn't heard them come in and wasn't going to venture out any time soon. "I saw Potter follow after Draco, and thought I'd give them some time alone."

"What on Earth for?" Ron interjected.

Pansy tutted and rolled her eyes. "However, when it went past midnight and he'd still not returned, I did a locator spell. Imagine how impressed I was to be dragged not only out of the school, but into the bloody forest." She paused to stroke back a lick of blond hair and swallow. "I was rather looking forward to giving a nice long lecture on the effect frostbite can have on one's extremities, but then I find them both lying on the ground in the middle of a glade." She shifted uncomfortably. "They won't wake up."

"They're not just sleeping?" Hermione asked, taking Ron's hand in her left one, keeping Harry's firmly in the grasp of her other.

Pansy shook her head sadly, looking down at Malfoy. "Pomfrey says it's like they're in a coma. They're still alive, but their minds..." She bit her lip and rolled her shoulders back. "She says their minds are quite active."

"What does that mean?" Hermione asked, not sure she was grasping the gravity of the situation. "Doesn't that just indicate they're dreaming?"

Pansy shook her head. "McGonagall should be explaining this," she groused. "I don't know what I'm talking about."

It was a rare moment of humility that took Hermione by surprise. It was nice that the returning Slytherins had mellowed considerably as much as she'd seen so far, but it still made her sit back and consider her response. "Well, you know more than us," she encouraged.

Pansy tilted her head and seemed to accept the praise. "Quite. Well, they were reasonably deep into the forest, off the beaten track for sure. They must have been lying there for quite some time." Her eyes became shiny as she rested the flat of her hand on Draco's chest, slowly rising and falling under her touch. "They were so cold I thought for a second they were dead."

Ron sucked in a breath of air. "Shouldn't they be in St Mungo's?" he demanded in a hiss, as if he was worried about waking Harry up.

But Pansy shook her head. "McGonagall didn't want to move them too far. It was risky enough getting them back to the castle, but it didn't seem right leaving them out in the cold."

"Damn right," Ron said with a sniff, then seemed to realise he'd just agreed with a Slytherin. Before he could correct himself, Hermione addressed Pansy.

"So, were they attacked?" she asked, her blood running cold. There had been a number of Death Eaters rounded up in the wake of Voldemort's defeat, but the idea that one of them could have gained access to the school grounds turned her stomach.

Pansy pulled a sticky, pink lip between her teeth. "McGonagall wasn't sure. There were residual trace elements of magic, but it wasn't anything she recognised, and she was more concerned about getting them to safety than taking a good look around."

"That bloody forest," Ron growled. "When are they going to regulate it properly – it's dangerous!"

Pansy stared at him. "Eight years, and you've only just figured this out?"

Hermione yanked him down as he tried to shoot to his feet. She'd learned enough about the Slytherin girl to know when she was winding someone up. "So what makes Pomfrey think they aren't just dreaming?"

Pansy, who had ignored Ron's outburst entirely, patted Draco's chest then sat back, his hand once more cupped between her two. "She and McGonagall performed a few tests before we brought them back here. They said the brain activity was like they were fully awake and stimulated. It could be they don't know they're asleep."

That troubled Hermione. Harry's mind was a dark and dangerous place at times, and if he was trapped in there, there was no telling what awful scenarios he might be conjuring.