A Future Uncertain

Chapter 14: Unsteady

"Granger, why are we here?" Draco asked, crossing his arms and tapping his foot on the hardwood floors of the library.

Hermione walked to the desk at the back of the library. Much like she predicted, Draco's eyes widened a fraction before going back to his usual glare.

"I've led you all this way so you could sit on a desk?" He looked even more angry than before, but Hermione was sure he was trying to overcompensate his anger in order to avoid giving away what the desk was hiding.

She patted the spot next to her, inviting him to sit with her.

Draco stalked over to her didn't want to give away the location of the entry by refusing to sit on the desk- it would just peak her endless curiosity. Sitting on the desk, he waited for an explanation.

"Can you just hurry-"

"Ouvrir Grotte" she whispered, opening the ground beneath them. Refusing to look at Malfoy, she continued the rest of the secret spell. "Sous."

He waited until the dark magic surrounded his body, and Hermione had hopped of the desk, before realizing the extent of what had just happened.

"How do you know about this room?" he asked, the blood draining from his face. Had she followed his father here? His parents would be sure to have heart attacks if they knew that the golden girl knew the location of their stash of dark books and objects.

Even more than that, this room was their one way ticket to Azkaban- and there was no getting around this.

Unless they kill her, he thought.

No, he wouldn't let that happen. He would do his time before another name was added to the list of dead at the hands of his parents. Even more than that, he didn't want her to die. She'd become a friend of sorts to him. If he needed to, he would just obliviate her- and be more careful about when they visited the room.

"-so you showed me this place and tookmetothepensive," she rushed, waving her hand to the back portion of the room. The pensive was there, but unseeable from the spot they stood.

Since he had missed what she had said, he asked, "What do you mean 'I took you here'? Only Malfoy's have been in this room."

"During the spell..." she repeated. "In the future, you brought me here to look at memories of us. Before I left, I asked for the spells to get into this room. You didn't want to give them to me, mostly because you didn't want me talking to you, but we're here now, and they were useful. Don't you think?"

She sounded like a loon to him.

And he told her as much.

"I'm not crazy. That's why I had to show you this, because you wouldn't believe me otherwise. That's why I think you reacted so poorly to the memory you saw. Unlike forgetting, or being hexed to forget, there was nothing for you to forget, or rather remember. The memories you saw were from my time in the future, but they didn't really exist. You weren't able to remember them, like the purpose of the chain, and I think that may have something to do with the reaction you had."

"Although, I can't be sure," she quickly added. "There's no one else we can really test it on. Unless... where is your floo network?" Hermione asked.

Ignoring her question, he asked, "So you're telling me we knew each other in this future? And we lived in Hogsmeade? In that house?"

"We didn't live in that house, we lived in..." Hermione started, but knew he wouldn't know the town's name. "A Muggle town."

There was no way he would live in a Muggle town. Even living with Hermione seemed like a long shot. Draco actually scoffed this time. "I would never live with a Mudblood."