Chapter 2

The next morning, Hermione awoke to a knocking outside her door.

"Mione! Mione, open up please!"

"Mmmm," she moaned as she stretched, her aching muscles complaining. "Hold your hippogriffs, Ron! I'm coming."

Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, Hermione grimaced at the cold floor beneath her feet. As she made her way over to the door, she straightened her nightdress out and tried to pat her hair down so she wouldn't look a complete mess for her boyfriend.

"Hallo," she mumbled, opening the door slowly.

"Mione..."

"Yes, Ron?" Her tongue felt thick, and her speech sounded slurred from lack of sleep.

"Gods, you're beautiful in the morning." He pushed his way inside her room roughly.

Although she was surprised at first, Hermione remembered Dumbledore taking off the wards for her room when she had explained that she, Harry, and Ron needed a place to be alone for their Order work. The head girl's room was only logical, seeing as nobody else, save for the head boy and the teachers, had entry. She thought he would have put them back on by now, but no matter; it felt too good being kissed like this to care.

She wrapped her arms around Ron's neck and admired how sculpted he had become from Quidditch. She didn't realize they were moving until she felt her back pressed up against the wall. She moaned slightly as Ron's lips caressed her neck. As soon as she felt his hands pulling her nightdress up, though, she panicked. She tried to push back against him, but his body weight and strength kept her pinned against the rough stone.

"Ron. Slow down. Ron, stop, you're hurting me! Please!"

"Mmmm, yeah, baby, beg for me," he murmured against her as his hands kept up their ministrations.

A feeling of dread hit Hermione like an Expelliarmus. Was he going to rape her, right here, before breakfast even started? What would happen if she kept saying no? Would her beloved Ron stop? Would he respect her wishes to remain a virgin until marriage? The way he was acting, she didn't know.

"Ron, STOP!" She yelled as loudly as she could, hoping it would bring him back to reason. Instead, it angered him.

He grabbed both her arms and shook her violently. "Don't you tell me to stop, woman! You think you're better than me? You think you're stronger than me?" Her head started slamming against her haven's wall. With each rough hit, her mind started losing more of its ability to focus. "Don't. You. Tell. Me. No!" On the last word, she gave in to the overwhelming pain and crumpled against him, blood on the wall and dripping out of the back of her skull, her world gone black.

Ron, realizing what he had just done, dropped her to the floor, whispered, "Obliviate, " and ran.

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Draco Malfoy, proud Slytherin, and Hogwarts head boy, had seen a lot in his young days. He had personal experience with the giving and receiving of Crucio. He had watched as dozens of Muggles were subjected to Avada Kedavra and had Obliviated many people on several occasions. He knew what carnage was, understood death all too well. It was because of his extensive knowledge of the dead that when he found Granger on the floor in her room, he knew she was not far from the netherworld. Not bothering to take care with her quickly cooling body, Draco muttered a lightening charm and lifted the girl in a fireman's carry. Kicking open the unlocked door, he ran as quickly as he could to the hospital wing.

This would be so much easier on a broomstick, he thought miserably, as his legs seemed to fill with lead. Yet, having the dead weight of an unconscious girl on his broom would definitely make flying through the halls difficult. As he reached the hospital wing, he began to yell.

"Madam Pomfrey! Help! Please, it's Hermione!"

Taking her to the nearest bed, he laid her as gently as he could. Madam Pomfrey flew out of her office. As she cast healing spells, she queried as to the nature of the injuries.

"Well, Mister Malfoy, if you wouldn't mind, I know these wounds are blunt force trauma, but a little better picture might be able to help me save Miss Granger. What happened?"

"To be honest Madam Pomfrey, I wish I knew. I haven't the slightest idea. Maybe the stupid Mudbl..." He coughed slightly at her raised eyebrow. "Maybe Miss Granger fell and hit her head on the way down?"

"Hardly. There are multiple injuries to her skull. How did you carry her?"

"One arm under her knees and one under her shoulders. Why?"

"She has extensive bruising on her arms. See?" Madam Pomfrey pulled back Hermione's sleeves to demonstrate.

"Are you saying somebody did this to her?" he asked, brows knit in frustration.

"Sir, are you making a joke out of this? Look at these!" She commanded before rubbing a bruise healing salve over the ugly marks which were turning blue and a purplish-black. "The sort of strength that made those is something like a Quidditch player would have. That, and it was most likely somebody who hates Miss Granger," she added, while wrapping a turban type bandage around Hermione's head. "Somebody like a pureblood or a Slytherin." She looked pointedly at him.

"WHAT? Are you saying I did this? That's outrageous!" He was near yelling, completely flabbergasted. "I brought her here to you. I helped save her! Did you notice she wasn't at breakfast? Did you go to check on the bookworm? Did you try to find her? No, no, no! I did, Madam Pomfrey! So before you say one more accus..."

"That's enough, Mister Malfoy," a sharp voice commanded. "Face me."

Draco turned to face his Head of house and godfather, Professor Severus Snape. He felt a cold, though not painful, probing in his head. He opened his mind as he recognized the feeling as he got when his father used Legilimency on him. He focused his thoughts on that morning: breakfast, not seeing Hermione in the Great Hall, wondering where she was, going up to his dorm and hearing a moan from her room, barging in and finding her there. He knew that would be enough for Snape and closed his mind.

Snape nodded curtly. "Draco, go fetch the headmaster please."

Not needing to be told twice, Draco went to inform Albus of what had happened.

Severus looked at the girl on the bed. "Poppy, can she be awoken?" Holding the vial Madam Pomfrey gave him, he administered it to the girl. Opening her eyes, Hermione looked confused and frightened.

"Would it be safe...?" he asked Madam Pomfrey. When she nodded, he bent to the girl.

"Miss Granger, will you allow me to perform Legilimency on you?"

Shaking, she nodded her approval and he began. He saw her waking up in a flimsy nightdress, a voice, muffled, calling through the door. Severus watched as she opened the door and saw black. He tried again, going back a little in her memory and playing through them again. Each time, her memory went black before he could see her attacker's face. He tried going backwards, but the next thing she remembered after opening the door was waking up here, in the hospital wing. He sighed in frustration.

"She's been Obliviated. While her attacker was not the young Mister Malfoy, you were correct that who ever did this plays Quidditch or participates in some other strenuous physical activity. Of the people who are granted access to the head girl's rooms, that leaves only Mister Potter or Mister Weasley. Did you happen to notice the pale sheen on Mister Weasley's face at breakfast?" With that, he left without another word to Hermione.

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As he turned out of the hospital wing, Severus braced himself against the wall. Who the hell had done this to her? They would pay dearly for hurting his girl like this. The girl, he corrected himself. Not his girl. He shook his head to clear that traitorous thought from his head. Gods, he needed a firewhisky.

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Thanks so much to RobisonRocket for all her genius work on this. Lord knows what I'd do without her!