'Rowena,' barked Slytherin, in what almost sounded like alarm, and began to mount the stairs, his agitation evident.
'Get back,' hissed Hermione, glaring at him in revulsion. She stepped backward, seizing Draco's sleeve with her unwounded arm, almost pushing him behind her. As if she were trying to put herself between him and Slytherin. 'Just get back.'
Slytherin paused, looking up at them both out of dark, empty eyes.
Then he reached into his voluminous sleeve, and withdrew an object that glittered darkly in the half-light. He held it tightly for a moment, looking at Draco. Then he said, 'Here, boy. Catch.' And threw it, hard, directly at Draco's face.
Automatically, Draco raised the hand that wasn't holding the sword, and caught the object out of the air. Then gasped, as he felt a sudden jerk behind his navel; the world suddenly peeled down the center like an orange, and his vision flooded with a blur of color.
Portkey, he thought dizzily. He was aware of Hermione beside him, still clutching at his sleeve, and then the ground struck his feet, and he stumbled onto his knees, only just managing not to impale himself on the blade of the sword as he fell forward.
He glanced around, saw green grass growing up between cracked stone, saw a familiar, tumbledown wall, saw the line of trees that marked the beginning of the forest. And over the wall, he saw the tower from which they had just come. Slytherin had flung them outside the walls.
Hermione stared around, dazed. She could tell that they were now outside the walls of the tower — but why? She looked over at Draco, who had dropped the sword into the grass and was gazing around, looking furious.
'Goddamn it!' he yelled suddenly. 'I can't believe I fell for that!
'Here, catch!' That's the oldest trick in the book, right up there with
'Look out behind you!''
'That thing he threw at you,' she said, dazed. 'Was that a Portkey?'
'Must have been,' he said, staring down at the object that was clutched in his hand. He slowly opened his fingers and stared. It was a weathered piece of silver, in the shape of what looked like a bent, sideways X. A loop at the top showed where a chain could be threaded through it. 'Looks like a piece of cheap jewelry.'
'I can't believe he just let us go,' she said, suddenly.
Draco looked up, and frowned at her. 'Hermione, he's madder than
…well, I can't think of anything right now, but he'd madder than some very, very mad thing. He's completely, utterly bonkers.
Probably from having been dead so long.'
'He is mad,' she said quietly. 'But he's quite determined, as well.'
Draco got up, brushing grass off his clothes, and reached out a hand to help her up as well. She took it.
It was like an electric shock. She felt a jolt go through her as his hand met hers, felt the potion in her blood respond with a wave of heat and a sudden searing burst of longing.
She got slowly to her feet, staring at him. She could sense his confusion, worry and irritation — in fact, she felt as if every inch of her body was sensitized to what he might be feeling. The shock that had overwhelmed her when she had first seen him was beginning to wear off, to be replaced by a terrible, heavy, aching sort of weight.
And a small, cold voice in the back of her mind was telling her that that weight would be relieved if she just went over to him and -
No.
She yanked her hand away. 'Don't touch me.'
He looked at her, bewildered and with a rising anger in his eyes.
'What on earth is wrong with you, Hermione?'
'What's wrong with me?' she echoed, with a mirthless sort of laugh.
'I love you, that's what's wrong with me.'
Draco stared at her, looking as if he thought he hadn't heard her correctly. 'You what?'
'I love you.'
He shook his head. 'I don't — '
'I'm in love with you,' she said.
He went white, startlingly white — he looked more as if she had hit him than told him that she loved him. She felt as guilty as if she had hit him.
'No,' he said. 'You're in love with Harry.'
'That's true,' she said, clenching her fingers into fists of anxiety.
'That's true, but — didn't you hear what Slytherin said, back there on the stairs?'
'I thought we'd established that he was a few sandwiches short of a picnic,' said Draco. 'And frankly, I'm starting to wonder a bit about you.'
' Slytherin gave me a love potion,' Hermione said, expressionlessly.
'He meant for me to fall in love with him. It makes you fall in love with the first person you see after you drink it. Only the first person I saw,' she took a deep breath, 'was you.'
He stared at her, looking utterly stunned. 'A love potion,' he repeated uncertainly.
She nodded. 'Yes.'
'And so now you love me? Because of a potion?'
