Chapter 2
Hermione cried out as she fell downwards. She scrambled to hold onto something but it was no use. Before she knew it, there was a splash and she landed butt-first into something extremely wet. A figure dropped into the liquid beside her, the liquid splashing onto her in the process.
“What is this?” Malfoy sneered beside her, glaring down at his lap in disgust. Hermione finally looked down as well, realizing her robes were most likely soiled. Not to mention, her lower back hurt.
Hermione tried to gather her bearings, looking around. The room almost looked like a basement. The walls were bare, nothing of identification around them. She looked down again, noticing the liquid they landed in was thick and white. Definitely not water, Hermione thought. It had an interesting smell, similar to sour milk. Hermione tried not to gag.
“I’m not sure but it can’t be good.” She tried to stand up, using Malfoy for support. He stood up with her, trying to get the gross substance off of him. It was no use.
“Where are we?”
“I don’t know,” Hermione answered honestly, feeling fear rise in the bottom of her stomach.
“That’s a first.”
Hermione wasn’t sure whether he was joking or not but judging from his tone, she decided to let it drop. She kept looking around the room but it was hard considering there was no light. Perhaps she should finally use her wand. Reaching into her soaked robes, Hermione took it out and called out a soft Lumos.
“This seems to be a cellar,” Malfoy pointed out, nodding to the storage boxes lined against the walls. Hermione had to agree with him. The only question was where was the exit. And what they had fallen in.
The liquid was not only white but she could make out small spheres in the entire area where they had both fallen. It looked almost like sacs, all extremely large. Hermione thought back to the amount of cobwebs in the house and she felt her breath hitch. Her stomach dropped in her chest. She recalled images she had seen back in her Auror days when they conducted searches on abandoned property. The photos flashed behind her eyes as she took in what she was looking at.
“Oh no,” She whispered. It came out faint. Malfoy turned to face her, his face furrowed with confusion.
“What is it?”
“Now, the important thing is for us to not freak out,” Hermione started. They had to find a way out and FAST.
“Why…?”
“If there are eggs,” Hermione whispered, whipping her head around the room. She turned in a full circle, taking in everything, hoping she was wrong. Please let her be entirely and completely-
“There must be a mother?” Malfoy’s voice called out. Hermione turned towards him.
“How did you-”
He nodded his head forward. Hermione followed his direction and her eyes fell on exactly what she didn’t want to see.
Encased in a large amount of webbing sat a giant, sleeping spider. Hermione felt all warmth leave her body as she took in the creature. It was massive , its entire body nearly 10 feet in height. Its legs were nearly twice Hermione’s height, all eight of them extending outside of the webbed bed. Hermione recalled her second year at Hogwarts when Harry had met Aragog. He never fully described the creature to her but she thought it might have resembled something like what stood before them.
Hermione also remembered how fearful Ron was of spiders, recalling his Bogart in their third year. She would never admit it out loud but she was also terrified of spiders. She had fought the giant snake of the most feared Dark Wizard in history but this…
“Oh my god,” She shuddered, taking a step back. “How are we going to get out now?!” She half whispered, remembering that it was still in fact SLEEPING.
“I don’t know! You’re the one with the brains!” Malfoy half whispered-half hissed back at her.
“Not when it comes to possible large flesh-eating spiders!” Hermione blurted back, feeling her entire skin crawl. She could only picture it waking up, its hundred eyes seeing them before she would be turned into some modern version of a cocooned Frodo in Lord of the Rings .
“Well, think of something!”
Hermione couldn’t. She was completely blank, unable to tear her gaze away from the beast in front of her.
“I-”
“You what? Granger we are running out of time before this thing wakes up and sees that we are not in fact part of its family. I suggest you concoct something quickly,” He was trying to speak fast.
Draco turned to look at the witch beside him. Her eyes were wide, her entire body tense. Her face was also a pale color, a vast difference from the crimson shade he was accustomed to seeing when they were around each other. This would not do. Draco Malfoy was not going to die next to the Golden Girl, Hermione Granger. He would never forgive himself if she went down in such a way.
“Merlin, here–just hold my hand.” He grabbed her hand, interlacing his fingers with hers. He didn’t care that both of their hands were covered in spider goo. He tried to push away the thought of what holding her hand outside of deadly situations would be like. Not the time, Draco!
The gesture seemed to snap Hermione out of her trance and she turned to look up at him, her eyes still wide. A light pink color returned to her cheeks.
“How are we going to escape? Can’t we just kill it?” Draco proposed, whispering to her. He took in the rest of the surroundings, ruling out Apparating. The house was most likely spelled against it and he had no intention of splinching himself.
Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t be daft! It hasn’t done anything to us!”
He couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the witch. “Please tell me this is not one of your ‘save the innocent’ speeches, Granger. It might have worked on the house elves but we are staring at a giant spider who could tear us both apart.”
Hermione ignored his comment and began looking around the room. “There must be an escape somewhere around here. This is a basement which means that there has to be a hatch or some sort of ladder.”
Draco spotted something to the right of the giant sleeping spider. It almost looked like a door, though it was boarded up.
“Could that be it?” He leaned down to whisper into her ear, pointing to where he had looked. Hermione nodded and gripped his hand in support.
Both wizards padded across the wooden floor, eyes glued on the spider. It remained in its nest, all eyes closed. When they reached the wall, Draco’s suspicion was right. Glancing at him and nodding for him to take out his wand, Draco took care of the light. With a wand free, Hermione began whispering spells at the door.
Draco looked back at the spider behind him, watching any of its movements. If it hadn’t heard them crashing through the ceiling, it might not ever wake up. Frankly, he didn’t want to wait around to find out.
“This board is almost done,” Hermione broke him out of his trance. Draco instinctively let go of her hand, hands on the top board on the door. She gave a small nod and he pulled. With a small sticking noise, it came off. Gently, Draco leaned it up against the wall and waited for the next signal.
“Whoever put up these boards put some wards around it. A simple vanishing spell wasn’t enough,” Hermione explained, her brows furrowed in the center of her forehead. Draco was hardly listening, his ears still straining to what was behind them. He wiped his nose, feeling slight congestion. Probably from all of the dust and dirt surrounding him.
“Does this mean that there is something worse behind this door?” Draco questioned, his stomach already churning. The giant spider was decent but a bigger and more dangerous creature? Merlin, save him.
“Perhaps. It could also be an exit.”
Draco couldn’t help but agree with her. Hermione removed the second board which Draco leaned against the second wall again. The last board she seemed to be harder to take off, judging by her frustrated expression. Draco could almost see the sweat dripping from her forehead. He wiped his nose again, feeling a slight tingle coming along.
“Nearly there.”
Looking back, Draco realizes he should have cast a silencing spell as soon as his nose started to itch. But, in his defense, he didn’t see it as a problem at the time.
Draco felt the tingling in his nose before he let out a fairly large sneeze.
“ACHOO!”
Wiping his nose and sniffing, he watched everything happen almost in slow motion.
Hermione’s mouth stopped muttering spells and she turned to face him, her mouth ajar and her eyebrows starting to disappear into her hairline. Her eyes weren’t focused on him but behind him where the large beast had begun to move.
At first, it stirred. Then it was climbing out of the webbing, all eyes open and scanning the room around them. It would only be a matter of time before it spotted them. Then they would be dead and spider food.
A small hand grabbed his.
“Bombarda!” Hermione shouted. The door split apart and Draco was dragged through the opening. They raced forward, heading far from the opening. It appeared that they were in some sort of storage room, boxes were piled high around the room.
Hermione let go of Draco’s hand and faced the door again, wand raised. The spider had spotted them and was crawling closer, its pinchers snapping.
“Stupefy!”
The spider was sent backward and slumped against the wall, motionless. There was silence and Draco felt himself relax.
Draco brushed dust off his expensive jacket. “What happened to saving the spider?”
Hermione whirled on him, her hair frizzing out around him in anger. She finally shouted at him, no longer concerned about making too much noise. "Says the one who nearly got us killed! I should feed you to this spider.”
Draco sneered at her, not feeling in the mood to hear another speech from the Golden Girl. “Silly me. I suppose I am still reflecting on the job I was given out of pity,” He snaps with fake enthusiasm, turning away from her.
There was more silence and Draco was grateful for it. It wasn’t as if Hermione Granger was famous for apologizing.
Hermione sat down on the couch, feeling the exhaustion throughout her body. Oh, and also the guilt for what she had said to Malfoy earlier. She watched as he paced across the room, his hands shoved in his pockets. She noticed that he seemed to do that a lot.
“I’m sorry for what I said,” she found herself saying. It was his turn to turn around, his eyes widened in surprise. “I didn’t mean it. I was angry from what you said and it just came out and-” She paused, taking a deep breath.
You are a great Potions Master and you deserve the job.” Hermione offered a weak smile. It wouldn’t take anyone working long with Malfoy or even spending more than five minutes in one of his classes to see that the students took to him, idolizing him. Hermione wasn’t stupid enough to ignore that.
Draco scoffed and smiled at her.
“That’s certainly a first: an apology from Hermione Granger,” he teased. She could still sense that he was hurt. Standing up, she paced over to him.
“And I’m sorry for insinuating that you would hex me. I know that you would never-”
A finger touched her lips, silencing her. Hermione blinked, feeling the soft pad of his index finger against her lips.
“I got the point, Granger. Thank you,” Malfoy was close to her now; a step closer and they would be chest to chest. His eyes bore into hers, a lock of his hair falling over his forehead.
The finger moved from her lips and his thumb and forefinger lightly gripped her chin. Hermione’s heart skipped. They had never touched like this, he had never touched her like this.
“Now, let’s think of a way to get out of here, shall we? I think I have spent enough time surrounded by dust and dirt.” He gave her another grin and let go of her chin. She couldn’t help but nod before they got to work.
--
Hermione groaned, tossing an empty box over her shoulder to join the other empty ones they had sorted through.
“There is NOTHING in here that could help us!" They had been searching for over an hour and had come up with no solutions. What if they died here, starving and sleep-deprived due to dodging the giant spider in the room?
Hermione had cast protective spells over the destroyed door opening. She and Malfoy had set up space against the wall where they couldn’t be seen. But exits to escape? None. Plans? None. Headaches? Hermione counted at least one.
“You don’t happen to have a communicator device on you, do you?” Draco asked from his position against the wall. His legs were drawn up to his chest and his arms were draped over, fiddling with some sort of relic.
“No, I left it at the castle,” Hermione answered, now obviously regretting that decision. She had gotten a mobile phone the previous summer as a way to talk to her parents. She didn’t use it often but had convinced Harry and Ginny to get one, that way they could all talk without leaving their homes.
Draco let go of the relic and set it on the floor.
“Maybe the students will send some help when they realize how long we have been gone,” Malfoy proposed, shrugging his shoulders. Hermione hoped so. She could feel a scolding speech from McGonagall soon.
“At least we’ve got our wands,” Draco added, twirling his around his finger in a bored fashion. Hermione watched it twirl before an idea came to her head.
“Of course! Our wands,” She stood up, adjusting her robes again. Malfoy raised an eyebrow at her.
“I’ll send a Patronus to McGonagall right now. That should hasten the process,” She cleared her throat, running through the important details of their current problem.
Hermione gazed over at Malfoy who was staring at her with a peculiar expression. “Unless you would like to do it since you’re ever so talented,” she drawled, trying to imitate his voice.
He caught on quickly and tore his gaze away, rolling his eyes. She took his silence to mean something good and quickly conjured a Patronus, relaying the important information. Ordering it to go to Hogwarts, she watched her otter jump into the walls and disappear.
Turning back to Malfoy, she took in his remaining stare on the wall where her Patronus had disappeared, his face now a pale green color.
She stepped closer, bending down to his level. “Malfoy, are you alright?”
“You look ill,” She noted, reaching out to touch. Maybe the fear or the dust had gotten to him? Was the egg goo poisonous? Before she could get her hand close, his head snapped to hers and he quickly pulled away, jumping up and taking numerous steps away from her.
Hermione frowned. What was the matter with him?
She eyed him. “Do you want to send out another Patronus to Neville, that way the message will reach someone else, too?”
Malfoy’s eyes widened and he shook his head vigorously. “I think yours should be enough, Granger.” The green complexion had not changed.
First, he said he was the best, and then he didn’t want to help her. “What is the matter with you? Must I do everything?” Hermione shouted at him.
Draco rolled his shoulders back. He still looked tense. “I think you’ve done quite enough.”
“And yet you look like someone spit in your morning pumpkin juice. Do you have a problem with the way that I sent out my Patronus? I did it correctly, you know,” Hermione pressed. He shook his head and dug his hands into his pockets.
“Then what is it?” She stepped closer. He remained quiet.
Hermione continued. She would get to the bottom of this. “Spit it out. I know you love telling me how to do my job.”
He glared at her, watching as she stepped closer and closer.
“Malfoy I swear to god-”
“WE HAVE THE SAME PATRONUS!” Malfoy shouted suddenly, his hands coming out of his pockets and raising.
Hermione’s mouth clamped shut. They…what?! What the hell was he talking about? What did he mean?
“Malfoy-”
Before she could utter another word, there was a whooshing sound. Hermione whipped around to find Professor McGonagall and Professor Longbottom standing in the center of the room. Their eyes glanced around the room before landing on the two of them.
“Oh, thank goodness we found you!” McGonagall stepped forward, her wand raised.
“Thank goodness you got my message,” Hermione cried out. Malfoy said nothing beside her.
“We got it just in time, Hermione,” Neville assured her, eyeing Malfoy with a questionable stare. “Students came into my classroom, nearly in tears talking about killing two professors.”
Hermione smiled; it seemed Malfoy’s guess was correct. She turned to look at him to find him staring at the wall, still saying nothing. Embarrassed, Hermione turned back around and looked between the two of them.
“How did you Apparate?”
“The wards have been broken. We should be able to Apparate side-along,” McGonagall proposed, her nose wrinkling at the smell Hermione was used to by now.
Nodding, she stepped forward and took Neville’s arm. Quietly, Malfoy took McGonagall's. Without another word, there was a ‘pop’ and they were gone.