Her eyes snapped open, but all she could see was a blur of black and white, things around her seemed to merge into one another and she let out quite a frightened gasp. She moved to cover her mouth with her hands but realised her left hand was latched onto something else. It was Draco's hand. She turned to him, the only thing clear and real enough to focus on.
He had a similar look of surprise and a touch of fear on his face as he looked around at the world that slowly started to settle around them.
They didn't let go of each other, even when realising they easily could, until eventually everything around them stopped moving and their eyes adjusted to decipher that they were in a dark, small and quite empty room.
Draco unclasped his hand from Hermione's, feeling just a little colder as the connection vanished. They stared around in wonder. McGonagall had been right, this dream, hallucination, whatever it was, felt very real.
The room had a mirror in it, and two chairs surrounding an unlit fireplace. The only light that entered the room was streaming in through the gaps around the door frame. The walls were a dark wood, as was the floor, and there was a very musty smell about the place. And the air. The air was thick with misery. It was difficult to describe but the whole atmosphere just felt very depressing.
Draco was the first to eventually catch his breath and speak up.
"This is not what I was expecting," he said.
"Neither. This is so... Strange. It doesn't feel like a dream at all," Hermione's voice was very quiet.
"I know. I suppose we go through this door then?" he asked.
"Yes, I suppose so."
As Draco reached for the door, Hermione's hand rested on his shoulder and he turned in confusion before opening it.
"Good luck out there, whatever it is you'll be up against, I'm sure it won't be pleasant so just... I hope you get through ok."
Draco stared in slight amazement at her. She was actually being kind? He felt the urge to give a smug response of some sort but his sudden wish to be on good terms with her stopped him. So instead he merely nodded, giving a grave smile of appreciation; and as her hand slipped off his shoulder he opened the door to the light.
It was corridor. A very long corridor, to which neither could see the end. The single glowing light above them was not connected to anything and simply floated above them, allowing them only about 3m of vision from where they were standing.
Draco suddenly realised his plan to go on alone probably wasn't so great, and he instinctively took his place protectively in front of Hermione as they advanced slowly down the corridor.
Hermione was just as surprised as Draco himself as he silently took a step in front of her, his arm very slightly raised as if to guard her. But she accepted his help willingly, and immediately felt a little better knowing he was there, and not going to run off.
They'd gotten about 20m from the door they came out, and the light had gotten a lot higher and brighter, allowing them to see much further both in front and behind them, until all of a sudden the door had slammed shut on its own, causing Hermione to let out a short scream and Draco a gasp, as a dark figure was quickly approaching them, wand out.
They both started to run, hands on their own wands at the ready, but the second they turned round to go they'd been blocked by another dark figure.
It was tall, and looked as if it weren't even human at all. Thinking quickly, both shouted, "Stupify!" and then ran ahead past the figure they'd just knocked out the way.
The corridor seemed to have gotten considerably wider and then suddenly it split off into two separate ways, Draco ran for the left, expecting Hermione to follow, however she was compelled to go down the other. The light split in two so each had their own. He couldn't stop though, the figure was gaining on him.
"Granger!" he shouted as he ran, praying she could still hear him through the wall that now separated them.
"Malfoy! Where did you go?!" she screamed back loudly. Good, at least they could hear each other.
"I don't know, just, keep running! And don't look back!"
So he continued to run, until eventually thinking straight and he turned back and sent a curse back at the figure following him. The figure simply disappeared when hit. And so Draco stopped to take a breath. There was silence all around him.
"Granger?" he whispered, as if trying to avoid drawing the attention of anyone else.
No response.
He sighed, heart dropping a little and decided to continue on down the corridor until he came to a door, much like the one they had entered through. Taking a deep breath he opened the door swiftly and stepped through into a large cave like room. There were shards of rock all over the place and a sort of hill of rocks rose in the centre, where on top, his father stood, staring down at him.
Before he could register this, he heard a door slam to the right of him and saw it was Hermione, who had entered through a door on the other side of the room.
They both gave a well hidden sigh of relief when their eyes met, and then when Hermione looked to where Draco could see his father, she screamed and ran at Lucius.
Confused, Draco looked back up to his father, who now had Potter by the neck, wand pointing directly at him.
Hermione was feeling ridiculously out of breath as she climbed the steep rock side to get to Harry. When she'd gotten separated from Draco in the corridor, she'd suddenly felt very lost but just kept running, feeling unable to turn around, until she got to the door.
Lucius was getting closer and she could hear his smooth and taunting voice threaten Harry who stood there struggling. He looked beaten and worn out.
Out of pure anger, she went to curse Lucius, but a sudden light flashed from beside her as she realised Draco had now caught up with her easily and struck his own father.
She turned to him, slightly in shock, but he just continued running, up to his father who had now dropped Harry and was on the floor.
Draco went right up to him. His father lay there, quite clearly in pain. But he felt no sympathy whatsoever.
His father looked up to him with pleading eyes, eyes that looked so real, nearly glistening, in the strange lighting of the room. Tempted to show mercy, Draco began to lower his wand, but Lucius managed to recover so fast Draco couldn't react, and looked his son dead in the eye as he cast, "Crucio."
His knees buckled under the immense pain that shot through him.
"Draco!" screamed Hermione, not even realising it was the first time she'd called him by his first name.
She ran to him, and then stopped in horror as when she reached him, the land had flattened out, and she could see beyond where they were standing.
Bodies, were everywhere. Ron, Ginny, Luna, Neville, and countless others lay lifeless, Harry being the only one left standing but looking the weakest she'd ever seen. She had to struggle to stay standing at the terrible sight before her.
Wanting to help both boys, she settled on first disarming Lucius.
His wand flew from his hand and Draco's tense and shaking body calmed as the curse stopped.
Lucius turned to her, a murderous look in his eyes.
"How dare you," he said, totally enraged. "You disgusting mudblood, trying to act like some sort of martyr. You won't win, the Dark Lord will conquer, as he has done so to your friends," he said, sinisterly motioning to the bodies that laid around them. Tears threatened to spill from Hermione's eyes. "You've been worthless from the start, can't even save your friends, now get..."
He was cut off suddenly by a bright green light.
Hermione had heard Draco utter it. One of the unforgivable curses.
"Avada Kedavra."
Mouth wide open in horror, Hermione watched as Lucius' body fell to the floor, and then dissolved into nothing.
Trying to keep her balance, she slowly looked round to Draco, who she could've sworn was wiping a tear from his face. Too scared to speak, she looked back to hopefully find Harry but he'd vanished, along with all the other bodies that had been there only moments ago.
Draco felt as though he wanted to collapse. He'd just killed his father without thinking. Not really being able to move he simply stood, staring at the spot where his father had disappeared. That is, until Hermione's voice spoke, barely a whisper, "there's the trophy."
Wearily, he looked up. She was right, the trophy was right there, in the centre of the flat plain of rock they currently stood on.
"Just, just give me a second Granger," he said, and rather ungracefully sat himself on the floor.
All sorts of emotions ran through him. He was quite pissed off, that his sub-conscious had managed to involve his father in this. He guessed it was bound to happen though, his father probably counted as one of his weaknesses as Dumbledore had put it.
Draco was so involved with his thoughts he hadn't noticed Hermione come and sit opposite him.
She studied him, almost being able to see his mind whirring away behind his unclear eyes. His usually perfect hair had gone wavy in the struggle, and now several strands fell on to his face. His features weren't quite as stern as usual, if anything he just looked damaged, hurt. If anything he even looked quite innocent.
She shook her head. Honestly Hermione, she thought to herself, she couldn't really start to feel sorry for Malfoy? After everything he'd ever done to her? But she really couldn't help it.
After a while had passed of letting Draco try to regain his cool, she tugged a little on his sleeve.
"Come on, let's get out of here."
He looked up to her and silently stood and followed her over to the trophy, which they both grabbed the handles of.
The rocks around them began to crumble and they instantly interlocked their free hands with each other again for comfort. Neither could really believe that they were holding hands, for comfort. Draco smiled a little though, he liked holding her hand. As wrong as it should've been, it simply wasn't.
The world slowly swirled around them into a blur of black and white, the same they had witnessed upon their arrival. Then total black.
Then total white. They blinked rapidly at the light and as their eyes adjusted, they realised they had now awoken and were back in the room of beds. Draco's first reaction was to check Hermione was ok, which she was, however her looks told a different story. Her eyes were a bit red, as if she'd been crying, and she was covered in sweat, as was he. Her eyes opened seconds after his own, and she let out a gasp for air as if she'd been holding it the entire time. Their hands were still together, and Draco made no attempt to let go, but Hermione eventually let go and they lay there, trying to recollect their thoughts for a moment.
After letting it set in that they were back in school, Hermione sat up and looked around. All the other beds were empty and all she could now see was Dumbledore approaching them.
"Hello there Miss Granger, Mr Malfoy," he said in an almost annoyingly cheery voice. "How did you find it?"
"Horrible," she answered bluntly, "really, incredibly horrible." She'd answered for both her and Draco, who currently seemed unable to put together any words.
Dumbledore looked at her sympathetically.
"Where's everyone else? And how long were we out for?" she asked.
"They all finished ten minutes ago, so we let them go instead of having to wait for you two. And only half an hour."
"Well, sorry to be such a drag," Draco interjected sarcastically. It felt like so much longer than just half an hour. "That was way too intense," he let out.
Dumbledore just smiled a little, "this is all just part of preparation. It's important to be pushed to your limits so you can know how to handle it if it were to ever happen in real life. The dreams may have been made a bit extreme yes, but it's all for your benefit. Everyone has the rest of the day off."
They were all silent for a moment, and then Dumbledore dismissed them. Together, Draco and Hermione walked out of the room and made their way back to their common rooms. Neither said anything until they were about to part ways, and Hermione stopped Draco before he could carry on walking.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"What for?" he asked defensively.
"Well, that can't have been easy, and I didn't exactly help, in fact I probably only made it worse for you," she said, not really knowing why there was such a need to apologise.
"It's ok, you tried to help. I'm sorry you had to see that anyway," he said very genuinely.
"And don't worry," she added, "I won't tell anyone about it."
Draco let out a small sigh of relief. "Thank you."
They shared a smile, and then Draco's turned to a smirk as he remembered something.
"You know, you called me Draco in that dream."
"I did?" Hermione said, blushing a little. "Well it was unintentional, you're still my mortal enemy," she said, half jokingly. He walked a little closer to her smiling, "and you're still mine. But I guess now we've taken that all important next step in our relationship, I can call you by your first name too. So, I guess I'll see you around, Hermione." She giggled a little as he put a ridiculous amount of emphasis on her name. He returned the smile and then as he walked off to get back to his dorm, she stopped him again.
"And thank you," she added hastily. "For what?" he asked.
"Saving me." With that she turned and he left to attempt to sleep properly with a small smile on his face. He felt so drained, physically and emotionally, even though everything that had just happened had all been inside his head. It just felt so real.
Hermione also walked off to her dorm with the intention of immediately getting some sleep, however she was stopped in the common room by Harry and Ron, who were excitedly talking about what they just did. She would keep her word to Draco though, she wouldn't give them the details.
She smiled slightly as she thought about him, maybe he had changed this year, but for the better.
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A/N; WOW well this is like twice as long as any other chapter, but boy was it worth it, idk I just kind of wanted to get task 1 all into a single chapter, hope you enjoyed! Don't worry, next chapter will be a little calmer.