Chapter 10: Hermione Strikes

                                    

                                          
Hermione's POV:
"That low life ferret!" I spat, my voice sharp with anger, trembling with the weight of everything I felt inside. It was too much. All of it. Every injustice, every horrible thing that had been done to us, to me—it had piled up until I couldn't hold it in any longer.
"Pansy," I said flatly, my eyes narrowed in fury as I turned to face her.
I saw it then. The flicker of guilt in her eyes, the hesitation. She knew. She knew what they had done. And still, here she was, standing before me like she could offer some kind of comfort. But nothing she said would be enough. Not this time.
My heart raced, and my pulse thundered in my ears. It felt like the whole world had tilted on its axis. Malfoy. Zabini. They had taken everything from us—our rights, our dignity, our very sense of self. And they had done it so easily, so casually. Like we were nothing more than pawns in a game they were playing for sport.
"Where are they?" I demanded, my teeth gritted, my hand clutching my wand so tightly that my fingers ached. I could feel the magic pulsing through my fingertips, as though it, too, understood the violence of what I felt.
"They're probably already on the pitch by now," Pansy said, her voice low, apologetic, but it barely registered. I didn't want her apologies. I didn't care about anything but stopping them.
Before she could say another word, I turned on my heel and started walking, no, marching toward the pitch. The anger that surged through me was primal, a force I couldn't control. Every step was heavy with the weight of my fury, and the only thing that mattered was confronting them, showing them that they couldn't take what wasn't theirs.
I heard Pansy behind me, her voice calling after me, but I couldn't stop. Not now.
"Hermione, you can't just waltz onto the pitch during a game," she said, panic rising in her tone.
I scoffed, the words slipping from my lips like acid. "Can't I? I don't care."
But the truth was, I did care. I cared more than I had ever cared about anything in my life. This wasn't just a game. It wasn't just about the Quidditch match. It was about me. It was about my right to exist as my own person, my right to decide what I wanted, who I wanted. And they had taken that from me. Like I was nothing more than an object, something to be fought over, owned, controlled.
"You need to calm down and relax," Pansy said softly, but there was no comfort in her words. Not anymore.
Calm down? Relax? My chest constricted at the thought. My throat tightened. How? How could I calm down when everything inside me felt like it was being ripped apart? When they had stripped me and Ginny of everything that has ever mattered to us?
"How can I CALM DOWN?" I burst out, my voice shaking with the weight of everything I had kept bottled inside for so long. "How can I relax when they've taken our very rights? When they've reduced us to nothing more than something they can claim? Something they can own?"
Pansy went silent, but her expression shifted. It was as though she was seeing me for the first time. She didn't understand. None of them did. None of them knew what it was like to have someone else decide your worth, to have them think that they could just take everything from you without a second thought.
"Look, Hermione," Pansy began, her voice quieter now, filled with an odd kind of tenderness, "I'm going to be blunt with you. Draco... he's always liked you. He has. And it's never stopped. But the way he acted? The cruelty? That wasn't him. Not really. He had to play the part, pretend he was something he wasn't because of his father. Lucius was always watching, always controlling him. Always. Do you really think Draco ever had a say in who he was, or what he wanted? Not when his father had eyes everywhere, making sure he stayed in line. But now... now that Lucius is gone, Draco has freedom. And he's taking every chance he can get. And you're the one he wants."