A Dark Surprise

    As Hermione cried softly into Harry’s shoulder, he felt the wet of her tears seeping through his robes. She gripped onto his clothing as if he would leave her if she didn’t hold on for dear life. They were alone in the hospital wing, and she’d only woken up moments ago. Professor McGonagall was outside the hospital wing doors, to make sure no one tried to hurt Harry or Hermione. Ron had stayed with Harry for awhile, but he’d been taken to the Great Hall with everyone else.

    “The whole time, I just kept thinking that I wished you were there,” confessed Hermione.

     Harry looked down at her tear-stained face and smiled, he was doing his best to comfort her.

    “I think I’m just going to pretend I’m still asleep when everyone comes in,” joked the tearful Hermione, “I just don’t want to have to go back and live through it again.”

    “I know what you mean, but Dumbledore’s got the whole school on alert, I, er, heard Snape talking about using a spell to wake you if you didn’t get up soon.”

    Hermione groaned and tried to compose herself. She used her right hand to wipe tears from her eyes, before it got too wet and she lifted up her left hand to take over. She felt a sudden stinging in her upper arm before remembering what had happened and let it down suddenly. She looked up at Harry to see if he noticed her cringing, and then kept her arm down from then on. She didn’t want him to see what she knew was there, not yet anyway.

    Just then, Professor McGonagall, Snape and Madam Pomfrey entered the hospital wing.

    “I will not permit you to conduct any form of magic on that girl Professor Snape!” screamed the nurse in anger.

   “Ah, looks like you won’t be needing that spell after all, Severus,” declared Professor McGonagall, as she pulled open the curtain to find Hermione awake.

   Instead of acknowledging her visitors, Hermione just dug her face into Harry’s shoulder. ‘This is so unlike Hermione’, Harry thought, ‘she’s never shy.’ He just looked up at his professors innocently and shrugged.

    “Hermione, Professor Dumbledore will be coming down soon, and we’re going to need to know what happened last night,” said Prof. McGonagall cautiously.  

     Hermione lifted her head and nodded slightly, before pulling away from Harry and sitting up straighter, despite the pain still controlling her body.

     “Can Harry stay?” she muttered quietly.

     “Of course,”said a voice from the entrance, and the room turned to see that the headmaster was standing by the door.

     He walked over to Hermione’s bed and pulled up a chair at the end of the bed, and motioned for the other two professors to do the same. Harry was surprised to see Snape looking somewhat sympathetic towards Hermione, however whenever he looked at Harry his eyes were full of the same disgust he showed in Potion’s class.

     Hermione broke the expectant silence with the obvious question, “I guess I should start then?”.

    “Please,” said McGonagall sympathetically.

     Hermione sighed in grief, and looked down at her knees while talking. She spoke quietly, sobbing occasionally throughout the monologue, while she told the others about how she had been in the library since seven that night. At 2:30 in the morning she realised how late it was, and packed her bags to leave for the common room, but when she walked around a bookcase to leave the library, she saw a dark, tall, hooded figure coming towards the desk by the front. He pulled out a wand, and he muttered something and stunned Madam Pince, the librarian. She got scared, and turned off the lantern and hid in a dark corner, but he’d already seen her and he started to come after her with his wand out.

       Before she could pull her wand out from her robes, he was already infront of her, and screamed out “crucio”. Hermione skipped through telling her companions about what had happened after that, but Harry knew the pain of the cruciatus curse, and found himself putting his arm around her without thinking. He had stopped the curse suddenly, and when the pain had subsided, she opened her eyes to find the hooded figure standing over her. She reached over beside her for her wand, and tried to finish “impedimenta”, but he screamed out “avada kedavra” at the same time, and she was thrown against the walls with such a force that she blacked out entirely.

       “A-and then when I woke up I just ran back to the common room, and y-you know what happened from there,” finished a pale-looking Hermione.

       “Are you sure that’s all?” probed Prof. McGonagall.

       Hermione nodded slowly, looking down at her lap instead of at the questioning eyes around her.

       Snape shot her a demanding glance, but McGonagall gave him an even more powerful look that stopped him before he could say anything. She turned back to Hermione, who was about to lie back on her bed. She called for Madam Pomfrey, who arrived with a goblet with a purple foamy liquid inside it.

        “For a dreamless sleep,” she explained, as she lifted it to the tired girl’s mouth.

         With that, the adults left Harry and Hermione alone, as she let her head fall onto the pillow and drift off into a quiet sleep.