"YOU KNOW WE LOVE YOU, DRACO!" Samantha and Brianna screeched, hugging Draco until it seemed as though they were trying to choke him.
"Yeah, that's... nice..." Draco said, gasping for air.
Samantha and Brianna released him. "There! All better!" Samantha exclaimed. Draco rolled his eyes.
"Thanks for choking me. I feel so loved now," Draco said as Hermione and the rest of her friends passed them. Ron looked extremely happy, probably because Hermione was no longer with Draco.
"Anytime," Brianna said, grinning.
"Well, I have to get going back to my common room... I still can see Hermione, you know," Draco said, remembering he and Hermione still had to share a common room.
"Yeah, well, good luck with that. We'll see you tomorrow, Draco!" Samantha said as she and Brianna caught up with some other Slytherin girls and walked back to the Slytherin common room.
Draco sighed and walked back to his common room. Now he'd have to go through the entire year with seeing Hermione in classes, but not being able to talk to her. Well, this year really sucks... he thought as he kicked the ground.
He gloomily walked into the common room and sat down in a chair, staring at the walls. He really didn't feel like doing his homework at the moment, nor did he feel like starting on the decorations for the Halloween Ball.
It was then he realized something. Damn, how are Hermione and I supposed to work on the decorations together?
Well, this was going to be much harder than he'd thought.
* * *
The next day, Draco woke up, still asleep on the common room chair. He noticed Hermione sleeping on the couch next to him. She was probably just as upset as he was. At least, that's how it looked to Draco.
Suddenly, the common room door burst open, and in came one Slytherin prefect and one Gryffindor prefect. "Draco! Hermione! Come quick, something terrible's happened!" one of them shouted. Hermione awoke, startled at the sudden noise, and jumped off the couch, following the two prefects and Draco out of the door.
"What's going on?" Draco asked, nearly out of breath as they ran down two flights of stairs at what seemed like top speed.
"We'll explain when we get there, just hurry up!" one of them shouted, sharply turning a corner as they lead the two towards the Great Hall.
They stopped once they got into the Great Hall, and Draco was shocked at what he was seeing.
Ginny Weasley was lying on the ground, unconscious, but still breathing, though very quickly. She looked awfully pale, and her eyes were wide with fear. Oh no... this can't be... Voldemort. Draco thought with horror.
Dumbledore, McGonagall, Ron, and Whitney were leaning over her. "We're really in danger now, Dumbledore..." Draco heard McGonagall mumble.
Dumbledore straightened up when he saw Draco and Hermione. "It seems as though this is the first of Voldemort's many attacks. I'm sorry." Hermione looked as though she was on the verge of tears, and Draco could do nothing about it.
"How could this have happened?" Hermione whispered, looking down at her friend with wide eyes. Even though Draco didn't personally know Ginny as Hermione did, he felt very bad for her.
Ron stood up and walked over to Draco. "Okay, I'm still pissed off at you for dating Hermione, but... I guess you're not so bad... 'cause, well, Hermione told me last night you would never let anyone hurt her... so I gotta say I'm kind of sorry for being such a git to you all these years. Especially now," he said, jerking his head over to Ginny.
"Yeah, I'm kind of sorry, too... and sorry about your sister, by the way," Draco said. Hermione's smile was about a mile wide as she listened to the two boys' conversation.
Madam Pomfrey, the school nurse, came in with a stretcher for Ginny, and immediately took her to the hospital wing as the whole school watched in silence.
"It's nice to see a rivalry finally put to rest, but I must warn you... Voldemort will be after you now," McGonagall said as she walked over to Draco, Ron, and Hermione.
"Well, we'll just take that chance," Ron replied with a grin.
"Alright, I suppose... now, I must have a word with Mr. Potter over here..." McGonagall said, walking over to Harry, who was talking with Sapphire, Rachel, and Chairee.
Hermione suddenly gave Ron a big hug. "Finally! You finally realized you needed to stop being so nasty to Draco all the time!" This little moment reminded Draco of Samantha and Brianna's "hug" the previous night.
Sapphire, Rachel, and Chairee then walked over to them. "Hey, how's it going?" Chairee asked as they stopped in front of them.
"Uh, pretty good..." Ron replied, though he was clearly worried about his sister. Whitney had gone with her instead of Ron, though no one really knew why.
"Hey, um, I'm gonna go find my friends... see you guys around," Draco said.
"Bye, Draco!" The girls all said at the same time. Ron just simply waved with a slight smile on his face.
Draco found Samantha and Brianna talking to Pansy with extremely annoyed looks on their faces. He chuckled; he felt sorry for the two girls for having to talk to the most annoying person Draco had ever met.
Pansy's eyes narrowed as Draco approached, and she quickly said goodbye to Samantha and Brianna and left.
"Hey, what did Pansy want?" Draco asked.
"She was just saying how lucky we are to lose a Gryffindor even though she's not technically dead," Brianna replied.
"Yeah, she's such a loser; all she does is think about herself," Samantha added with a grin.
"And now you know the pain I've suffered for the past six years..." Draco said.
The whole school was talking and laughing as if nothing had happened, though anyone with half a brain knew this was only to take off the sadness of what was really happening. Maybe the Halloween Ball at the end of the month was just what this school needed.