They All Love You

part twenty-seven

This was definitely not the right waiting room!

Hermione muttered a quick apologies and rushed out into the building's main lobby area where witches and wizards of all sorts came and went, stopping occasionally to talk to someone nearby.

Squinting, her eyes found a brass engraved sign pointing to the magical lifts on the other end of the room. Speed walking, she noticed the time and realized she was nearly eight minutes late, and if there was one thing she hated most in the world- it was not being punctual.

Cursing under her breath, she brushed politely passed an elderly wizarding couple and furiously tapped the circular black buttons on the side of the lifts. Her nail beds found her teeth quickly as she anxiously waiting for an illuminated light to go off above one of the eight lifts available.

To her luck and mass relief, the light above lift number eight went off a couple of seconds after she had clicked the button so many times and her feet scurried over, ready to burst in at any moment. Only, her body physically recoiled when the magical doors revealed a very irritated ferret.

His silver eyes met hers in surprise as his face visibly calmed for a moment. 

"Granger? Hm, thought you'd be up there by now. You're late."

Hermione pushed past him and begrudgingly stood in the back corner of the lift- as far away from his as possible, "So are you," she muttered bitterly.

The doors shut loudly as nobody else entered the lift and it didn't move. Draco or the lift didn't make any sudden movements, which puzzled her slightly. As if an answer to her question, the boy sheepishly turned around and ruffled a frustrated hand through his hair.

"Erm...can't seem to find the correct floor," he admitted shyly, motioning towards the rows and rows of black buttons.

Hermione walked over to the buttons in amusement, "Merlin there's at least a hundred of them!"

"We always floo so I don't know how to get there. Or which button to push for that matter," Draco agreed, looking at the arrays of buttons more closely as Hermione slightly backed away to give him some more room.

Running a light finger down most of the buttons, he curiously stopped on one of them and looked at Hermione with wide eyes. "This has to be it! It says 'Magical Therapeutic Practices.' Sounds right?"

Hermione simply shrugged in an answer, unsure if he was right or not. Draco looked worriedly at her and gathered himself to push the button as the lift immediately jolted upwards, making Hermione quietly shriek and grab the back railing. Draco stumbled slightly, grabbing the railing near the doors and gulped audibly. He hated magical lifts.

The lift then picked up heavy speed on the north side of the lift, carrying them quickly like a car would- forward. A sudden jolt to the left or right here and there, but overall not a good experience for either of them. In fact, when the doors opened to the white marbled floor lobby, Hermione prayed she wouldn't topple over and vomit right there on the floor.

Tripping over their feet, the two uncomfortable teenagers exited the lift and entered a much more eerily quiet and calm environment with no other folk around them. Hermione decided she would take the lead this time and headed down the left hallway- but no avail. "This doesn't look like the hallway-"

"Yes, I know! Obviously it isn't the right one, it was just a guess!" Hermione snapped quietly at him, turning around the opposite direction and heading to the other hallway.

Draco stayed behind and instead leaned in closely to one of the doors, room #3207 to be precise, and put his ear closer to the door in intrigue.

"Granger! I think someone's in here, we can ask them where to go," he whisper called to her, making her roll her eyes and come walking back to open the door herself.