SURPRISE SHORT CHAPTER

—————————————————

Hermione P.O.V

The second I said her name she turned around, surprise and anger on her pretty features.

"What are you doing?" She said coldly.

"What do you mean?" I leant against the bookcase, my stomach churning as if I was going to be sick.

"You're not supposed to leave. Go back down."

Her face was dead serious, and that's when I realised that Tom must've told her to keep a look out for me. He must've known that I would take the opportunity to escape. He wanted to test me. To see if I would.

"No." I said, equally cold. "I'm not going back down there. Get the hell out of my way."

Shalini approached me, pulling her wand out of her cloak sleeve and pointing it at me.

"I don't want to do this." She said. "But I have no choice."

"We all have free will." I told her, "to make our own choices." It took all my strength just to get the words out and the only reaction I got was for her to roll her eyes dismissively.

"Free will, huh? Well, not me." Shalini answered. "Not this time."

Behind her, sitting on top of a chest of drawers was my wand. I looked at it and back to her, my mind racing. I had to get past her to get it. I edged forward slowly. She made no attempt to stop me.

"Tom told me what you did." Shalini said. "How you lied to us all."

Her voice was cold, reminding me of the time when we first met and she hated me.

"You came back in time didn't you. Why didn't you tell me? I was your friend. Well, until I realised you were a fucking liar."

"I'm not a liar." I said angrily.

"So you haven't come back from the future?" Shalini looked me dead in the eyes. "And you haven't been keeping secrets from your friends?"

I closed my eyes. I felt so sick and the last thing I wanted to be doing was standing around here trying to sort out lies and talking about time travel to people who weren't supposed to know anything about it.

"Look." I said heavily. "It's complicated. I wanted to tell you, but I was under oath."

I walked around slowly. I was nearly at the drawers, my wand sitting only a few feet away.

"Friends are people you can confide anything in," Shalini argued. Tears were springing in her eyes. "I thought you trusted me. I told you everything that Tom did to me, and the whole time you were lying."

"You've got it wrong." I said coldly. "You really should pay attention to who you're listening to around here. If you really decide to believe Tom over me, then you deserve to get hurt. And I don't feel sorry for you. If you're looking for sympathy go cry to someone else."

The second that she cast the curse was the second I grabbed my wand.

"Crucio!"

"Stupefy!"

I was too fast. Her curse hit my defensive spell with a large crack, red and green light splintered around us with a burst of noise and Shalini dropped to the ground in a heap.

Hardly daring to breathe I walked out of the room slowly, now sicker than ever and with my wand pointed out in front of me in defence. I had just attacked a student.

What the hell was happening to me?

I walked forward. Tom had been gone for a suspiciously long time. The hallway was too quiet. I walked forward, my heart pounding in my head.

And then another great burst of noise. A familiar, earsplitting crack. Entirely frozen I watched as a tiny familiar looking House Elf hobbled toward me.

"Kreacher has been given orders to tell Hermione to come back with him to the future." Kreacher said. His croaky voice was very quiet. "The blood traitor Weasley sent me."

"Ron?" I fell to my knees. "Oh Kreacher! Ron sent you?"

"No." Kreacher said. "The other one. The pretty sister."

"Ginny?"

"Yes." Kreacher croaked. "I don't take orders from blood traitors but she forced me. She found out what happened. She spoke to the portrait Dumbledore in the Headmasters Office."

"You can tell me all this when we get back."

I started. "Tom could be here any minute."

I reached toward Kreachers hand just as Tom had come around the corner of the hallway.

"No!" He screamed. But it was too late. We were gone.