Winter (Draco x Reader)

Chapter 18- Trust Issues and Tribulations*

"Y/N!" an all-too-familiar voice hissed, shaking my shoulder rather roughly.

"Will you stop it?" came an objection from somewhere on my right in outraged female tones. "She could have a concussion, stop knocking her around like she's a Kinder egg!"

"A what?" a third voice demanded.

"Be quiet, Ronald, I'll tell you about it when we won't be in danger of getting caught," Hermione continued. "Y/N? Can you hear me?"

My eyes fluttered open with some effort into the darkness we were shrouded in. I could barely make out their shapes looming over the foot of my bed, grotesquely extended by the single ray of moonlight that was able to filter in through the thick curtains. "Are we in the hospital wing?"

"Yes," Harry replied, edging closer. His glasses flashed ominously. "Remember, Y/N, we were attacked by Voldemort in the Forest, and you hit your head on a tree trunk while protecting me. I'm sorry to have to tell you this all of a sudden, but Dumbledore is gone and Snape is going to try to get the Stone. I don't care what it takes, I'm going to get to it first."

This was apparently as much news for the two others as it was for me. They gasped simultaneously and spoke over each other in their haste to be heard.

"You're mad!" Ron spluttered.

"You can't!" Hermione squeaked, and I could imagine how wide her brown eyes must have been at the very thought. "After what McGonagall and Snape have said? You'll be expelled!"

I sat up and grabbed my wand off the nightstand-- of all the things that could happen to Harry down there, she was worried about him getting expelled? Harry shouted, in a way that had her cringing back:

"SO WHAT? Don't you understand? If Snape gets hold of the Stone, Voldemort's coming back! Losing points doesn't matter anymore, can't you see? D'you think he'll leave you and your families alone if Gryffindor wins the House Cup? If I get caught before I can get to the Stone, well, I'll have to go back to the Dursleys and wait for Voldemort to find me there. It's only dying a bit later than I would have done, because I'm never going over to the Dark Side! I'm going through that trapdoor tonight, and nothing--"

"You don't have to talk to her quite like that, Harry," I interjected gently, watching as Hermione's eyes glinted with tears and Harry's chest heaved. "She's just trying to help."

"No, he's right," she said, gulping back her emotion. "Where's the Invisibility Cloak?"

Harry's eyes narrowed. "I've got it with me. Why?"

"Reckon it'll cover all of us, Y/N?" Ron turned to me, ignoring his best friend.

"Wait, what? All-- all of us?" Harry repeated weakly.

I gave him a calm look. "Surely, you didn't think we'd be letting you go alone?"

"But--"

"There will be no 'but's, Harry," I cut him off. "Now help me up, will you?"

He gulped to contain his emotion. His arm wound around my waist gently, and I gingerly put my weight on my feet, taking a deep breath at how the world spun around me. Their faces mixed into a blur of green and brown and pink. 

"Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yes, Harry," I said firmly, trying to keep the quiver out of my voice. "Let me go?"

He obliged somewhat reticently. As soon as his fingers withdrew, my knees buckled and I crumpled to the floor.

"Y/N!" Hermione shrieked, her voice echoing through the stone room.