Fate's Request: A Harry Potter FanFiction

After Hermione left, David made the slow trek back to his dorm room, to firstly, be alone and secondly, check on Hermione via his recreation of the Marauder's Map.

After David saw that Hermione was safe away in Gryffindor tower, in her own shared dorm room, David eyes couldn't help being directed to the Slytherin Dormitory in the dungeons.

On the Map, he saw Draco, his cronies Crabbe and Goyle huddled around a fireplace along with a few other names David knew to be a mix of seventh and sixth-year Slytherin students.

Pushing aside the negative thoughts he had towards Draco, David rose from his bed and cast a powerful Disillusionment Charm on himself and made his way to the Room of Requirement to vent his frustrations on the infinitely repairing dummies the room would summon at his behest.

---

Late into the night, David collapsed onto the cold stone floor of the Room of Requirement, gasping and panting from the overexertion he'd brought upon himself thanks to the strenuous spell casting he had just put himself through.

Even though he was close to passing out in exhaustion, his plan of distracting himself had worked and not even thoughts of Hermione could break into his exhausted mind.

As such, eventually, David fell asleep on the cold stone floor, and the Room, as if it had a mind of its own for that very brief moment, created a roaring fireplace to keep David warm as he slept the night away, alone.

---

"Master?" Mel said in a worried tone as she found David snoozing in the Room of Requirement the next morning.

She'd gone looking for him when she found his bed empty early in the morning, Mel always made sure she was up before David every morning to arrange his clothes for the coming day and was surprised and worried when she found his bed still made and the clothing she had set out for him earlier the previous day, untouched.

"Ugh," David g.r.o.a.n.e.d as she woke up sluggishly thanks to Mel's wake up call.

"Is everything okay?" she asked worriedly.

Nodding, while slightly dazed, David answered, "Yeah… I'm okay Mel, just overworked myself, I'm fine."

"Master… are you sure?" she asked, not entirely believing him.

"Yes, yes," he replied, rubbing his hands over his face, still overly tired from the strenuous spellcasting session he had.

"Hmm… very well, shall I take you back to your room? Or would you like to continue sleeping on the floor?" she said with an exasperated tone.

"If you can pop me back to my room, that would be lovely Mel, thank you," David answered with a weak smile.

Nodding, Mel grabbed his forearm and with a click of her fingers, she popped David straight onto his bed and poped herself away immediately. She decided to make some coffee for David, for it was obvious he'd need all the help he could get this morning.

With a groan, for his back was sore from spending the night in the Room of Requirement, David curled up in his bed, for he desperately needed 'just' ten more minutes of sleep before he had to start what was going to be a horrible day.

---

David glimpsed Hermione in the Great Hall as he made his way over to his spot on the mixed Ravenclaw and Beauxbatons table.

David wasn't sure what she was thinking, but she seemed to have a distant look to her and made no notice of David or anyone around her.

Feeling even more depressed upon seeing her, David did his best to put on a neutral expression and quickly found his spot and began his morning with another mug of coffee.

Sighing, for even with the coffee, the effects of last night were still lingering, David thought about just skipping the entire day in his dorm, sleeping.

"Morning David!" Luna called out as she cheerily sat down across from him.

Digging deep, David smiled and greeted her back and made idle small talk with Luna whilst wishing he could just get away and disappear for a week.

---

After the longest History of Magic lesson David had ever gone through, which he managed to fall asleep in multiple times, much to the surprise of everyone around him, for David was known to be fairly alert and studious by his peers, he downed another coffee in the Great Hall and went to his Transfiguration classroom directly.

Not wanting to be surrounded by everyone, David enjoyed the temporary solace in the classroom and utilised his skill in Occlumency to push all thoughts from his head and just meditate until Professor McGonagall and his classmates arrived.

Feeling revitalised, David jumped into his Transfiguration lessons with ease, for the level of Transfiguration that he had to perform in class, for a while now, was far below his real level of skill.

But David found it a nice refresher, and Professor McGonagall was a master of her subject and always had titbits of information for David to keep his interest in the class.

---

As his day was coming to an end, David decided to take a walk around the grounds to get some air.

While Scotland was absolutely freezing this time of the month, David, equipped with fine clothing made by Mel and a warming charm felt quite comfortable as he strolled around the snow-covered landscape that Hogwarts offered.

Unfortunately for David, as he was making his way back from a peaceful walk, he was accosted by a group of six Slytherins.

"This is him? Draco?" the sixth-year, Cassius Warrington asked with a snide tone and smirk on his face.

"What do you want, Warrington?" David asked coolly.

A little shocked David knew his name, Cassius' face grew ugly as he drew his wand and answered, "Here to teach you a little lesson, mudblood. Talk is, you think you're one of us, going after the Cross-Family vaults."

"And those disgusting muggle rags he wore to the Ball, embarrassment, really!" another Slytherin student added.

David merely rolled his eyes and drew his own wand as his heart rate started picking up for the potential duel that was about to occur.

Seeing David's eye-roll, Draco spoke up finally from the back of the group, "Watch yourself, Cross. We're here to teach you a lesson, just like yesterday," he finished with scorn.

Anger growing inside him, David didn't bother speaking for he had already read the minds of all six Slytherins and knew that they were set on their plan of attacking him and teaching him his 'place'.

Just as he was about to cast a flurry of non-verbal spells, David decided it would be best to keep that particular skill a secret and decided on the slower, verbal spellcasting that he had mastered.

The Stinging Hex was David's spell of choice for the encounter, he cast multiple in quick succession, sending two in particular to Draco.

Seeing a few of their members cry out in pain, the remaining attackers were quick to respond and sent their own flurry of hexes and jinxes David's way with Cassius Warrington leading the charge.

"Protego!" David shouted, with a downward motion of his wand arm, casting the invisible shield spell with ease and blocking all their feeble spells.

But it was six against one, well five, for Draco was still m.o.a.ning on the floor with a swollen face thanks to the Stinging Hexes that had barrelled into his face in quick succession, leaving him out for the count.

"This the best you can manage, Cassius? You should be thankful Cedric Diggory entered the tournament, you'd have died already otherwise," David taunted, wanting to get more out of them, for an encounter like this was just what he had been wanting for quite sometime now.

"Shut up!" Cassius roared in shame and anger, for David was handling them all with practised ease, something none of them expected.

"Cass, maybe we should-," a worried Slytherin added before being cut off by Cassius Warrington in his rage.

"Shut your damn mouth! Confringo!" Cassius screamed, powering the deadly spell with his anger.

David knew what spell was coming before it had even left Cassius' wand, and had already prepared the counter-spell and was excited to try his hand at attempting to deflecting the spell rather than dodging or shielding it.

While this was extremely risky, for Confringo was a spell capable of causing death, David would need the experience for the years to come.

Next year he knew he would have to go to the Department of Mysteries to stop the death of Sirius, for Harry needed to experience utterly failing and being lured in by Voldemort to grow.

And the year after would be an attack by multiple Death Eaters, where he or anyone around him could easily lose their lives as they would naturally defend the school. The ability to counter spells with deflections along with physical dodging and shield spells were all a must in David's book.

Not to mention, with everything that had happened the previous day, David was feeling a little reckless and discarded his own safety when usually, a cooler head would have prevailed.

And as such, with glee in his eyes, David deflected the deadly curse, harmlessly into the air, which only seemed to shock his attackers into speechlessness.

Getting into the duel a little too much, David forewent verbal spell casting and started toying with the now smaller group of attackers with various curses and jinxes, with all his spells finding their mark and humiliating them time and time again.

Draco eventually saw the utter loss and humiliation of his fellow Slytherins and decided to hightail it out of there, but David, ever aware of his surroundings sent a stunning spell straight into his back, leaving him collapsed in the cold snow.

His desperate attackers took his moment of distraction as an opening, but David was too quick and decided to end the duel right then and there.

He spent a flurry of Stupefys at each of them, leaving him collapsed in the snow.

Breathing heavily, David soon came to his senses and knew that six students now knew he could perform wand-work well beyond what a Hogwarts student should be capable of.

There was no alternative, David decided to Obliviate the bunch of them, he decided to leave the details of the duel in their minds a hazy mess, placing blame on the the mess of spells David had battered them with.

Feeling a little vindictive, David cast Levicorpus on Draco after he'd finished the educational experience of altering their memories with a memory charm.

Looking at his handiwork, David shook his head in exasperation and made his way back to the castle, Occlumency allowing him to calm down relatively quickly.

---

On his way through the grounds, David surprisingly ran into Harry, who was also alone like David.

"Harry?" David asked as he saw him leaning against the cold stone walls of Hogwarts Castle.

"Huh? Oh, hey David," Harry replied, also a little shocked to run into David.

"Needed to get away?" David asked knowingly.

Nodding his head, Harry replied, "Yeah… Just needed to get away from it all, from everyone, you know?"

"Yeah," was all David said in response, knowing all too well the feeling of wanting to get away from it all.

Following a lengthy silence, Harry broke it by asking about Hermione, "Hey… is Hermione alright? I noticed she looked a bit… off today."

"Just some things someone said about us… we haven't spoken since. Think she needs time," David answered, not actually lying.

Harry just nodded in response, trusting David and a little self-obsessed currently.

"How's the egg going?" David asked, curious if Cedric had spoken to him yet.

"Oh! Yeah, I got a clue from Cedric. Something about taking a bath? I'm not too sure what he meant by that," Harry expressed, stumped over the hint still.

"Hermione told me you could only hear screeching from the egg, so my guess is you need to listen to it underwater," David explained.

"Oh… Oh! That's why he told me the password for the prefect's bathroom," Harry said, finally understanding what Cedric was getting on about.

"That was nice of him," David added, with a slight smile.

"Yeah… I should get onto it soon," Harry nodded, agreeing, but already his mind was elsewhere, thinking of the clue.

"Well… tell me what you find. I'm a little interested in what the organisers came up with," David expressed.

Smiling, Harry nodded, "Will do David, I gotta go! I think I want to work tonight, I'm going to need to get the clo-, uhh, yeah just got some ideas. See you around David, thanks for the help."

"Anytime, see you, Harry," David answered as they both took their separate paths to their dorm rooms.

---

"David, why do you have tears in your robes?" Padma asked curiously as David walked into the Ravenclaw common room.

"What?" David asked, confused.

"You robes, look," she said walking over to him and pointing out a couple of tears in them.

"Oh… I have no idea," David lied, "But I better go change, wait for me so we can go down for dinner together?" he asked.

"Sure, I'll be waiting here David," Padma answered happily.

---

Back in his dorm room, David looked down at his robes which had three cuts on them.

The fabric was torn quite badly on one, but the other two cuts were very small and probably would have only resulted in minor flesh wounds if he hadn't been wearing the Basilisk hide lined robes Mel had made for him.

But the larger hole was a problem, it showed David, that while he could deal with six students relatively easy, he wasn't as good as he had once thought.

Frustrated, David promised himself he would spend even more time in the Room of Requirement and also to never be so reckless like he'd been earlier.

Eventually, after changing into one of his fresh robes, David made his way down the stairs and asked Padma, "Ready?"

"Ready," she replied, rising from the couch she was reading on.

---

Dinner was a decent affair, for David managed to push his worries to the side and made decent conversation with those around him. Even getting to know some of the Beauxbaton student's he hadn't bothered to speak to earlier.

Eventually, as the hall started to empty, David made his escape.

Just as he thought he'd gotten away, he heard an all to familiar voice call out from behind him.

"David."

Turning, David saw her looking dishevelled and distraught.

"Hey," he replied, feelings of sadness rushing back.

"I'm so sorry! Please -," she called out immediately, rushing towards him.

"Wait, wait," David said quickly, and seeing the worried expression on her face quickly added, "Let's find an empty classroom. We can talk freely."

Nodding, she followed behind David as he went looking for an empty classroom that was hidden away enough for the conversation that was to follow.

---

Following magically locking the door and casting privacy charms, apologies were given by them both as they discussed what had happened at Hogsmeade the previous day.

Hermione apologised for running away, which David, while still hurt over, forgave her immediately.

David also apologised, for letting her hear about his Malediction from Draco and not telling her himself at a far earlier date, something he'd wanted to avoid since they started dating.

Eventually, things got a little warmer between the two and Hermione eventually asked the question. How long he had left.

Sighing, David began to explain using his own experiences in his previous life to give Hermione as much of the truth as he was allowed, "I guess it begins back at the orphanage. I was sick then, Leukemia they told me, did everything the doctors ordered. None of it worked, eventually, I was told I probably didn't have much time left. But I don't know, something happened, I started getting better. Not completely better, but better. Enough to be normal, for a time, I guess."

Coughing into his hand, David continued, "But Professor McGonagall soon visited, telling me of magic and such but she also performed a quick magical scan. She found something, but told me not to worry until being checked out by Madam Pomfrey… Anyway, she told me what I really had, Malediction and has been treating me every Monday morning since with a potion regime."

Wanting to ask a multitude of questions regarding what she had just been told, Hermione kept it in for she wanted to know how long David had left, "David… How long?"

Nervous, for while Madam Pomfrey had given him a far shorter life expectancy than what he'd heard from the two grey and black beings that had brought him to his world. Hesitantly he explained, "Well… at first Madam Pomfrey said about a decade with the potions."

Hermione started tearing up immediately, but David continued, "However, she and a colleague created a new potion, one that she's certain had increased the earlier prognosis of how long I have left."

Even the hope that David had more time now, didn't help alleviate any of Hermione's despair as she clung onto David and cried, profusely.

Holding her for a time eventually, David started speaking again, "But there's hope… you remember the meeting I had with the Greengrass'?"

Seeing Hermione nod, tiredly, David explained the potential of being able to lift the curse with the knowledge the Greengrass' had regarding his Malediction and how they'd made a deal with getting information on Astoria's Malediction, bringing hope to both of sick children.

While David explained sparsely, it clearly wasn't enough for Hermione and she demanded more information. This was his life at stake here and she wanted to know everything.

"It's getting late, Hermione. We should-," David answered, but was cut off almost immediately.

"I don't care. Tell me. Everything, David. I want to hear it all," she demanded, with her tone giving no recourse for David but to tell her everything he'd discussed with the Greengrass' family.

"Alright then…"