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 Table of Contents

Summary
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18

-3-
 Summary

An alliance is formed when Hermione begins seeing things, as a dangerous magic

threatens to overtake Hogwarts.

-4-
 Chapter 1

The first time Hermione Granger had seen Bellatrix Lestrange across the History
of Magic classroom, Hermione's heart had exploded like shrapnel into her throat.
There had been a whistle of air through her teeth, the chair legs scraping on the
floor, and a lightening bolt of adrenaline crackling off through all the veins that
tangled in her system. Her wand had been drawn halfway, before her eyes
connected to the then empty space where Bellatrix had been.

Hermione had sent a frantic look around her, but Binns continued droning on
while one seventh-year gave her a cautious look, and another reached for his wand
while looking between her and the invisible threat. Hermione was used to those
looks. The ones of mistrust and uncertainty, the ones of awe that made her entirely
uncomfortable, the ones where she knew the person was about to approach with
loaded questions, and the ones that gave trust without question. All the judgments
that came with a legacy born less than a year before, and when the papers were
filled with stories about what she, Harry, and Ron did, what they might have done,
and what they never would.

However, what Hermione would never get used to, was the sudden appearance of
a woman she had seen die six months before.

Maybe Ron had been right about it being a bad idea to return to Hogwarts after
everything. Perhaps Harry had been wrong about living their lives, and she hadn't
been thinking clearly when she decided finishing school was something she had to
do. Seeing Bellatrix Lestrange was not something that occurred in the right state of
mind.

Hermione had trouble sleeping that night. When she finally did fall asleep, she
had wished she was still awake. She listened to rumors after that, wondering if
anyone else had seen a new ghost, or some kid was bragging about their early
Halloween prank. There was no word of it. She told herself they just kept it a secret.
She told herself she had fallen asleep for a second. She told herself a lot of things.

But this...

Hermione stared at the fluffy rabbit hopping down the corridor as her third
Stunner went straight through without affecting it. It would have appeared as if
someone's pet - against the rules at Hogwarts for it being a bunny, might she add -
had escaped, but the claws curling from the end of its paws and the set of jagged

-5-
teeth it had snarled at her with told a different story. She then assumed it was a
transfiguration or charm, but not a single spell she cast at it did anything at all. It
had even sailed straight through the net she had conjured over it.

She followed at five paces behind it, not wanting to get too close to anything that
owned that many sharp things, growled with every hop, and was spell-resistant. She
was contemplating ways to contact the Headmistress or a professor when they
turned into a corridor, a handful of students taking their time to get to classrooms.

Hermione opened her mouth to tell them to be calm and get into the nearest
room, but the words froze in her throat when not one of them seemed in the least
surprised. A group of second or third-years were laughing over something, and two
older girls were completely oblivious to the rabid animal picking up speed towards
them. Hermione could hear the ku-sh, ku-shh of its claws scraping the stone floor as
it began leaping, black gums pulling taut over the gleam of its teeth.

She pulled her wand up, a hundred different spells racing through her mind.
"Move!" she shouted to the girl, but it took the younger year too long to react, and
the animal had jumped onto her leg before she even darted to the side.

Hermione rushed towards her, but it was halfway there that she noticed the girl
was backing away from her, and making no attempt to rid her leg of the teeth
currently buried gum-deep into it. Hermione felt the fast beats of her heart seize up
for a moment as she skidded to a stop, raising her eyes to the terrified ones across
from her. The girl stared back, her hands raised in front of her, and her friend was
clutching onto her robe sleeve. The girl didn't notice. She didn't…see or feel
anything that Hermione was very clearly seeing.

She glanced down at the leg, clean of blood or gaping wounds, and was transfixed
by the vigorous shaking of the animal's head. Except it wasn't an animal. It… It
wasn't anything at all.

"I…" Her mouth had gone dry, and proper words were slurred and jumbled in her
head. "I thought… Uh. Are those Hogwarts-issued socks?"

"Yes?" the girl squeaked, stepping once to the right when her friend yanked on
her arm.

"Oh. Okay, good." Hermione nodded, licking her lips. "That's… That's very good."

"Okay."

-6-
 "All right." Hermione nodded once, then turned to face the rest of the corridor,
avoiding the eyes of the other students who had paused near the walls.

She shoved her wand back into her robe when she found her hands were
trembling. There was a blur around her eyes that was likely caused from the fact
that hearts shouldn't beat that fast, and all the things she was trying to tell herself
were falling apart at the vowels.

Sleep. She needed sleep.

Dean stared at Luna's plate as she arranged her food into some order that was
meant to do something only Luna knew the reason for. Ginny barely looked over at it
before settling her eyes on Hermione, who was pretending to be very busy with the
pitcher of pumpkin juice in an effort to ignore the question.

"Hermione?"

She shrugged, clearing her throat. "I just thought the girl was wearing socks that
went against our uniform code until I got closer. You know how these rumors
escalate, Ginny."

Ginny looked at her for a moment before looking back down at her lunch, a brief
narrowing of her eyes being the only indication she hadn't fully bought Hermione's
story. "The younger years like to exaggerate a lot. I helped a boy pick up his books
in the hall, and the next day I was 'cheating on Harry Potter'."

"Exactly. Like they don't have better things to do with their time. Like studying. A
lot of attention is on Hogwarts now. After May… Well, a lot of people didn't even
think the school should open, so now they're all going to be interested in seeing how
well we do here this year."

"Yes, yes, McGonagall is your hero for opposing the insipid--" Lavender started.

"I never said insipid," Hermione muttered, wishing not for the first time that the
wizarding fashion world did not require N.E.W.T.s in Charms and Transfiguration.

"--opened Hogwarts to offer the education we need, in the place we needed to

learn it."

Hermione felt a small bit of heat in the tips of her ears, not having realized she
-7-
had said it quite so often since the beginning of term. Truthful as it was. McGonagall
had come under a lot of scrutiny for her decision, but it was one Hermione stood
firmly by. Not many students had dared return that year, or had been allowed to,
but there was still enough to validate the Headmistress' actions.

That was the difference in the student body this year, though. The majority of
them had returned as if they were fighting for their right to be there, as if they were
making a point, rather than just for the education. They had walked from the
carriages as if they were there to battle, but Hermione could appreciate that. It
wasn't a surprise that more Gryffindors had arrived than other houses, or that the
house with the least students was now Slytherin. Beyond nearly a dozen first-years,
there were perhaps the same number in older years.

The biggest surprises in returning students had been Draco Malfoy, Gregory
Goyle, and Theodore Nott. There had been a lot of gobsmacked expressions and
anger that greeted their arrival, but Hermione had read about their sentencing in
the papers. The press hadn't known everything, but there had been several articles
about conditions for freedom, such as community service, weekly interviews, fines,
classes, and completion of their education. Hermione rarely saw them beyond in the
depths of off-limits corridors, fixing the war damage to the castle as a professor or
Auror looked on. She also knew that all of them were enrolled in Advanced Muggle
Studies, but that was from the jokes that circled the student population.

This was the first step to regaining normalcy in their world. If Hogwarts barred
its doors because of the army that had marched through them last May, and
students were forced into schools where they didn't even speak the language, and
Hogsmeade fell into a state of abandoned businesses and once-was, it would be just
like they never won the war at all. That's certainly not why Hermione had fought in
it.

She understood, though. The students last year had been through something very
horrible within the walls they had once called a home. A Voldemort-ruled Hogwarts
had been war-wrecked and ugly, and it had ruined everyone's sense of safety, and
maybe their sleep as well. Hermione knew a lot of bad things had happened here.
She had walked the line of dead in this very Hall as well. But this was also where
they won the war, and those bad events couldn't take that from them. No one died
without a purpose that day.

It had been hard for her at first. She hadn't eaten in the Great Hall the first
month. She still couldn't go to certain areas of the castle without stopping to
remember. Sometimes, when she was alone in the corridor, she could feel the floor
shake beneath her feet, and heard the clang of statues come to life, and the
-8-
explosions of stone and screaming. Sometimes she saw Fred still grinning, and
Lupin and Tonks side-by-side.

But Hermione had known since her first year that enemies could find a way
inside. She'd been fighting the war in this castle long before Voldemort died three
tables from where she sat now. The war had taken over the world for a year, but for
seven years it had always been in front of her, Harry, and Ron, no matter where they
happened to be.

"I heard they have the table in some sort of museum now," Dean said, snapping
Hermione out of her daze. She looked away from where the final fight had
happened, meeting Dean's eyes as he swallowed a bite of his food. "They should
have burned it."

Hermione gave a nod to a fifth-year's smile before she continued down the hall,
only pausing for a moment to unlock her door. Some students had to be paired up in
the dormitories, but the students of age had their own bedrooms. Hermione had
pushed the two extra beds against a wall, but not being a person who had acquired
much over the years, only two bookcases took up the space it left.

The room looked sad with only one person occupying it, but Hermione always
reminded herself about how much easier it was to study here now. And how she
didn't have to hide what she was studying.

Hermione frowned at the books as she pulled them out of her bag. She had been
too paranoid to check out books that were only on the subject, and so had to settle
for ones that only included a chapter or two. No matter the relationship she had
built with the librarian, she didn't think it would go unnoticed that she was checking
out books on delusions. The entire staff had likely received some form of training on
how to spot warning signs in students. The last thing Hermione needed was a
diagnosis that wasn't there, and something that would hold her back from
completing her studies.

She was an intelligent woman. Whatever was happening with her, she was going
to figure it out and handle it on her own. Asking anyone for help on those little
imaginary things she kept seeing would get her nowhere, or somewhere she most
certainly did not want to be.

Hermione collapsed onto her bed, rubbing the headache at her temples as
Crookshanks mewled his protest at being disturbed. There was a perfectly logical,
-9-
sane reason for all of this. She just had to find it.

Hermione frowned at the frantic whispering around her as she took her seat next
to Ginny, dragging her Charms book from the depths of her bag. "Is there a test?"

Ginny shook her head, dipping her quill into the inkwell before bringing it back to
a sheet of parchment that read Harry at the top. "There was a fight."

"Oh." She shot an annoyed look to the laughter that broke out to her left.

"Draco Malfoy and some seventh-year. Apparently, Malfoy was giving him a
threatening look, they started fighting, and then the story ends in some sort of
bloody mess, with one of them getting the worst of it, and everyone hoping Malfoy is
put into Azkaban."

Hermione gave a noncommittal hum, smoothing her hand over her parchment.
She had unwillingly had a conversation with Ginny about Malfoy in August, after
they had read the paper, and it had not gone well. Hermione hadn't understood how
Malfoy got off so easily until she was forced to try and figure out why. That's when
she remembered how Harry said Malfoy lowered his wand on the tower, the word
from the Ministry that he had been forced to choose between his life or servitude,
how he didn't want to name them at his house, and how he tried to stop Crabbe in
the Room of Requirement. She remembered him heaving out the name of his dead
friend after that, too. It was hard to forget a moment of humanity in someone you'd
always seen as a cursed piece of furniture before - something toxic without regret
for being so, but easily moved to get past it.

Hermione didn't know or care who or what Draco Malfoy was. He was a very
small, reluctant piece in a very big, raging war. He was a prejudiced coward, and
Hermione knew she didn't have anything to fear from him. Not even if he tried to
make her. But with all the points Hermione had made in that conversation, and with
telling Ginny a dozen times it wasn't to defend him but to point out the Ministry's
reasoning, and with the way Harry had remained silent during it, Ginny had only
been furious and accusing. She saw every Death Eater as the one who killed Fred.
Hermione couldn't fault her for that.

"I'm surprised he didn't pull out his wand and try to kill the kid. Still on his best
behavior lest they send him to Azkaban with his father."

"Well, if it's the end of his classes, he probably didn't even have his wand,"
- 10 -
Hermione muttered, tapping her foot impatiently as she waited for the professor.

"What do you mean?"

"Malfoy gets his wand confiscated after his classes are over. I see McGonagall
take it on Wednesday and Friday, after Transfiguration. Which is the last class of the
day, right before dinner. So I figured it must happen every da…" The a was drawn
out as Hermione trailed off at a gleam in Ginny's eyes that was slightly disturbing.

"Interesting," the redhead whispered, glancing up at the professor as she put her
letter away.

"Ginny, I…" Ginny looked at her, and Hermione shifted in her seat awkwardly.
"You can get in trouble if you…try to do something, you know. He's still a student,
and you know with what happened to that group of seventh-years that McGonagall
won't stand for it."

"I didn't say I was going to do something."

"And you probably shouldn't share that information either. I--"

"Why not, Hermione?" Ginny raised her eyebrows. "Why do you care?"

Hermione pursed her lips, flipping open her book. "You know why not. I refuse to
be the catalyst that sends Malfoy to Mungo's, because it's wrong. Death Eater or
not, he received his sentence by law, and I am not so morally ambiguous that I
could--"

"It wasn't a just sentence. I don't have a drop of pity that everyone in the world
hates him, or wants to--"

"Fine, and neither do I. But there's right and there's wrong, Ginny, and you know
it. What if someone beats him so badly that he dies? Then that's on your hands. Or
he's with Goyle, Nott, and Zabini, and they fight back hard enough to hurt someone
else. On your hands. You're not that person." Hermione looked down at her
parchment. "This isn't a war anymore."

Ginny was silent for a moment, and then whispered the thing it always came
down to now. "I just don't know why he got to live. Why any of them did."

Hermione was silent.

- 11 -
 *

"So…how's homework?"

Hermione glanced up from the plate setting itself in front of her to give a glare.
Ron continued staring back, his grin smug. As if she was going to start whinging
about homework, and then tell him he was right all along. As if either of those had
ever happened in the entire time they had known one another.

Sure, she might have been doubting her decision lately due to some…certain
developments, but she was sure it all had a logical explanation behind it. Just not a
logic so immediately seen that she would care to share it with her two best friends.
And, really, even if she regretted her decision to finish school more than she had
ever regretted anything, she'd hardly let him know that with that look on his face.

"It's going very well, Ron."

"Everything is going along all right?" Harry raised his eyebrows and busied his
hands, but his eyes remained strictly set on hers. That was Harry's best attempt at
being nonchalant, when it appeared very obvious to her that he was calculating how
many things could have gone terribly wrong since the last time they spoke, and how
long it would take him to learn what they were, find the solution, and fix everything.

If the Aurors weren't still searching for and arresting missing Death Eaters, she
didn't think Harry would know what to do with himself.

"Better than a lot of people expected, I think."

"How's Ginny doing?" George asked her, giving one look to the pile of potatoes
his mum had set on his plate before scooping half of them back into the bowl.

"Fine. She's still unhappy about not being able to leave Hogwarts on the
weekends, though."

George looked up at her, his fork scraping across the plate, but Molly spoke first.
"Well, I'm not surprised. Of course she misses us, especially Harry, I would think."
Harry reddened, hiding as much of his face behind his glass of water as he could.
"But Hogwarts has always been that way. They just have a bit more leniency for the
older ones now."

"I--"

- 12 -
 "What happened with Malfoy?" Ron interrupted his brother, giving her a stern
look over the mound of food on his fork.

Hermione looked at him in surprise, almost coughing over her sip of juice. "How
did you know about that?"

"I have connections, Hermione," he told her, and she rolled her eyes to the
ceiling. "We know these things in the Auror Department."

"An Auror handles Malfoy's case, so he was notified about it," Harry explained.
"W--"

"They'll kick him out now," Ron muttered around his food. "Fighting is against the
rules for him if he started it. One fight, and he's in jail. Nothing that he doesn't
deserve. Wish I had been there--"

Molly cut him off to admonish him for talking with his mouth full, and Hermione
sighed heavily at the bad habit that would never die. He'd kept it at bay for several
meals they had gone out to have together, but he slipped right back into it by June.
July had seen the systematic destruction of their relationship, which hadn't been
recognized by them until August, or buried with the awkward silences until
September.

She loved Ron, but the things she couldn't stand about him had been under
Sonorus during their brief relationship. A boy could only read so many
relationship-help books before the relationship aspects became too normal to
override the familiarity of their friendship. They both gave it their best try, but in
the end he was still Ron, and… And that really only led them one way.

"Harry, we can't talk about that," Ron said, before leaning closer and lowering his
voice. "That's secret."

Harry furrowed his eyebrows, pushing his spectacles up with the back of his
hand. "It's about a supermarket. I don't think supermarkets are classified."

"Were the grapes explosive devices?" George asked, and Hermione snorted loudly
enough to earn a look from the entire table.

"I'll have you know it was a very important mission." Ron waved his fork at all of
them.

"Don't tell me - the Aurors were out of eggs?"

- 13 -
 "There was a must-have sale on milk products?"

"The celery and bananas were engaged in combat, and using--"

"--enchanted apples were flying like Bludgers--"

"--poor cheese squares never stood a--"

"--or anything but the fish fillets--"

"I hate you. All of you."

The small hairs at the nape of her neck stood on end, waking a trail of
goosebumps that spread down her spine and along her arms. Coldness that she
hadn't felt in months dropped to the bottom of her stomach, and a stiffness took the
line of her shoulders. Her eyes went wide in the dark, as if stretching the skin taut
around them would let her capture a light at the edge of her vision. She had the
distinct feeling that something was here, as dark as its intentions, and was watching
her.

There was a gleam in the dark, and Hermione burst the candles to life with a flick
of her wand, jolting away from the door and taking aim at… Crookshanks. She
looked right over him, scanning the room, and then its corners, under the beds, and
scanned again. There was nothing but her cat, a line of hair standing down the
middle of his back as he stared across the room.

Hermione trained her eyes on the spot where he was looking, still feeling the
tingle of something across her skin. She sat next to Crookshanks, scratching his
back, her wand still held tightly.

She hadn't come across anything strange the entire weekend at the Burrow.
There hadn't been a moment where she doubted herself or the things around her.
Now, back at Hogwarts on Sunday night, and here she was, staring at a wall like she
was waiting for it to come to life. But Crookshanks had felt it too. She hadn't been
alone this time, which meant something must have been there. Some trace of magic,
or…or something that wasn't just her own mind.

She moved to unlock her trunk at the foot of her bed, digging for the books she
had borrowed from the library. She pulled out a pad of parchment and her quill set,
flipping open the first book with the corner of her sight still watching the wall.
- 14 -
 *

To the visitors of the library, one glance at the very frazzled and wrinkled form of
Hermione Granger would have made them doubt N.E.W.T.s actually took place
seven months from now. Buried in the furthest corner from the doorway, the table
was piled high with books on charms, magical creatures, spells, ghosts, and potions.
One would have had to come near the edge of the table just to see Hermione over
the stacks, her left arm over a small pile of Restricted books, and two books set open
in front of her as she scribbled away on her twenty-first sheet of parchment.

Her hair was a nostalgic ode to her first few years here, puffy and frizzed beyond
control from too much pulling, pushing, flopping, and the heat radiating from her
skull. There was a line of sweat along the top of her forehead, and she could feel it
gathered in a thin coat on her nape, but she did nothing to remove her jumper. She
scanned the second book, reaching blindly to flip a page in the first, while her other
hand wrote down the main points from the passage she had just read.

Monday had been normal - or as normal as one could expect, when that person
was also expecting something to jump out at them at any moment. Her fact-less
reasoning had almost won out by Tuesday afternoon with convincing her it had all
been some temporary charm, but when the corridor to her Ancient Runes class
began rolling like waves, she was forced to rethink it. Yesterday, she had spent
twenty minutes trying to capture a group of rats in her bedroom while Crookshanks
hissed from the corner. When her cat bravely took the plunge into the middle of the
nest, the rats had disappeared into the air from which they came.

She had been on her way to the Great Hall this morning when a pale arm had
been sticking out from the bottom of the wall. The stones had grown wet all around
her, a tinkling of water sounding behind her, and then there had been bugs. She had
taken one look at the black oval beneath the arm's skin, crawling from the elbow to
the wrist before trying to burrow its way out, and then she had ran. She found
herself in the library three minutes later, and hadn't looked back since.

There had to be something here about what it was. Someone must have cast
something on her, or slipped something into her drink. If it affected Crookshanks as
well, then it must have been something like her tea, or a glass of water - something
he had drank out of while she was sleeping. That meant a Gryffindor, or… Hermione
sighed heavily, flipping a book shut and grabbing one on potions. She turned to a
clean piece of parchment, writing down the few names of the Gryffindors taking
Advanced Potions, and examining it for who Slughorn liked enough to give private
access to supplies, even if unintentional.

- 15 -
 There were far too many possibilities, and she didn't even know where to begin in
narrowing it down. Her years at Hogwarts had taught her a lot of things, and one of
them was that enemies had a way of hiding themselves. She needed more facts.

The thing about instinct was that you never had enough time to think before you
acted. In Hermione's case, this had almost always led to a positive, life-saving result.
But this time, had Hermione been given time to think, she would have logically
known that what was in front of her could not be in front of her. Instead, some base
part of her mind saw, registered, and sent out its signals in a millisecond of time
that the rest of her brain never had a chance to catch up with.

She was writing down the notes Slughorn had put on the board, and making small
notes in her columns as to what students he gave the most attention to. She was
contemplating asking around about past detentions where a student was left alone
in the room, when she looked back up to the board. What she found instead was a
pale, veined face and red eyes. Voldemort tilted his head, a mouth only showing its
existence when it curved into a smile.

All the air seemed to vacuum out of the room, sucking the oxygen out through her
pores. A numbness took hold of her entire body, tingling across her skin as
everything went silent. She jerked back without a thought, attempting to stand at
the same time, and yanked her wand out from inside her robes. Somewhere in the
motion of trying to move her body in too many ways at once, the falling chair took all
semblance of balance from her, and she hit the floor with it.

The silence broke with a cackle of fading laughter that Hermione knew was
Bellatrix, because she could swear that hell-cursed sound had haunted her sleep
since the first time she heard it. Hermione was on her feet in a second, her
breathing ragged and her heart pumping, but it was only Slughorn at the end of her
wand.

His eyes widened as he raised his hands slowly, but the right stayed near his hip,
where she knew his wand must be. She quickly dropped hers, gasping out a breath,
and felt her body trembling with the shock of adrenaline. Jesus.

"Miss Granger--"

"Sorry, Professor. I… I, uh, fell asleep for a moment. Long night of studying. I'm
very sorry."

- 16 -
 He stared at her for a long moment as his hands dropped to his stomach, one
tapping against the swollen curve of it. "See me after class."

She nodded, and he looked at her until she was seated, before turning back to his
desk. She swallowed hard, tucking her wand back into her robes, and tried to slow
her breathing. There was a rise of whispers around her, but she kept her eyes on the
board, her head spinning too much to hear anything they were saying.

Hermione rolled the vial of Dreamless Sleep Potion in her hand, chastising herself
again for coming under Slughorn's watch. She didn't doubt that she had already
been there before, but after the incident in class, he was bound to watch her more
closely now. They all were - he'd likely be telling the entire staff about it the moment
he got a chance to.

At least their brief conversation had cemented Hermione's decision to not take
this to McGonagall. The last thing she needed was another talk about the emotional
trauma of a war, and how the school had set up therapy classes. If she dared to tell
anyone she was seeing and hearing things, but that it was alright because her cat
could too, they would have her in Mungo's far quicker than she could come up with
something to defend herself.

It was like the whole world was waiting for them all to lose their minds. Hermione
might not have had the information yet, or know what was going on, but she
certainly knew she wasn't insane. Yes, the war had been traumatic, she still woke up
in the middle of the night sometimes, and she was still grieving the loss of people.
But if it was going to send her batty, she would have got there a long time before
this.

No one was going to believe her on this one - not until she had more proof. All she
had to--

Hermione let out a tiny squeak of surprise as something clamped around her arm
and jerked her to the right. She reached for her wand with the wrong hand, a door
slamming shut behind her, and she was pushed against it the second her fingers
skimmed vine.

She froze for a moment, taking in the sight of blond hair in the dark, a taller,
wider frame, and the narrowing of grey eyes. She pulled her wand, but Malfoy made
no move to do so, and his hands were empty.

- 17 -
 "What--"

"What did you do, Granger?"

She stared at him in surprise, her wand hovering up, down, up at her side. "Ex--"

"Experimenting? Something get out of control, or did you do it to me on

purpose?" His voice was harsh and low, and anger twisted his features.

She kept her wand at her side, put the point was tilted towards him. She wouldn't
trust him regardless, but everyone was capable of a lot more than you expected
when they were angry enough for it. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and she
could make out shadows beneath his eyes. A few strands of his hair were sticking up
from its normal, combed appearance, his tie was loosened, and his robes had been
tossed somewhere. There was a sort of desperation to the way he was looking at
her, which Hermione considered far more dangerous than his anger. She knew the
petty things that resulted from his anger, but she remembered what his desperation
produced far more.

"What did you do?" he asked through his teeth.

Hermione shook off the surprise of being confronted with a crazed looking
Malfoy, and gathered herself to her full, rather unimpressive and unimposing,
height. "I don't know what you're talking about, Malfoy, but if--"

"Bullshit," he bit out, his hand raising to his head. He looked as if he were going
to grab his hair, but changed his mind, the fingers curling into a fist instead.

"You look like you need some help. Maybe you should Floo your Auror"-she
side-stepped out from between him and the door, and his teeth clicked when he shut
his mouth from whatever he was going to say-"and talk to them about it. I'm sure
dragging me--"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" He took a step closer, and she barely stopped
herself from stepping back. "Whatever you did, that's the point." He raised his chin,
and his left eyebrow followed, as he looked down at her from the line of his nose.
"You're setting me up."

Her eyebrows furrowed, her nose wrinkling as she slowly shook her head. "What?
I'm not setting you up for anything. You set yourself up by pulling me in here and
acting mental, accusing me of something that you can't even exp--"

- 18 -
 "Shut the fuck up, Granger! I'm not going to play your game, and whatever you're
planning, it's going to blow up in your self-righteous face, because I'm going to make
sure of it. You think--"

"Malfoy, I'm warning--"

"--charm or spell, and fuck with my head for the past two weeks, you're--"

"--end up in- Charm or spell?" She took a step away from him, her brain scanning
and running through the possibilities to see what fit.

Malfoy stopped talking, but looked on the edge of continuing before he

straightened up. His jaw was clenching, a vein rigid at his right temple. She should
be leaving to go report the incident, or giving him a proper threat for his actions,
but all she could do was stare at him. There were only so many things that could
cause him to snap enough to let go of that calm, apathetic exterior he had been
clutching to him since the first time she'd seen him after the Battle of Hogwarts. Let
alone something big enough for him to risk ruining the terms of his probation,
especially after he barely escaped from that fight last week.

"You saw him," she whispered, and felt her chest seize up. She wasn't completely
sure, but it was the only logical reasoning, and what was he going to do if she was
wrong? She could trust him with that, if only because no one else would. "In Potions,
you saw him too."

His gaze flickered over her face, and for what felt like a very long time, she only
heard her heart beating in her ears. His jaw clenched once more, and he met her
eyes for just a second before he turned his back to her. He grabbed his robes off an
empty table, draping them over his forearm, and then pulled his bag over his
shoulder.

"Malfoy--"

He walked past her without a glance, and she reached to grab a piece of his robe.
It jerked from her grasp, leaving her fingers hot, and she caught a glimpse of his
sneer before the door slammed shut behind him.

Hermione watched Malfoy as closely as the other students had the first two
months of term. For the most part, he seemed to move on auto-pilot. He took notes,
he did his work, he walked to class without looking at anyone, he ate in the Great
- 19 -
Hall without talking to anyone, and she never saw him after dinner. She had seen
him shake his head to something Goyle had said to him, and he had given a one or
two word reply to Zabini once.

The only strange thing she managed to catch were the looks he sometimes gave
her when they passed one another or saw each other in a classroom. Sometimes he
gave nothing away, and other times there was a narrowing to his eyes that
suggested suspicion or revenge. If she was right - and she was sure that she was - he
was likely more lost about what was going on than she was. She knew he must have
seen Voldemort that day in Potions, and it might not have been the first time he
experienced something like it either. He must have been seeing things since then,
too - they had gotten worse.

Hermione had been looking for more facts, but this made less sense now than it
had without knowing it. The only thing it did for her was absolutely clarify her
mental stability. She wouldn't deny the possibility of Malfoy going insane, but there
was a slim chance they would have seen something at the same time if they were
both just mad.

But now… Well, it wasn't like she and Malfoy shared a common enemy. At least
not one that was still alive and had access to them at Hogwarts. The only thing they
shared was participating in the war, but if that had been the reason behind someone
doing this, there were others that should have been affected.

She had found little in the way of answers. Charms that only lasted for one
delusion, creatures that would have shown the same image every time, potions that
wouldn't show them sporadically but constantly until the cure had been consumed.
She had found an obscure potion with the capabilities if it had been placed on the
object, but it didn't explain the things that moved, like the rabbits, bugs, or rats.
There--

"Hermione!" someone yelled down the corridor. "Hermione! Hey!"

She turned, clutching her armful of books closer to her as Justin Finch-Fletchley
came bounding down the hall. She cringed, walking backwards as he slowed his run.
"I'm sorry again, Justin, but I'm really busy with this--"

"Just a few minutes! I really have to ask you something on this thing I'm
studying--"

"Can we do it tomorrow?" she asked him, shifting the books. She thought she had
discovered an alteration with one of the potions that might be behind her problem,
- 20 -
and she desperately wanted to read as much as she could before she went to the
apothecary tomorrow.

Justin's face fell as he grabbed his left wrist, rubbing his thumb across the
underside in frantic motions. He opened his mouth, his eyes flicking up to the ceiling
as his cheeks reddened. Hermione instantly felt guilty for turning him down again,
especially since he had waited four days since last time. She needed to get this all
down, though.

"I don't know if I'll be able to ask you--"

"Tomorrow at four-thirty, all right? I'll be here in the library to drop off books, so
I'll help you then."

Justin's lips formed around silent words, his arms plopping to his sides.
Something strangled in his throat, making an odd noise, and Hermione's hand
closed around the handle to the library.

"Tomorrow," she promised, ducking inside.

She ignored the guilt in favor of walking as quickly as she could to her table.
Pince had lost far too many books to allow students to bring them home, and
Hermione didn't want to travel back and forth all weekend to make sure she knew
all the ingredients and effects for the potion and counter-potion. She'd start brewing
it at her parents' tomorrow, and have it ready by Sunday afternoon. If this was the
means, it was only a matter of time before she found out the rest of it.

Malfoy was staunchly ignoring her, though Hermione knew he must have felt her
eyes digging into his ear and the curve of his jaw. He kept his eyes on the professor,
glancing down only to make sure he had the right lines for each rune. Hermione's
fingers curled a little tighter around her quill with each minute that passed,
reminding her again to heal her finger from where she had burnt it on the cauldron
yesterday.

Her plan had failed. Or, really, the potion had - the plan to brew it, consume it,
and test it had worked perfectly. The potion had worked on areas of her dormitory
room, and the visions did not stay in one repeated action on objects. A simple charm
had sent the objects into motion, and Hermione had grinned victoriously until the
charm was ended with a Finite Incantatem. She had been hoping that some part of
the potion would counteract the spell, causing her spells to not have any effect, just
- 21 -
as they hadn't on the visions she had seen the past few weeks.

She tried different spells. She tried different objects. She tried putting the potion
on the objects, ingesting the potion, and both. No matter what she did, it wasn't
right. She was disappointed for ten minutes, and then dedicated when she started
reading her books again, searching for the next possible answer. When she woke up
that morning to a spider spinning above her, larger than her torso, she grew
determined. And a determined Hermione Granger was a very frightening thing to
anyone who happened to be standing in the way of her goal.

And that anyone happened to be Draco Malfoy.

Whatever link she needed, she was sure he held it; whoever had access to the
both of them, or some bit of knowledge he hadn't considered as the right
information. He knew something, even if he didn't know he did, and he was going to
tell her. Whether he liked it or not.

Malfoy reached up to grab the back of his neck, and it was the first time she
noticed the ring he used to wear was gone. He turned his head, eyes slanting
towards her, and she pinched her lips, raising her eyebrows in question. He had to
know she needed to talk to him - wanting to was as nonexistent for both of them.

His lips pressed together hard enough to turn white, and he turned his head away
from her.

After class, she walked slowly enough for him to pass her, and she lagged behind
him, twisting through corridors. When they arrived at Advanced Muggle Studies
rather than an abandoned classroom, he only spared her a glance before firmly
shutting the door behind himself.

She followed him in anyway. As if that was really going to stop her. "Malfoy."

He froze, and she registered the way the rest of the classroom had as well.
Everyone seemed to be holding a collective breath as Malfoy looked at her over his
shoulder, surprise flashing across his features before his expression went blank at
what might have been a bit of smugness from her. But just a little bit.

He turned towards her, glancing at a rush of whispers to his left before meeting
her eyes. He adjusted the bag on his shoulder, his annoyance proven with the way
his fingers kept flexing on the strap.

"You dropped this," Hermione told him, holding out a folded piece of parchment.
- 22 -
He looked at it, and she waved it at him when he made no move to take it. "I'd take a
closer look at it if I were you. Getting it wrong could have dire consequences."

He lifted a glare from the note, and for several moments she thought he still
wasn't going to take it. Then he did, snatching it from between her fingers so quickly
that it ripped before she could loosen her hold. She glared at him but gave a nod,
turning for the door. He was probably thinking that she would tell someone about
his problem. Even if he knew that she wouldn't at the risk of exposing herself, she
was counting on him giving in to a meeting just in case. Or because he thought she
held far more sway with powerful people than she really did.

She didn't care what he believed. As long as he showed up.

- 23 -
 Chapter 2

Malfoy was already waiting in the room when she arrived. The candles, coated in
dust, were unlit, but she could make him out from the faint torchlight that slanted
through the door's window from the corridor. He was standing in front of a table
piled with dented cauldrons, half his face obscured in shadows as he looked at her.
His hair was perfectly combed, his clothing immaculate - he didn't look anything like
he had the first time, and the desperation had been replaced with impatience. He
even gave a low sound of annoyance when she took her time to check out the
window, making sure no one had seen her enter.

"Get on with it, Granger," he said lowly, his voice rasping over the vowels.

She glanced down to his right hand, hidden in the dark. It was ten minutes to
nine, so she knew he must have had his wand confiscated by now, but paranoia
made her cross her arms. She tucked her right hand into the fold of her robes, just
far enough to feel the bottom of her wand touch her thumb.

"We need to figure out what's going on. There's a certain set of people who would
want to mess with me, and there's an entirely different set of people who would
want to do this to you. We have to figure out who goes both ways, and then we can
figure out how they did it, and then I can stop it."

He just stared at her, which was possibly more infuriating than if he had said
something insulting.

"Well?" she snapped. "Has anyone appeared untrustworthy around you, or has
someone done something or acted suspiciously?"

His eyebrow hiked, and he tilted his head slightly as he scrutinized her. "You
really only have a brain for books, haven't you?"

She pulled the wand a little closer to her palm, glaring at him. "I said
suspiciously, not blatant hate. It's likely someone who has access to both of us.
Either to put something in our drink, or cast something on us when there weren't
enough people around to notice. What about Blaise Zabini?"

From what Hermione understood, the man had stayed clear of any affiliation

- 24 -
during the war. He also had a very interesting family history, from what she had
gathered, so who knew what he was capable of.

"No," Malfoy answered, and his forehead lined for a moment. "How does he have
access to you?"

Hermione waved her hand, as if to clear the insignificance from the air. "What
about Parkinson? You broke up with her, didn't you?" It might have been two years
ago, but dish best served cold and all that.

That appeared a bit too personal for Malfoy, who only glared at her in response.
"You're wasting my time. If there's a point to this, I suggest you hurry up and get to
it."

"Oh, did you need me to clarify, Malfoy? I thought the point was pretty obvious!
We need to figure out--"

"That's where you're getting things wrong. There's no we. Everyone knows about
your hero complex, so why don't you run off and save--"

"So you're just going to stand there and do what you usually do then, is that it?"

His head tilted back as if the words had a physical impact, and she watched the
casual detachment give way to his anger. "Fuck you."

The silence made the air feel more stagnant, and she couldn't catch a clean
breath. She knew he was a coward. The side he chose had seen him as one, and so
had hers when the articles in the papers had come out the day after his trial.
Extreme duress, Malfoy's legal representative had tried to sell, and after an entire
week of Pensieve reviewing by the Wizengamot, they had bought it. Hermione
didn't. If he had found himself in a situation he didn't want to be part of, it was
because his own decisions had led him there. If he did all these things for the
survival of himself and his family, he could have found a better way out. A way out
that didn't involve attempted murder, and torture, or keeping his head down, or
hiding down hallways in the final battle.

He could have done something. Though he might not have killed, though he might
have been afraid, he did nothing beyond obey enough to keep his head above the
water. She wondered if he thought that was brave. If attempting to go against
Dumbledore, living with Voldemort, doing what he 'had' to do to survive, seemed
brave to him. She didn't think it was brave at all. Going into hiding would have been
more brave. Taking Dumbledore's offer, or helping the Order. Risking his life - not
- 25 -
saving it.

But if saving himself was something Draco Malfoy somehow managed to do, then
this should be right on target for him. He should be taking the opportunity she was
presenting to get the solution quicker. He shouldn't have been just standing there,
do nothing - again.

"We don't share many common--" she started to say.

"I told you to--"

Her temper flared brighter - hard enough for her to feel the heat in her cheeks.
"What are you so afraid of that you won't even help yourself? This isn't against the
law, they aren't going to send you to Azk--"

"The last thing I'm going to do is get myself involved in your rubbish." His eyes
were brighter now when he moved forward, catching the glint of light from the
window, and his lips were curled back in distaste. "This--"

"It's not just my problem! You'd rather them think you were crazy than--"

His eyebrows furrowed as he took another step closer to her, and she gripped her
wand a little harder. "Over what?"

She snorted. "Over seeing things no one else can see! It's not like they're just
going to--"

He hummed, shaking his head. "Sounds like post-traumatic stress, Granger. You
should really get some help for that before you--"

"Exc-- Don't mess with me." She glared at him. "You said--"

"Did I?" he murmured, a hint of confusion in his tone.

Hermione narrowed her eyes so much that he appeared blurry. She stabbed her
finger into his chest, distantly wondering when he got so tall, and a brief look of
surprise flashed across his face as he looked down at her hand.

"Do not think you"-he slapped away the second poke-"can toy with me. I am a--"

"I can toy with you as much as I please," he hissed. "If you tell anyone about it, I'll
bring you right down with me. Don't threaten me again."
- 26 -
 He yanked the door open, and it came dangerously close to slamming into her
face before she got her hands up. She grabbed the side to throw it open the rest of
the way, following him out. She reached for his arm to stop the speed of his longer
legs, and he jerked away from her, turning to her angrily.

"Right," she said, "because your testimony is so credible! And if you threaten me

"Memories are. Or are you going to attempt Obliviating me? I--"

She felt her eyes widen, and shot out a hand to shove him. He was quicker,
though, catching her fingers before she could touch him. The last day she had spent
with her parents before leaving for the Burrow over a year ago had flooded her
mind, and it had taken her a moment to realize he wasn't referring to what she had
done. That he couldn't have known.

There was a silent pause of four heartbeats where his hand was still wrapped
firmly around her fingers, a curious expression crossing his face. He must have
known he had hit a nerve, he just didn't understand why. Hermione ripped her hand
from his grasp, and he pulled his own back, as if just realizing he had been touching
her. He rubbed his fingers against his thumb, likely trying to rid himself from the
feel of her dirty skin, and she glared so hard that the back of her eyes hurt.

"It's not like I planned to have to do this with you. The fact is that something is
happening to us, and we're the only people in this entire castle who wouldn't think
the other had gone mad. You need me, Malfoy. You might hate it as much as I do,
but it's the truth. Both our reputations are on the line, and I won't even go into how
badly this is screwing up my studies. Then there's N.E.W.T.s in just--"

He opened his mouth, but she waved her hand, speaking quickly. "I want this out
of my life now. There's a thousand texts about things like this in the Hogwarts
library alone. I don't know what's going on, or who did it, or how to stop it, but I
intend to find out. If I try it alone, it's going to take me a very long time. And when I
do find out, don't think I'll tell you when you've done nothing but protest against
assisting. I'm not playing games, Malfoy. You're in it or you're not. If you are, meet
me in the library after dinner on Wednesday. If you aren't, then good luck in
Mungo's."

Hermione shouldered past him, her shoes tapping quickly against the stone as
she headed for the stairs. She only spared him a glance when she turned into
another corridor, but he was already gone.

- 27 -
 *

"I don't know, you just don't look like you've been sleeping well."

Hermione shrugged, holding back the yawn at the back of her throat, and
speared a sausage on her plate. "The exams are coming up--"

"In a month and a half," Lavender told her. "It's a Hogsmeade weekend in a few
days, and there's the Quidditch match on Saturday. A bunch of people have rented
rooms at the--"

"A Quidditch match?" Hermione shook her head. "There are no Quidditch teams
this year. Mc--"

"Obviously." Lavender gave her a look, cutting out the yolks on her eggs and
pushing them to the side of her plate. "But a lot of people have been pretty miffed
about not being able to play their last year, so they put a few teams together for a
game. No Houses."

"It's in the field at the edge of Hogsmeade," Ginny clarified.

"Are you playing?" Hermione asked, pulling her plate back from a beetle that was
crawling across the table.

"Yeah, we're playing against the Repeats," Ginny said. Hermione hated that term.
"Sanders, the seventh-year from Ravenclaw, started up some bets that the
seventh-years could beat the repeat seventh-years in a match--"

"You're going down," Dean told her. "We--"

Hermione felt him jump on the bench, but Luna remained unmoving next to her.
She flashed him an apologetic look for the sudden sound, and tried to smack the bug
again as it continued towards the bowl of jam.

"What are you doing?" Dean asked.

"Trying to"-smack, smack-"get that bug."

"What bug?" Lavender asked, scooting back from the table.

Hermione glanced up, her hand hovering in the air, and her mouth remained
open despite her reply dying with a wheeze. The table looked to be alive further
- 28 -
down, and it took her a second to see that they were all bugs. Beetles, centipedes,
worms, roaches, all coating the top of the table, crawling over one another in a sea
of legs and shells. Maggots were moving beneath the sausage, twisting in circles,
and dropping down a girl's chin as she took a bite.

Hermione's gag reflex went off, and she swallowed hard, looking down at her
plate. A cockroach was escaping from her egg, coated in yellow juice, and she
shoved the food away from her.

"Hermione?"

"I just remembered something," she said faintly, glancing up to watch a tick crawl
into Ginny's mouth from the edge of her toast.

Hermione stood quickly, avoiding looking at anything but her bag and the floor,
and could swear she felt something crunch beneath her shoe.

"Where--"

"Library," Hermione said quickly, swallowing the nausea as she turned for the
exit.

Malfoy was twelve minutes late. Sure, she hadn't specified when after dinner, but
she had been counting the minutes since she had seen his head stop in front of the
library door windows, hesitate, and then walk away. She wasn't even sure if he
planned on coming back, but-- Well. All right.

"I had wondered what you looked like Petrified that year, but just a second of
staring at me stupidly would have sufficed."

She narrowed her eyes. "I hadn't seen you come in."

"Then you obviously weren't watching the entire time, so the fact that I'm here
without you having seen me enter shouldn't be that surprising."

Her wit wasn't even attempting an appearance, so she changed the subject. "I've
already read those two."

Malfoy looked down at the books in his hand, and his jaw clenched once with
annoyance. Remembering his indecision to even be there, she quickly grabbed the
- 29 -
three volumes she had entered the aisle for, and then held them out to him.

"There's loads more. I haven't checked out any books that are strictly about
delusions, visions, or image manipulations because it will look too suspicious. Those
should be read here, unless you want to risk-"

"Shut up," he whispered, snatching the books out of her hands. "You're not the
only one who comes here."

She rolled her eyes at his paranoia, but at least she knew he'd be careful with
their…problem when it counted. "There's a first-year and three second-years in the
front, and these stacks are for advanced study. They--"

"And not everyone comes here for the reasons you do." He pushed the books she
had read back onto the shelves, and Hermione tried to ignore her frustration with
him putting them back in the wrong spots. "You've likely caught people engaged in
as much…illicit activity as Filch has, so I'm not going to buy the naivety act."

He glanced at her, and there was a look on his face that she had come to
recognize over the years. It always preceded some taunt or another that never failed
to make her want to feel his jaw against her knuckles. She was barely restraining
herself already, and she knew he was likely aching for her to call it off and tell him
she'd do it herself.

She would have, but there were several reasons as to why it wasn't a good idea.
She still needed information from him, and if she could get him to do some
searching for the cause of this mess, she might actually stand a chance come exams.
Her Charms essay had turned into a blood-splashed mess beneath her hands last
night, and she watched a man hang from a noose behind McGonagall throughout all
of Transfiguration today. She knew for a fact that Malfoy hadn't copied more than
half a page of notes during the class either.

The visions were getting more frequent, and if they kept up at this rate, she was
going to be living in a world of nightmares by the end of term. She was on a
deadline, and if she had to work with Malfoy to reach it on time, she'd do it.

"I have some questions for you," she told him, and he didn't look in the least
surprised. "When did you start seeing--"

"A few weeks." He looked around them and glanced over his shoulder before
settling his eyes back on her. He seemed impatient as well, but that wasn't anything
new from either of them whenever they had to speak to one another.
- 30 -
 "How many weeks?"

"I don't know, Granger, I didn't mark it on my bloody--"

"But you must know how long it's been since you first saw something, or first
noticed that it wasn't real." She had been wondering that herself - how many things
she had seen before Bellatrix that were part of this. She couldn't remember anything
strange, though, so it must have started that day for her - even if there had been a
week gap before she had recognized a vision again.

"September. Third week of term." It actually looked difficult for him to get the
words out - he must not have been very used to honesty.

"That's a week before mine," she muttered. "Wait - wasn't that the week you got
into a fight the first time?"

His lips pinched for a second, a tiny wrinkle appearing in the bridge of his nose.
"The third. And if by fight you mean attacked by a group of people--"

"Who were they?" She had no interest in him playing the victim. "Well?"

He muttered something that she probably should have been happy not to hear. "I
don't know their names."

"House?"

"Slytherin. Are we done? You're--"

"Slytherin? Why would your own House…" Oh. Oh.

Malfoy looked unimpressed with the fact that she had just got it. This entire time
she had thought their enemies were two different groups, but… She remembered
the Death Eater intent on killing Malfoy during the final battle, how he hadn't
committed enough crimes for an Azkaban sentence, how he had been so harmless
during the final battle that none of them had even bothered to Stun or Petrify him
after saving him. Then his mother, who had saved Harry's life.

That side hated him. Their enemies were the same.

She felt a little dizzy with this realization, and something shifted in her mind that
made her whole body feel temporarily strange, though she couldn't say what it was.
It was a surreal realization. She might have had a lot of the facts before, she might
- 31 -
have gone through it all, but she hadn't ever pieced it together like that, despite that
it was so obvious.

Hermione cleared her throat, shifting the books in her arms. She felt awkward
under his gaze, and there was a hint in his expression that told her he was amused
by it.

"Well, then… This was likely someone in Slytherin--"

He looked up to the right in some form of an eye roll. "Slytherin isn't the only
House with people who would want to do this to either of us. Ravenclaw has the
intelligence, and if a Hufflepuff was loyal to the Dark Lord--" He paused while she
scoffed at the title. "If they were, then they'd still be loyal to the cause. A
Gryffindor--"

"It's not a Gryffindor," she said, and continued when he gave her a condescending
look. "They would do it for a prank or something, but if they thought it was bad
enough for revenge on you, they wouldn't--"

"I'd be shocked if anyone in that House could stand you for more than ten
seconds, and you're more of an idiot than I thought if you--"

She bristled. "The likelihood of it being my House is far less than it being yours.
That's common sense, Malfoy. Just because you don't appear to have any, doesn't
mean I'm--"

"I'm not the one ruling out an entire House because you drag up loyalty or pride
and call it common sense. Everyone's a suspect--"

"I'm saying that we'll start from likelihood and make our way down, not that I'll
rule out Gryffindor entirely. And some people aren't suspects--"

"Your friends? How--"

"Yes, my friends. They--"

"I'm not sure how you managed to survive a war when you trust--"

"I survived the war with skills, common sense, and friends," she bit out. "Isn't that
ironic, Malfoy?"

"How sweet," he drawled, his lips pulling into a sneer.

- 32 -
 "Just because you never made an honest friend in your life, and surrounded
yourself with untrustworthy, evil people--"

He took a step towards her, and she swayed before holding her ground. It must
have been the look on her face that made him pause, that made him realize who he
was in the post-war world. The hand that had risen halfway towards her dropped
back down, and his jaw clenched three times before he spoke.

"Always were a judgmental bitch, Granger."

"Funny - I always thought the same thing about you."

He looked like he wanted to strangle her, and she made for her wand when his
hands came up, but all he did was drop books on top of her pile. Her arms sagged,
and she had to shift the weight again to keep from dropping all of them.

"Check those out." He gave her another glare for a few seconds, as if hoping it
would start to burn holes into her skull before he left, and then turned his back to
her.

"I haven't asked all my questions, Malfoy. And like I said before, if you aren't
going to help with reading through all of these, I'm not going to give you the cure
when I find it. And I will find it. Do you even have access to potion ingredients? I
know you can't-- Malfoy. Hey!"

He left her fuming in the stacks.

Hermione was sure Malfoy had changed his mind, and the two times she tried to
make eye contact with him that day - once at breakfast, and once while passing in
the corridor - the only acknowledgment he gave her was a tightening around his
eyes as he continued to ignore her. By lunch she was trying to come up with a plan
for getting any more information out of him. By her last class she was blaming him
for being the cause of all of it before remembering the look on his face after Potions
that day. By dinner she had assessed and demolished his character in her head.
When she arrived at the library, moving back and forth between the aisles and her
table as she collected books, she knew it was all on her to figure out, and she was
only slightly panicking.

So when the shadow fell across her table, she suspected a lot of different people
for a lot of different things, and couldn't help but stare like an idiot at Malfoy for
- 33 -
several seconds. He looked bored, and ignored her suspicious look to wave his hand
towards the books.

"What of these have you checked out?"

"Why?"

His mouth was firmly shut when he looked up at her, not even contemplating if he
wanted to answer her. She frowned at him, sitting up straighter in her chair when
she noticed the slouch of her back in contrast to his posture.

"Last night you told me to check out those three books. Is it because you can't
check books out?" He must have been able to check books out. Perhaps his
selections were monitored, or he could only check out certain ones. She knew part
of the deal with his return to Hogwarts was strict moderation, but she hadn't even
considered it applying to his library rights until now.

It must have been why he was back at all. Without his wand after classes, he
couldn't attempt any spells or counter-spells to the visions. He wouldn't be able to
brew a potion, either - if they went so far as to restrict his library selections, they
were certainly checking his room, limiting his access to potion ingredients, and
would know if he brewed anything. If he wasn't cut off from those things, she was
sure he would have never set foot near her again. Passing his classes was part of his
probation requirement, and if anyone caught the barest of hints that he had gone
mad, they'd lock him away for that too. He must have been as desperate for the
counter-spell or potion as she was, only he couldn't do anything to actually get it.

Except for this. She had somehow ended up in the position as the only thing that
could save him - he must be furious over it. She could imagine him in a rage when
he was away from the watchful eyes of everyone, ranting about how he had to deal
with and rely on a Mudblood. It was probably eating him up inside. If she was a
different kind of person, she might have taken a moment to rub his pointed nose in
it. He was lucky it hadn't been Ron.

Hermione flipped her notebook over, paging through for the list she had created
that detailed their experiences. Malfoy's was ridiculously short compared to hers.
She felt a slight ease of calm as she dipped her quill in the inkwell, knowing he had
no choice but to cooperate. Having this settled before the term-end exams now
seemed far more possible, and she almost smiled at the hope of it.

"That day in Potions - what did you see?" she asked, looking up at him.

- 34 -
 There was a hint of red at the tips of his ears, and she was guessing the time she
took for realization had been spent internally ranting by him. He shifted slightly,
looking towards a distant murmur of conversation before swinging his eyes back to
hers.

"I believe the entire classroom witnessed you falling on your arse and pointing
your wand at Slughorn."

She felt a flare of heat in her cheeks, but refused to take his bait. There was
business to settle, and the sooner it was handled, the quicker she got away from
him. "Before that, what--"

"What did you see?"

"Just answer the question, Malfoy."

"I already answered it - now answer mine."

"You did not answer it, you ignored what you know I meant in favor of--"

"What did you see?"

She stared at him, loosening her grip on her quill before she snapped it. "It's a
simple question--"

"I agree, but apparently those are difficult for you, so I'll give you some more time
to process it."

She had to put her quill on the table this time. "What are you playing at? This
isn't--"

"Why are you avoiding the question? Do--"

"Because I asked you first, and I'll answer--"

"That's very mature. Have you-"

"Malfoy," she bit out, "what did--"

"You said him. You asked me if I saw him as well. Who did you mean by that?
Did--"

- 35 -
 "Voldemort," she snapped, tired of trying to get him to answer first. She had
wanted to be sure he wouldn't change his answer to match hers, or be influenced by
hers at all, but his expression of calm greeting her own of anger told her she'd be on
the losing end of patience.

He nodded once, and visibly relaxed. She hadn't even noticed how stiff he'd been
until his shoulders came forward a little, and he no longer looked to be sniffing the
air. She narrowed her eyes at him.

"If you think--"

"I did as well."

She closed her mouth, opened, shut, opened, and then made a sound of
annoyance in her throat. At least she knew it was happening to them both the same
now. That ruled out at least three quarters of the possibilities she had come up with
the past week. Almost everything she read had shown people different things.

"What about in Transfiguration--" she started to say, wanting to double-check.

"A man in a noose," he answered quickly, examining the cover to one of the
books.

She glared at him. "How come you answered that so quickly, but the first one was
like pulling your teeth out with two sticks?"

His nose scrunched the tiniest bit, and he glanced up from the book to look at her
from the top of his eyes. He opened his mouth, likely to question the reference, then
seemed to change his mind. "Insurance. Next question."

"Insu-- Insurance for what?" She got the blank-face look again, and she
scrutinized him until an answer came to her. "To be sure I wasn't setting you up? Or
to make sure you had enough from me to give proof if you accused me of anything,
in case I did it to you? Are--"

"If that's all of the questions--"

"It's not all of the questions," she snapped. He raised his eyebrows, but she knew
it couldn't be surprising that she was angry - he was doing it on purpose, and they
both knew it.

Fine. He got a memory of her admitting she had seen a vision of some sort, good
- 36 -
for him. Hermione could care less about his feelings of security, but his paranoia
was starting to grate. As if she would waste her very precious time trying to set him
up. Malfoy did a fine job of destroying his life on his own.

"I want a list of everything you've seen and where you've seen it, with dates if you
remember them."

He looked like he'd rather curse himself. "How is that relevant? Just figure it--"

"It's relevant because I say it is. Maybe if you had done some reading through
these books, you'd realize why. Figuring out if there's a consistency with place and
vision between the two of us, and certain dates that it happens on, could help us
greatly. Perhaps someone is doing this each time, or they cast or put something on
certain sections of the castle, or-- Has anything happened in your bedroom?"

His left eyebrow raised high, his forehead wrinkling. "You'll have to be more
specific," he drawled.

"Visions, obviously. Because I--"

"I really don't want to know what you've seen in your bedroom."

The red on her cheeks must have told him she perfectly understood his
implications, but she glared at him in annoyance and in an attempt to prove it was a
blush of anger. "Your bedroom."

He sighed. She didn't hear it, but she could see his shoulders raise and chest
expand before sinking back down again. "Yes."

Hermione hummed, biting her lips as she looked down at her list. Unless there
was a person who had access to both their bedrooms, it couldn't have been
something used on an object. There were house-elves, of course, but Hermione
wouldn't even consider that to be an option. Staff would have been noticed going
through the common rooms. She hadn't seen anyone but a few Ravenclaws visiting
Gryffindor tower. Her locking charms weren't advanced enough for a member of
that House to not work their way through them, but their only opportunity to not be
seen would have been during the day, and they would have had to know the
password.

"Have you ever…" Hermione paused, shifting uncomfortably. It was one thing to
talk about the visions openly when she knew he was seeing them as well, but they
still felt personal somehow. "Have you ever felt anything, rather than seeing them?"
- 37 -
 He stared at her, but there was a hint of amusement in his eyes that made her
realize he was screwing with her. He had a way of quickly discovering the weakness
in people, and then exploiting it to its full possibilities of shame and humiliation.
Knowing his own so well must have been constantly infuriating.

"Well?" She tapped her foot impatiently.

"What do you mean by feel?"

She straightened in her chair. "I know it must be a foreign concept for you,
feeling, but it's when…" She trailed off at the way his eyes had snapped towards the
right, the soft clack of the distant clock marking the time as quarter to eleven.

Something seemed to shift in Malfoy, who drew his bag higher on his shoulder
and focused his attention on the books. "Tell me which ones you've--"

"Do you have somewhere to be? I--"

"Were you enjoying my presence--"

"Obviously not, but you haven't answered all my questions. I still need a list from
you about what you've seen and where--"

"For the last time--"

"--other Houses have been in your common--"

"--checked out? I am not asking again."

She exhaled heavily through her nose, pointing the end of her quill towards a
small stack of books on the left of the table. "I need to know--"

"You always need to know, Granger," he told her, swiping two of the books and
shoving them in his bag. "Twice."

"W-- Twice, what? That you felt it?" She stood as he started walking away quickly.
"Where--"

Hermione growled, plopping back into her seat as he disappeared. If he did that
to her again, she was going to hex him.

*
- 38 -
 She almost didn't recognize Neville through the bruises and dirt on his skin. She
rushed towards him, wondering what had happened that had him injured and at
Hogwarts. Her heart was slamming against her chest, thinking of Ron, Harry, and
Auror missions. She shouldered students out of her way, her eyes connecting with
Neville's. She knew that look, that face - the way she had seen it at the Final Battle.

Her gaze darted to the side of him when something black emerged, wispy and
ethereal, a glint of silver raising out of it. She knew it immediately as the Sword of
Gryffindor, and she only had a moment to process that before it swung in an arch,
slicing straight through Neville's neck. Hermione gave a short scream as the blood
sprayed up in a wall, grinding her heels into the stone to stop her momentum. She
spun away, her feet sliding and slapping into the floor for purchase, and her hand
smacked over her mouth.

Breath. In. Out.

"Are you okay?" someone asked, a feather touch to her shoulder bringing her
back to herself. "Did you hurt yourself?" The voice was louder now, breaking
through the roar in her ears.

Hermione blinked away the sheen of tears, reminding herself, pounding the
knowledge into her head. She had known the second she saw that cloud of black,
but seeing that happen to Neville, so real and tangible in front of her, had made it
feel real. Had shoved her heart against the wall of her chest and tangled up all the
intricate makings of her person until she was congested with shock, fear, and pain.

"Hermione Granger?"

She nodded, her breath against her palm making her face hot, and she dragged it
away from her mouth. She blinked again, cleared her throat, pulled in a shuddering
breath. "Yes." Her voice sounded too thin, and she cleared her throat again.

"You're sure?"

"Yes, I… I twisted my ankle."

"Oh. Do you need to go to the infirmary? I can--"

"No, no." She glanced up at the boy next to her, stretching her lips. "I'm okay.
Sorry. Thanks. I… Thanks."

She pulled away from him, her blood still pounding, and began walking in the
- 39 -
direction she had come from. She didn't dare turn around to see if it was still there,
thevisionthevisionthevision, and tried to draw up a dozen memories to take the place
of the one repeating in her mind.

"Sorry - I wasn't expecting anyone, and work has been crazy." Neville blushed hot
red when he picked up an arm full of dirty clothes, making his way quickly down a
hallway.

"It's all right. I should have Floo'ed first. I was just thinking about you and
decided to stop in," Hermione explained. Yes, thinking about his eyes going blank,
and his head tumbling back from his neck as blood sprayed into the air.

She'd been trying to replace it with the memory of Neville killing Nagini, but it
wouldn't go away. She knew it was just a vision produced from magic, she knew it
was just as if she'd had a nightmare, but logic wasn't winning like it was supposed
to. She had made it two hours into Saturday morning before Apparating to his flat.

"Neville isn't used to lady friends coming over."

Hermione sent a withering look to Seamus, but thanked him for the cup of tea.
"I'm not a lady friend."

Seamus shrugged, pulling his Auror robes on. "You're a lady. You're a friend.
Lady friend. If you were a bloke friend, he wouldn't be as red as my hair because my
pants were in the hall."

"Why were they in the hall, anyway? Can't you put them into a hamper? It's four
extra steps on the way to your bedroom."

"Lady friend," Seamus muttered, patting down his hair, and then held his arms
out. "Yeah?"

She shook her head in confusion, and he glanced down at himself before giving
her an expectant look. "Oh. You look fine."

He nodded, snatching his wand from the coffee table. "See you, Hermione."

"Oh, Seamus, can you pick up some… And, he's gone." Neville scratched his
temple before giving a smile to Hermione, plopping down in the chair across from
her.
- 40 -
 "I'm surprised you decided to room with him."

Neville shrugged, stirring sugar into his tea. "We were roommates before. He'll
probably get a place with Dean after the summer." Neville gave her a guilty grin
before hiding it with his teacup. "Finally."

Hermione laughed, leaning back into the couch, and took him in - all healthy,
alive, and Neville.

Hermione looked up as a folded paper was stuffed between the open cover of her
book and the tabletop, long fingers darting away. She followed them up to a robe
sleeve, a broad shoulder, pointed nose, and hair that still managed to shine despite
the dungeon classroom. She thought him better suited for the green of summer, or
the vibrant red at sunset - something that washed him out. That showed him all
white, grey, white, and unremarkable, like a blank sheet of parchment across a
richly-colored book cover. Malfoy was never meant to be the light in dark places.

She grabbed the paper, shoving it deeper under her book as she glanced around
her. No one seemed to have noticed. She looked over at him, but he continued to
ignore everyone around him, dropping his bag on the floor and sliding into his seat.

She wondered why he didn't just give it to her in the library tonight, but when she
was twenty minutes into the lesson, she thought she'd figured it out. Her eyes had
been glued to the corner of the paper, the only part sticking out from under her
book, and she was barely registering anything that Slughorn said. He probably did it
on purpose, knowing he would wreck her concentration for the entire class, which
was one of the last things she needed.

The Project, as she had titled it, was taking up her brain time to near capacity.
She had only two weeks before she had to bury herself in studying for exams and
finishing the projects due at the end of term. She would completely ignore The
Project to concentrate on her scores, but every time she pushed away a book in
favor of her studies, she couldn't get her mind off of it. The visions were escalating,
her public reactions had started spinning through the rumor circuits, and she didn't
know how dangerous they were yet. Someone had done something to her, and given
the nature of it, she had to assume they weren't above doing something worse.

She had to solve this and soon. Hermione glanced up at Slughorn and pushed the
corner of the paper up enough to read in south, and temporarily sated her curiosity.
It was the list of Malfoy's visions then. She managed to write down four notes on
- 41 -
what Slughorn was saying for their potion next class, when her mind wandered to
what would be on the list.

The thing with Neville was bothering her. It didn't seem like a common delusion
meant to scare the victim. That had been very much specific to her. She would
assume it was a Boggart, but there were too many things wrong with that
conclusion. If the potion or charm showed them things that they feared, than Malfoy
wouldn't see the same things as she would.

Hermione rubbed a palm into the center of her forehead, glancing over at Malfoy
as he flipped a sheet of parchment and continued writing notes. She glared at him
as she wet her quill with ink, and then forced her eyes to remain on Slughorn.

Hermione hesitated, swaying left, right, left, before walking to her table. Malfoy
didn't even glance at her from the table he was sitting at a yard from hers, his hand
moving furiously over parchment as he flipped a page in a book. She recognized the
two books he had taken from her last week stacked near his elbow, and knew he
must have been reading about the visions. He looked paler than normal, a strain
around his eyes, and she wondered what he had seen that sent him to the library. By
how quickly his eyes were darting over paragraphs, and his hand had hardly paused,
she didn't know if he was determined to find the cure tonight, or he had found
something worthwhile.

She felt a coil of excitement in her stomach, but then remembered that Malfoy
didn't have all the facts. According to his list, he hadn't seen anything personal, like
she had with Neville. That had blown out her only two working theories, and it
might shatter whatever Malfoy had come across as well. She also didn't know how
much he had gathered of her side from their…conversations. As much as she would
have preferred him to keep dropping off lists without actually conversing, it was
pointless to have him look for possibilities if he didn't know exactly what to look for.

At least he was working on it, though. Her trust for his commitment to his own
self hadn't been misplaced. If he wasn't directly involved and effected by all this, she
wouldn't have trusted him with the work, but she knew he'd dedicate himself for
himself. She also knew by his place in the top ten of their class that he was
intelligent, and she also knew he might have proven harder competition if he
bothered to try in the subjects he didn't like. His money would work better for him
than top scores listed in a resume he would never fill out after Hogwarts, so he
never bothered. She detested that about him - about anyone.

- 42 -
 Hermione settled into reading, scowling at the pages that didn't supply her with
anything, and glanced over at Malfoy only when she heard the scratch of his quill
stop for longer than five seconds. He was examining the smudges of ink along the
side of his hand, frowning as he rubbed his thumb over them. He ran his unstained
hand through his hair, and she watched as the action caused the strands in the
middle to push back, and the ones on the side to stand on end. He looked almost
devilish, which was quite fitting.

Hermione's curiosity rose another notch when he wrote something in the margins
and then underlined a passage on his paper. His head gave the slightest inclination
of turning towards her, and she turned her own, looking back at her book. She
stared at the words until he was sure he must have stopped looking at her, and tried
to settle into some comfortable state of mind despite him being in her presence.

She was just copying the title of a book the one in front of her had referenced,
planning to check the aisles for it, when she heard the familiar puh of a book being
firmly shut. Papers ruffled, a table squeaked, fabric rubbed together, and then there
were the dull thuds of his footsteps to her table. She looked up at him, setting her
quill down, and tried not to stare too greedily at the small pile of parchment he was
holding.

He put the two books she had checked out on top of a teetering pile, and then
flicked his wrist so the parchment landed on top of her open book. He half-turned
from her before she spoke, her eyes on the rushed lines of his script.

"I was in the third floor corridor by that large portrait of the garden party last
week, and I saw something personal. Something that was specific to me, and not just
a scary vision." She really didn't want to go into detail, because she didn't want to
deal with some rude comment about it.

Malfoy had paused in his turn, and he was staring at the far wall, flickering
candlelight distorting his shadow on the stone. His shoulders raised a little bit, and
she thought he was shrugging at her until she heard him exhale loudly. He looked
over at her, and his eyes looked black in the seconds it took for the light to catch
them.

"It was from… It was reminiscent of the Final Battle, but altered. I know people
can create vision-specific charms by manipulating memories, but the magic is
advanced. Also, by the angle, I would say it would have had to be someone that was
standing with Voldemort. But even if that was the case, the person would have had
to create these every time we've seen them. Including our bedrooms, and so it
doesn't make any sense."
- 43 -
 She waited for him to speak, but his eyes looked distant. She wondered if he was
thinking about a vision he hadn't shared with her, or if he was thinking about the
one that was still keeping any hint of color from his skin.

"We have the same themes in some of the ones we've seen separately. Death,
bugs,…the war." It had surprised her just how much visions of Death Eaters seemed
to be haunting Malfoy as well. If they were specific to them when they were alone,
she would think he would see more Aurors or Order members, and not the side that
was supposed to have been his own. "But we haven't had the same vision except
when we're together. Even the dungeons corridor, by the supply room - you saw a
pit of snakes, and I saw blood on the walls a little further down."

He reached out, and she instinctively pushed back in her seat, watching as he
grabbed the first parchment in front of her. His fingers reminding her of a spider as
he drew the parchment into a ball within his fist. Hermione squeaked in her throat,
reaching out to snatch the paper back, but his hand had already withdrawn.

"There could have been something useful! We might--"

"There wasn't. Anything else you feel like sharing before I waste more of my
time?" He was angry, but she was expecting that.

She humphed, giving a regretful look to the fist at his side. "Have you tried
anything?" She continued at the look he gave her. "Have you tried to cast anything
at the visions?"

"No."

Maybe they monitored his magic, too. "They don't react. The spells go right
through them. I tried--"

His hand shot out to grab the rest of the parchment, and she was quicker this
time, grabbing onto the bottom of it. She could hear a piece of it tear, but she didn't
relinquish her grip, frowning at Malfoy's glare.

"Fine." He let go of them. "You obviously must enjoy conclusions reached without
all the relevant information, so have it. Hurry it up, though, Granger. I don't have
the rest of my life to wait it out."

She tucked the papers safely into her notebook, unwilling to look them over until
he and his grab hands vacated her space. "Perhaps if you weren't always leaving and
ignoring my telling you to wait, you would have known the information before." It's
- 44 -
possible she would have told him, after all.

He stared at her, his head tilted slightly, and his expression blank beyond the
hard look he was giving her. He wasn't even blinking, as if he was trying to channel
all his anger through his eyes and into the structure of her face, and didn't have a
second to lose in getting it all out. She glared back at him until she realized that his
lack of a retort must have meant he was waiting for something.

"No, there's nothing else now," she told him, remembering only when he turned
away from her. "Oh,"-he swung back around with a low growl-"I checked this book
out."

She held it out to him, and long fingers skimmed the edge of the cover before
retreating. She waved it, patient for him to take it until her arm - which was quite
used to hauling piles of books up several staircases and so fairly strong in its own
right - began to waver under the considerable weight.

"This is a book, Malfoy. Within it are pages. If you ever expect a cure, you read
them. I'm not doing all the work for you to benefit."

"I thought that's what you always did."

She felt the tightness around her mouth as the corners of her lips pulled down,
and she dropped the book on top of the pile closest to him. "I do the research for my
friends. You, in case this curse or potion has started to mess with your head, are not
one of them."

"I'm well aware of it, as well as how fortunate that choice--"

"A good choice. It must be on a very short list for you, Malfoy."

It was amazing how fully anger could transform his face. Perhaps it was because
he had walked around for months with a stoic expression and she had forgotten
what an emotion looked like on him. She was certainly reacquainting herself with
his anger, though.

He opened his mouth to speak, revealing clenched teeth, and then pressed his
lips together. He swayed back, and she thought he was sure to leave, but he couldn't
seem to let her words go without a response.

"Indeed. I frequently wonder, in detail, what would have happened had I not
made the mistakes of my past," he gritted out, and she couldn't stop the widening of
- 45 -
her eyes if she had glue, tape, and a Sticking Charm. "Like if I had made it clear who
you were at my house. Or if I had let Crabbe kill you that night in the--"

"Please," she hissed. "You act as if you saved my life. You--"

"Where do you think the Killing Curse was headed, Granger? A bookcase he
really, really didn't like the look of? Y--"

"It was only because you had orders to bring--"

"Potter back alive. Though I'm not surprised that you overestimate the worth of
your life."

Hermione's teeth clinked when her mouth snapped shut, and a bleary memory
that felt distant by lifetimes began to play out in her mind. It was a single moment in
a night that felt both days long and minutes short. She wasn't sure if her body, mind,
and heart had ever gone through so much in so short a period of time, and the part
of it spent in the Room of Requirement remained in mostly flash images within her
memory. She remembered Malfoy's face, though. She wasn't sure why it stood out
so much.

"What is this? An attempt to get me to do all the work because I owe you? We
saved you twice that night--"

"You didn't sa--"

"--nothing. Is it because you're incapable of saving yourself? It's a book. It

doesn't--"

He ducked his head forward, his eyes glittering in the dim lights. "You don't know
what I'm capable of."

"Not reading, apparently! Do you see these books? On top of term exams,
essays--"

"Shut up," he whispered, glancing over his shoulder.

"--to take too long. I'm not doing it for you. This is the last time I'm having this
conversation with you. Either way, I'll figure it out. You have a choice here, Malfoy.
You'd better make the right one this time."

He stared at her for several long seconds, searching for something, and she
- 46 -
stared back at him with her eyebrows raised. He hissed in a breath, shifting the bag
on his shoulder, and looked reluctant to answer her even while he resigned himself
to doing so. "I can't take that. It's restricted."

She glanced down at the blank, dark blue cover, remembering the tingle of magic
around it that proved it was under the charms that all books in the restricted section
were placed under. She had grown so used to the gentle swirl of magic on her skin
the past few weeks that she hadn't thought about it when she handed it over. It was
probably a good thing Malfoy hadn't taken it - Pince had looked hesitant to even let
Hermione take it out of the library.

Hermione looked up at Malfoy, wondering how he knew it was restricted. Perhaps

Umbridge had granted him access to the section in fifth year, and that was when he
learned the feel of them. She still wondered why he didn't take it - maybe she had
been right about those inspections.

Hermione grabbed three other books, equal in mass to the first one she had tried
to give him, and stacked them one-by-one in front of him as she pulled them out
from various places. Malfoy scowled at the pile before tossing them in his bag
without care, and she winced, thanking chance that he hadn't taken the first.

"I'll be here tomorrow if you find anything."

He made a noncommittal sound, and turned away as she flipped to another page.

- 47 -
 Chapter 3

Hermione threw her tie around her neck, wiping the sleep from her eyes with the
other hand, and wiggling her feet into her shoes. She tripped over her bag, her left
shoe flinging back behind her, and she released a growl of sound that barely tried to
become real words. She quickly knotted her tie, venturing back for her renegade
shoe, and then threw her bag onto her bed. She opened her trunk with a push of her
toes, and then dropped all the books inside that didn't relate to her classes for the
day.

If she didn't get stuck behind a blockade of slow moving people on the staircase,
she might make it to the Great Hall in time to scavenge a piece of toast. She always
had to leave breakfast early on Tuesdays to make it to the greenhouses in time for
class, and she meant to be there even earlier today to ask Sprout about a plant she
had found in her reading last night. It was not the best day to have grown a
tolerance for her alarm.

Hermione stepped out of her room and then stepped right back in as two younger
girls sped past her, chattering excitedly over some boy who had said something at
some place. Giggles erupted from one of the rooms, and someone yelled about
people needing to Scourgify the bath when they were done. It reminded her of what
must have been a hair disaster on her part, and she smoothed her hands over the
fluff, wincing as she tried to convince it to stay down.

She stepped out, shutting her door firmly behind her, and tapped her wand to the
knob to lock it. Girls ran back and forth between rooms in various states of dress,
borrowing, readying, inspecting, and gossiping. Hermione contorted herself around
them, clutching her bag in front of her as she tried not to make eye contact. She had
no interest in conversations or what other people deemed important today.

She only slowed down along the obstacle course when her gaze landed on a girl
at the far end of the hall. The girl was younger, her skin tinted blue except for the
smudges of purple that made her lips and eyelids. Her eyes were wide and deep,
dark brown, contrasting with the stringy and tangled dark blonde of her hair. She
was staring directly at Hermione, her eyes moving to stay locked to her when
Hermione skirted around a confused first-year.

Hermione swallowed, goosebumps rising from the nape of her neck and down her

- 48 -
arms and spine. She lifted her gaze above the girl's head, having a much harder
time of looking away than she should have from something she didn't want to see.
It's just a vision, she reminded herself, but it didn't erase the feel of the girl--its
eyes. There was something dark about it - something that snuffed out the sound and
lights of the busy dormitory morning. Hermione felt the whisper of violence inside
her, the pollution of something sinister that she always felt whenever a moment was
about to get ugly.

Just a vision again, just a vis-- Hermione stopped abruptly, her shoe scraping the
floor. Cold. A drop in the temperature that she hadn't felt just one step back,
prickling along her skin. She almost expected to see the fog of her breath when she
exhaled. Her eyes darted back to the gi-vision, and she saw fear there. It was in the
width and shimmer of its eyes, so plainly and intensely there that Hermione
expected to hear the trembling shriek of a scream any second. Hermione recognized
that sort of terror, had felt it herself, and the phantom of it rose up in her chest in
response.

"Forget something?"

Hermione jumped as the voice shook the moment apart, and she loosened the
clamp of her fingers around her bag. A swell of half-words rumbled at the back of
her throat as she searched for something to say, shaking herself. "I was just
thinking."

"About the Charms alteration?" Parvati asked. "Because it's either impossible or
we missed something in class."

The vision lifted its hands in front of itself, folding shaking fingers into pleading,
prayer, or both.

"I think that bit about a leaf was a clue, but we haven't done anything with plants
yet this year," Ginny added, brushing against Hermione as she stepped around her.
"Unless she meant we had to use a leaf?"

Parvati passed her next, and Ginny turned to look at Hermione, her hair flying out
through the image of the girl. For a moment it looked like blood had just slashed
across that pale blue face, but then Hermione blinked, and the girl was gone.

"Did you figure it out?" Ginny asked, and Hermione thought her curiosity wasn't
only in part to the question.

"Uh…yes. Yes, I did," Hermione said weakly, trying to organize her thoughts as
- 49 -
she followed the girls quickly. She shivered at the lingering cold, and couldn't help
but step around the spot where the girl had been.

"Good, you can catch us up over breakfast, or we can do a study session in the
Common tonight. Did you finish your essay?"

Hermione said goodbye to Ernie with a brief smile and wave of her hand, turning
towards the Gryffindror table. Two younger students were shoving one another in
front of her, one laughing while the other blushed brightly. The third boy walking
with them was frowning, a prefects badge pinned to his robes. A sudden and fierce
claw of nostalgia gripped the inside of her chest, making it tight and pressured as
she thought about Harry and Ron. Hogwarts wasn't the same without them. She
couldn't even remember a time she had gone longer than a few weeks without
seeing them every day.

She still had to stop the impulse to run for the Common Room whenever she
found a possible solution to this whole mess. She had contemplated telling them.
She knew they'd believe her that someone had done it to her, but it wasn't worth it.
They were both busy with important Auror duties, and causing them worry - or
worse, having them sweep into Hogwarts with some loose plan of infiltration,
investigation, and interrogation - would only cause her more problems. The answer
was somewhere in her books, she knew it. She just had to find it, and find the person
who did it. She had faced and triumphed against far more intelligent and dangerous
people than whoever was doing this.

Not that they weren't succeeding in causing her a lot of grief at the moment.

Hermione dropped her bag next to the bench, casting a look towards the
Slytherin table before taking her seat. Malfoy seemed to be in a hushed conversation
with Goyle, but there was a rapid change in topic when Theo Nott approached. She
could tell by the way Malfoy lifted his chin and turned from the slight angle of facing
Goyle, saying something that made Goyle shake his head. Nott looked between the
two as he sat down across from them, then focused on Goyle, saying something that
made the other man shove a forkful of food into his mouth. Malfoy spoke instead,
and there was a long moment of held eye contact before Nott accepted whatever it
was.

Interesting.

Hermione had tried to capture Malfoy's attention in Ancient Runes, the only class
- 50 -
they shared today, but he hadn't spared her a glance. She had seen him for the
length of one corridor, but he had seemed in a rush to get to his next class.

She needed to talk to him about this morning and how she felt that coldness. She
remembered him telling her he had felt things, but she didn't know if he had meant
the tingle of something other but unseen, or an actual physical feeling. It had been
the first time she experienced anything like it, and she needed to see if it was a
coincidence. A drafty castle in Scotland's November made for some cold mornings,
but it had seemed to be surrounding the vision.

If Malfoy had physically felt something, it was going to help them out a lot in
narrowing the options down. She had never heard of a spell that could be so
complex and create such a layered experience for only the person it was cast upon.
It would have to be multiple spells and charms, and not only on Hermione and
Malfoy, but on the locations themselves. It seemed like a lot of effort when there
were a multitude of other options that were just as detrimental but easier. If Malfoy
had experienced something like she did this morning, she'd be willing to bet her
sanity, reputation, and upcoming test scores on the source being a potion.

Her brain had been getting ahead of the situation all day. All she could do was
think about it and ponder over each possibility, and she didn't even have the answer
yet.

Hermione heaved a frustrated sigh, doing her best to look casual as she leaned
back to see around Luna's giant hat. Malfoy was taking a drink from his goblet, but
she couldn't see how much food he might have left on his plate, or determine when
he planned on leaving. It wasn't like she could walk over there and ask to speak to
him privately - she didn't know what would happen, but she did know it would be
something she didn't want to deal with.

She thought about sending him an owl, but there were no windows in the
Slytherin dormitory, and his mail might have been checked. There wouldn't be room
to talk to him out in the corridors or dungeons if she followed him. Hermione
narrowed her eyes, but he didn't seem to feel the power of her urgent gaze despite
that it was straining her eyeballs.

She felt a wave of desperation rise up inside of her as she convinced herself he
was going to leave at any moment. This was going to drive her crazy all of tonight
and tomorrow if she didn't talk to him now. She had already been sitting at her table
for fifteen minutes, and had done little more than eat three bites of food and scowl
at her pumpkin juice. She had to do something.

- 51 -
 Hermione glanced at the people around her, all of them busy talking to one
another or serving themselves more food. Luna was the only one who might see, but
she looked a bit too occupied with the stars above them. Grabbing her bag,
Hermione stood quickly, her fingers just pinching the edge of her plate. She stepped
over the bench and yanked her plate with the motion, chunks of glass and bits of her
bangers and mash decorating her shoes.

Hermione grimaced as a hush fell over the Great Hall, heat claiming her cheeks
and ears as the focus swung to her. She drew in a deep breath, turning her head
towards Malfoy, and managed to catch his eyes once conversation roared up again.
She gave him the best significant look she could manage in a second of time, leaning
her head forward and raising her eyebrows.

"Reparo," Dean said, and she turned her attention away from the distant flecks of
grey, cleaning her shoes with a swoop of her wand.

Hermione paced back and forth in front of the two tables tucked into the corner
of the library. Her corner, as she had come to think of it. She rarely had to share it
with anyone since the time she was a fourth-year. There was water flowing down
five rows of stacks in front of her, but a touch to the book spines had shown they
were dry.

Malfoy had passed the other side of the rows a few minutes ago, a small wrinkle
between the furrow of his eyebrows as he looked at the water. His eyes had swung
to hers before a sixth-year Ravenclaw appeared from an aisle, walking past
Hermione as he stared at the book in his hands. When she had looked up from the
boy, Malfoy was gone, and now she was stuck waiting for him to show up again.

If these meetings were going to be a recurring thing the next week…or so, they
needed to come up with an excuse for people seeing them. It was too abnormal for
them to be spotted together - people would get curious, and that was one of the last
things she needed right now.

She almost ran into him on her way back, pulling up short when the tips of his
shoes came into her view of the floor. Her head jerked up quickly enough to make
her dizzy, and she was reminded that she hadn't eaten beyond a piece of toast that
morning and a couple bites at dinner. Malfoy lifted an eyebrow at her spastic
behavior, and his fingers rolled to give a bored succession of taps against the bag
strap his thumb was hooked under.

- 52 -
 Hermione straightened up, taking a step back to more clearly define their
personal space. She cleared her throat and gave him a stiff nod. "I'm glad you got
the message."

"Yes," he drawled. "If the Hall hadn't been so distracted by a showing of your
clumsiness, I'm sure at least half of them would have got it as well."

She chose to ignore that. "When you told me the other day that you felt things
sometimes with the visions - what did you mean by that?" He was quiet for a
moment. "It's not a trick question," she snapped, having waited too long for the
answer to be patient with his reluctance. "Did you mean you sensed something, or
did you actually…feel something?"

"You mean physically?" he asked, and she nodded. He didn't seem pleased with
her answer. "No."

Her shoulders slumped. She hadn't realized how much she had been hoping he
said yes until the disappointment flooded her. "I see. I…I felt something this
morning."

"I gathered that. You touched it?"

"What? No. It wasn't…" She paused. "Well, I didn't get near enough, but I'm sure
it wasn't an actual mass. I felt coldness. She was blue, and it just felt right. Like if I
had touched her…" Maybe talking about it in that much depth was too personal. She
felt awkward, and it was only deepened by the strange look that came over Malfoy's
face.

There was a heavy pause, and she stared at the water dripping down the shelves
until she had mentally formed a sentence that was dismissing without appearing too
rude.

"Coldness?" He sounded rather unimpressed. "It's November. The--"

"I know that." She gave him an annoyed look, turning to deposit her bag on one of
the tables. "It could have been a draft or something, but it was only around this
vision. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but I needed to check with you to be sure.
Because if it wasn't, if it happens again, chances are we're looking at a potion."

His eyes drifted to the floor, and she opened her mouth to explain her theory
when he beat her to it. "There aren't any localized Cooling Charms unless they're
applied to an object, but you would have had to touch it. There are spells that
- 53 -
produce visions, curses that will cause people to hallucinate nightmares, but--"

"We see the same things sometimes. It would have to be something that causes us
to be able to see them, since no one else does, and then a partnering charm on
objects to create the vision itself. And one that doesn't respond to typical end-spells.
Then a charm for mobility, since they do move. And now, if it wasn't a coincidence,
something that would produce--"

"The visions could move because of the same spell that causes us to see them."

Hermione nodded. "It's a possibility. But how do you explain us seeing different
visions when we're alone, and the same when we're together? Like the water." They
both glanced at the stacks again. "It would have to be another spell on some object
within the vicinity. And if that were the case, if it was localized, it would need
another charm for mobility."

"There are curses that trigger visions from the subconscious."

"But why would I see yours, and you would see mine? Not to mention that some of
these are people or things I've never seen or imagined before, and you're not near
me."

She hadn't planned on having this conversation with him, but the more he talked,
the more she couldn't shut herself up. She was tired of looking at all her lists and
diagrams. Maybe Malfoy could add something she hadn't thought of yet.

"Things in our subconscious aren't always things that have happened, or that you
know you've thought of. Like how people sometimes dream of people they've never
known. The image might be stronger than others in the other person's mind, and so
that is the one we both see."

"But a potion could have been created in the same cauldron to link us together in
what we see, where a spell would have had to hit both of us at the same exact time
to link us. Or was placed on objects that we wear, but…"

She looked down at his wrists and fingers, and then up to his neck, not finding a
trace of jewelry. He looked back at her stoically.

"If we weren't linked somehow, there's no way we would see the same thing.
Unless there are charms placed on objects."

Malfoy shook his head.

- 54 -
 "What?" she asked.

He took a deep breath and held it, and she didn't think he was going to reply for a
long moment. "It doesn't make sense, Granger. No one would go to that much effort
to keep casting charms on objects. It's also too risky, and there are too many better
options. The choice of doing that shows stupidity, but the spell itself is rare enough
to show some intelligence."

"Maybe they chose it because it was rare, despite the extra effort."

He gave her the look he used to reserve for Neville after he blew up another
cauldron. She glared back. "There are thousands of rare spells that would
accomplish exactly what they wanted, and only cost them a single incantation."

"You said it shows intelligence and stupidity, so maybe it was two different--"

"No, the smarter one would have been the one to choose the spell if that's the
case." By the quickness of his response, she was assuming he had already
contemplated and dismissed it.

"We still can't rule it out," she told him. "It could have been someone looking
through rare spells over the summer and just went with it. I've learned to never
underestimate the stupidity of your opponent…" She paused awkwardly, shifting
under the look they shared that said all the things they were ignoring for the
moment. "If the physical effect happens again, we can rule out a spell or charm. But
until it does…"

"Did anyone else feel it?"

"Huh?" Not the most intelligent response, that.

"The draft."

"Oh. No. I don't know. No one said anything."

He gave her a look of annoyance. "You're particularly good at not shutting up,
Granger, so if it happens again, you might try asking."

She gave him an angry look that he didn't seem remotely bothered by. She didn't
try telling him about the suspicion she thought Ginny was regarding her with lately -
he wouldn't care, and she didn't have time to waste. "Did you find anything
significant?"
- 55 -
 "No." He opened his bag, digging through it for a moment before producing one
of the books she had given him yesterday.

She accepted it, dusting imaginary damage from the cover. "We should meet back
here tomorrow after dinner. Just in case something happens."

He hesitated, but the still-flowing water his eyes landed on seemed to make up
his mind. "Fine."

"Wonderful," she said tiredly, turning for the table.

Hermione followed behind Padma and Parvati, their arms linked as they laughed
with a seventh-year Ravenclaw she had heard Padma call Alice. Hermione
concentrated on the stairs, scowling at them as she tried to push away the feeling of
being watched. The time she had endured searching for Horcruxes had given her a
slightly unhealthy grip with paranoia, and now instincts told her to search out the
feeling while logic demanded she not prove herself insane by freaking out over an
illusion.

She kept her resolve with anger, thinking of the person who had done this to her
and how they must have expected this to happen.

Ginny's arm brushed her with each step, and the redhead drew her robes tighter
around herself as it grew colder the higher they climbed. Hermione wondered if the
temperature control charms had been put up yet - Hogwarts: A History told her they
were usually placed on the owlery in November, but it didn't feel like it yet.

"You wrote a letter to Harry?" Hermione asked Ginny, trying to break the thick
silence surrounding the other girl.

Hermione had purposely led the group around any places that would further
darken Ginny's mood, but it seemed the closer they got to the owlery, the stiffer
Ginny's spine became. Hermione was holding her own letter to Harry telling him she
wouldn't be staying at his home that weekend. She had wanted to ask Ginny to
include it in her own letter, but it had seemed like a Very Bad Idea.

"Yeah. I still don't understand why McGonagall won't give the regular
seventh-years the weekend off, or at least let Harry and Ron visit. They only won the
war at this very place, but it's somehow against the rules to let them back in."

- 56 -
 Hermione bit the tip of her tongue to force back the rule reciting she had been
about to babble on about. There was a beat of silence before Ginny started talking
again, her voice lower.

"I don't know why they had to become Aurors. We weren't supposed to have to
worry about them anymore."

Hermione had had a fight with Ron that lasted an entire week when she
suggested he get a real job and let go of all the danger and adventure. It hadn't been
the best choice of words, but she had been scared. She was still scared. But she also
knew it was part of who Harry and Ron were, and a big enough part of them that
they couldn't try, like her, to be something other than the things that once defined
them. Because it would always define them. They had spent eight years fighting evil
and bad people. Harry and Ron would never stop - she didn't think they could.

It was easy to love them, but sometimes it felt like the most difficult thing she's
had to do.

"Christmas hols are coming up, at least," she said, perhaps with a little too much
force in the optimism for it to seem real.

Ginny huffed. "Right."

Hermione winced when she opened her mouth and knew she was about to say
what she just thought. "We have a Hogsmeade weekend in two weeks. Maybe Harry
can come to Hogsmeade and you two can meet up somewhere?"

She saw the glinting white of Ginny's eyes in the dark, and then her teeth as Alice
cooed at the idea in front of them. Parvati was silent, but Hermione thought that
was less about rule breaking, and more more about the letter to Ron that Lavender
had passed Parvati with attempted stealth and side-glances. Hermione didn't care,
but given Lavender and Parvati's snickers over her hair yesterday, Hermione was
content to let them simmer in the awkwardness.

"...afternoon so that way you can have tea, shop, and then dinner."

Hermione backtracked as their voices grew more excited. "He might not be able
to--"

"Oh, and you should make it for Saturday so you can buy a dress on Friday! I saw
this new dress that just came in to…"

- 57 -
 Hermione rolled her eyes, which wasn't a great idea for a narrow, steep staircase
in weak wandlight. She tripped up a step but caught herself on the wall, the cold
numbing her hand. She pulled it back sharply, shaking the ice cold from her skin,
and sent a glance at the wall. That was weird. It didn't feel like the stone should
have been that cold.

Paranoia came roaring back, and the hairs on her arms stood on end. She slanted
her eyes towards the wall, swinging her light enough to illuminate nothing but
stone, but she could swear she felt something still watching her.

The scent of owl feed and feces hit them, causing the other girls' excited chatter
to break off into complaining whines through blocked noses. They entered the
moonlit room to the sound of a thousand ruffled feathers, and the weird feeling she
had intensified at hundreds of eyes glowing in the dark around her.

"Let's just hurry this up," she whispered, aiming for the closest owl without a
missive already attached to its leg. The sooner she was back in her room and
studying, the better she would be.

Hermione squinted her eyes at the tiny, tight script in the parchment's margins.
Malfoy usually had excellent handwriting, but margins were obviously his downfall.
Coldne…t…be a trampfigure…couldn't be a transfiguration? Because base conntenac…co
He had a problem with mixing printed letters with cursive when he was in a rush. Or
maybe the printed letters were so sloppy that they just looked like cursive to her,
but it was giving her a headache.

His notes were interesting once she figured them out, and it was only slightly less
weird to be having an academic discussion with him through her mind and his
parchment than it had been the last time they met up. She…

Hermione blinked at the paper, crumpling it at a corner as her hand tightened

around it. She refused to look around herself. It would go away soon enough, and
the only way to make it stay gone was if she kept paying attention to the books and
notes spread out around her. The visions were preventing her from focusing on her
studying enough as it was, so-- Hermione jerked as her eyes landed on another pair,
and then scrambled backwards, snatching her wand from the bedside table. She was
on her feet in a second, parchment crinkling and books plopping from the bed. The
eyes inside the wall blinked back at her, and Hermione released a breath as the wall
rippled, revealing a set of shoulders, a torso, and a clenched hand. He-it was the
same color as the stone, blending perfectly when it held still and shut its eyes.
- 58 -
 It leaned its head forward enough to come out from the wall, showing a crooked
nose and a bald head with three dents along the top. The eyes snapped open, rising
to meet her gaze, and her heart thundered. It's not real. It's just a magic that can't
touch me, she reminded herself, but it didn't do much for the way her blood was
pounding.

She had to go to it. She would much rather stand half the room away and watch it
until it left, but she wasn't going to find out if it caused a physical sensation that
way. Hermione swallowed tightly, taking a moment to prepare herself, and then
headed around the bed. Her arm was still stretched out and steady in front of her,
trained on it as she drew closer. It's not real, it's not real.

She pulled up short when its head jerked to the right before it moved further
down the wall in shifting lines of body parts. A foot stepped down into her carpet,
but she saw no proof of ankles or individual toes. It looked as if it had been
submerged in pavement before crawling out still covered and wet with it. It stopped
halfway down the wall, turning forward again, and part of its face emerged from the
wall to get a look at her. As odd as it looked, it still looked real. It looked tangible
and touchable in front of her, and her feet dragged a little with the next step.

"Stupefy!" Just to be sure, to be absolutely sure.

Hermione paused as the spell seemed to sink into the wall rather than crashing
into it, and the eyes blinked at her. It must have just gone into the magic of the
vision, that was all. It didn't mean someone was actually there. The spell would have
done something.

This couldn't be a charmed object. The charm would have activated when she
walked in, just like the other times she had seen something in her room. Only once
had she seen something after that, but she could have missed it until it was above
her when she woke up. This one she wouldn't have missed. She had taken to
inspecting every corner and space of her bedroom as soon as she entered, and she
would have seen this. There was nothing different that she had done to activate a
charm. She had been thinking about it, but she was always thinking about it now.

Hermione drew her wand back a little as she stopped in front of it, trying her best
to look scientifically at this despite the trembling of her insides. She didn't feel
anything different, and she was closer now than she had been to the girl. She
remembered the owlery and held her breath, raising her chin as she reached out to
touch the wall.

An arm shot out, and she gasped, jumping back as she flung her arm away. For a
- 59 -
moment there was heat around her lower arm and hand from the vision, or her
adrenaline, or the brief flare of pain from throwing her arm into a weird angle of
escape. Hermione stared wide-eyed, her hand white-knuckling her wand. She'd
never had that level of interaction with the things before. There had been eye
contact, but it had never reacted from something she had done.

She had to get rid of these things. She had to… Did its eyes just narrow at her?
Hermione's eyebrows drew together, and she fell into a duel stance without thinking
as the wall wavered. The thing turned its head away instead of attacking, running
for the corner of the room before disappearing. Hermione let out a shaky breath,
trying to stomp down on the fear that was shaking in her chest. She trained her
wand on the spot it had disappeared from, and then revolved around the room until
she was dizzy.

There he was. When she hadn't seen Malfoy at breakfast or lunch, she had
wondered if he was allowed to go home over the weekend. She had not expected to
see him in the corridor next to the Gryffindor staircase. Flitwick was talking to
Goyle, who either didn't understand or was disagreeing. McGonagall was in a
conversation with an intrigued Nearly Headless Nick as she waved at a vast hole in
the wall. Malfoy was giving a hard look to a piece of something he had pulled out of
a rubble pile, turning it in the light of a torch as he flipped it between his fingertips.

His face was shining, and it was the first time she could remember seeing him
sweat. No - the last battle. And probably dozens of times after Quidditch games, but
she couldn't draw up the image for those. He shoved the fringe from his eyes, and
then pushed back the strands that stuck to his forehead, turning to toss whatever
he'd been inspecting into a pile across the hall. She waited a moment to see if he
would feel her looking at him, but he turned back to what he was doing without a
glance in her direction.

Maybe he kept feeling it too, and was doing a lot better than she was at ignoring
it.

Hermione turned for the staircase, pushing her bag to the center of her back for
balance as she climbed. She muttered the password to a narrow-eyed Fat Lady, and
was glad when she swung open without trying to reminisce with Hermione. She
must have been miffed at Hermione constantly brushing her off, but she didn't have
the time or desire to sit and chat about the war.

The common room was bustling with students, filled with that electric sort of
- 60 -
excitement that favored youth on weekends. She ignored them, skirting through the
maze of games, snacks, and loud laughter for her bedroom.

Hermione forgot her rules on personal boundaries - and the fact that she had yet
to come up with a proper excuse - and immediately took the seat across from
Malfoy, dropping her bag on the floor. She missed whatever expression he might
have made at finding her across from him, bending to dig through her bag for the
book that had her running here in hopes to find him. Once she had it in her hand,
she remembered where they were enough to glance over her shoulder before pulling
it into view.

She pushed her hair behind her ears, setting the book in front of her, and then
looked up at Malfoy. He looked back at her as if she might start convulsing next, and
he'd likely be leaving if she did.

"I might have found something." Some letters had trouble catching up to the rush
of the other ones, and parts of her sentence came out all breath. By the change to
his expression, he understood well enough.

She flipped the book open, searching for the page, and saw him lean forward
from the top of her vision. "I was in my bedroom yesterday when I saw this thing in
the wall. I had been in there for hours and had looked around when I came back
from breakfast, and it just appeared. Nothing to trigger it if it was a charmed
object--"

"Unless someone is controlling it from somewhere else."

Hermione paused in her discovery that her bookmark had fallen out, looking up at
Malfoy as he glanced down at the parchment in front of him. "I hadn't considered--"
She cleared her throat when his eyes lifted. "Well, yes, possibly. But this interacted."

There was only the sound of pages turning for four exhales. "Interacted?" he
asked, annoyance creeping into his tone.

"I went to touch it to see if I would feel anything - which I might have, by the way,
but it was too quick and I can't rule out other factors. But when I got my hand close
to it, it tried to grab me. My arm. Its hand just came flying out towards me. I got
away from it, but it was quick enough that it would have touched me if it could. But
it still reacted to my action. My non-magical action, which is…perplexing."

- 61 -
 Malfoy looked at her for long moment, and she wasn't sure if he was thinking or
didn't believe her. He looked back down at his notes and then grabbed a book,
flipping to one bookmarked page, the next, the next.

"Right," Hermione said, shifting closer to the table's edge to try and make out
some of his notes. "So even if someone was controlling it from somewhere, the level
of control they would need-- I mean, it would require a way to watch us at all times,
or at least the times where we saw the vision, so they could cause it to react. It
would need a charm that forced the reaction…something connected that would be
the same. Like a Galleon-- No, because it would have to channel magic out, so--"

"A gem, a stone, a device, something that held a magical element within it,"
Malfoy muttered.

"Exactly. Which is…well, it's a possibility, but the magical skills needed for
something like that would be extraordinary. Not only would it require a lot of magic,
but magical control. Not to mention--"

"As difficult as it might be to comprehend, you're not the only one adept at magic
in a magical school."

Hermione hesitated, tilting her head as he flipped another page - from the bottom
corner, she noticed. Well, at least he could now admit she was skilled in magic. "It
would require putting the means in a lot of places. If it's a gem, there would have to
be one in dozens of places in the castle. As well as our bedrooms." Hermione shook
her head. "That's not what I found. When the vision interacted with me, I started
looking through different--"

"I don't need the full story. Just get to the point."

"--helpful, but after reading through a lot of books, I ended up coming upon this
reference. It was a theory at best, but there has been a lot of research put into it,
and several spells that--"

"I doubt any of this is important, so why don't--"

"--researched it very thoroughly. In fact, I even found--"

"Granger, for fuck sake, the point."

Hermione's mouth clicked shut as she glared back at him, and he lifted two
fingers above his right eye, the tips turning white as he pressed them into his
- 62 -
forehead. She had been hoping to get out all the information before announcing
what she had found, or else she knew he would think she was an idiot for even
suggesting it. She knew she would have thought the same of him had he popped out
with this one day.

"Spirits." There was a flicker of confusion behind his glare, and she clarified,
"Ghosts. Or spiritual energy."

His fingers dropped, and he looked like he was mentally tearing apart every good
thing he had heard or seen of her intelligence. "These aren't ghosts."

"No, I know. Some of them might be, but I'm talking about spiritual energy.
There's a theory that energy of events can become trapped in our world. Major
events. Like a death, or a battle - something that caused a lot of energy. And certain
spells can draw them out, and open a person up to seeing them. It's--"

"Did you have some tea with Trelawney? Exchange implausible ideas, like
controlling either of your hair or spiritual energy, while--"

"I don't believe in the things she teaches, despite…sometimes getting a thing or
two right. Trelawney saw Harry dead a hundred times. But this has some merit.
I've-"

"He'll die eventually." He shrugged a shoulder when her eyes snapped to his. "So
I suppose she was partly right. I suppose she had some merit to her theory. Every
theory--"

"This has some research behind it--"

"And--"

"Will you just let me speak? We're not getting anywhere when you keep
interrupting me!" The sound of her hand smacking into the page was not as
satisfying as she wanted it to be.

Malfoy lowered his chin, a slight pull to his mouth that marked the beginning of a
sneer that didn't fully form. The disgust was there anyway, in the brief flare of his
nostrils and the narrowing of his eyes. She waited a moment for some insulting
remark to shoot out into the stiffness between them, but surprisingly, he kept his
mouth shut.

Hermione took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders. She had thought Ron was
- 63 -
difficult in these situations, but at least he followed what she wanted even when he
didn't believe it. Usually.

"Whatever argument you have, it's not something I haven't already thought of"-he
flashed an annoyed look to the air over her shoulder, and she finally landed on the
page she'd been looking for-"and dismissed or found credible. I realize that there are
problems with the theory, and I realize there is no clear, absolutely substantial proof
that this exists. Or we could be looking at the proof of it every time we see a vision."

She paused, scanning over the spell again, and then continued. "There's an old
curse that enables the person to be more sensitive to energies. It actually uses your
own magic against you to seek out the sources--"

"Ridiculous," he muttered.

Hermione quickly scanned over the paragraphs about Seers and a theory that ran
too closely with the Muggle science of neurology. "It's believed that it causes the
Cursed to see the energy of events that once happened, or spirits trapped in
recreating an event for…"

Malfoy was leveling her with a steady look. She almost thought the intensity of
his gaze was anger until she recognized it as scrutiny. The rest of his expression was
blank, and she couldn't know what he was thinking without Legilimency. Even then,
she'd heard he was a skilled enough Occlumens for the Wizengamot to request
Veritaserum for his trial. She wondered where he learned it.

"It's said to have been used as punishment for murderers. They would cast the
curse on them and then have them stay in the place they had murdered for hours or
days. It usually proved ineffectual. Now--"

"You're serious."

She looked back up in surprise. "Of course, I'm serious. The--"

"Energies of past events or spirits that are--"

"I know it's a bit--"

"The people, maybe, but the crea--"

"It explains why it's getting worse. If things are drawn to it, certain--"

- 64 -
 "Yet it doesn't--"

and why it interacted. If the energy is drawn to us, we not only see it, but we can
become--"

"Your desperation has made you an idiot. You--"

Hermione whipped the book around and shoved it across the table. She got out a
th that turned into a hissing exhale when she realized what she'd just done. That
was not a book she should have offered up to him. That was a book that took her a
trip to Knockturn Alley and a bit of digging through a bookcase that included
selections like The Art of Torture and 25 Curses by a Former Unspeakable to
acquire.

It was Dark. The sort of Dark that could keep her up at night. Maybe he sensed
that, or maybe he just didn't want to touch something her hands had been pressing
into, because his own hovered over the book before falling to the table's edge.

She watched his eyes scan quickly over the pages, his eyebrows furrowing,
raising, furrowing. She had to suck in her cheeks and bite them gently to stop
herself from speaking before he was finished.

"This doesn't explain the bugs--" he started to say.

"Energy of an event."

"The animals that don't exist--"

"Anima--"

"Not something that doesn't exis--"

"Transfigured," she argued, grabbing the book and bringing it back towards her.
Safe zone.

Malfoy muttered something to himself, shaking his head once. "This isn't it. It--"

"It could be. I know it's not--"

"It's more plausible--"

- 65 -
 "But this is a possibility."

"Because you're desperate. If you looked at this theory with anything resembling
intel--"

"And you're not desperate?" she bit out. "Or does seeing a bunch of things that
don't exist okay with--"

He looked at the area behind her, as if they hadn't just spent ten minutes talking
about this very thing with the possibility of someone hearing them. "Do you know
anything about--"

"Even if it's just a possibility - and it is only that - that this is it, then there's--"

"--years of practice, but apparently you're--"

"--because they can't hurt you, but they will. Do you know what they'll do--"

"Of course, I know." He said it with enough anger that she thought it would have
been screamed had they been anywhere else.

She leaned back a little in her seat, looking from the tension of his jaw to the fist
his hand had made on the table. "Then--"

"I know the consequences of this far more than you ever would, but I'm still not
going to buy into something in the nave hope that it'll work. This is so bloody
Gryffindor that--"

"Oh, please. And I've hardly bought into anything, I said a hundred times that it
was only a possibility! I agree that it's not…" She paused as his eyebrows darted up.
"It's the closest we have! And the only side-effects of the counter-curse without the
presence of the original curse is short-term flu symptoms. Severe headaches,
nausea, blurred vision--"

"Lovely."

She lifted her chin, rushing through the last one. "And a little bit of magical
stunning--"

"What?"

She raised her finger. "But if it's done before bed, everything is back to normal
- 66 -
before you wake up."

"Oh, well then, why not. Nothing like the possibility of losing my magic to keep
my life entertaining. And what do you mean, you? You first, Granger, I insist. If--"

She rolled her eyes. "There's no harm--" She corrected herself at the look he gave
her. "Hardly any harm. I've researched it thoroughly. And this largely checks out
beyond--"

"The theory of spiritual energy, and so the entire original curse even being
possible, and so casting something on ourselves that can be completely different
from what it says it is."

"There have been no deaths or side-effects that lasted more than nine hours, I
checked. Well, there was one man who had a headache for two days, but that--"

"No reported deaths. Perhaps you should look up the Bellingar--"

"I'm well aware of how corrupt governments, companies, and people can be, but
the majority of time-- Look, Malfoy, I understand that you're afraid…er,"--he glared
at her, and she quickly searched for a different word choice before he could
speak-"hesitant about this, but there's no reason not to try it. Sometimes people
have to take a small, calculated risk, and this might be worth it."

"I'm not scared, Granger. I'm just not suicidal, or stupid enough to try something
when the basis for doing so is weak enough to make a first-year hesitant."

"There are plenty of records--"

"That a curse was cast, though if it drew spiritual energy or just caused illusions
is--"

"So?" She felt the pressure of a headache starting up at her temple, pulling tight.
"So maybe it did just cause illusions! Everything it states matches up--"

"Yet it doesn't state everything. Like--"

"If I believed it was that much of a risk, I would need more proof that this was it
before being willing to have the counter-curse cast on me, let alone casting it on
anyone else. But since the only effects are small and temporary - from dozens of
incidences - it's not as big of a deal as you're making it out to be. This is a chance we
can end this now, and that's worth a headache and some nausea!"
- 67 -
 He scowled at her. "You're not casting this on me."

"It's better if I cast it first. I've already studied and practiced it--"

"Perhaps you can't hear me properly with all the air filling up your head, but I
said

"There's a real possibility in front of us that you're unwilling to take, and I have
the air in my head? You can't cast it on me anyway, you don't have your wand!
Despite what you might think, I'm very skilled--"

"I have my wand," he said tightly, slowly, like he had to force each letter out from
the stiffness that had overtaken his body.

Hermione doubted anyone looked at someone that maliciously for claiming they
didn't have something that they did. There was a muscle twitching in his jaw, and
she was sure he had sent other people scurrying with that hard look of bad
intentions, but his past was not a mystery to her. She knew different than the
rumors that were whispered in the wake of his steps or yelled at him across
corridors. Malfoy could be dangerous, but he wasn't evil - and Hermione didn't run
from either.

She opened her mouth to tell him she knew he didn't have one, but changed her
mind. This situation had proved difficult enough already without angering him even
more. This wasn't working. There was no way he was going to let her cast it on him
without seeing what it did to her first.

Anxiety prickled into tension within her chest. She knew Malfoy was a capable
wizard, but he wasn't a trusted one. The idea of willingly standing there and letting
him cast something on her was harder to accept than the theory had been - and she
hadn't even accepted that bit yet. Perhaps this was best, though. At least if it
worked, she was in the clear. If she had done it for him first, there was no telling if
he'd return the favor or leave her to find someone else.

She didn't have a choice. If she wanted to try it, she had to allow him to do it first.

Hermione pulled a piece of parchment from her bag, digging through for her
quill. Her hand hovered over a pile of books and notes as she glanced towards
Malfoy, and then turned with a sniff, reaching across the table to dip her quill in his
ink. There was no point in dragging out her own inkwell when his was already open.

- 68 -
She expected an indignant look when she glanced at him, but his only reaction was
an arched eyebrow. He was back to scrutinizing.

She quickly wrote down the book's directions for the spell, followed by her own
step-by-step guide that included specific angles of the wrist and how long to draw
out each syllable. She had to re-ink twice, and Malfoy hadn't appeared to move once.

"There," she murmured, blowing on the ink before setting the parchment down on
top of others in front of him.

Malfoy looked like he'd found more entertainment in watching a tree sway.
"Where did you learn penmanship, Granger?" His eyes, dark grey in the dim light
and narrowing under the guise of thinking about it, flicked up to hers. "Trolls?
House-elves? Are you--"

"Right, because your side notes aren't more difficult to decipher than my Ancient
Runes assignments."

He looked down at his parchments so quickly that she might have missed it had
she blinked. He probably thought his handwriting was perfection. "Ah, sarcasm. The
crutch of the witless--"

"Know it well, do you?"

"Unfortunately. If I hadn't found myself involved in so many of your attempts to

appear clever, I'd hardly recognize it."

"Well, I'd say that I was sorry I forced you into using it so often, but then I'd be
lying. And we both know you're better at that than I am."

"Don't fret. You've mastered hypocrisy long before--"

"Hypocrisy?" she asked. "I'm not a liar."

"So I suppose you've told all your friends about this mess whenever they ask
why--"

She shook her quill at him. "That's different. That's to protect myself--"

"Right."

They stared at one another for a long moment until she broke it, rolling her eyes.
- 69 -
"With good intentions. Not to cover up something bad." He raised an eyebrow. "Not
to cover up something bad that I did, or--" She made a frustrated sound. "It's
completely different! Now can we get back to the curse? You need to study that.
We'll meet up tomorrow. We both have Potions--"

"I'm not studying that."

Hermione paused, her mouth still open and arm hanging awkwardly in the air
from where she had been gesturing towards the front of the library. Malfoy looked
completely uncaring about the fact he had just smashed her plan to bits with four
words.

"You have to study it."

"I don't have to do anything."

From what she'd read and heard of his sentencing, Malfoy had to do a lot of
things. Not the time to bring that up, though. "This is to cast it on me. I'll see if it
works first."

"No."

Hermione blinked at him, and then watched stupidly as he crumbled her

parchment into a ball before tossing it into a pile of other balled parchments.
Remain calm, remain calm. Calm.

"Malfoy--"

"I'm not casting a Dark spell." The look he gave her was a warning, but the set of
his shoulders told her he was fully expecting her to attempt using the past to burn
that statement alive.

"It's not Dark." Few counter-curses were, but she assumed he had seen the book's
title when she shoved it over at him, and Conquering Souls didn't lend itself to good
assumptions. "All you have to do--"

He stood, and his belongings were rapidly making their way into his bag before
she could jump up herself. He reached for his hip as his eyes landed on the pile of
discarded parchment-balls, but his fingertips just skimmed his oxford. He must have
kept his wand there, because his jaw clenched as he swept the balls into his bag
instead of vanishing them.

- 70 -
 "I don't understand why you won't do it. I know it's not a definite that this is it,
but nothing will be until the counter-spell or potion works. What if it is? We can be
back to normal tomorrow - you want to throw that away for no valid reason? Look, I
don't like having to--"

He slung his bag over his shoulder and grabbed his robe from the back of his
chair. She had almost forgotten how tall he was until he came around the table. He
slid his eyes towards her as he stepped past her, his shoulder turning enough to
angle himself into a clean side-step if she blocked him. His presumption that she was
about to launch herself in front of him was the only thing that stopped her from
doing so.

"Malfoy--"

"No."

He was a fool if he thought she was going to accept that. Not that she didn't think
he was a-- Hermione glared at the one thing he had left on the table, the balled
parchment threatening to fall off the edge with a breath. She grabbed her book,
sliding it into her bag, and then stuffed the ball into her pocket. She didn't have to
look to know exactly what he'd ignored on taking.

- 71 -
 Chapter 4

Hermione raced down the hall, her bag bouncing off her back in hard thumps. It
was slower than her heart, and she could feel that pounding away in her chest and
throat, as if it were about to split itself into pieces and try to escape through every
major pulse point in her body. Silence greeted her as students moved against the
walls to avoid her path, but whispers trailed behind her in a murmur of sound she
didn't notice.

She'd already been sitting in Charms when Lavender rushed up to her and Ginny,
red high on her cheeks and her words tinged with an excitement that was too gleeful
for the news. Hermione had to endure the entire class while wanting nothing more
than to jump from her seat and run, or burst out of her skin, or Apparate directly to
the infirmary.

Almost there. Hermione huffed a breath, ignoring the ache in her shoulder and
calves, and twisted around the corner of a corridor.

Justin went crazy, Lavender had said. He'd been walking to class after lunch
when he fell to the ground. He had stared at the wall for a moment before looking
down, and then he lost it - started shaking and smacking himself all over, screaming
about the death bugs. The story varied after that, but it didn't matter to Hermione. It
didn't matter because she knew.

She slowed down as she hit the last stretch to the infirmary, eying the distant
doorway as she gulped in a breath. Her throat was hot and dry, and she swallowed
thickly, lifting her hair in the hopes that cooling down her nape would provide an
overall effect to the rest of her skin. Pushing back the strands of hair that had stuck
to the sweat on her forehead, she gave a bland, distracted smile to the curious eyes
of passing Hufflepuffs.

She didn't know what to say. What was she going to say? Hello, Justin, I'd heard
you're seeing things now - perfectly normal! Most students had class now, so
hopefully his bedside would be empty. Maybe she could say enough just to get him
to calm down. To let him know he wasn't alone. Or maybe have him say enough to
validate all of it for her.

Hermione stepped into the infirmary, shooting a quick glance down the line of

- 72 -
beds until she spotted Justin's short curls. Pomfrey was making her way towards him
with a tray of potion bottles that clinked together with each step, and it only took
her a second to look up at Hermione. She probably had some other sense by now,
built up over the years, to hone in on erratic heartbeats and frantic emotions.

Hermione smiled in greeting as the older woman paused, and she realized this
was the first time she'd really seen Pomfrey since last May. The smile faltered, and
they stared at one another for a long moment before Pomfrey continued towards
Justin.

"Can I help you with something, Miss Granger?"

Hermione swallowed, smoothing her hands over her skirt. "I heard about Justin
and wanted to check on him."

Justin let out a miserable sound that might have been a groan, and his hands
clenched around one another from their spot on top of his stomach. His cheeks were
now a bright shade of red - perhaps admitting that the event was circulating around
the school wasn't the best start, but he had to know it would have been.

"Mister Finch-Fletchley needs rest. You can come back late--"

"Oh, I'll just be five minutes. Very quick. Just to make sure he's…all right."
Hermione winced. Justin was clearly all right from where she was standing, and she
was sure Madame Pomfrey was about to tell her just that.

"I'll take the potion right after," Justin said weakly. His voice was rough and
distant, and his face appeared to have got brighter. She hadn't expected him to help
her.

Hermione couldn't see Pomfrey's face as the matron set the potion bottle down on
the tiny stand next to Justin's bed, but she imagined it pinched and reluctant. "Five
minutes, and then you will drink this right away, Mister Finch-Fletchley."

"Of course, yes. I promise." It came out all breath.

Pomfrey gave a firm nod and started towards another bed. Hermione muttered a
thank you, and tried not to leap to Justin's bedside as she watched Pomfrey from the
corner of her eye. Justin's hands were still clasped tightly, and his mouth was
slanted left like he might have been sucking his cheek in against his teeth. A thumb
ran back and forth over the side of his hand, and his eyes were wide and unmoving
from the ceiling.
- 73 -
 "How are you?" Hermione asked, her whisper almost lost under the moaning from
a different bed.

"Not great."

Hermione nodded, glancing toward Pomfrey and then the potion bottle left
behind. She narrowed her eyes at it, angling to try and determine the color through
the green tint of the glass.

"It's Dreamless Sleep." Hermione's eyes flashed to Justin, finding his own glazed
and looking back at her.

"You've had trouble sleeping?" She could hear him swallow.

"Yeah," he said, his voice cracking on the vowels. "Haven't slept in days, in fact.
That was why I had that little hallucination. I just pushed myself too far studying."

Hermione might have bought it at a different time. If she hadn't been suffering
from them herself, and if he wasn't staring at her like the intensity might burn the
words into facts within her mind. She took another step towards his bed, searching
for the right wording.

"It's not as uncommon as you might think." She ducked her head a little, raising
her eyebrows. "You're not the only one who it's happened to."

"Exactly. It's just a normal thing. There's no--"

"No, Justin." Hermione looked back to Pomfrey, watching her bustle further down
the room as a student started yelling about something popping. "It's not normal, but
that doesn't mean certain people haven't experienced it themselves. Several times.
For weeks."

His eyebrows drew together as his eyes flicked over her face. She felt a bit of fear
well up, and she second-guessed herself. Justin was a loyal person, but if this was a
first for him and she let on that she was seeing things regularly… What if he told
someone because he thought it would be better for her? What if he didn't--

"Hermione?"

Her attention snapped back to the moment, and she looked between Pomfrey and
Justin. Tightening her hand around the strap of her bag, she charged on. "It hasn't
been days since you slept, has it?"
- 74 -
 "I just--"

"Honestly."

He stared up at her, his hands wringing together, before he turned his head to
look towards Pomfrey. Hermione let out a quick breath as the woman turned
towards them, her lips pinching.

"I don't understand," Justin whispered.

Hermione shook her head. "Neither do I. But we will."

"You…" Suspicion edged into the confusion in his face, and she raised her
eyebrows, wanting or needing him to get there himself.

"I'll be in the library every night. Meet me there."

She grabbed the potion bottle and held it out to him, but he didn't take it until
Pomfrey's quick footsteps started growing louder. She pushed it into his palm before
stepping back from the bed, feeling a twinge of guilt for how lost he looked as he
cradled the bottle to his chest.

"I hope you feel better."

He made a clicking sound in his throat, but no words came when he opened his
mouth. Hermione smiled at him, trying to ease the fear in his expression, and turned
for the door before it became harder to leave. She knew what he was going through
- she had the unfortunate experience of discovering an…ally in Draco Malfoy. He
needed time to sort everything out, and now, so did she. This changed things a bit.

She wondered how many more of them there were.

Hermione had done as much damage control as she could, but she hoped giving
the excuse in front of a certain few people would have Justin's reasoning all over the
school by the end of the day. It was fascinating how quickly information spread from
one House to the next, and watching people flock from table to table in the Great
Hall was slightly worrying. It served her purposes this time, but she knew the gossip
turned quickly on anyone.

If you bumped into Professor Trelawney and mumbled an apology, by lunch it was
- 75 -
widely believed she had predicted your future and was now going to alter it to the
worst scenario in revenge for telling her she was mad. If you really did look mad, the
rumors ranged from near-truths to insanity themselves. She'd heard everything from
Justin attacking the wall until he was covered in blood, to the theory that he was
trying to channel demons and planned on bringing an army of them to Hogwarts. If
they hadn't dealt with the real possibility of that just months ago, she might have
found it more ridiculous than infuriating.

Hermione sped up as the footsteps in the next corridor slowed down. Her shorter
legs were useless with keeping up with Malfoy's strides, even at an inconspicuous
distance. It was hardly her fault that he utilized his length and had decided to fly
down the corridor in a rush of billowing robes and clicking shoes. If he said
something to her about keeping up, she was going to hex him.

It must have been about Justin. She had been wondering if Malfoy drew the same
conclusions she had, and had found him staring at her across the Great Hall. He had
held her eyes while standing from his seat, and she knew the action well enough to
gather that he wanted her to follow. He must have also wanted her to tear her
muscles apart, because she doubted her legs could stretch any further without
something snapping. Her steps were more suspicious than if she had just started to
run - with the top half of her body angled back for balance, she looked like she had
to pee and wasn't in control of her legs.

Malfoy wasn't in the corridor when she turned into it. She was about to curse
inconspicuous and start running, but she saw a tapestry waver before the feather of
a quill stuck out from the bottom. What was that? Was that some sort of Slytherin
sneakiness at its worst? Was it a common practice of that House to signal hiding
places with a quill? Oh, here I am. Just follow the fancy feather.

Hermione was very much unimpressed as she pulled the tapestry aside, glancing
down the empty corridor before meeting the hard glint of Malfoy's eyes. She
stepped inside, picking up the quill, and let the tapestry fall shut behind her.
Blinking at the direction of the floor, she tried to get some semblance of sight in the
dark before addressing him, but he had other plans.

"Did you bring the book?"

Hermione took a step back at how his voice sounded like he was right in front of
her, and the heel of her shoe banged into something that made a loud, metallic
sound. Her arms flew out to whirlwind for balance, and she smashed her knuckles
into stone. Malfoy made a weird noise that was mostly lost under her grunt of pain,
and something scraped and clinked to the ground before her feet were completely
- 76 -
under her.

She let out a rush of breath and glared at the faint white of his eyes, turning his
quill in her hand to wave it at him. She heard the fabric of his clothes as he jerked
back, eyes tracking down to where the feather must have brushed him.

"The book? From last night? Er, the night before?"

"Yes, from Sunday. What other book would I be talking about?" He sounded
annoyed. The quill bobbed in her hand and then pulled out of her loose grip, but she
barely noticed with the hope flaring in her chest.

"No, I don't have it. Why? Did you change your mind?" She stopped herself from
telling him that it was stupid he had said no in the first place, but only just.

"Tonight at dinner, then. I'll be in the cauldron room." His voice sounded tight.
Maybe something had happened to change his mind. She'd been hoping that would
be the case.

"The one a corridor down from Potions?" He didn't answer, and she could
practically feel the judgment in the dark. She didn't know of any other room filled
with cauldrons, but Hermione was efficient in fact checking. "It doesn't hurt to
double-check things," she muttered.

"I won't wait, Granger," he told her, a crack of light filtering in as he went to pull
the tapestry aside.

Hermione puffed up in agitation, glaring at the pale, chiseled cheek and the angle
of his jaw. "Neither will I." All right, that was a lie. "And what happened with
Justin…"

She paused, feeling an odd sense of betrayal. Malfoy was in the situation right
with them, but habit reared up, and she suddenly felt like it was too personal to
share the truth with him.

The crack of light disappeared. "Justin?"

Hermione cleared her throat. "Yes. I haven't talked to him about it all yet, but--"

"Yet?" he snapped. "You're not telling him anything. I don't care if he's part of
your band of bleeding-hearts, you're shagging him, or he's--"

- 77 -
 "What? I am not-- I'm telling Justin. I don't care how you feel about it--"

"You're n--"

"--he's in this as much as we are. He's not going to tell anyone. He already told
Pomfrey it was just from sleep-deprivation--"

"He what? I--"

"Well, he didn't have much of a choice, he was caught, wasn't he?" Hermione
shook her head, reaching for the edge of the tapestry as she heard a distant echo of
laughter. "He's in this whether you like it or not."

She was the one who walked away this time, ignoring Malfoy's hiss as the
tapestry swung shut behind her.

"No, it's like luha." Hermione opened her mouth wider, sticking the tip of her
tongue behind her teeth and curving it more towards the back. "Luha. Luha."

"Granger." Her name came out like a warning, and Malfoy sent her a glare from
the top of his eyes.

She sniffed, shifting on the desk she had taken a seat on that was several paces
from the one he was leaning against. His wand resumed its spinning between his
fingers as he looked back down at the book, and she decided not to press her luck. If
Malfoy was going to do it, she'd prefer to get this over with instead of waiting for
Justin…and likely having to convince him of it as well.

Malfoy stopped spinning his wand, his eyes flicking up to reread a paragraph.
Hermione was surprised he still had possession of it now that it was dinner, and
wondered if he had a class after. Unless he had tried giving the professor of his last
class a fake wand, but she didn't think he would risk it. And that one was definitely
his. She remembered it well. Harry hadn't had any use for it, and he refused to
assist anyone in the quest that had begun to collect history of the war. She
wondered how he returned it.

Malfoy's wrist tilted to the left and then circled, and Hermione pressed her lips
together to stop from telling him it wasn't enough of a tilt. She'd wait until he ran
through the motions a couple times, then--

- 78 -
 "Left again, not right." Oh. Well, she tried.

Malfoy's eyes stopped reading for a moment, his jaw clenching twice before he
ignored her.

"Do you want me to show you? I prac--"

"No," he snapped. "I want you to--"

"I practiced it for a good twenty minutes, you know. It's easier to see it practiced
than read--"

"I don't need a demonstration, and I won't need twenty minutes if you'd shut up
for five of them."

"And if you'd stop being stubborn and rude, we might have had it done by now.
I'm going to say something if you're getting it wrong. If you want me to stop
correcting you, then get it right."

He snapped the book shut as he eyed her, unlocking his ankle from around the
other and straightening up. "Are you somehow under the impression that I'm one of
those idiots who flock around you? I'm not a tool to feed your swollen ego and make
you feel more intelligent than you are. I don't need your color-coded guides"-he held
up the parchment with a sneer-"or your incessant babbling. I'm not going to put up
with your sh--"

"You've no idea what you're on about--"

"I know exactly what I'm--"

"--the pronunciation and the maneuver - not exactly what one would expect from
someone who claims to--"

"--assumptions and call it intelligence. You're--"

"Fine, show me, then," Hermione yelled, sliding off the desk and taking two steps
towards him. "If you're so sure you've got it correct right now, cast it on that
cauldron over there and show me."

"No."

"Oh, so you're--"
- 79 -
 "I don't have to prove myself--"

"When it comes to casting a spell on me, than--"

"--you can't comprehend a--"

"--you're scared that you don't--" Hermione cut herself off, twisting towards the
cauldron as she drew her wand, and cast the spell with enough flourish that she
almost expected for it to come out wrong.

The green-yellow jet of magic missed the cauldron, but only because another
smashed into it first, blowing the cauldron off the table. Hermione's spell hit the
wall instead, disappearing into a cloud of dirty yellow smoke. Her head jerked
towards Malfoy as he stood sideways in front of her, facing the cloudy wall but
looking at her down the length of his shoulder and arm. His wand was trained on
her, steady and firm, and the urgency of self-preservation that snapped within her
had to be beaten before submitting. She still kept her wand up, aimed at the wall,
but kept her eyes on the muscle twitching in his jaw and the vein in his temple.
She'd be quicker.

"Stop looking so bloody terrified," he gritted out through his teeth.

"I'm far from terrified." She knew terror. This was just caution. The survival
instinct battling with logic that kept her eyes from blinking and her body tight.

Was there any other way to have done this? Could she have allowed him to cast
the spell on her without her wand drawn anyway? Maybe she should have waited for
Justin, but she was impatient, and she didn't fully trust Justin's nerves. Malfoy might
not like it, but he had a record of being able to come through despite it. Except
when he had cornered Dumbledore. Or maybe then, too… Maybe when he had
lowered his wand.

Part of her was surprised he hadn't told her to get Justin to do it. But a bigger
part of her realized the risk he would have been taking. He didn't trust either of
them to come back and do it for him if it worked, and she didn't think he had anyone
else to trust with it. He hadn't even known the rumor about Justin that everyone was
talking about until she had told him twenty minutes ago.

If Justin did the spell for her, she would have come back to do it for Malfoy. She
knew it simply, as just a part of who she was. But he didn't need to know that.

"What are you waiting for, Malfoy? Do I need to ask Justin to do what--"
- 80 -
 His wand wavered, and he growled lowly as he went to turn away, and then
changed his mind. Her wand swung towards him in an instinct she couldn't control,
but she dropped her arm at the first word of the spell, and then it was there. It hit
her between her collarbones in a burst of static energy; like the zap of electricity
from a finger and up to the elbow, his magic raced through her blood, strong and
rippling. She felt heat in her chest at the same time that a chill shot up her spine,
and then her stomach rolled.

Hermione gagged, her hand slapping over her mouth. She didn't even have a
moment to be relieved that she had held back the vomit, because the room tilted up
and spun. She stumbled back, faster and faster, until the small of her back collided
with something. Her stomach rolled again, and she blinked furiously at the blur of
her vision as foreign objects angled, morphed, and swayed.

"Fuck," she heard in a fierce whisper, and then it repeated, growing louder as she
crashed to the ground.

Hermione gasped, having not realized she was moving herself until she hit the
floor. She brought the hand holding her wand to her chest, and the fingers of the
other splayed out, feeling the cracks in the ground as she tried to center herself.
She shut her eyes tightly, breathing in deep through her nose.

"Granger?" It came to her strangely, like he was talking on the other side of the
dim, hazy thing the world had become. "Granger," Malfoy said again, and she heard
the thinly-controlled panic.

"I--" She clenched her lips together again, shaking her head. She was going to
vomit, she knew it. She was going to get sick all over herself, and she was never
making it off this floor. She couldn't even--

"What? What is it?"

She pushed her hand against the stone beneath her, and she might have wobbled
or it was just the room. She pulled a leg up, pushing her hand down harder, when
something wrapped tightly around her left bicep. She was yanked upward in a single
movement, and when she stopped, it felt like her stomach was still going up. She
was pushed back, pulled forward, back, forward, Malfoy's other hand wrapping
around her right arm.

"Gra--"

Her body fell back as she gagged loudly, her feet dull, and she knew she would
- 81 -
have fallen again had Malfoy's hands not been tight around her arms. She burst into
a cough before heaving, and staggered, trying to find the ground with everything
undefined and spinning around her. She felt tears on her cheeks as she gagged
again, clamping a hand over her mouth.

She swallowed tightly, again, again, forcing back the threat, and closed her eyes
at the rotating black in her vision. Malfoy's low muttering emerged into a string of
curses, and she felt his fingers loosen and then tighten again.

"Dorm," she gasped. She needed to sleep. She had no idea how she was going to
sleep like this, but she needed to try.

"I…" A pause of silence, the shuffling of clothing, and her body swayed. "We're in
the dungeon. I'm not in the Slytherin-- Where's Finch-Fletchley? Granger? Gr--"

"'irmary."

"Shit. Shit. Fucking shit."

It was too risky to stay here. She had to get back to her dorm. There was a
passage near the kitchens that would bring her up to a fourth floor boys' toilet, and
then another near that which…which… Hermione scrunched her face up, trying to
think through her need to vomit and fall into an abyss. Malfoy was talking to her,
but she ignored him. Where was the other passageway? Could she--

She jerked back and forth harshly, and her neck cracked before she started
heaving again. God, she hadn't thought it would be this bad. She wasn't going to
make it to the common room alone. There was no way. She'd--

"Granger! Are--"

"Kitchens."

"Kitchen? It's not exactly the time to have a snack. Dinner is over in--"

"Kitch--" She gagged again and shook her head.

Dinner. Dinner. The halls would mostly be empty, at least until-- Hermione
groaned as she slid to the side, one of Malfoy's hands leaving her arm as the other
pulled her. There was a scraping sound, a thud, and then a jostling noise as Malfoy
grunted lowly. The hand on her arm pulled her the other way, and she might have
been turning or the dizziness had grown even more intense.
- 82 -
 "Hurry up," Malfoy whispered harshly. "If you die or some such, I swear I'll bring
you back just to kill you again, Granger." The rest was lost under the churning of her
stomach and another heave as she fought to get one foot in front of the other, but
she heard something about blame and Azkaban.

Hermione's shoe squeaked down what she was guessing to be Malfoy's foot as it
was yanked out from underneath her. She pitched forward and was pulled back by
the hand on her arm, which she distantly thought must have been leaving bruises by
now. Her shoulder collided into something hard and warm, and she turned away
from it, her cheek brushing fabric. He smelt like…like something.

She swayed away from him, searching for some sort of center to keep her
balance, but all she found around her were shifting objects. She closed her eyes
again, her stomach twisting into knots of nausea. She would not be sick in front of
Malfoy. She would not be sick in front of Malfoy.

There was a squeak of a door, followed by a journey. The kitchens never felt so
far away, even from her dormitory, but the drag, pull, stagger, and scrape of their
path there felt like hours. If she had eaten more than an apple at lunch, she would
have definitely left her stomach contents all over something. Malfoy mostly dragged
her, more rushed and frantic than she was, while she concentrated more on walking
than she ever had before.

It wasn't until they were twisting up a ramp in the passageway that she realized
her fingers were clamped around fabric, and it also felt far too much like the oxford
shirt rather than the thick material of a school robe. She yanked her hand away so
hard that she stumbled sideways, but Malfoy's grip on her arm dragged her forward
before she could hit the inevitable wall.

All she could see was darkness and the moving flash of his wandlight. She sucked
in deep breaths through her nose, her lips still pressed together in a tight line, and
her arm wrapped around her stomach. Something was burning the bottom of her
throat, and she feared she would lose it with just one more gag or lurch.

Malfoy stopped, his fingers digging in harder when she attempted to barrel
onwards without him. She couldn't stop the whine of pain in her throat at the brutal
clamp of his fingers against the tenderness he had formed on her skin. She should
elbow him for his man-claws, but she feared smashing her head into something if
she did.

"It's a dead end, Granger," he snapped.

- 83 -
 "Up," she gasped, pressing her arm harder into her stomach. "Red…the red one.
Tap three times."

She swallowed down twice before he finished tapping. The passageway filled with
the sound of a deep, heavy scraping and groaning noise. She clenched her eyes shut
tighter as she felt the dust of stone and dirt fall on her cheeks.

"You're kidding. It's up? It opens up?"

Hermione groaned in response to his anger, trying to ready herself. She'd have to
climb up. She just had to grab the ledge somewhere above her and pull herself up.
There hadn't been any other way to get upstairs without people seeing them.
Hermione felt worried, but she couldn't gather her mind enough to think of why. She
just knew--

"Can you see?"

"No."

Malfoy cursed before going quiet, and the stillness of his fingers suggested he
wasn't moving, but her balance and shaded sight told her otherwise. If it weren't for
logic and Malfoy's hand on her arm, for all she knew, she could be upside down, now
sideways, diagonal. The pressure intensified at the bottom of her throat as she tried
to make out the hatch above them, but all she saw was a square of light that kept
morphing into other shapes and bouncing around her vision. It would be up, though
- directly up.

Hermione stretched up her arm, falling against Malfoy as the world seemed to
spin up from underneath her feet. He made an annoyed sound, followed by a shifting
of his body and two loud thumps. Hermione furrowed her eyebrows in
concentration, searching for the edge, and swore that Malfoy's muttered ranting
was only making her stomach churn more.

"Just hold onto the ledge, Granger," he said roughly, and she felt a flare of panic
when something wrapped around her hip. "Or are you too use--"

He grunted as she was lifted off her feet, and she gagged at the motion as she
slammed back down. Her arm flailed out in front of her, forgetting the quest to grab
the ledge when it felt like he just hurled her stomach into her throat without so
much as an up we go.

"Bloody fucking sack of stones, and if you get sick on me, I will leave you here."
- 84 -
 Hermione was about to tell him to do just that when she was pushed up again, his
fingers like vices on her hips. Her palm skimmed something hard and jagged, and
she tried to grab hold, but she was sailing right past it. She opened her eyes, light
and strange objects rolling across her sight. She flung her arms out, smacking them
down against coldness. She heaved wetly, unaware that the hands had left her hips
until she slipped a little, and then went flying up and forward with a pressure on the
bottom of her shoes.

She slid against stone, the world spinning, and barely pushed herself up on an
arm before she vomited. It was almost comforting. The violent heaving of her body
seemed to calm down all that spinning for just a minute. There was something that
felt good about finally hitting the inevitable and not having to worry about it
anymore.

There was a muffled sound behind her, and her cheeks flamed as she imagined
Malfoy insulting her with a hand over his mouth and nose. He was probably looking
at her right now. Hermione ducked her head a little and tried to catch her breath,
wishing he would just leave her here. How many people came here after dinner
anyway?

The click of Malfoy's shoes grew distant, and she silently sent up a word of thanks
for it. Maybe he--

"Oh, God," she said, her voice strangled, and panic hit her like a rush of tingling,
hot water to her blood.

She wiped the back of her hand over her mouth, and then the front across her
eyelids. She squeezed them shut, moving them in circles, and then opened her eyes
again. Black. Black. She didn't read anything about complete loss of sight. Was this
what they meant? Was this new? Was something else new?

"Malfoy? Did you turn off the lights? Mal--"

He made a sharp hissing sound, his footsteps quick as they came back. "If you're
done rolling in your own slop like--"

"Why is it dark?" He was silent. "Did you--"

"You said you couldn't see before."

"I saw, but it was just shapes and blurry, and now I can't see at all, and I didn't
read anything about this when I was researching, it just said that I--"
- 85 -
 She was hauled to her feet by a hand on her arm, and she immediately bent
forward in sickness again. It felt like her body was spinning through a black sea, and
her stomach was rolling with every wave. Her hands and chest were trembling in
fear, but she refused to give in. She couldn't panic yet. Not yet. This was all
temporary. All temporary.

"--ing mess, so you're going to shut up and hurry up, Granger."

Malfoy sounded like he was trying to deny the panic from taking over as well, but
she heard it in his voice. In the way he was breathing too hard in the air that
smelled like her sick, and how he was muttering to himself, twisting back and forth
to look around them.

Something dropped over her head, and she felt smoothness brush against her jaw
before the warmth came over her shoulder, then the other. The thing on her head - a
hood, she thought - pulled down further, further, until she felt fabric skim the tip of
her nose.

"What are you--"

"Just shut up." Fabric pulled against her back and moved up her legs. "Hold this."

She reached out for something, her hands trembling, and grabbed hold of a
bundle of fabric. She was too concentrated on controlling her breathing to object
when he yanked her forward by her arm, sending her stumbling.

"Hurry up. They'll be out soon. Fuck. Fuck."

She forgot about the other passageways, personal boundaries in relation to

Malfoy, and everything that had been on her mind for weeks now. All she could
think about was getting to her dorm, going to sleep, and needing to wake up in the
morning and have everything normal again. She had to force back every spearing
thought about if it didn't, if she had been wrong, and the hysteria that was bubbling
all over her body.

The trip to the staircase had been easy in comparison to their climbing them. Her
feet were leaden and clumsy, and more than once had they caught on the edge and
nearly sent her face first into the stairs. It was when she brought Malfoy down with
her that his bruising grip left her, and she felt his arm slide across her back and
under her other arm. His hand wasn't felt, and she imagined it in a fist somewhere
in front of them, a grimace on his face from touching her. The bottom of her upper
arm pressed down into his forearm as he used the new position to hike her up
- 86 -
enough to find purchase at every step, and they were both panting for breath.

Rare times had she ever felt so vulnerable in her life, and she wished desperately
for someone else. She should have told him to leave her in the passageway, but she
had been more afraid of that - of something happening, and no one being able to
find her if she didn't make it out herself. But this was horrible. This was worse than
she would have even imagined it to be. Blind, completely disorientated, on the verge
of vomiting, at risk of being caught in multiple bad situations, with no magic and
relying on Draco Malfoy.

Her foot landed uselessly on air as she listened to staircases moving around her,
and Malfoy's arm tightened against her just a moment before she heard the rap of
running footfalls behind them. Something nudged her head, and then Malfoy hissed
against the side of the hood, as if she needed to be told to be quiet. He released a
huff of air before drawing in another one, deep and quick, and Hermione felt the
heat of his breath against her already sweat-dampened temple.

God, he went rigid. She had only distantly recognized the slump of her shoulder
against him before, in the sort of recognition that came when noticing a paper cut
on a hand that was falling off. If she didn't have logic or the touch of his arm still on
her, she might have thought he had released her against a wall now.

Her heart was pounding, and she briefly decided through the haze of her mind
that if the person asked too many questions, she would lose it on their shoes and do
her best to run. She might not make it far since the earth now felt like a swirling
vortex all around her, but let it not be said that she hadn't tried.

Hermione kept her head down, trying to catch her breath, and locked her legs
when she realized they were wobbling and it wasn't just another sensation of the
dizziness. The footsteps past her by two clicks, and then paused, the silence thick.
She was going to lose it. She was definitely going to vomit, and then--

"Filth," a male voice spat over the groaning of a staircase, and then the rapid falls
of his feet started again.

Was it a Slytherin? Had they seen her? Did they--

"The fact that your legs haven't given out is proof that you still feel them, so try
moving them, Granger," Malfoy snapped.

Hermione screwed her eyes shut, took a deep breath, and pushed her leg out in
front of her. She felt like she was tipping sideways, but the bottom of her foot met
- 87 -
hardness and not air. One more, another, another, and then Malfoy's arm was lifting
and they were back to climbing.

"Who…" She moaned, pressing her lips together as her stomach threatened revolt
when they sped up.

Malfoy ignored her, and she focused back on moving. She could barely keep up
with him, even with him dragging her along with his steps. Her body felt like it was
growing weaker, and by the time they started down the flat ground of a corridor,
she felt close to collapsing. She was going to collapse, and vomit everywhere, and--

"What's the password?"

Hope turned to a short-lived triumph when he stopped, the jerking motion

causing her to heave. It was really a wonderful thing they hadn't met up after
dinner, because--

"Password. I'm not going to…"

Hermione shook her head again. "Too risky. I got it."

"You've got it?" he drawled, and it was such a contrast from the anger and panic
that had been ruling his tone lately that she almost changed her mind.

"Wall?"

Her back roughly met one a moment later, and she noticed the heat of Malfoy's
arm only once it pulled away. She took deep, uneven breaths through her nose and
felt along the wall, stopping only once she touched the frame of the portrait.

"You're not getting in here," she heard the Fat Lady say shrilly, and Hermione
gave a nod to Malfoy, hoping he left now before she lost a chance at making it.

There was a low snort or scruff of a shoe, a long pause, and then his footsteps.
Hermione slid closer to the portrait, keeping her head down, and breathed the
password. She clenched her teeth when it was lost under the Fat Lady's rising voice.

"Wiggenweld," Hermione said.

"No, no! I will not stand for--" The Fat Lady cut off on a yell as she swung open.

Hermione slid against the wall, around the opening, and collapsed into the
- 88 -
circular stone that made the common room's walls. The time it took her to slide
around the room felt endless, but when she fell and bashed her shoulder off an
armchair, climbing into it was the last thing she did for quite some time.

Hermione was having a terrible day. A Very Bad Day. She ignored what this likely
meant for the rest of the day since she had been awake for only an hour, but she felt
the approaching resignation that she shouldn't have even got up from the armchair
this morning.

She couldn't remember banging her head off anything last night, but the events
were only a little less foggy than the world had been. All the same, she had been
forced to thoroughly check over her scalp this morning just in case it truly was split
open, and didn't just feel like it was. Her vision was still a little foggy, and she felt
dizzy whenever she stood too fast, but she reminded herself of how much worse it
was last night, and the fear that her sight was forever robbed from her.

These were things she could have dealt with. Even the fact that it took three tries
for her to cast a proper unlocking spell on her dormitory door. Maybe even the
horror of remembering that Malfoy…Malfoy had been with her throughout the whole
mess of cauldron room to seventh-floor common room. The mortification was bound
to wear off eventually, and she had already prepped a half-dozen comebacks to
whatever embarrassing thing he would bring up to humiliate her further.

She planned to grab a few slices of toast - light on her residual nausea - and run
down to the cauldron room to retrieve her bag. She refused to panic about it until it
being gone was more than just a fearful thought - though it wouldn't be, because it
was there, she reminded herself.

However, the ability to deal with any of these things deserted her in the amount
of time it took her to glance across a packed Hall. She had almost overlooked the
two people sitting against the wall between the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables, the
small pile of bones looking like a bag near the man's feet. Hermione would have
dismissed it had it not been for the woman's arms held above her head, a pair of
thick, brass cuffs around each wrist. There was a chain that ran up the wall for a
meter before disappearing into nothing, and the woman's scraggly hair covered her
face. The man was unchained, and there was blood smeared around his mouth, a
dirt-stained hand clutching an ivory bone.

Hermione actually sagged with the loss of hope that the spell had worked last
night. She hadn't been completely sold on it before, but after the mess of last night,
- 89 -
she'd really had to hold onto the possibility that it was for something. She had the
intense urge to run back to Gryffindor tower and sleep the rest of this horrible,
forsaken day away.

She reached up to clutch her head, the noise of the Great Hall amplified within
the ache of her brain, and searched for a shock of platinum hair. Malfoy was
stone-faced as he chewed on something, and Hermione felt her cheeks and ears turn
hot. There had been far too much weakness and vomiting on her part last night. She
didn't even like Harry or Ron seeing her that way.

She was surprised he hadn't left her in the dungeon, but he'd been concerned
enough to get her back to relative safety in her common room. Concerned for
himself, of course. Whether she gave him permission to or not, she doubted he was
allowed to cast spells on anyone outside the watchful gaze of professors in
classrooms. If things had got worse, or didn't disappear after awhile, he'd have been
the one to face the consequences. Not that she would have said anything - she'd
made him do it, after all - but he would have never trusted her not to.

Beyond slapping him when they were kids, or poking a finger into his chest a few
times, she'd never touched him before. She would have expected the stiffness, had
she thought about it, but not the warmth. Maybe it was his panic, or the exertion
of…assisting her up seven floors, but he'd been radiating heat.

She thought about the way his forearm had been pushing up against the top of
her arm with every step, and how it was his left, the one where the Dark Mark would
be. And this morning she placed her fingers in the bruises he'd left all over her other
arm, and found his fingerprints circled out more around her own. She'd woken up
this morning with his robe wrapped around her like a cocoon, and the scent of it on
her clothes. It made her feel strange and unsure.

Malfoy looked up towards the Gryffindor table when she was a few paces away
from it. He looked towards the doors after a moment, and then his eyes snapped
back, finding her. She could see the relief plainly, for just a moment; the way his
eyebrows and eyelids dropped, and his jaw lost its tenseness when his mouth
opened. She almost laughed at the absurdity of Draco Malfoy feeling relieved at her
continued life and health.

"Hermione, you didn't tell us why you were sleeping in the common room this
morning."

Hermione looked at the group in front of her, and then glanced back to Malfoy,
but he was giving a stoic look to his plate. She'd have to find a way to tell him later.
- 90 -
 "Got pissed in Hogsmeade?" Dean asked, and Hermione rolled her eyes as she
reached for the toast.

"I just sat down to think over my work for Arithmancy and got too tired. See you
later!"

"Hey--"

Her smile dropped when she turned, walking quickly away from the table so they
could all see she was very much in a rush and did not want company. She glared at
the path in front of her, taking a forceful bite from her toast, and sped towards the
dungeons.

Malfoy pulled the tapestry back and ducked into the alcove, a flash of white
before they were submerged into darkness. Hermione blinked to try adjusting her
sight again after the blinding light. She had been wondering if the look he gave her
at the end of Transfiguration was really meant to have her meet him somewhere,
and she had spent five minutes feeling like an idiot for using his own quill feather
idea to signal where she was. She had also spent that time between pacing and
glaring in the direction of the quill, waiting for someone to snatch it, because that
had been her kind of day. She might have shoved the tapestry aside and attempted
giving them paper cuts with her stack of loose parchment had that been the case,
because that was also the kind of day she was having.

Her bag had been gone when she went to get it from the cauldron room, and only
the Dark book had remained. She'd been carrying it in her robes all day, in a
constant state of paranoia. She'd had none of her books or assignments all day, but
had managed to borrow a quill and parchment from Luna during Herbology. Now
her notes were in a disorganized mess, and written so small that she wasn't sure if
she'd be able to read them when copying them into order. She looked like a fool in
front of her teachers, the headache had only recently subsided, and her bag was
floating out there somewhere with replaceable books and irreplaceable notes.

She'd also seen two more visions after breakfast, which taunted her more than
usual. And now she was facing Malfoy after the embarrassment of last night, and
while she held her chin high, she was grateful the alcove was dark.

"Did it work?" Malfoy whispered, and his voice sounded odd enough that she
doubted his existence for a moment.

- 91 -
 She shook her head at this whole thing that had led her to a place where she'd
have to doubt at all. She had to find the next possible solution and fast. "No. You
cast it right, judging from the side-effects, but it didn't work. I saw the two people in
the Great Hall today, dead pixies on the fifth floor, and a Thestral in History of
Magic."

"I knew it wouldn't work. T--"

"Yet you still asked?" she snapped.

Things were bad enough - she did not want to deal with Malfoy going on about
how right he was. She felt a twinge of guilt as a tense silence swelled around them.
She wanted nothing to do with guilt in relation to him, but he had helped her last
night, no matter the reason. She would have never made it back herself, and she'd
be in a bigger mess today.

"Thank you," she muttered, reluctant. "For helping me back to my common

room."

Her eyes slid shut as she belatedly realized this gave him an opening to mock her,
and she waited for it with bouncing nerves and a tired slope to her shoulders.

"Have you talked to Finch-Fletchley?"

Huh?

Hermione blinked, and the silence ran on, and she blinked some more. "Er…no."
She cocked her head at the dark, waiting for the joke or scathing comment, but he
was silent and waiting, too. "He's back in his dorm, but he had today off from classes
to rest. I was told he planned to go to his Astronomy class at midnight tonight."

"You have that with him?"

"No, tomorrow. I have Defense with him tomorrow, though, so if he doesn't come
to the library tonight… I don't know why he has it as well. There might be others out
there. The person behind it all might start doing it to more people. And it's getting
worse."

She heard the faint rustle of Malfoy's clothes, and then a small thud as his back
hit the wall. She crossed her arms a little tighter, biting on her bottom lip as she
thought. The alcove was silent beyond the sound of their breathing, and she stared
at the slant of light on the floor that crossed over his shoes.
- 92 -
 Chapter 5

"And Malfoy."

"And Malfoy."

Justin nodded slowly, crossing his arms as he leaned back in the chair. "And
Malfoy."

Hermione felt her headache from earlier that day returning. Why was it always
the bad days that lasted the longest? The library had closed and forced them to
continue their conversation in the empty Muggle Studies room, and now Justin
looked content to repeat himself until his class in fifteen minutes.

Hermione looked up at the board at the end of the room, frozen pictures of
Muggle warfare and its mean hanging across the top. Below was a stunted script
where the professor seemed to have gathered opinions from the class about the
wizarding equivalent. There was nothing listed under the atom bomb. Hermione
thought there were Dark objects that must have mirrored the effects to some extent,
but no one had known or been forthcoming.

"I wonder if this is for the Advanced class the Death Eaters have to take. Though I
don't think it's smart to give 'em ideas."

Hermione shrugged. "Maybe the professor was trying to show the similarities
between our worlds. How we can hate the same, and just as brutally."

"I don't know. I'd think to teach them how we could love the same or something."

Hermione smiled, glancing over at Justin. "I think the professor made a good
choice, actually. She probably taught them a little about Muggle wars over religion
and race. Purebloods aren't known to care about the color of a person or what god
they worship, and must have found it ridiculous that people would kill someone over
that. Then maybe they realized something."

Justin whistled. "Long shot. If the war didn't do it…" He shrugged, leaning up so
that the two front legs of his chair met the ground again. "So. Malfoy."

- 93 -
 Hermione nodded, putting her bag on the desk. She had found Malfoy with it in
the library earlier, and they had silently exchanged her bag with his robe. "Malfoy,"
she confirmed, and took a deep breath before filling him in on last night.

"Justin." She reached out to grab his arm and tug him in the direction of her
table.

He pushed the book he had been examining back into place, giving a glance to
the younger-year still staring at him. "What?"

"You're acting suspiciously."

"What? I was covering myself up. He was following us."

"He wasn't following us, he was getting a book. Just act normal. Darting around
bookcases, looking all around us constantly, and reading Squel…chy?" She paused
to lean in closer, and her tone became incredulous. "Squelchy Sticky Slurp: A
Beginner's Guide to Sticking Charms and Potions, like it's The Runes of Prophecy is
only going to draw attention."

"Right." Justin straightened up and stared ahead of them. "Though it did look
interesting, for the record. I never knew slime could do that."

Hermione almost didn't ask. "Do what?"

Hermione followed his gaze to see Malfoy at the table next to hers, only three
books laid out in front of him. Hermione saw a fourth in his hands as he brought it
under the table, twisting to grab his bag. She recognized the cover from Dean, and
knew it was for his Advanced Muggle Studies class, though she didn't know if he
was shoving it into his bag because he was done or because she and Justin had
arrived.

Justin was staring at him silently, and didn't look to have any plans on moving any
closer. Hermione shifted awkwardly before sliding her books onto the table, and
took the seat between Malfoy and the one furthest from him. Malfoy looked bored as
he glanced down at her wringing hands.

"More asinine ideas?"

She frowned at Malfoy, shooting him a dirty look as she reached for a slim volume
- 94 -
titled Waking Nightmares. "It's important that we try possibilities when it fits the
facts of our situation. There's no other way to narrow it down, unless something new
happens."

"That's comforting," Justin said, hesitantly sliding into the seat next to her. He
seemed ready to jump right back out of it at any moment.

"Perhaps you should retire back to the Hufflepuff dorms if you need com--"

"Okay," Hermione said, glaring at Malfoy, "have you found anything useful?"

The ice of his gaze slid to her, and Justin whispered something unintelligible that
might have been louder had he been a Gryffindor.

"No?" Hermione asked.

"I'd like to know why the three of us were targeted," Justin said. "Maybe there are
others, but going on us three…two Muggle-borns and a pureblood. One Order
member, one Death Eater, and I didn't…I was…I didn't fight in the war."

"Because you would have been--" Hermione started, only resisting the urge to
reach out and squeeze Justin's arm because it would embarrass him in front of
Malfoy.

"There's nothing that ties us together." Justin shrugged, picking at the corner of a
book spine with his fingernail.

"Well…" Hermione glanced over at Malfoy and found him drilling holes into her
eye sockets. "It could be someone who we all wronged in some way, or they
perceived we did. I also wouldn't rule out the Dark just based on Malfoy."

Justin looked up, his head tilted. "You think they're angry he got out of an
Azkaban sentencing?"

Malfoy's hand clenched around the edge of the table, and Hermione rushed on.
"It could be that. The point is that we all have too many enemies to narrow it down
yet. We'll just stay on the lookout for someone who tries to get too close, is openly
violent, suspicious, and so on."

Hermione was about to continue when her thoughts knitted something together
that stopped her. Malfoy did get out of Azkaban. Justin didn't come back to
Hogwarts or the wizarding world when the Ministry went corrupt and started
- 95 -
imprisoning Muggle-borns. Hermione hadn't been here either, and though she had
been on a critical search, others might not see it that way. It seemed to be the only
thing they had in common - the possibility of someone perceiving them as getting
out of bad, devastating situations when they hadn't the right to.

It only narrowed the field slightly, though, from the other link they had of the
Dark hating them for different reasons. And others should have been targeted. A lot
of others.

"…we're all working together, we should meet somewhere private."

Hermione blinked at Justin, trying to emerge from her thoughts with some idea of
what he was talking about. He furrowed his eyebrows at her and shook his head.

"You don't think so? Just because we don't want anyone to find out, and you said
to act normal, but this"-he gestured between the three of them-"is not normal. We
could meet in my dorm?"

"I'm not going into the Hufflepuff common room," Malfoy said tightly. "Fur--"

"Right, they hate you," Justin said, and Malfoy looked like that hadn't been his
reasoning at all. "I'm not going into Slytherin, either. Hermione is in the girls' dorm,
which is charmed against males. We can meet in the Room of Requirement! It was
perfect for the D.A."

Hermione stiffened, and saw Malfoy do the same from the edge of her vision. She
cleared her throat in the silence that fell. Justin looked confused, and Malfoy's eyes
were trained on some spot over Justin's head.

"The room is gone, Justin."

There was a pause, and the tension grew heavier to bear. "Gone?" he asked.
"Like…"

In her mind she could see fire taking shape, feel the crackle of its near
unbearable heat against her skin, and saw Malfoy's face as he dragged a friend four
times his girth across the room and met the sureness of death with terror. "It
burned."

Another pause, accompanied only by the sound of Malfoy gathering parchment.

Justin looked between them, two lines on either side of his nose as he frowned. "Oh."

- 96 -
 Malfoy stood, and Hermione and Justin both watched him as he grabbed his bag.
Hermione opened her mouth to demand he stay and discuss the visions, but that
never worked - it especially wouldn't now. Malfoy didn't even look at them as he
swiped his books off the table and brought them under his arm, walking away with
three parchments left in front of his seat.

Hermione reached out to take them, distantly noticing that his handwriting in the
margins looked a lot cleaner than it had before.

"What happened to the room?" Justin whispered, and Hermione took a long, deep
breath.

Hermione hadn't seen Malfoy since Friday, and she was assuming that he was off
somewhere, still simmering in his anger. It hadn't been the demand for cooperation
this time, or even telling him that they needed to ignore everything that had
happened and their differences so they could find the solution, and then never speak
to one another again. However, it had been the way that line of conversation rapidly
spun out of control, and into things like the character of a Death Eater, the
character of her, the war, and how the past defines the person.

She could still see Malfoy in her mind before he left the room, all tension with a
livid glare, his eyes as hard as granite. The air had felt like it was close to cackling
around them with the power of their anger, and she had been left slightly shaken in
the aftermath.

Hermione had worked on a necklace with Justin over the weekend. It was meant
to disrupt any magic that might have been channeled out of an object or device,
which would give control of the visions to the person who created them. They tried
three variations to see if it would break the visions or reveal the object. None of
them worked.

She had tried to tell Malfoy this in case he was wasting his time on the theory,
but he hadn't been in the library, he avoided her in corridors, and he never looked at
her despite the survival instincts her glare must have been setting off whenever she
saw him. Honestly, the whole point of the fight - or, at least, why it had started - was
to get him to cooperate better so they could get out of this quicker, and now it was
just worse than it had been.

Fine. She might have said some things that were just a bit out of line for the point
she was trying to make. Sure, she might have looked a little like a hypocrite when
- 97 -
she was poking him in the chest and yelling about cooperation, while also making
some disparaging remarks about his person, heritage, and past. All right. But she
had thought they at least reached some level of understanding after yelling and
hissing at one another for twenty minutes.

She didn't know Malfoy. She didn't know what all he had done, or all the reasons
why he did it. She'd heard a lot from people, articles, and him last Friday. In the
end, she supposed that Malfoy had wound up in bad situations, doing bad things,
and he hadn't realized it until it was too late. She didn't know who to blame for that,
but she did blame him for not getting out when he did realize it. He could have
found a way.

Voldemort wouldn't have killed Lucius, and Narcissa had proven she cared more
for her son. Even if he didn't come to their side to help, he could have left the one he
didn't want to be in anymore. Hermione would have found a way out.

So, fine, Malfoy was a coward. He said Friday that he didn't fatally hurt anyone,
that he didn't kill anyone, and she had argued that his actions had - at least with
Dumbledore. And that was when he had left the room.

If Malfoy killed someone, he wasn't like to get off without some amount of time in
Azkaban. But a person's choices defined them, and he had chose wrong with deadly
consequences. If he truly believed it was wrong, he wouldn't have followed
Voldemort's orders, and he would have risked his life instead… Maybe that was too
much to ask of some people. Well, maybe it was too much to ask of anyone, but it
had never been too much to ask of herself. Apparently it was for Malfoy.

And who knew how he felt now. He'd always been against Muggle-borns. Just
because he got scared and wasn't evil, it didn't mean he still wasn't an ignorant--

Hermione was jerked back to reality when her shoulder hit a corner of the wall.
Her hand flew out of the bag she had been digging in, and she grabbed the wall's
edge, stumbling back with a sound of surprise. She blushed at the rise of laughter
around her.

This was Malfoy's fault. Maybe if he had talked to her some time this week to not
make her constantly analyze everything, and if she didn't feel his eyes burning on
the back of her neck the past ten minutes, she might have been able to pay attention
to something else. Like walls, and walking, and not combining the two.

Hermione cleared her throat, glancing to make sure she didn't bump into
someone when she resumed walking, and pulled up short when she met grey eyes.
- 98 -
Malfoy looked at her from the corner of his eye as he passed, his lips twitching.

Her foot just missed tripping him.

Ginny leaned over on the couch to glance at Hermione's paper, and then shifted
back. "You've already finished Charms?"

"No. I've almost completed it, but I wanted to get this Runes assignment out of
the way." Hermione squinted at the line, drawing another carefully on top of it.

"Oh. I would've thought you finished yesterday."

Hermione paused, and then quickly pulled her quill up, frowning at the extra blot
of ink on her parchment. "It's not like I won't have it done by class in two days."

There was a long enough pause for Hermione to feel relieved Ginny had finally
shut up, but it didn't last long. "Would you like to come to lunch with Harry and me
on Saturday?"

Hermione gave her a look that must have been a bit crazed by the way Ginny's
eyes widened. While Hermione was very talented at multi-tasking, sometimes the
pressure caught up to her. Between ten classes with end of term exams and
presentations, studying and researching the visions, studying and researching those
visions with a very impossible man, dealing with the visions, and dodging social
responsibilities, she was feeling a little stressed. Usually, she held it together. This
was not one of those moments.

"Harry said he hasn't seen you in awhile, so he wants you to come to lunch before
we do stuff alone."

Hermione had little doubt Ginny purposely added that bit in to make sure
Hermione didn't make plans on tagging along. Lunch. One hour. Just one hour.

Hermione twitched. "Sure."

It came out a bit strangled, but Ginny only shook her head and muttered about
exams.

- 99 -
 Hermione paused and half-turned towards Justin as he stepped out, letting the
portrait swing shut behind him. They had got a few curious looks, especially from
the younger-years, when Hermione had walked with Justin to his dorm room, but no
one said anything. They had discussed possible excuses, but it was harder with
Malfoy. The only thing they could settle on was telling people they were assisting
with a project for Malfoy's Advanced Muggle Studies class, but who knew how he
would feel about that. Not that it wasn't public knowledge that he took it, but she
could probably ask Malfoy if he had blond hair and he'd refuse to confirm it.

"I can't believe we haven't found anything yet," Justin groaned, though it came
very close to a whine.

"We just have to keep looking. There's no point in thinking about how we haven't
found anything yet, when we can be using that time to find things."

Not that Hermione wasn't frustrated as well. She felt like pulling on her hair and
pacing around the castle while yelling, but that wouldn't do anything helpful.

"Maybe we should ask someone. No, I mean…put on a Glamour and ask someone
in Knockturn or something."

She shook her head. "Even if they did know something like this, they could give
us the wrong information just to mess with us. Or, more likely, they won't recognize
us, and they'll think we're an undercover Auror or Hit Wizard."

"Malfoy?"

Hermione's left cheek bunched as she tsked. "From what I've been gathering
lately, that stands a lesser chance of working."

"You me-- …Oh, my."

Hermione stopped walking a step in front of Justin, her brow furrowing as she
looked at the line of men. There were five, no, six of them, all dressed in black
jumpsuits. She could barely make out the structure of their faces through all the
dirt, grime, and tangled beards. Scraggly, long hair swayed with every unison
shuffle of their feet, and their hands were bound in front of them.

Hermione looked over them and to the two students who just turned into the
other end of the corridor, one doing a Binns impression while the other laughed. She
heard Justin's throat click wetly, but when she went to look at him, a Dementor
sailed through the wall next to the prisoners. Justin leaped back, out of her
- 100 -
peripheral, and she snapped out an arm to grab him.

"It's not…" Hermione's heart skipped two beats before pounding hard, and her
eyes widened to fully focus on the vapor that had just come out of her mouth. Cold
air set goosebumps up her skin, and she shivered, breathing out to watch the vapor
again.

"Oh, Christ," Justin choked out, and Hermione had to grab him again when the
Dementor turned towards them in shredded, billowing robes.

"It's not real." It couldn't be. The other students were still making their way down
the hall, both laughing.

Justin's hand wrapped around her wrist, pulling her hand off his arm, and tugging
her when he stepped back. "Hermione, it's cold, and--"

The panic in Justin's voice met with her own in her gut, but she stomped it down,
along with the wild thoughts that they didn't know what else these visions were
capable of. "It's happened before. It's nothing."

She didn't think the breathless quality to her voice had helped to put him at ease,
and he pulled on her hard enough to send her back two steps. "Let's just go another
way--"

"It's just a vision. It's just a vision, Justin, and letting it control us--"

"Shit," he whispered, looking over her head, and Hermione glanced to find the
Dementor hovering nearby.

"We're going this way." Hermione raised her chin and twisted her hand to grab
Justin's arm again, yanking him forward. "This is what the person who did this
wanted, and I'm not giving it to him. We're--"

Justin was shaking his head. "If it can create--"

"It can't do anything to us." Can it? "If you want to go some other way, then go."

Justin gave her a look that clearly showed how torn he was on running in the
opposite direction or going with her. She did her best to smile reassuringly as the
Dementor swayed from wall to wall and the men shuffled closer, but nothing
changed in the wide, dark blue eyes that were holding her own. She released her
grip on him and took four steps forward before he was by her side, his hands and
- 101 -
breath trembling.

They both held their breath as they passed the Dementor and prisoners, jerking
forward when it came flying at them, and took to the next four corridors in steps
bordering on running.

Stop acting like a child. No. Are you ready now? Maybe. I contemplated not even
telling you… No. Are you going to listen, or would you like to walk out now?
Tempting. Come to your senses? Hm. Have you-

"Did you just ask me in here for the torture of staring at your face, or do you plan
on speaking?"

Hermione glared at Malfoy. He obviously didn't rely on a filter. Deep breaths,

Hermione. Not that deep.

Hermione quickly explained her and Justin's attempts with the necklace, and their
failed results. "So we can almost rule out that theory, except for two Dark spells that
fit, that I haven't tried yet. Dark spells are being monitored in the Muggle world
right now, and to some extent in our world as well. Specifically in…any wizarding
places in which I might cast them."

The Ministry wasn't monitoring them - despite them trying to convince Harry he
might need the extra protection for awhile - but she knew that Harry and Ron
monitored their own places and the Burrow in case of an attack. She'd have had to
explain to one of them that she was testing out a project, but neither of them would
have let it go that she was using something Dark. She also didn't want to try it at
Hogwarts in case she unleashed something.

"Not that it matters now," she said, and Malfoy raised an eyebrow for her to
continue. "Justin and I ran into a vision. Prisoners and a Dementor. It got cold, and I
mean very cold - as if it was actually there."

Malfoy's eyes flicked to a spot over her shoulder and then came back to her own.
"Was there anyone else there?"

She nodded. "Two students. They didn't see or feel anything. So it means we're
looking at a potion." Hermione thought that conclusion was obvious, but with the
way Malfoy's eyebrows shot up, he must have disagreed. "There are no curses that
can make you see something, feel something, and hear something. Different potion
- 102 -
ingredients can take hold of different parts of the mind, but a curse couldn't be that
widespread without causing other--"

"What did you hear?"

"Shuffling," she whispered, her eyes glazing over until the next blink, hearing the
phantom sound of feet scraping back and forth against stone. "It has to be a potion."

She refocused on Malfoy when he reached into his robe, and she was a little too
slow on lifting her hand to her wand. He only pulled out a ripped scrap of
parchment, twisting his fingers to turn the note towards her. Hermione rocked
forward, squinting in the dim light to read it. Found spell that might work. Meet in
'Cauldron Room' tom. at lunch. She recognized the handwriting from her recent
studying sessions with Justin.

"Your little speech not work on Finch-Fletchley?" he drawled. "He handed it to me

in Herbology. Not that I trust a Hufflepuff to get it right, but even if it's unlikely, I'm
sure you'll favor it."

She hadn't seen Justin since this morning. He must have found something after
that. Or he had tried to come up with some plan to get Malfoy's cooperation in
finding the solution quicker. Malfoy seemed to be thinking the latter, if his narrowed
eyes were any indication, and he was looking at her like he might be attempting
Legilimency.

"Oh. I haven't seen him yet today."

Malfoy looked at her a moment longer. "Well," he said slowly, tucking the note
back into his robes, "it's been enlightening, Granger."

Hermione pushed her hair back, trying to cool down as she made her way to the
cauldron room. There had been a lot of leg work in their Defense lesson today, and
their professor was a strict ex-Auror who refused to let them take off their outer
robes. Are you going to stop to disrobe in a duel? he had barked at a Ravenclaw boy,
and the robes had remained on. The professor looked distantly familiar to Hermione,
and she thought she must have seen him at some point in the war. But the man
really had an unremarkable face that no one could remember properly - he'd likely
been an asset to the Aurors for that.

Hermione stretched her arms above her head, wincing as a series of cracks set
- 103 -
off along her spine. She wanted to have a bath while stuffing herself with food. She
did not want to skip lunch to show up a sweaty and sore mess, and deal with Malfoy.
She could hear them talking inside the room, though, and knew she couldn't hold off
any longer.

No overturned furniture, renegade spells, drawn wands, or raised voices.

Interesting.

Justin was standing in front of the nearest table to the door, looking distinctly
nervous as his hands moved to everything he was saying. Malfoy was studying a
book on the other side of the room.

"--see what I mean?" Justin asked.

Malfoy glanced up as the door clicked shut behind her, and then looked back at
the book. "If you'd stop blabbering so I can hear myself think, perhaps I would."

"It's thinking, Justin. He needs to concentrate very hard for it to happen for him."

She winced after she said it, choosing to look over at Justin's relieved face than
Malfoy's glare. That hadn't exactly been in line with her speech on Friday about
acting professionally to reach a common goal, but it had slipped out anyway.

"I found the spell during my break after first class. It's really old, and I couldn't
find any other references to it, but I did find a reference that this book was once
required reading for Paupreka Fiddlehurt."

"Wh--"

"A big curse-breaker. Used to work for the Ministry and four research companies
before retiring seventy years ago. He won a lot of awards for his work, so I think the
book is pretty reliable."

Hermione hummed, looking over at the dark red cover.

"The original curse only affects one area of the brain at a time. We saw it, we felt
it, and we heard it, and all those functions are in the cerebral cortex." Justin rocked
towards her. "I had to look that up to remember. Summers in the Muggle world
don't make for a lot of education on science."

"But are those parts all together? A spell can't just take over one cortex that's
spread over the whole brain. It would take over a layer or a specific section that's all
- 104 -
in the same area." Hermione paused to search her knowledge on science, but found
it far too difficult to remember each part and function of the brain.

"What do you mean?"

"So if sight is here," she said, tapping her fingers towards the back of her skull,
"and there's a different section that controls reasoning that's right next to it, the
spell is going to affect sight and reasoning. Not spread out along several different
areas and mess with only sight, hearing, and touch."

"Huh," Justin said lowly, leaning back against the table.

"A potion, however - that can affect different parts of the brain or our functions
without other things, because potions have specific ingredients that are made to do
it. Curses are meant to cause certain things - they break bones so they target bones.
Or take Jelly-Legs - it targets all the muscles in our legs. Despite that it moves our
legs in uncontrollable ways, it can't do the same to arms, because it doesn't spread
to the arms. It would have to be two different spells."

"There are spells that have an effect on all senses," Malfoy cut in.

"That's true, but I don't know of any that pick and choose. It's either one sense, or
it's all of them."

Malfoy shrugged a shoulder. "People alter curses regularly."

"But on that level, we're talking about someone extremely adept at curses--"

"Or who knows someone who is."

Hermione paused, her mind automatically jumping to a name she never had to
worry about again. "Or that."

"But why bother altering it?" Justin asked. "Going full speed would have been
worse for us."

"They could have wanted us to waste time," Hermione muttered, too busy
thinking to speak louder.

"Or disregard it entirely." There was a hint of amusement in Malfoy's tone that
made her glare at him.

- 105 -
 "It wouldn't explain why we didn't feel or hear visions before, though," she said,
waiting to pull her eyes from Malfoy until he felt the full heat of her look.

"It could have attacked sight first, and now spread."

"It would have done so earlier," Malfoy argued.

Hermione was hesitant to admit she agreed. "Yes. I've never read or heard about
a curse that caused delayed effects, unless it was a slow erosion that resulted in
mental failure or death." At Justin's look, she rushed to add, "But that's not what this
is."

"A potion can cause delayed effects?"

"If drunk over time," Hermione said.

"Or certain ingredients are mixed properly with slowing agents," Malfoy added.
So now he was going with it being a potion?

"But why?"

"I don't understand why you two are so caught up in why. It has nothing to do
with how, and that's the only way we're getting out of it."

"Not necessarily true, Malfoy. The why can lead to how. Look at--"

"So the spell can't have an effect on just the cerebral cortex?" Justin asked, and
Malfoy looked far too amused at her annoyance for being cut off.

"I don't think so." Hermione ran her teeth over her bottom lip. "But I don't know."

"So we'll try it? If it doesn't work, we'll look more into potions."

"Spells aren't entirely ruled out. There's still the possibility that someone cast a
different or altered one on us recently. What are the side-effects?"

"Headaches, blurred vision, and numbness. And stunted hearing." Justin looked
questioningly at Malfoy, but the other man didn't add to the list.

"Lovely." She hesitated when she looked at Malfoy. "Do you know how to cast it?"

She wanted to go over there and look at the spell herself, but she couldn't
- 106 -
disregard him without him stomping out all dramatically. All right, perhaps he
wouldn't stomp, but there might be some glaring and a revisit to their argument on
Friday. He could also take on less work if he thought they weren't going to put the
knowledge to use, and she wasn't willing to risk that.

He'd practically carried her back to her common room when things went wrong
last time. She could maybe extend some tentative trust in this area.

"Yes."

"All right. I was used for testing last time we did a spell, and the Hufflepuff
dormitory is a lot closer than Gryffindor's."

Justin looked at her like she just suggested they dig their way out of the room
instead of using the door.

"I'll make sure you get back all right," she promised, smiling at him as she
stepped back.

He straightened up, giving her an anxious look before glancing at Malfoy. Malfoy
stared back in apparent boredom, the book on the table behind him, and his wand in
hand. Justin gave her a searching look, and she continued to smile until her cheeks
hurt.

"It shouldn't be too bad."

Justin licked his lips and turned to face Malfoy fully. "Okay. On with it, then."

His hands turned to fists at his sides, and his eyes shut when Malfoy brought his
wand up. There was silence, and then Justin let out a huff of breath before dragging
in another, holding it again. Malfoy's wand wavered.

"Actually, let me go first--"

"Oh, thank God," Justin breathed.

Malfoy glared at him, but Justin didn't seem to notice, side-stepping the direction
of Malfoy's aim. Hermione put her bag on the table, sighing silently.

"Just bring me to your dorm if I can't get to mine, Justin."

"Sure, no problem," Justin said quickly, nodding.

- 107 -
 Hermione gave a resigned look to Mallfoy, and nodded when he stared at her too
long. The spell was a vibrant purple, and it hit her chest like a stream of cold water
filtering into her blood. Hermione held her breath, feeling it tingle along her body.
There was a slight pressure at her temples, and then it was gone.

"Well?" Justin asked.

Hermione paused and then shook her head. "Nothing."

No side-effects. She looked over at the book behind Malfoy, wondering if he cast
it right. He gave her a challenging look, and she wiped down wrinkles in her robes
to distract herself from marching over there.

"So now what?"

"We wait."

Hermione looked over her shoulder at the sound of feet crunching fast in the
snow, and found Justin jogging towards her. She had class in five minutes, and she
had to navigate a slippery hill to get there, so there was no way she was stopping.

"Hey," Justin breathed.

Hermione gave him a firm nod. "I have Care--"

"Yeah, free period. I'll walk with you."

Hermione pulled her robes tighter, stepping around the remnants of a snowball
pile. "It didn't work."

"I know."

She looked over at him, but his eyes didn't stray from the ground, as if he could
spot each bit of ice and slosh underneath the covering of fine snow. "You
remembered as well? I should have. I don't even know how I could overlook
something like that. I suppose I got caught up in the other arguments, and with
everything on my mind…" Hermione shook her head.

"You knew?"

- 108 -
 "I knew, but I didn't think of it. I realized before that it couldn't possibly be a spell
with everything about it, and the fact that we shared the same vision, feelings, and
hearing. The only other way for that to be possible was if the magic was channeled
through something, but the coldness would have been felt by those two students."

She wasn't sure how it could work with a potion either, but she'd find out.

"I didn't know."

Justin slid a few inches down the slope, and Hermione's hand flashed out to stop
him. "You just said you did."

"Well, because Malfoy told me!" He was frustrated and angry, and she wondered
now if his hair was windswept, or if he'd been tugging at it.

"What?"

"We were walking down the corridor, and I asked him if he thought it worked.
Didn't even seem like he was going to talk to me at first, but then he said it was
impossible because we shared the same visions. Then I realized - but he had
known!"

Hermione scowled, but her annoyance was delayed when her foot swiped out
from under her. Her arms flailed as she fell back, but Justin slammed a palm
between her shoulder blades to push her upright. A small shock of pain jolted down
her spine, and she had to freeze for a second to get her bearings together.

"All right?"

"Yes, thank you." She adjusted her bag before continuing towards class. "It's
possible he remembered after."

"No, he was smug, Hermione. I mean, he's always smug, but you know. Really
smug."

Hermione heaved a sigh as the group of bundled students came into view, and
her eyes automatically sought for Hagrid. She smiled when she found him bent over
a row of cages, and watched the group of students take a step back.

"It was probably some sort of revenge for Friday. Or a stupid attempt to act like
he's smarter or something." Hermione rolled her eyes. "If it happens again, I'll talk
to him about it."
- 109 -
 "So you're letting it go?"

"I don't see how else this could work. If we bring it up, it'll just turn into another
fight."

Justin shrugged, digging his hands into his pockets, and Hermione tried to forget
about it.

Malfoy was pacing when she entered into her little nook in the library, but he
turned to face her the moment the strap of her bag rubbed over the fabric of her
robe. Something was…his lips were swollen. Just the bottom one, actually, and she
could see a line of darker red that must have been a split earlier that day. She raised
her eyes in question, but he ignored it.

"You leave on the weekends?"

"I…can."

He lifted his hand, revealing a folded parchment between his fingers, and held it
out to her. She took it hesitantly.

"What is this?"

"Just get them. Meet me tomorrow at noon." He stepped around her to head for
the exit.

"Noo-- I have a lunch with-- Ginny." Not that she really thought Malfoy was going
to tell some professor about Harry meeting up with Ginny in Hogsmeade, but it was
better to be safe.

"Reschedule."

She frowned at him over her shoulder. "No, I--"

"This isn't--"

"I'll meet you at two."

His jaw clenched as he glared at her, and then he turned, stalking away with a
muttered fine.
- 110 -
 *

"…said you've only been to visit him twice."

"Ah, well, classes catch up, you know how it is. His rock cakes are still rocks."

"You've just been doing all schoolwork?"

"Yes. You know me."

"Very well. And there's nothing exciting going on at Hogwarts?"

"No, terribly boring. For those who…do not enjoy their schoolwork, of course.
Horrible thing, that. Honestly, if you're going to…" Slow down, Hermione. He'll
catch on if you babble. "They should enjoy learning. It's the only time in our lives
when it's our only requirement, and they should use that time to its full potential."

"I'll be surprised if McGonagall doesn't offer her a teaching position," Ginny said,
and Hermione was grateful for the diversion.

"I'd rather go into the Ministry. For now, at least. Some things need to be
changed, and you can't do that properly from the outside. What about you, Harry?
How is work?"

Harry took a deep sip of his drink, the bottom of his glasses fogging up, but she
was more concentrated on the bright green that was burning into her skull. Maybe it
was his paranoia, or maybe he just knew her far too well, but he thought something
was going on. She should have made more time to visit him on the weekends. A
suspicious Harry Potter was as unrelenting as a curious Hermione Granger.

"Great. How many classes have you been taking?"

That distraction didn't last long. The books Malfoy had wanted her to get were
sitting in a pile within her trunk, and she was itching to go through them before
their meeting in an hour. She didn't even know if she was going to escape Harry in
time for the meeting at all.

"Ten. Exams are up in two weeks."

Harry nodded, grabbing a chip off his plate without looking away from her. "Are
you spending the holiday at Hogwarts?"

- 111 -
 "Probably not. I'll visit my parents for a short while, and then I might come to the
Burrow or--"

"You can stay at my house."

Wonderful. There was a glint in Harry's eyes that she imagined must have been
there whenever he spotted the Snitch. Agreeing would cause her a week of avoiding
questions, at least, but she might be able to make it to the library on time.

"Sounds wonderful, Harry." She could regret that later.

"Good." He nodded, the prospect of being able to get it out of her in two weeks
seeming to wake him up from his creepy star-- er, intense focus on her person.

He grew aware of the staring and whispers that were creating a low hum of
excitement throughout the entire pub, and he shifted in discomfort. Hermione
cleared her throat, and glanced over when a pack of boys started making their way
over to the table.

"Are you two done?"

"Yes!" Hermione said, pushing her plate away and standing up. Ginny laughed at
her, and Harry was slow to stand, his brow wrinkled as he scrutinized her. "Uh, it's a
bit awkward here, isn't it? I've got exam studying, as well. And I know you and Ginny
would like to be alone for awhile. Oh, and you really shouldn't be anywhere too
public, in case people take pictures and it gets back to the Headmistress. You could
say you were visiting me, of course, since I have more privileges being of age and so
on, but I won't be there to cover. Not that I could be there, since--"

"All right, Hermione. You can go back to studying, don't worry." Ginny tried to
smother down her grin, but she failed completely.

Harry hummed, giving a nod to the boys who had paused, and it seemed to break
the entire pub out in yells, and calls, and questions. It took them ten minutes just to
get to the door, Hermione and Harry both blushing about the napkins they'd signed
their names to, but at least it rattled Harry enough for her to escape-- er, leave,
without further question.

It took her eighteen minutes to navigate the slippery path to Hogwarts, and
another twenty to get to her dormitory, grab the books, and arrive at the library.
She opened the doors four minutes after two, and stood in front of a scowling Malfoy
just five minutes late.
- 112 -
 "What's going on?" she asked, winded, and pulled the books from her bag.

Malfoy held his hand out, and she didn't think about waiting to hand them over
until he looked momentarily relieved once she did. Her fingers twitched in the air,
but short of snatching them back, there wasn't anything she could do about it now.

"Malfoy?"

"I'll let you know."

Hermione tilted her head, angling her ear towards him, because he must have
started explaining it and she just didn't hear it properly. "What did you say?"

He was sliding the books into his bag and not putting them on the table. Not
good. "Acting deaf because you don't like the answer only makes you look like an
idiot."

She wondered if he was nave to the fact that she could have him tied to a chair
with a flick of her wand, or if he just got off on annoying her so badly that she was
tempted. Because she certainly did not agree to avoiding Harry's questions for
weeks just to be dismissed by Malfoy.

"It's obvious that you found something. Three of those books deal only with
magical creatures. What did you find?" She paused. "Mal

"I don't know how you've lived this long without someone putting a fu--"

It took her a moment to realize that cutting off his sentence at the sound of
footsteps made perfect sense, instead of the moment she spent rolling her hand in
the air expectantly. Hermione was prepared to feed the person the excuse she had
worked out with Justin, but she didn't want Malfoy to have a fit while he was
withholding information.

Hermione made a sound of frustration, and pointed a finger at him as she backed
up. "Tonight, after dinner, right here. I mean it."

She caught a narrowing of his eyes before she walked away.

- 113 -
 Chapter 6

Malfoy's quill stilled, and he stared down at the parchment as Justin looked over
at Hermione for the next move. Malfoy blinked his gaze up to them, and Hermione
raised her eyebrows, her foot tapping twice.

"You're a day late," she told him.

She was going to give him a moment before sitting down at the table. It was like
approaching an unsure animal - slow movements, or they were bound to take off
running.

"According to your schedule."

"No, according to mine, you're two days late." Hermione approached the table,
rocked between two chairs, and then took the one closer to Malfoy. Justin heaved a
sigh before sitting opposite him.

"So, what did you find? Magical creatures? Hermione has been digging through--"
Justin cut off with a wince, and she sent him a look of apology. She had been aiming
for the shoe, not the ankle.

Malfoy was amused. If he wasn't so stoic all the time, it might have been hard to
find. "You've been looking for it?"

"Tell us what you found, Malfoy. You have to do it eventually."

She was going to continue that by pointing out his lack of ability to do anything
on his own, but thought it best to keep her mouth shut. They'd already been over
that a half dozen times, and it never got a good reaction. Like logical agreement.

Malfoy studied her for a long moment before his eyes flicked quickly over Justin.
She waited with several formulated, reasonable arguments playing through her
mind, and had to curl her hands over her knees to stop from just grabbing one of the
parchments in front of him. Not that she wouldn't if she had to.

Then, there it was. A twitch at his left eye, an exhale through his nostrils, a quick
press of his lips. Resignation, and she felt triumph.

- 114 -
 "Pavorlarua."

He looked at her like it was all about to click in her head, but if she had any idea
what that was, she would have suggested it before this. Unless his basis for it was
weak, which would explain his reluctance.

"It's an obscure creature, invisible to human eyes, and acts in a way related to
Boggarts - by showing the person a vision of their fears. However, it can go off any
fear, even the most abstract."

Hermione watched Malfoy concentrate on a page, and then flip a dozen more.
"Boggarts only show a person's deepest fear, and--"

"Everyone can see those," Justin said.

"Which is why I said related to, and not exactly like. The Pavorlarua show any
fear you hold, though when they are faced with the fears of multiple people, they
show the fear of the person who is closest or the fear that is bigger."

Hermione nodded, cautious excitement swelling in her chest. "That would explain
why we see the same vision when together. But why doesn't everyone? If these
creatures have infested--"

"No one can see them unless they drink a potion that combines certain elements
that the Pavorlarua are attracted to, combined with other ingredients that interacts
with the magic of the creatures."

Malfoy slid the book out towards Hermione, and she turned it towards herself.
There was an illustration of a man cowering against the wall, and a short caption
that many Pavorlarua victims were thought insane. She snorted, skipping down to
the potion ingredients.

"So these things are just all around us, but we don't see them until the potion is
drank?" Justin asked.

"Debatable. Some say their origins are in a certain region within an Asian
mountain range, because it's the only place that has a close combination of most the
elements they're attracted to. There's no proof of that, so others believe they wander
until finding a source, which would be anyone who has drunk the potion."

Hermione looked up, and she couldn't stop the grin no matter how badly she
tried. Malfoy looked disturbed. "Which would explain why it's got worse! The more
- 115 -
of them find us, the more visions we see."

"But the coldness?" Justin asked as she passed the book over to him.

"I've yet to read an explanation."

Hermione hummed. "Well, if certain ingredients cause its magic to mix with ours,
or at least with aspects of our minds… It could, possibly, cause us to perceive sound,
scent, and touch as well. At least touch with temperature, or maybe a wind. Nothing
like a physical grasp without actually touching us. And they can't be physical bodies
if they didn't set off the wards around Hogwarts."

"So it can't hurt us?"

"Not physically. We've seen the visions attack other people or us. We only get
residual effects of something. Like if it cast its own version of a Cooling Charm.
Since we're the only ones who are open to the visions, we're the only one who can
feel that charm when we get in the area of it."

Justin pushed the book away, glancing at Malfoy and then her. Malfoy was
leaning back in his chair, his arms crossed, but he looked too stiff to be casual.

"I don't think giant wasps were ever a fear of mine," Justin said quietly.

"Or mutant rabbits for me," Hermione added. "Maybe it's possible they take
anyone's fears who are nearby, but we're the ones who see them?" She looked over
at Malfoy for confirmation or denial, but got nothing more than his eyes meeting
hers.

"Maybe," Justin said, leaning back onto the two back legs of his chair. "What's
next?"

Hermione grinned widely, grabbing three books and pushing one in front of each
of them. "Research!"

Justin blinked at her, snapping back onto all fours of the chair. He squinted his
eyes in amusement, a smile curling his mouth, and held up two fingers. "A little too
much excitement for that word, Hermione."

She gave him a glare with no heat, flipping open her book. "I have a good feeling
about this. I think this might really be it." The next words got a bit tangled up on her
tongue, but she pushed them out anyway. "Good job, Malfoy."
- 116 -
 "Really good job," Justin said, uncapping his inkwell.

Malfoy was silent, but then there was a shift of clothing and a ripple of pages, and
they shared a quiet between the three that was more comfortable than it had ever
been.

Hermione gave a suspicious look to her last Arithmancy solution, but it seemed
right. She dried the ink with a tap of her wand before sliding the parchment into a
folder, and pulling out her last page of notes on the Pavorlarua. She was supposed
to be concentrating on that in the first place, but if Malfoy had noticed her use of
time for class work, he hadn't said anything. He was four desks away anyway, his
forehead wrinkled as he read something. Justin wasn't there, and was instead
somewhere that he had just waved his hand about and declared himself busy, but
she could wait to find out what that was about.

Everything they had found so far seemed to match up with their situation.
Hermione sometimes caught herself knowing this was it before she stopped herself.
Thinking she knew it only brought ideas of brewing a potion and taking exams with
a clean mind, but that was highly unlikely. They had found a few references to the
counter-potion that ranged in brewing time from two weeks to three months. She
was desperately hoping it wasn't the latter.

She saw Malfoy lift his head at the distant, hollow twang that came from the clock
Slughorn had put in the Potions classroom. "You have another hour."

His eyes dropped down to her, shadows and light traveling across his face from
the candlelight, as he waited for her to continue or to see all her secrets. He had a
weird look on his face that wasn't bored, stoic, or hostile - it might have been as
common as interest, but it was different on his features. He seemed…easier to look
at. Natural. She immediately felt unsettled.

"You always leave wherever we are by eleven." She figured he had some sort of a
curfew. "It's ten now."

The weird look faltered, and she lowered her eyes to the desk. There was some
tension creeping along her bones, but it was born of awkwardness and not their
typical anger. Opening a book in front of her, she said the first thing that came to
mind, which didn't seem to have anything to do with anything.

"Do you live in the Slytherin dormitory?"

- 117 -
 There was a pause, but before she could even think about it, he answered, "No."

"Oh. But still at Hogwarts?" Maybe they put him in a-

"Yes."

"Ah. That's nice."

That's nice? Hermione closed her eyes and shook her head. That's nice. It was
hardly her fault she was thrown by this conversation, if one could even call it a
conversation. It wasn't insulting, academic, or a discussion on a mutual problem. It
was…normal. Why was he being so normal?

She gave him a suspicious look, only to find him leveling one on her. She pressed
her lips together, dragging her book closer, and he raised an eyebrow before they
both returned to their work.

Dirty gold, a smear of black and white. Hermione closed her eyes, rolling them
back as she groaned lowly. She opened them again to wide eyes staring down at her,
a blur of a face hovering. Hermione gasped, jolting upright as her heart gave a
worrying seize-and-jerk in her chest.

"Jesus, Justin," she said, her voice cracking as he took a step back.

She hadn't even realized she'd fallen asleep last night, and had managed to do so
with book corners digging into her shoulder and ribs. She picked up the one that
had fallen from her chest when she sat up, and couldn't remember a thing she'd
read from it.

"It's 6:30," Justin told her.

"Crap." Hermione rubbed her eyes with one hand, and collected the books into a
pile with the other.

"Yeah!" Justin walked quickly to the door, and then opened it a crack to peep out.

Hermione picked up her quill, wincing at the ink stain she had left on his carpet.
It took her three taps of her wand to get most of it up, but she could still see a
darker colored circle from where it had been. Justin closed the door with a sigh, and
she looked up at him when she heard him cast a locking spell.
- 118 -
 "Yeah, I don't know how we're going to get you out of here. People are all over. If
someone sees you, it's not only breaking the rules, but--"

"Justin, it's all right. I'll wait until everyone goes to breakfast, and then I'll go to
class." She stood up, rubbing her palms over her face, and then pulled her tie off.

"Do you do this often?"

Hermione blinked at the carpet, her hands stilling, and then turned her head to
look at him. "Wh…" Her voice trailed off on a crackle.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?" He turned to look behind him,
stepping back like he already expected something to be there.

"No, I don't fall asleep in other people's… That is, I don't…" Hermione shook her
head. "No, Justin."

He gave her a curious look and shrugged. "Okay."

Hermione looked at him for a second, and then huffed, straightening her tie.

"Oh, I, uh…" A clunk, a thump, and then a scuffle. "I found something."

Hermione's neck creaked at the way she snapped her head up to look at him, and
she moved quickly to grab the book he was holding out. "The counter-potion?"

"Almost. It lists some of the things that attracts the Pavorlarua, like Staghorn,
Lionfish, and Asphodel. But it says those same things are found in the potion and
counter-potion, and cites Of Legend as the information source. I think it might be in
there."

Hermione nodded, raking her teeth over her bottom lip. "Just Of Legend? Nothing
before that?"

"Nope."

"They have Graphorn horn listed in here." She glanced up as Justin rifled through
his bag. "It's incredibly expensive."

"Maybe it's in the Potions cupboard?"

Hermione hummed. "I'll have to get the book tonight."

- 119 -
 "You're sure? We're not allowed out on weeknights without permission. It's a bit
risky."

"The sooner we know the ingredients, the sooner we can work on it." Hermione
skimmed over the paragraphs, double-checking the title.

"Want one? My mum sent them last week."

Hermione looked uneasily at the bright blue package in Justin's hand, but the
clench of her stomach had her reaching for it anyway. "What is it?"

"Peanut butter and chocolate."

"Sounds like an incredibly healthy breakfast," she muttered, inspecting the label.

"It's a Nutri Bar, protein."

She had to press her lips together to stop laughing at the heap of bars that had
materialized on the bed, and plopped down on the mattress. Justin munched happily
and fell back on his elbows.

"So…what's it like waking up to my face in the morning?" He laughed while he

asked it, his cheek puffed out with mushed chocolate and peanut.

Hermione smiled, tearing open the wrapping. "Scary."

"You're looking exceptionally frightening today," Malfoy drawled.

"I liked you better when you didn't talk."

"Which is saying something," Justin said, wagging a finger, "since she's never
liked you."

Malfoy raised an eyebrow. "As if your useless information wasn't enough,

Granger - now you have a sidekick."

Justin frowned, wiggling to get comfortable in the chair. "I'm at least a partner in
crime. Or…non-crime."

"Right." Malfoy stared at him until Justin looked away, toying with a ring on his
- 120 -
finger in discomfort.

Hermione rolled her eyes, and dropped her book loudly on the table before taking
her seat. She might have pushed Malfoy to assist, but the past five nights of having
more involvement than a ten minute conversation was starting to wear on her. "Of
Legend. I didn't find it until very late last night, so I haven't read through it yet--"

"You asked to go out?" Malfoy asked, and Hermione quickly shook her head
before he got paranoid.

"How did you get out of Hogwarts?" Justin whispered, leaning across the table.

Hermione cleared her throat, preferring to ignore that bit of rule-breaking. "I just
did. Now, I took a glance at the ingredients, and I can tell you now, that some of
these are going to be…a challenge."

Hermione smoothed a hand over the page of the counter-potion, and then spun
the book, pushing it between Justin and Malfoy. They glanced at one another before
leaning in to look.

"I don't even know what some of these are," Justin admitted.

Hermione didn't either. She had at least heard of most of them, but what they
were was a mystery to her. "We can buy some of them. Others… I don't know. We'll
have to research the ingredients tonight. I can owl apothecaries to find out if they
have certain ones, as long as they aren't mostly connected to Dark things. We can
try the greenhouses until then--"

"Would it be easier to go to the apothecaries tomorrow night? It'll be Friday."

Hermione shook her head at Justin. "I can go to Diagon Alley and the ones in
London, but it will save time to make letter copies and owl shops in several
countries. Some ingredients are illegal in certain countries, places might be out of
stock, certain places don't ask questions with more Dark-related ingredients. This
way I'll gather locations, and then get all I can on Saturday."

"You said something was very expensive, right? I have some Galleons. I'm not
sure if we'll be able to buy everything, though. I…have a certain allowance per
month. Malfoy--"

"Yes, we're all a bit limited, but we'll get what we can," Hermione said, glancing
at Malfoy.
- 121 -
 He was giving a hard look to the table, his lips pressed into a white line, and she
might have been imagining the bit of pink at the tip of his ears. She didn't think the
Ministry was giving him free access to whatever remained of the Malfoy fortune.
Though she had entertained the idea of putting up with his smugness and some
crude remarks on poverty in order to get the ingredients covered, she had been
expecting this reaction more. She had a feeling Malfoy had less in his reach than
Justin, and perhaps even less than her.

"Do you two have Herbology tomorrow?" she asked.

"Today," they both said, and Hermione sighed.

"All right. There's also Snape's… The, uh…" Hermione had to force herself back
from the memories, and worked on pushing her voice out a little louder. "The
Potions cupboard may have some things as well. We should check anything on the
list that we know we can get here at the school. Slughorn keeps a few things in his
personal stock. I might"-she winced-"be able to get that if it comes to it."

"How?" Justin asked nervously.

"A conversation." Hermione waved her hand.

"If by that you mean using your recent fame for personal gain."

Hermione glared at Malfoy. "Your personal gain as well. And this is for the
greater good."

"You're the greater good? Think highly of yourself, don't you?"

"Hermione is a part of the greater good, so in a way, she is the greater good,"
Justin told him.

Malfoy stared at him for a long moment. "Fascinating," he murmured, before

slanting his eyes towards Hermione. "The way you brainwash them like that."

"You would know all…" Hermione blinked, belatedly trying to backtrack. "About
some of these, so--"

"If you're going to say it, then finish it. There's no use in acting like the greater
good with me, Granger. I know all about, what? Brainwashing?" He tilted his head at
her, and Hermione took a deep, calming breath. "Ah, yes, how my father
brainwashed me because he is an inherently evil person - that was what you had
- 122 -
said the other week, correct? So, by that reasoning, you're now inherently evil,
and…not the greater good? Which one is it, Granger? You're too self-righteous to
admit they're the same."

"Er…" Justin nudged her with his shoe.

"The same? How-- Oh, just because different sides can see something as different
things--"

"Uh, guys?" Justin whispered.

"Doesn't it?" Malfoy asked, and his eyes were bright and alive, like he was excited
by the possibility of verbally destroying her. "If something is--"

"We're working on a project for Advanced Muggle Studies. It's about fish."

"--and…" Hermione looked over at Justin, and then followed his gaze to a young,
blonde Hufflepuff.

"Sorry. I was checking your availability for Divination help? I have tea leaves
reading, and you said you could help me with it?" The girl was giving anxious looks
to both Malfoy and Hermione, and Hermione's dead smile didn't seem to be helping.

"Sure. When's your next class?"

"It's on Monday. I know it's early, but I didn't know how much time it would take.
I have--"

"Get rid of her, Finch-Fletchley," Malfoy said lowly.

"--and Transfiguration. I thought if I did the Divination early, I could practice on

my own the--"

Justin looked apologetic to cut her off long before he actually did. "I'll help
tomorrow after din--" The thump of Hermione's shoe against his was a little too loud.
"Around eleven tomorrow evening. Will you still be awake?"

"Yes! Thank you--"

"You're welcome." Justin grinned at her, and the girl fumbled her way into the
stacks, a blush high on her cheeks.

- 123 -
 "…Fish?" Hermione asked.

"Advanced Muggle Studies?"

Justin shrugged. "So," he said, clapping his hands, "I'll go get the books!"

"It has to be used that same night. We'll need all our potion ingredients ready.
The stamens are picked under a moon--"

"What kind of moon?" Justin asked, already looking disappointed.

"Any. As long as it's picked under moonlight. They have to be wrapped in wool,
that was soaked in…" Hermione frowned, looking over at the book Malfoy was
flipping through.

"Uh…" Justin turned another parchment of notes, shaking his head as he skimmed
them.

"All right, well, they're wrapped in that," Hermione said, making a note to look it
up again when Malfoy was finished. "Then we have to use them within an hour of
picking the first stamen. And we need a lot, so we're going to have to move very
quickly."

"Again, I'm not going."

"It's the Forbidden Forest, Malfoy! It's not like we're Apparating to a jungle
halfway across the world. We'll be back inside the castle within an hour and a half."

"How are we getting out?" Justin asked, his forehead wrinkled as he rubbed his
wrist.

"I'll have that covered. We'll be leaving early. I think we should meet up here at
eight o'clock, we should find the flowers by 8:30, and be back inside the castle by
ten o'clock." Hermione looked over at Malfoy, who had finally raised his eyes from
the book to look at her through his fringe. "Even if it takes us a bit longer, we'll be
back before eleven."

"Covered how, exactly?" Justin asked.

Hermione tried not to let her frustration show. Malfoy was refusing to go, and
- 124 -
Justin was just as hesitant despite Hermione knowing he'd go regardless. She didn't
want to reveal the method, but she'd have to eventually - she didn't have a choice.
"An Invisibility Cloak, for one--"

"Those wear off, or--"

"No, it's very reliable," Hermione snapped. "It's been used hundreds of times, and
it never failed. It never will. No one will catch us, and we need all three of us to be
able to get all that we need. The Moondrops are at least fifteen minutes into the
forest, which means it'll take at least fifteen minutes to get back. Then we have to
pluck an entire pint worth of stamens while hoping the clouds don't pass over the
moon, and then get back into the castle, up to the seventh floor, and into my
bedroom."

"So, at minimum…" Justin trailed off, looking up at the ceiling as he counted.

"Twenty-five minutes before Granger gets to the cauldron, so thirty-five minutes

to pick the stamens."

"While waiting until moonlight is shining on the flowers, and it has to be enough
to fill a pint jar. And by the illustration, the stamens don't look very large. We can
make it, but even with three of us, we'd just make it. Not with two. So if everyone
wants this counter-potion, we all have to go."

Justin nodded. "That's that, then. What will we say if we get cau--"

"We're not going to--"

"But if we do?" Malfoy asked.

Hermione sighed, rubbing her temple. All three of them needed it, so all of them
should take the blame equally. But Justin was nervous enough, and she supposed
Malfoy had bigger consequences. It wasn't like she wanted to break the rules either,
but they had to do it.

"I'll take the blame," Hermione said, and spoke louder when Justin started to
speak. "But we're not going to get caught. If I can break into a Goblin-run Gringotts,
a Voldemort-ruled Ministry, and have six years of experience sneaking around this
castle, I think you can take my word for it."

Justin smiled, Malfoy rolled his eyes, and Hermione sighed at the knowledge
she'd have to get the Invisibility Cloak without Harry noticing.
- 125 -
 "Let's meet up on Sunday. I'm not going to get anything this weekend that we
know is here. If I can't get everything else we'll need, we'll figure something out.
The potion takes about four weeks. If I start brewing it next week, we'll be able to
take it before we're even due back for classes after the holiday."

"So we should come back early?" Justin asked.

Hermione nodded. "I'm not sure what date until I start brewing, but I want to
start by Friday at the latest. That way we can all try to concentrate on taking our
exams the week after that."

Malfoy pushed the book down the table towards her. "When do you have Herb--"

Justin made a strangled noise, and Hermione's gaze flashed to him, his face white
and eyes a wide black in the dark room. She jumped up at the same time Malfoy did,
both of them turning to see what was behind them.

Hermione instinctively shot back at the executioner in front of her, an ax raised

high over his head. The edge of the table made impact with the back of her thighs,
and then a hand grabbed her, and an arm wrapped around her shoulders from
behind. It slipped to her neck as she was hauled backwards, cutting off her oxygen,
and her throat clicked wetly as the ax hit the table between her knees.

Hermione grabbed Justin's arm, kicking her legs for purchase, but her feet hit air
before she could get it. She dug her fingers into the thick fabric of a robe, her eyes
darting to find Malfoy in something based entirely on an instinctual need for help,
over any knowledge of who she was looking for. He wasn't there, though, and she
had no choice but to slam her foot down on top of Justin's.

Their backward motion halted, and Justin's choke hold lessened as he let out a
sharp sound of pain. Hermione gasped in a breath, shoving his arm off her, and
whirled to face him. Malfoy was standing beside him, seeming to have not noticed
Justin nearly strangling her to unconsciousness.

"It's a vision--" she said, meeting his wild look with one of her own.

"But if--" Justin jumped at the sound of an ax connecting with and splintering
wood behind her. "If we didn't hear or feel at first, and now we do, we might really
feel!"

Justin grabbed her arm and lugged her to the side, both of them stumbling behind
a different table, as Malfoy walked backwards a step in front of them. Malfoy hadn't
- 126 -
turned his gaze from the executioner once, and she had a feeling his thoughts were
going the way of Justin's.

"That's highly illogical!" Hermione yelled. "It's not a solid--"

"But if it messes with senses, can't it make us feel like it is?"

Hermione was rushing to find a proper argument to that, but her true feelings
were all but shouted when the executioner raised his ax in front of them - her back
hit the wall just as quickly as Justin and Malfoy's did. Because she couldn't know.

"It might just be because you're thinking about it," she tried. "It might be part of
the fear."

"So, just stop thinking about it?" Justin yelled, his voice an octave higher as he
waved a hand at the executioner growling at them.

"Think of him turning into a…bunny--"

"It's a fear, Granger, not a first-year's Transfiguration lesson!" Malfoy snapped.

"The--"

"Then it's a spider, all right?" she yelled back. "He's a small, poisonous spider
with red stripes and big fangs. It's a vision, we can change it. Jus--" Hermione
jumped back as the blade came down on the table again, again, again, as if it were
angry.

"Someone isn't thinking of the spider!" Justin screamed. "Who is afraid of the
exec--"

"It's not going to work if you don't calm the--" Malfoy started yelling.

"Everybody just--"

"The spider with--"

"The books said nothing about Pav--"

The frantic blend of their yelling cut off with a single step backwards by the
executioner. His teeth were bared in the hole cut around his mouth, and his eyes
were lifeless and as inky black as his hood. He took another step back, five, six, and
then turned towards the right wall. The handle of the ax fell back onto his-- its
- 127 -
shoulder, and began turning in a hand so deeply wrinkled that the skin seemed to
fold over itself in flaps. It took a few steps towards the wall, chains dragging across
the stone as it went. It turning its head to look at them once more, and then
disappeared.

Five seconds passed in absolute silence before Hermione released a breath, then
promptly sucked in another. She reached up to rub her throat, and looked over at
the two men standing next to her. Justin was wiping sweat from his forehead, his
breathing ragged, and Malfoy was still staring at the spot the vision had
disappeared from.

"There's no proof in our experiences or reading that it will physically make us feel
pain," she said.

"Nor is there proof that we wouldn't," Malfoy argued. "It's evolved before."

"You're the one filling his head with paranoia, then? There's--"

Malfoy rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. "Of course, you're blaming--"

"No one is filling my head," Justin said. "You sound like my mum--"

Hermione blushed. "You never mentioned thinking this before! And we never felt
--" Hermione coughed over the rasp in her throat, rubbing at it again.

Justin was giving her an apologetic look when she opened her eyes again.
Perhaps she should be angry with him for shoving an arm into her throat and
crushing her windpipes, but at least he'd been trying to save her life. However
ill-perceived it might have been.

"We never heard anything or felt coldness before. Again, it's evolved. There's no
way in knowing without getting near enough to attempt it." Malfoy was
straightening his robes and running a hand through his hair, but his eyes were
serious when they raised to hers.

"I don't think we should take the risk," Justin said. "At least not when the risk
involves an ax."

"Fine. If you both feel that strongly about it, we'll all try to look out for something
with low risk, and then attempt feeling anything from it. I'm certainly not going to
run away from every vision without knowing it's necessary."

- 128 -
 By Justin's twitchy look and Malfoy's raised eyebrows, she was guessing she'd be
the one testing it. Honestly. Harry and Ron might have rolled their eyes and poked
fun at her, but at least she could count on them to stand beside her no matter what
terrifying thing was coming at them. Now she was stuck standing on her own at the
front of the battle.

Hermione muttered to herself, moving to collect her books. "Library, Sunday,

after dinner."

Hermione pulled the lid off another box, revealing a collection of old school
books, and a mix of items that looked like they had been dug out of the bottom of his
trunk before packing for another school year. She picked up the thick roll of a
Gryffindor Victory banner, a few still Snitches, and was distracted by eight S.P.E.W
pins. Charms, Transfiguration, an Astronomy map, History of Magic… Hermione
shook her head, sighing heavily as she placed everything back in the box.

"Come on, Harry," she whispered, pushing the lid in place.

She knew he had to have the cloak here. He wouldn't have left something like
that at a Gringotts vault, because he would have never been sure that there wouldn't
be a situation in which he'd need it right away. She'd been searching through his
closet for twenty minutes now, though, and she'd only come up with a lot of things
he hadn't found the time to toss away.

He was bound to be back any minute now. She had to wait until Sunday just to
look for it, and she only got the chance to do so when he was called in for an
emergency meeting. He had said something about missing files and picking up
dinner before disappearing through the Floo, so she estimated a remaining ten
minutes before the fireplace flared up.

Part of her was glad it had taken him until Sunday to leave the house. Not being
sure if he'd snoop, she'd only brought school books with her, and the waiting gave
her time to study for exams in a week. She was thankful he had been called away,
though, because she didn't know if she'd get Justin and Malfoy to go without the
cloak. If she could find the cloak.

Hermione sat back on her heels, looking around the closet again. She had gone
through all the boxes and trunks, and had cast several revealing charms on the
walls, ceiling, and floor, but no secret compartment had been revealed. Where else
would he have put it? Maybe he thought it would be less likely to be found with the
- 129 -
other clothes, since people wouldn't expect to find anything in there. She clicked her
tongue, getting to her feet to look at the fabrics more closely. It seemed more of a
Ron idea, but…

Hermione narrowed her eyes at the dark purple robe between ones of deep green
and dark blue. Harry wouldn't wear purple unless it was an order from the
department, and she didn't think the Ministry was keen on color-themed parties. It
wasn't until she saw and felt the black lining that she knew, remembering that silky
air feel as something she had never touched on anything else.

Hermione pulled the robe down, searching for where the liner ended, and felt the
change in fabric near the sleeves and bottom. The cloak gave with a simple
Unsticking Charm, flowing over her arm to reveal the normal, black lining of the
robe.

No one would have noticed save Harry, Ron, and Hermione, she'd give him that.
Now, as she rushed to hang up the robe and stash the cloak with the ingredients she
had bought yesterday, she could only hope Harry didn't notice it missing.

Hermione eyed the cauldron in front of her, and glanced over to Slughorn as he
set up a vial tray on his desk. She felt a swell of panic start at her gut as she looked
around at the other students filtering in. Had Slughorn decided to move part of the
exam up a week? She hadn't heard him say anything about it. She hadn't even
studied yet! And--

"I thought we were reviewing today?" a Ravenclaw whispered behind her, and
another boy whispered a response that was too low for her to hear.

Hermione licked her lips, her throat dry, and tried to calm down. She'd read the
entire course book, but it had been months, and there wasn't any possible way she
could remember every ingredient to every potion without a Pensieve in front of her.

She swung her bag to the top of her table, rummaging through it for her notes. It
would have to be a potion they had talked about but hadn't done yet. Something
difficult, and not mentioned so recently that it was easy to remember, but not long
enough ago that they couldn't remember at all.

Hermione glanced up as the rush of whispers faded around her, and saw a
Ravenclaw approaching Slughorn. The professor seemed to be enjoying the thick
tension in the room, his hands curved over his belly, and a knowing smile aimed at
- 130 -
the nearing student. The Ravenclaw spoke quietly enough that Hermione couldn't
hear her - despite holding the escalating force of her breath to do so - and
Slughorn's laughter seemed even louder after such silence.

"You'll find out shortly enough!" Slughorn said, and Hermione went back to
speeding through her notes.

She had only brought her notes from the past three weeks. She scanned the room
for someone who might be willing to share, but she was in a class filled with
Ravenclaws, a few Slytherins, and two other Gryffindors. Naturally, the Gryffindors
were asking each other if one of them had brought notes, the Slytherins would
sooner hex her, and the Ravenclaws would likely let out some high-panicked squeal
of laughter before adamantly refusing to share.

Malfoy was the only one who seemed completely at ease with the possibility - he
wasn't even reading any of his notes. Hermione narrowed her eyes on his bag,
wondering if he had brought any. Not that she was comfortable with asking Malfoy
for notes, but she was willing to sacrifice a bit of pride to lessen the risk of failing
the test.

He probably wouldn't give them to her anyway. She had arrived too late last night
to meet Malfoy and Justin in the library, and they hadn't been in the cauldron room
when she checked. Malfoy was like her when it came to someone wasting his time -
though he did seem to enjoy doing it to her - so he'd likely hoard his notes in petty
revenge. Hermione glared at him as he leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed,
and his legs sprawled out under the table.

"Today you will be brewing a potion of your choosing," Slughorn said, the
shuffling of papers halting on his first word. "The potion will not be marked, but
"-Slughorn grinned, holding up a piece of parchment-"those who brew a correct potion w

A mutter swelled like a wave across the room, and was only quieted when
Slughorn waved his wand, revealing a long list of ingredients on the board. They'd
be going into the ingredient cupboard then. Hermione felt a tingle of optimism for
the first time since Sunday night - if they were able to go in alone, or if she managed
to go in with some flustered students, she might be able to grab some supplies.

"You must use at least seven of these as active ingredients within your potion.
There are five different combinations, and you may choose any of them."

A Gryffindor - Sarah? Chera? Cheryl? - raised her hand, and Slughorn pointed at
her, rocking on his feet. "Will one of the potions be our practical next week?"
- 131 -
 "Indeed!" Slughorn took a seat behind his desk, shifting into a comfortable
position that Hermione was sure they'd find him snoring in within a few minutes.
"You may pair up now. Remember, you may not use your notes or texts, and…"

Slughorn continued on about the pattern in which they'd go to the cupboard and
how they'd collect ingredients, but Hermione was distracted with the casual angle of
Malfoy's form. She bit her lip, sending a look around the room. It would be sure to
get people talking, and in their current circumstances, they really didn't need any
extra attention. But if she wanted to start the potion this week, she might not have
another opportunity for it. Another partner would be watching her too closely.

Hermione looked up at Hewley, a seventh-year Ravenclaw, as he started towards

her. She grabbed her bag, her heart picking up harder beats at the reaction she was
about to get, and took seven long strides to Malfoy's table. Her bag hit the floor with
a bang, and she glued her eyes to bright blond in an effort to avoid everyone else's.

Malfoy's jaw clenched once, and he slowly turned his head to look at her, an
eyebrow raised. She didn't know who he'd been expecting, but the challenging look
was replaced with surprise when he found her there. She rather liked making him
feel bewildered - she didn't think many things knocked Malfoy off his feet.

He turned his head to blink at their cauldron, the mask of indifference sliding into
place. He rose to his feet in a way that reminded her of water. "What are you doing,
Granger?"

She could hear the whispers around them, and see the people looking at them
from the corners of her sight. Hermione hated being the center of attention when it
wasn't for her intelligence. "Your marks are acceptable in this class, and I expect
you won't make mistakes while I'm working on other aspects of the potion. I feel it's
a good academic choice."

She sniffed, raising her chin as she studied the ingredients on the board. She
could feel Malfoy's eyes more than the gaze of anyone else, and she was guessing he
found her excuse flimsy. As long as other people bought it, they'd be fine.

"Granger," he started, his voice low and dragging, and there was something
about it that made the tips of her ears pull up, as if to be sure she heard everything.

"We need some more things," she whispered.

Malfoy let out a huff of air, moving the cauldron towards the center of the table,
and glanced up through his fringe to see who was staring at them. Hermione cleared
- 132 -
her throat, and changed her mind when she went to pull her robe off. She was going
to need the extra pockets.

"I suppose with the ones that would take longer, he expects us to do all we can in
three hours, and then explain the rest." Hermione watched a group four tables from
them stand, working their way towards the cupboard. "The Scintillation Solution
would be done in time."

"So would the Oculus, but they're too simple."

"Amortentia, then?" She could already smell the cut grass and parchment.

"Have you already drank the Essence of Insanity, then?" he asked, and she shot
him a rude look.

"Fine. Veritaserum."

"Are you capable? Or is the Scin--"

"I'm very capable," she whispered harshly. "I just figured you would want an
easier choice since this isn't marked, and hadn't wanted to deal with the argument."

"And yet you create one by implying--"

"Veritaserum?" she snapped. "It's almost our turn."

As was usual, he took his time in the face of her need to rush. He looked moments
away from yawning as he brushed something from the front of his robes, and then
slowly looked over at the departing group of students next to them.

"Fine," he agreed. "But I'll slice."

She raised her eyebrows, her lips pinching together briefly in annoyance. "Are
you doubting my slicing abilities, Malfoy?"

"Not if we have to butcher anything."

What were those calming exercises she had started due to Ron over the summer?
Not that they had worked that well, but she was only minutes away from holding
sharp objects.

"I'll have you know that my abilities--"

- 133 -
 "I'm already fully aware of how wonderful you think you are, Granger."

Those odd noises were not meant for public hearing. Counting backwards?
"Really? I would think you'd have trouble forming incorrect assumptions through all
that ego blocking your perception. I suppose not."

"So you've discovered the source of your issues with a little introspection? I can
understand having to work up to it over nineteen years. From the outside, your big
head appears fairly daunting."

Maybe stretching, or those little balls you roll in your palm. "Like yours, I'd
imagine, until you go inside and realize it's mostly bloated from air."

"I'm afraid your experiences have not been my own. But I expect all the air in
your head to be humid, if that untamed animal frizzing on top of it is any indication."

No, stabbing or punching. Those worked wonders for calming nerves, really. "My
hair may be uncontrollable, but it's still preferable over--"

"Pst, are you going or can we?" The boy took a step back when Hermione and
Malfoy's eyes snapped to him. He hesitated, but quickly whispered, "We only have
three hours, you know."

"Oh, yes," Hermione breathed, blushing at the impatient students who were
looking at them. "Sorry."

Hermione rushed around the table, and Malfoy followed in languid movements
that were sure to be angering half the room.

"Hurry up," she whispered through her teeth. "If you hadn't distracted me, we
would--"

"Do I look like one of your boy wonders? Or would following you dazedly and
being an idiot be less distracting for you? I--"

"Apparently not," she muttered.

"--follow your orders…"

She glanced up when he trailed off, and found a tight expression on his face. He
must have been regretting the setup he'd just given her to attack his past again, but
she'd been down that road enough times - it didn't lead anywhere, and Hermione
- 134 -
didn't like wasting time.

She opened the door to the closet Slughorn used to store ingredients and
cauldrons, nodding her head towards the room. "If we take too much time, he'll
decide to risk disorder and broken vials by sending in the next group with us."

Malfoy looked at her for several seconds as conversation began to dwindle behind
him, and then slowly raised his eyebrows. Hermione huffed and entered the room,
hearing his hand catch the door before it shut behind her. Her gaze wandered the
shelves, and she waited to hear the door click before speaking.

"You get what we need for the Veritaserum, and I'll get the other things."

"What else do we need?"

"Billywig Stings--"

"You couldn't find Billywig Stings?"

She gave a glare to the back of his head as he picked up a copper cauldron. His
voice might have come out deadpan, but she could still hear the judgment. "Other
ingredients were more expensive, and I knew we could find certain ones here. Grab
the Honeywater while you're over there." He didn't react well to orders. Uh… "Up
there?" There, a question.

He only paused a moment longer before reaching for the jar, and she turned back
to search for the Chizpurfle carapaces. "Is there any Vipertooth blood over there?"

Malfoy hummed, and Hermione pocketed the jar of Lionfish Spine. "Moondew,
Starthistle, Staghorn, and Asphodel are in the greenhouses, right?"

"Yes. As well as Haliwinkles. We already obtained them."

She looked up in surprise. "You already got it all from the greenhouses?"

"No, we magicked them into existence."

She rolled her eyes, moving down the row of shelves. "It was the weekend."

"Sprout asks students to volunteer in maintaining the greenhouses every

Saturday."

- 135 -
 "They didn't ask questions that you suddenly volunteered? Or did Justin do it?"

He seemed to hesitate a moment, but maybe he was just reading one of the
labels. "Finch-Fletchley volunteered, yes."

Hermione grabbed an empty vial, glancing at Malfoy as he tapped Boom Berries

into a jar. "We'll need five of those. I only bought four."

Malfoy muttered something, glancing over at the door, and grabbed another jar.
Perhaps he'd only gone to apothecaries when he was rich and didn't notice the
prices, but Hermione had been left with only a few Knuts by the time she'd got back
to Harry's.

Hermione scrunched her nose as the Fire Slug mucus formed a line of glob into
the second vial, and she shook the container gently to get it to break. Sometimes it
was better to not know what they'd be drinking.

"This is all--" Hermione's head snapped up towards the opening door, and she
turned her back quickly, shaking the vials. The mucus finally gave, and she stopped
both vials, dropping one into her pocket and pushing the other onto a shelf.

She turned back to Malfoy as the other two students glanced at them, picking
their way across the shelves. Malfoy was looking back at her, and his eyebrows
flashed up as he placed a jar into their cauldron. She nodded once, following him to
the door, and stuck her hands in her pockets to stop herself from clinking all the
way across the room.

She took her robe off carefully when they got to their table, placing it over the
back of her chair, and let out a deep breath. She gave a nod to Malfoy, who only
hesitated a second before returning it. She might have caught a twitch of his mouth
before he turned forward.

"If anyone were to suspect us conspiring with one another, they'd see right
through you. You're as obvious as a Thestral to the Wizengamot."

"Looking slightly rushed before a class assignment is typical of me. Doing that
weird face would be suspicious."

He gave a blank look to the vial between his fingers, and then glanced up to the
far wall before looking at her. "Weird face?"

"Yes, that face you do. That's…" Hermione tried lowering her eyebrows and
- 136 -
narrowing her eyes into something that felt like a brooding, penetrating look. "With
the eyebrows, and the eyes all…and the mouth is… Then…"

He looked at her silently, an eyebrow slowly rising, and Hermione turned to get
out the rest of the potion ingredients in a rush of flustered motions.

"Or that one," she muttered. "You always…" She watched his hand drag two jars
away from her side of the table.

"You can crush those," he told her, pushing the plug from the jar with his thumb.

"Because there's no finesse needed in crushing?"

"Exactly that."

She glared at him, hopeful, but each slice of the knife was quick, deliberate, and
perfect. She scowled, and crushed the herb a little harder than necessary when she
caught a glimpse of his smirk.

- 137 -
 Chapter 7

Hermione shut her eyes as hooves pounded behind her, and she felt the wind
across her skin as the two Centaurs flew by to each side of her.

"If you act"--Hermione jumped at the voice behind her-"like it's there, people are
going to start suspecting that you think something is there."

She looked over her shoulder, finding Malfoy watching the Centaurs disappear
ahead of them. "It's better than running out of their path. I still haven't proven that
they can hurt us. I--"

"Unlikely."

She gave him a look as he passed her, and then set herself into motion so she
wouldn't be following behind him. "You were just saying last week that--"

"I tested the theory. It didn't hold up."

She raised her eyebrow at him, because if he honestly thought she was going to
take his word on that, he didn't know the first thing about her. "You touched a
vision?"

"No, Granger, I just guessed and figured I'd go with that conclusion," he drawled.
"I don't know whether I should hold your inane questions against you or the people
you normally associate with, though I suppose it reflects on you either way."

She had to bite her tongue to keep from lashing out at his own failings in that
department. She didn't need to anger him when the meeting tonight was about
something they needed him to do. "Details?"

He grumbled something as he turned into another corridor, and she sped up her
steps to walk just a pace in front of him. "Scorpions. It stung my hand, but there
were no effects."

"Did you feel it on your hand?"

"I just said--"

- 138 -
 "I mean the scorpion itself."

He paused at the question or the murmur of voices in the next hall. She didn't
think he would have been the one to test it, but she couldn't think of any reasons for
him to be lying now. "Yes."

"Huh. Was it as if you were actually holding one, or did it just feel like something
was there? Did the stinger appear to go into your skin, or…"

She slowed her steps when she realized his weren't falling beside her, and
half-turned towards him. He was standing several paces away, looking back at her
with a stoic expression. She opened her mouth to ask him why he stopped, but when
laughter broke out in the next corridor, he only raised his eyebrows at her in
answer.

Hermione hummed, shifting her bag, and turned towards the library. A small
group of students were loitering along the wall, discussing a snowball fight that had
broken out over the weekend. She expected Pince to come out at any moment to
usher them back to their common room. Hermione just hoped they wouldn't decide
on the library instead - they seemed the type to wander aimlessly and snicker in
aisles.

Hermione made her way around them, awkward in the sudden hush of their
conversation as they watched her. Stepping into the library brought the familiar
rush of comfort she had longed for far before the war was over. She didn't think
there was any other place in the world that could mirror what she felt here.

She dropped her bag onto their table, then disappeared into the stacks to find the
text on a Starthistle brew. It had to be made a day in advance, so she would need to
start it tonight. It wasn't a difficult process, and she felt a bit giddy with excitement
that she could study for classes tonight.

Hermione smiled at Justin as he turned into the aisle, but it slid from her face
when she took in the dark circles and pale skin. "Found it?" he asked, rubbing his
eyes as he smiled tiredly at her.

"Yeah," she answered, wedging her finger into the pages to keep her place. "Are
you all right?"

"Pavorlarua in three classes today. I got two detentions and an extra assignment."

Hermione winced, falling into step with him as they made their way to the back.
- 139 -
"When do you have the detentions?"

"One on Saturday, and one after holiday."

"At least we'll be done with this mess by the time you have the second one?"

He grinned. "That's what I was thinking."

Justin dropped into the chair next to Malfoy when they reached the table, and
Malfoy's eyebrows rose before his gaze slowly lifted to Justin from the Charms book
he was holding. Hermione sat down, watching Justin run a hair through his curls. It
was the first time Justin hadn't acted like sitting at a table with Malfoy was
physically painful.

Hermione cleared her throat, flipping her book open in front of her. She lifted her
bag to her lap, digging for parchment and ink. "Malfoy tested the visions," Hermione
said.

"I know, he told me on Saturday," Justin told her, turning to grab the back of his
chair. He twisted, and Hermione cringed at the loud cracks that followed. "The
stinger looked like it went into his palm, but he didn't feel anything."

Hermione nodded absently as her eyebrows furrowed at Malfoy's shoulder. She

distantly noticed his chin turning at the top of her vision as he looked for what she
was staring at. "Wait, Saturday? I thought you met up last night?"

"We did, but we went to the greenhouses on Saturday." Justin motioned to his
bag. "For the volunteer work." He lowered his chin and raised his eyebrows at her,
and she suspected he was seconds away from giving her a wink.

"I suppose I'll cross stealth off the list of any possible things a Hufflepuff is good
at," Malfoy muttered, turning another page in his book.

"What?" Justin asked.

"Nothing," Hermione said. "I thought--"

"You're more obvious than--"

"I thought you said that Justin went to the greenhouses?" Hermione asked Malfoy,
cutting him off.

- 140 -
 "I did." Justin shook his head, though the wrinkled forehead and staring was
enough to show his confusion.

"But he implied--"

"You assumed," Malfoy said. "Does it matter?"

Hermione stared at him, trying to puzzle out why he had tried to make her think
that Justin had been the only one to get them. She asked if they had questioned
Malfoy volunteering…he had said Justin was the one who volunteered…

Malfoy made an aggravated noise, snapping his book shut, and Hermione
wondered if Malfoy was forced to help there. That might explain how he even knew
about the volunteer opportunity, and why he had said--

"I'm lost." Justin held up a hand. "Spare me the wit, Malfoy."

She didn't understand why Malfoy kept trying to hide things from them. It would
be a lot easier if he stopped acting so defensively, and just told them things instead
of leaving them to riddle it out. Maybe that was part of the lack of trust. As a group,
they barely held onto any semblance of trust, and that little bit was only there
because they all risked consequences if they were found out. Anything beyond their
common problems were open for ridicule or school-wide exposure. Not that she
would do that, but she supposed she hadn't been very convincing of that until now.

And it wasn't like she would trust Malfoy to not use something against her.

Hermione shook her head to clear her thoughts, and was slightly unnerved to find
both men staring at her. "All right. Uh…yes. Have either of you gone somewhere
outside of Hogwarts since this all started?"

"No," Justin answered.

"Why?" Malfoy asked at the same time.

"I've never had a vision outside of Hogwarts. Here, I see at least three a day now,
in some level of intensity. At Harry's this weekend, I didn't see anything. I even
looked out for anything strange, but nothing. And that isn't the first time I've gone
out."

"Maybe Harry has wards up? Something in his wards that prevents them from
entering?"
- 141 -
 She shook her head at Justin. "Even if he did, I've been to Ron's, the Weasleys',
Neville's, and I've gone shopping. Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley, London… Nothing."

"The Pavorlarua may not be able to follow, or be willing to leave two sources for
one," Malfoy said. "Or they travel slowly enough that they don't reach where you are
until you're already back at Hogwarts."

Hermione nodded. "That's a possibility."

"Makes sense to me," Justin said, tapping his fingers against the table. "When are
we going to get the Moondrops?"

Hermione glanced around them to be sure there was no one trying to eavesdrop
on the strangeness of their group. She pulled her wand to cast a quick Muffliato,
and the death glare Malfoy was aiming at Justin's hands was transferred to her
wand.

"It makes people hear a buzzing, like silence, instead of our conversation," she
explained.

Malfoy was burying his gaze into her eye sockets, and she shifted in discomfort
with the intensity. Maybe he got angry from someone casting spells around him that
he didn't approve of. Or maybe he had heard it before, from the source that created
it, and knew it was one privately owned.

Justin hadn't seemed to notice anything amiss, his fingers still tapping. "Are we
going tonight?"

"No." Hermione cleared her throat. "I need to boil the Starthistle with Boom
Berry juice and a pinch of shredded Dittany. It takes a day, but it should be ready
tomorrow night."

"That's good for me." Justin nodded.

Hermione looked at Malfoy in question, who was still staring at her. For the span
of five breaths, she knew he was going to say no, and began formulating why that
wasn't acceptable. "Fine," he said, and she let out a rush of air.

"Good. Justin, can you get the Prefect schedules for tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Did you get the…" He waved his hand, lowering his chin again.

- 142 -
 Malfoy muttered something about crossing intelligence and short-term memory
off the Hufflepuff list as well. Hermione decided not to turn Justin's confusion into
embarrassment by reminding him of the silencing spell she had put up.

"I got the cloak, yes. We'll meet in the cauldron room at eight. Most students
should be in their commons by then."

"Great."

"Fine."

"Wonderful."

"That's not fitting over all of us."

"That's not even fitting over me."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Trust me."

Malfoy didn't look pleased with that answer.

"Look, we'll just hunch a bit, all right? Just get under it and you'll see." Hermione
had reached the end of her patience five minutes ago, when she had to go through
step-by-step directions for the second time, and soothe paranoia for the twentieth.

Justin swung his doubtful look away when she glanced at him, but Malfoy had no
trouble letting her see how incredulous he was. She was fairly sure he only decided
to saunter over to prove her wrong, and not because there was a chance she'd be
right. She was a bit worried - Justin was taller than her, and Malfoy was easily taller
than both of them - but she thought the two might be near equal with Harry and
Ron.

Malfoy stopped next to her and turned to face the direction she and Justin were.
He didn't seem inclined to get any closer, and Hermione shuffled the step over with
a huff, pulling Justin with her. She opened her mouth to make a comment on the
plausibility of Malfoy bending the stiffness of his spine or the stick up his bum, but
went with something a bit more pleasant.

"All right, just pull it over…" Hermione yanked the middle over her head, and was
pleased to see both sides come down as well. "Now hunch over a bit, just until it
- 143 -
hits-- Ah, see! See, it--"

"You're expecting us to-" Malfoy started to say.

"It's just a few corridors, a flight of steps, and out the Entrance Hall. Once we're
outside, we can take it off. You're so--"

"If we move too much to the side, or one of us straightens the slightest amount,
it's off the ground."

"Then don't move to the side or straighten at all," Hermione answered sharply.
She didn't know why people just didn't do as she told them to do.

"Should we walk around the room a bit to get used to it?" Justin asked.

"If you need to practice walking, it may be better to leave you here," Malfoy said.

"If I could stay, I would be," Justin answered hotly. "But if you don't want to
practice walking in these positions, fine. If someone sees the cloak comes up on your
side, I suggest you push him out, Hermione."

"Or," Malfoy started to say, and Hermione could tell by the low, dangerous quality
that he was about to spit out something scathing.

"Or we get started right now," Hermione said quickly. "I'm casting a muffling
charm on everyone's feet"--Hermione waved her wand at their feet-"and if you need
to pause while we're going, just tap the person next to you. All right?"

Her heart was pounding the entire way through the dungeons. She didn't have to
stoop as much as Justin or Malfoy, but she hunched low to give as much of the cloak
to them as possible. A cramp was starting up in her neck and lower back, but she
imagined it was far worse for the other two. She was certain that one of them was
going to move too much, or she'd put her foot out too far to one of the sides, and
they'd all go sprawling out into the open. Justin started breathing heavier every time
they passed lingering students, and they stopped seven times before they made it to
the staircase.

In a way, it was more difficult in the cramped space with Justin and Malfoy than it
had ever been with Harry and Ron. She didn't mind rubbing arms and shoulders
with Justin, but the first time Malfoy's arm brushed the side of her breast, she nearly
tripped over herself. Justin stepped on the side of her foot three times, and Malfoy
was in a constant battle against his instincts to walk away from them.
- 144 -
 Malfoy swayed to the side as if he was about to walk away from them, and
Hermione quickly tried to follow. She grabbed for Justin, yanking him with her, and
his foot slammed on top of her own. Hermione made a small squeak of pain as she
crashed into Malfoy's side, Justin's slouched weight causing enough momentum for
Malfoy to step back for balance. He grunted lowly, and his arm flew out from
between them before his hand grabbed her elbow.

"Suw," Justin breathed, in what might have been an apology.

Hermione let out a shaky breath, pushing her shoulder off Malfoy's chest as she
righted herself. She could feel his fingers clench around her elbow, relax, and then
clench again before dropping away. It was either a warning, or just something he
did when he was angry. She knew his jaw followed the same routine, and when he
was really furious, a vein at his temple did.

They took a moment to make sure they were covered, and Hermione lightly poked
both of them in the ribs to signal taking a step up the stairs - they were both a
second later than she was, and her trainers made a brief appearance. The two
students flirting halfway up the stairs didn't seem to notice, though.

She jumped when Malfoy's pointy finger stabbed her in the side, but she took the
step with him. Justin was a second late, but she had forgotten to notify him while
she was busy thinking of her vicious revenge if Malfoy did that again. She searched
for both their arms, smirking when Malfoy was the one to jump this time as her
fingers closed around his wrist. She gave them both a tug with each step, and they
built a rhythm halfway up the staircase.

Hermione held back a sigh of relief when they reached the top of the stairs, but
Justin was panting next to her. She flinched at his urgent poking of her hip, and she
grabbed Malfoy's sleeve before he moved.

"Here?" Malfoy whispered so lowly that her brain needed a few seconds to
interpret it.

Hermione lowered her head to ease the cramp in her neck, and rested her arms
on the slant of her thighs. A trickle of sweat ran down from her temple, and she
pulled in a deep breath of hot air. The Entrance Hall seemed larger than it had the
first time she ever stepped into it. The Forbidden Forest must have been a world
away.

- 145 -
 At least two dozen Thestrals weaved their way through the trees ahead of them,
ink black moving over skeletons under the blue taint of the moon. Their white eyes,
gleaming in the dark, was the first thing Hermione noticed about them. Some of the
wings fluttered as heads were turned towards the three of them, but none of the
animals moved to come near them.

Eeriness took root at her spine, and she wasn't sure if it was that or Malfoy's
touch that broke out a wave of goosebumps. He stilled her step forward, and she
turned her head to look at him. He glowed a faint blue in the dark, his eyes never
straying from the creatures. She didn't even see him blink.

"Wait until they pass," he whispered.

"Until what passes? I already asked you two what you were looking at--"

"And then followed it by answering it yourself," Malfoy hissed, his hand dropping
from her when he was sure she wasn't going to start walking again. She rubbed the
spot, irked by the warmth he left behind.

"Thestrals, then. Must have been difficult for you to confirm it." Justin shot a
glare at Malfoy, then turned his head back to look at what was just the black lines of
trees and fog-covered ground for him. "Aren't they a bad omen?"

"A misconception," Hermione murmured.

"How do we know what's a vision and what's not? This is obviously real, seeing as
how I can't see it, but… I say we just act like everything is real, considering where
we are."

"If we knew where we were." Malfoy would have only sounded more annoyed had
he pushed his voice into a whine.

Hermione rolled her eyes, pulling her robe tighter around her. "They said it was
southwest in the forest."

"I don't think anyone bothered traveling that deep." Justin tilted his head. "Or
lived to tell about it."

"We should have turned when we reached that twisted tree," Malfoy said again.

"And we would have run into a big family of hungry spiders," Hermione snapped.
"We had to work our way around the damaged trees, but it didn't throw us that far
- 146 -
off course. According to the Point-Me--"

"We're still lost." Malfoy gave her a challenging look, but her glare was lost under
the passing of clouds over the moon.

"What time is it?"

"It's time to walk," Hermione bit out, stepping over a fallen tree, and then gave an
apologetic look to Justin. He was too busy scowling to the west to notice it.

"I thought you said something about getting a map?" Justin asked.

Hermione waved her hand. "That was something else. Not for the forest."

"Oh." Justin cracked a twig, and cursed softly, glancing around them. "What kind
of map?"

Hermione hesitated, too distracted to correct Malfoy when he began to lead them
more east than she would have preferred. "A, uh…" Well, there wasn't much harm in
letting them know about it now. "It was a map that showed the locations of people in
Hogwarts at any given time."

"So you guys always had the cloak and that map?"

"For some years, yes."

"How convenient," Malfoy drawled.

"Watch out, Malfoy - you might sound bitter."

"That Potter was born with Felix Felicis in place of blood? I'm not bit--"

"Hardly. Harry has had a life no one would envy, and--"

"And the majority of people would never make it out alive in half the situations he
got involved in, yet it always worked out for Potter. You--"

"Yes, it's a conspiracy. The world is against you, and--"

"Well, it sort of is," Justin said.

Hermione grumbled to herself, and Malfoy made some low, angry sound that
- 147 -
reminded her of an animal.

They attempted to head in a diagonal line towards the south, but were forced to
stray every time they heard something begin to get too close to them in the dark.
Howling, shrieks, running hooves, and breaking twigs surrounded them in various
distances, and all of them took to looking around them as often as they did in front
of them.

They get off track enough, according to the Point-Me spell, that they began
working their way through the thickets and sections of fallen trees. Hermione had
no idea what time it was, but she could feel the strain in her arms and legs as she
climbed over a downed tree, and she knew it was getting too late.

Malfoy gave the next tree a hard look, its trunk wider than the three of them
combined, and reached up to get a grip on it. He hefted himself on top of it with a
small grunt of exertion, and Justin followed after him after three attempts to find a
grip. Hermione raised her eyebrows at the tree, reaching up to touch the sides of it.
She gave a hop, but her fingertips still didn't reach the top.

"Got it?" Justin asked, his face shining in sweat as he peered at her over the thick
curve of bark.

It made her feel her own sweat sliding down her face and spine, and she shoved
back the strands of hair that had been stuck to her skin. "I'll just go under."

She looked down at the space between the ground and tree, and squatted to
shine her Lumos into the dark. Something scampered further into the shadows, five
rats stared back at her, and dozens of bugs crawled. Hermione popped up so quickly
that she lost her balance, staggering back two steps.

"I changed my mind!"

Justin grinned at her. "Afraid of some crawlies?"

"Do you want to go under there?" she asked, her arms flying out when her feet
lifted off the ground.

Justin pulled up his wand, levitating her towards the top of the tree. "Not at all.
Unless there was something really--"

"Okay, just--"

- 148 -
 "--or rare but entertaining. Then I might. Or--"

"Are you two serving tea up there, or do you have plans to actually move?"

Hermione's feet scraped bark, and she turned, wide-eyed, to Justin. "All right,
just--"

"--go all the way around

Justin released her from the spell as he swept his arm to the side, and Hermione
cried out when her rapidly circling arms did not grant her the sudden ability to fly.
Her eyes squeezed shut as she waited for the impact, but there was just a jerk of her
body followed by weightlessness.

She opened her eyes with a shaky breath, looking at the moon through the barren
branches, and then slid her eyes over towards a blur of white. Malfoy looked down
at her, the corner of his mouth twitching, and his lips raised in a smirk when she
narrowed her eyes.

"Was that bravery or stupidity in your Gryffindor traits? Though, to be fair, I

could never tell the difference." Malfoy was entirely too amused.

"I'm sorry, Hermione. I hadn't realized you weren't properly settled!"

She would have been properly settled had Justin not ended the spell with a jerk of
his arm and sent her flying over the edge. She should have transfigured a rock into
stairs instead of allowing a person to levitate her when said person tended to talk
with their hands. At least he had cast it again before she hit the ground.

"Just turn me upwards, Justin."

"Yeah, sure. I just didn't--" Justin cut off as she slammed her hands into the tree
to stop from banging her head against it. "Sorry, angle."

"Just release the spell now, Justin, thank you!" Hermione took a deep breath in
preparation, and Malfoy's snickering grew louder behind her.

She hit her feet solidly, her knees wobbling slightly, and then straightened herself
up. She pushed her hair back again, brushing her palms down her clothes, and then
turned towards Malfoy. She was momentarily distracted by the shape of his grin, but

- 149 -
it didn't slow down the momentum of her arm as she smacked him in the shoulder.
The grin dropped from his face before she could properly calculate all the ways it
made him appear different. Her eyes were reluctant to leave the lines around his
mouth she hadn't noticed before, but she gave a satisfied huff at his glare.

He stepped back from her, his eyes narrowed, and turned his face slightly to the
right. She didn't know why he felt it necessary to give her the warning look - she had
the wand, after all.

"What time do you think it is?" Justin asked as he stepped towards them from
where he'd landed, brushing dead leaves from the bottom of his trousers.

Malfoy pushed his hair back, and wiped a line of sweat from his temple with the
heel of his palm. "Now that you're both done with your usual routine of making a
mockery of yourselves, I believe it's time to head back."

"Back?" she asked. "We can't go back now. We could run into the Moondrops any
minute now."

"I agree. We came this far, and I think I speak for all of us when I say that we
don't want to get lost in here aga--"

"We're not lost," Hermione grumbled.

She looked over at Malfoy to continue with the list of reasons why they wouldn't
be turning around, but the words died in her throat when she met the calculation in
his look. There was something else there that made her heart pick up speed. As if he
was waiting for something, and fully expected her to get it wrong. A tentative line of
opportunity or trust was taut in front of them, and she remembered his concern for
being late for…whatever appointment he had to keep at eleven every night.

"We'll go back," she said, and Malfoy's eyes lifted to look over her head.

"What? Why? Hermione, I'm tired as well, but--"

"It's late." Her mind scrambled for another excuse when Justin looked on the
verge of arguing. "We got lost. At this point, we're not sure where the Moondrops
are, or how long it will take us to get back with them when we don't know our way."

"So we should find it, and then--"

"No, it'll take too much time, and we'll waste what we harvest. Let's go back and
- 150 -
look through more maps." Not that those were going to help them a great deal, but
they might find something. She'd ask Hagrid if she didn't think he would tell Harry
about it.

"More maps?" Justin asked, looking back the way they came and heaving a sigh.

"We're not lost!" Hermione snapped, tripping over a rock.

A hand grabbed her arm to help steady her, and she was surprised to find Malfoy
on the other end of it. He had yanked his grasp away before she even looked at him,
negating whatever instinct had him reaching for her in the first place. She imagined
she would have met the ground had she not found the balance herself.

"Thanks," she muttered. Malfoy ignored her, looking ahead in the weak wandlight
of Justin's Lumos.

"If we weren't lost, we'd be back at the castle by now," Malfoy said.

Hermione had to force herself not to laugh when he jerked away from a swaying
branch, his eyes darting up and down the tree trunk. She looked over at Justin to
share some of the humor, but he was busy pointing his wand at a bush. "Justin, I
need the light."

"Right." His voice came out tight as he swung the light back to her hand, and
side-stepped to stand closer to her.

"We're going the right way--"

"Perhaps you're casting it wrong."

Hermione gave Malfoy a bewildered look. "It's a first-year spell, I'm not casting it
wrong."

"Yet you lead us into nothingness for hours, and--"

"That was because of the thickets!"

"Oh." His amusement might have been relieving to the tension between all of
them, had it not been for the angry look he gave her afterward. "Of course it
couldn't have been your own fault--"
- 151 -
 "Don't start with that rubbish again. I've told you a hundred times--"

"You do love to exaggerate, Granger."

"And I'm the hypocrite? You get a scratch and it's a fatal wound!"

"I didn't even say anything about it!"

"What? Say an…" Hermione tilted her head at the way Malfoy's eyes had just
gone wide. "Wh--"

His lips pressed into a thin line, and his hand hung in the air for a second before
snapping out to grab the top of her arm. Fear shot through her when she felt the
tugging sensation at the back of her bellybutton, and her eyes connected with the
steel grey of Malfoy's. The resignation she found there did nothing to alleviate her
flare of panic, but Justin's hand wrapped around her wrist the moment her fingertips
touched his skin.

The world spun, and Hermione shut her eyes, her hands grabbing onto anything
for purchase. Her stomach rolled with nausea, but she fought it back, sucking in air
until her lungs were filled. It came rushing out a moment later when her back hit
something hard and unforgiving, and there was a space of heartbeats in which she
couldn't pull oxygen through her panic-stricken throat. She blinked at a high ceiling,
wheezing in another breath.

A hand pulled sharply away from her, fabric tugging loose in her grip, and Malfoy
came into view above her. She didn't even have time to scrutinize the panic in his
expression before he was hauling her to her feet. She gripped her wand, but any
thought of attack was lost when his knuckles skimmed from her ribs to her hip.

"What--"

"Sh." He ripped the Invisibility Cloak out of her bag before flinging it over her
and Justin's heads. "Wall," he breathed, shoving both of them in the shoulders.

She might have laughed at his one-legged hopping as he tugged his boots off, but
her adrenaline was racing, and all she could think about was protecting them from…
something. She and Justin ran towards the far wall as stone began sliding against
stone, and they both hunkered down until the cloak was covering them.

"Do--" Justin went silent with the hand she held in front of his face.

- 152 -
 Her nails bit into her palm with the grip on her wand, and she tried to control her
breathing. Justin sounded as if he had just raced across the castle, and his arm
slipped against hers in the slickness of their sweat. Hermione felt drops slide down
her face and back, cooler against the heat of her skin. She felt itchy with the prickle
of heat, and had to keep blinking to ward off the burning in her eyes.

Malfoy pulled off his robe and tossed it onto the bed, then moved to place the
strap of his bag over a knob on his dresser.

"Did you just get in Malfoy?" a male voice asked from the wall across from them.
Hermione could only make out the bottom of his legs.

"A few minutes ago, yes."

"You're cutting it too close."

"My curfew is for 11 o'clock. Cutting it too close would be 11:01 o'clock."
Hermione heard a small cackle of nearly-formed letters in Malfoy's voice, but he
held back on speaking them.

"No, then you'd be late, and breaking the rules of your probation. If you want to
go back to Azkaban for a minute of extra time, I've no problem escorting you."

There was silence in the room, but Hermione could see Malfoy's fists clenching.
"I'm here on time, which makes this conversation pointless. If you'll excuse yourself,
I would like to sleep, and since any form of harming - including sleep-deprivation -
would violate your rules, I highly suggest you let me get to it."

There was a pause, and then the man said something that had Malfoy's fists
clenched again. The stone began its grinding noise, and Justin sucked in a breath he
was doing his best to muffle. There was silence for five beats of her heart against
her throat, and then Malfoy turned towards them, his steps slow and measured.

"Keep it on hand," he said lowly, opening a door near them and walking through
it.

"We're okay?" Justin whispered.

"We wouldn't have been had he still been here when you asked." She expected
the door to slam, but it clicked behind Malfoy instead.

Justin ripped the cloak over his head, and Hermione helped, pulling it off her. She
- 153 -
took deep breaths of the cooler air, fanning a hand at her overheated skin. Justin
picked up the bottom of his shirt to wipe his face, and then looked at her over a fold
of the oxford. He jerked his eyes towards the door Malfoy had disappeared through,
then to the wall that must have had an opening they couldn't see. Justin shook his
head at her, and Hermione shrugged.

"He has a curfew," she whispered when water turned on in the other room.

"I got that. How did he Portkey us into Hogwarts? And why?"

Hermione shook her head. "He knew-thought we were lost, and…did us a small
favor, maybe." She cleared her throat. "How…I don't know. There's no way he could
have unless it was authorized. But why would they give him a Portkey? They would
expect him to be back on time or they'd kick him out."

Justin glanced at the door. "Maybe they force him to come back in time to make
sure he doesn't go into hiding somewhere?"

Hermione nodded. "But the man acted like he could be late."

"They could not want him to know he has a Portkey. He looked surprised when it
activated."

Hermione hummed, seeing his eyes flash through her mind. He had looked
surprised. "But--"

"By how well you can hear my actions in this bathroom, you should have been
able to gather that the walls are thin. Whispering only makes you appear like idiots.
Though I do doubt you appear that way all the time just because you like to."

Hermione scowled at the door. "Were you aware of the Portkey?" Silence. If he
was or wasn't, they definitely would have had to authorize it. "Do they know if you
Portkeyed in with anyone, where it activated, or if it activated at--"

"I don't know. Judging by his lack of concern for searching my bedroom, I would
assume not."

Hermione had other questions, but they got hung up somewhere around bedroom
, and fell off into forgotten territory. She blinked at the door twice before turning to look

For someone so bent on not ending up in a prison cell, he did little to make it look
like he wasn't already in one.
- 154 -
 "Are we in the Slytherin dormitory?" Justin asked, running a finger down the wall.

"No. But we might be in the dungeons. We can use the cloak, and we'll stop by
your--"

"It's not possible." Malfoy emerged from the loo looking far less sweaty than
Hermione felt. The front of his hair was pushed back, and he had one more button
undone than was code-approved for their uniform shirts. His sleeves were folded up
enough to show more than his wrists, but not enough, she thought, to show the scar
of any Dark Mark. He had a freckle or a fleck of dirt on the knot of his wrist bone.

"What do you mean by that?" Justin asked, and Hermione blinked her gaze to her
shoes at the realization she had been inspecting Malfoy far too closely. It was just
because she rarely got close enough to do so while not being distracted by his sneer
or rude words. New things always made her curious.

"The door is sealed."

"You can't open it?" Hermione asked.

"I haven't tried, but if you'd like to set off the wards and alarms, I'm sure you'll
find an insufficient excuse for when the Aurors show up."

Hermione stared at Malfoy, dread dropping cold in her stomach. "How intense
are the wards?" Malfoy looked at her like she was an idiot, and she barely restrained
herself from lashing out at him. "So we're stuck here until when?"

"The wards are dropped at five."

"In the morning?" Justin groaned. "Does the Auror come back to do it, or are the
wards set up that way?"

"If he does it, he doesn't enter to do so." Malfoy was uncomfortable. He had lined
himself up between them and his trunk, arguably the most personal belonging in the
room, and his entire stance was defensive.

"What if there are no wards? Have you tried to get out before then? They could
just have you think there are wards. Like telling someone you're going to do
something harmful if they do something again - you won't, but the threat gets them
to stop."

Hermione shook her head at Justin, pulling her palm off the wall. "There's
- 155 -
definitely wards."

"Well…I call the bathtub. Unless you want it?" Justin gave a questioning look to
her frown. "Do you have any extra blankets or pillows, Malfoy?"

"No."

"We probably can't use magic in here to transfigure anything, huh?" Justin asked.

Malfoy didn't bother responding. Hermione shifted awkwardly on her feet. She
did not want to sleep in Malfoy's bedroom tonight, even if she was on the floor and
as far from his bed as possible. She didn't know what her life had become that this
was even a possibility. Sleep was one of the most vulnerable positions a person
could be in, and while Malfoy hadn't taken any of the many opportunities to prove
himself evil, she still saw him as dangerous.

He wouldn't do anything, though. Beyond her belief that he had left behind his
former life somewhere in the post-battle haze of the Great Hall, he wouldn't risk
everything by trying to attack her in her sleep. Not that he wasn't currently looking
at her like he might. She was glad Justin was there - it would have been a lot worse
had she been alone. Especially if she hadn't reached out to grab him in the forest,
and then known she was stuck here without being able to help him back to the
castle.

Maybe she should thank Malfoy for taking them, even if it did get them stuck
here. She glanced at him from the top of her vision, and then hummed lightly.
Maybe not.

"We can use our robes," Hermione said softly, moving to unbutton hers before her
fingers got caught up on the first one. Malfoy's staring made her feel like removing
a robe was removing far too much clothing.

"Yeah," Justin said, shrugging out of his own. He laughed lightly, his eyes bright
when he looked at her. "I don't know, Hermione. You always find yourself waking up
in some person's bedroom."

Hermione's eyes widened as Malfoy made an odd noise, which she registered as
suppressed laughter when he burst into it. Justin looked back and forth between
them, smiling slightly as if he were waiting to get the joke. Hermione pointed a
finger at Malfoy, narrowing her eyes as her cheeks flamed.

"That is not what he meant!"

- 156 -
 "Wh-- No, no!" Justin put his hands up in front of him, shaking them in time with
his head.

"It really is the ones you never expected. Having--"

"Malfoy, if you finish that, I will harm you."

Hermione woke up stiff and cramped, a muscle in her neck protesting movement.
She took a deep breath, uneasily eying the snakes in the middle of the room. She
tapped the ground as they slid over one another, searching for her dropped wand.
She cast a quick Stunning Spell that had no effect, but at least she knew it was just
a vision.

There were no windows in the room to guess the time, but she felt like she had
been in there for days. Pulling the open book from her chest, she placed it beside
her, organizing her work area in the faint light from the dying fire. She had
attempted to stay awake, but the day before had been exhausting, and sleep took
her somewhere in the forty-second chapter of her Astronomy text.

She got to her feet a bit wobbly at the knees. Sleeping fully on the floor would
have likely been more comfortable than sitting on it while being propped against the
wall. She hoped her spine, neck, and bum could recover before she had to sit
through classes all day.

A pair of gleaming eyes caught her attention, and she looked at Malfoy's bed.
Panic flared for a second before she reminded herself that the snakes weren't truly
there. If they were, Malfoy's arm would have been in danger of losing circulation. If
he could have felt it, he would have woken up by now - his test of the scorpion must
have been correct.

Hermione shivered as she picked her robe up, sliding it on. Malfoy was sleeping
in his trousers and a long-sleeved shirt, and she wondered if that was typical or just
because of her and Justin. The top of the blanket was at his waist, and the shirt had
ridden up in his sleep. She could see a sliver of skin at the bottom of his stomach,
and the firelight caught a line of golden hairs in the center.

There was something about that patch of skin that felt too intimate to be looking
at, and it felt odder still when she raised her eyes to his face. His hair was in a
multitude of directions, and his expression was relaxed. It was softer than he could
even manage in his feigned boredom and apathy, and he'd never looked so
- 157 -
approachable as he did then.

Hermione visually traced the lines of shadows and light across the structure of
his face. The eyes darting back and forth beneath his eyelids in dreaming, the long
and slightly pointed nose, the line of his cheekbones. His mouth was barely open,
and his lips looked soft and full, the bottom slightly bigger than the top. He'd lost
the sharper point to his chin, but it might have been more detectable at a different
angle, or when she wasn't examining the strong line of his jaw. There were few
times she'd ever noticed it when that muscle wasn't clenching.

She felt like she was trespassing. She doubted many people had seen him so
vulnerable, but she couldn't stop looking. He was so different in sleep, without the
walls and constructions he erected while awake. She couldn't find any trace of
hatred or anger, or the boy that once was proud to have Voldemort know his name.
For a moment, she saw his face from hours earlier, his eyes shut and his grin wide
as he laughed, the faint tinge of pink across his cheekbones.

She wondered what he was dreaming of. If it was one of those dreams like she
sometimes had, when she woke in the middle of the night in a layer of sweat and
fear, reaching for her wand.

Hermione jumped violently at the squeak of sound behind her, whirling with her
heart in her throat. It took her a second to emerge from her thoughts and piece it
together, remembering that Justin was sleeping in the tub. She turned her head
towards Malfoy, feeling guilty and apprehensive, as if he had just caught her looking
through his things. His eyes were still shut, but they were no longer moving beneath
the lids, and she had a feeling he wasn't sleeping any longer.

The clock beside his bed ticked closer to Breakfast, and she knew the door must
have been opened by now. She collected her things quickly, avoiding the sight of
Malfoy, and wondered if his gaze was there or in her imagination. She left him a
quick note, dropping it onto the corner of his bed.

Justin was snoring when she entered the loo, and she had to shake his shoulder
four times before he responded.

"Uh-huh."

"Justin," she whispered again. "Come on."

"Yeah." He turned his back to her, and she huffed, shaking his shoulder harder.

- 158 -
 "Justin, we have to go--"

He sucked in a loud breath, lifting his head, and began flopping in the tub like a
fish on a rock. Hermione cringed at the loud squeaks and banging until he finally got
on his back in the cramped space, pushing up on his elbows.

"Wha' happen?"

"Nothing, we just have to go before the castle wakes up." If they hadn't all woken
up from his struggles of conquering bathtub positions.

"Ah, right, right," he said, dropping down fully again.

Hermione waited a pause as his eyelids fell shut. "Just

"I'm up!"

Hermione rolled her eyes as he finally sat up, and she quickly shoved his things
into his school bag, handing it to him when he got out of the tub.

"Thanks."

She hummed, smoothing her hair down, and led him out of the loo. She was
expecting Malfoy to be glaring at them when they exited, but he was still laying in
bed. His eyes were shut, but she could spot the differences now between his state of
repose and wakefulness. Her eyes drifted for a second to that bared line of skin at
his stomach, before she turned sharply, speeding up her steps to the exit.

"That was fun," Justin grumbled.

Hermione waited until the stone slid shut behind them. "Better than I had
expected, actually."

"So you expected us to get lost?"

She shot him a glare with no heat as they started down the corridor. "We weren't
lost."

"Right." He nodded. "Just directionally confused."

- 159 -
 He laughed when she smacked him the arm, and she restrained her answering
smile.

- 160 -
 Chapter 8

"Are you all right, Hermione?"

Hermione looked up at the dreamy voice, and found Luna blinking owlishly at
her. "Sore back. I slept wrong."

"It's not your fault. It's important that everyone has the right sleeping space.
Birds don't sleep on the ground, and Flitfurters don't sleep on anything but werewolf
hair - even if most of them die trying to get enough for a nest."

Hermione gave her a side-look and nodded, rubbing her lower back. "Yes. But
humans didn't always have mattresses." She thought that was Luna's point, anyway.

"Maybe you're not meant to sleep on a mattress. My uncle had to sleep on

branches. Everyone just thinks they're supposed to because that's what everyone
else does. It doesn't mean it's the right thing for you."

"No, mattresses are very right for me, Luna. I just slept in a weird position."
Hermione refused to deal with Luna showing up at her door with an armful of
branches.

The greenhouse was quieter than it normally was, and the majority of people
were glaring at the Gryffindors. Dean nodded her over to him when she met his
eyes, and Hermione squeezed between the backs of people, muttering apologies as
she inevitably brushed up against them. Luna's slight form managed to flow between
the tight space like air, but she no doubt bothered more people than Hermione had
when she began to inspect everyone's hair.

"What happened?" Hermione asked Dean, noticing that all the Gryffindors were
standing together for the first time all term.

"You didn't read the note? It's up in all the common rooms."

"I've been studying."

"That's a good thing, because Sprout isn't doing any exam reviews this week.
Someone stole a few plants from the greenhouses, so all the classes have to work on

- 161 -
replanting them instead."

Hermione immediately felt guilty, biting her bottom lip as she glanced around at
the drawn faces. "Everyone thinks a Gryffindor did it?" Technically, it had been a
Hufflepuff and Slytherin, though there wasn't a single person in the school outside
the three of them that would ever believe in that combination.

"Yeah. Don't worry about it. I'm sure you've got it handled."

"You can borrow my notes," she said quickly. "Everyone can borrow my notes."

She was being far too obvious if Luna looked like she was seeing right through
her. Then again, Hermione thought Luna saw a lot of things other people didn't.

"That'd be great, Hermione. Thanks." Dean glared at the boy across from them
who was staring and making threatening gestures with his spade.

"Mm-hm." She smiled widely at everyone around her, but when the suspicion only
intensified, she quickly made herself busy with studying the dirt like it was a new
discovery.

Hermione's head whipped up at the loud knock on her door. "Crap," she
whispered, moving to fling open her trunk.

She placed all the potion ingredients inside as quickly as she could carefully, and
cast a Disillusionment Charm on the cauldron in her fireplace. She double-locked
her trunk as the knock sounded again, and rubbed her hands together to rid her
palms of the sparkly Graphorn residue.

"Yes, one moment!" she called, making sure nothing curious was laying in sight.

A scream tore through the silence, and Hermione's entire body locked at the
sound of it. It was followed by another, and then several voices rose in shrieks. It
broke the hold of confused fear that had set her into a statue, and Hermione
sprinted to the door, yanking it open.

Ginny stared back at her through wide, tear-heavy eyes as she panted for air. Her
robes were torn, and there was a gash across her cheek that was running bright
blood down her ashen skin.

- 162 -
 "Oh--" Two more screams from down the hall.

"Death Eaters," Ginny gasped, and Hermione shoved past her, running for the
common room.

She heard Ginny's footsteps pounding behind hers only for a few seconds before
the screaming grew louder. There were three students running up the spiral
staircase, all of them covered in splotches of blood. Hermione felt like her heart was
going to explode out of her chest and throat, her entire body vibrating with every
slam.

She reached out to grab the arm of Timothy Malson, a sixth-year whose robe was
torn in half. "Get the teachers," Hermione hissed, releasing his shaking arm to
continue flying down the steps.

A handful of plans barely formulated in her mind, but all she knew was that she
couldn't wait. The teachers would be there soon, and however many Death Eaters
were there, she'd have to hold them off. Hopefully--

"Help!" someone shrieked. "Help! He--" The plea cut off on a gurgling noise, and
more screaming started up.

Her hand was shaking when she shoved the door open, but her wand only
trembled as she held it out. There were at least six Death Eaters in the room, and
four students were writhing on the floor. Her ears rang with the sound of their
screaming, and she could feel the sound like a tremor under her skin. Cheryl
Shepard was pinned against a wall, blood seeping down the stone behind her, and
Owen Reilly was frantically clinging to the edges of the fireplace to prevent himself
from getting shoved inside the roaring flames.

Hermione threw up a blocking spell as three curses flew at her, rippling her
bubble of protection with fiery orange and deep blue. The Death Eater closest to her
jumped up from the floor, releasing their grip on someone who was unrecognizable
to Hermione - the boy's nose was now squashed into his blood-covered face, and his
jaw was hanging crookedly.

Hermione swung her wand towards the Death Eater as they raised their wand to
her, and she could hear kill her, kill her being chanted through the screams of fear
and pain.

"Pe--" Hermione started to shout.

- 163 -
 "Hermione?"

She choked on the letters as Lavender's voice came from behind the mask, and
darted to the right as another curse flew at her.

"Hermione? Are you all right?" Ginny's voice asked, but it came from behind a
different mask, and not from behind her.

Hermione swung her wand around the room, finding eight wands pointed back at
her, and three of the Death Eaters approaching. Or…or… Hermione gasped out a
breath, and her wand shook harder.

"Should we leave?" whispered the boy with the smashed nose, his jaw swinging as
he looked over at a girl who was still convulsing.

Hermione's stomach flipped, and nausea sprung up in an acidic tingling to the

bottom of her throat. Oh, God, oh, God. Tears prickled the corners of her eyes, but
she blinked them back.

"Kill her!" someone screamed.

"Help me, help me--"

"Please stopstopstop!"

"Let me guess - you want to find out who stole the plants from the greenhouses,
or you're going to hex all of us." The Death Eater with their hand around Jimmy
Peakes throat sounded exactly like Romilda Vane. "You seventh-year and Repeats
are really freaking out too badly about all that."

"Oh. Merlin, Hermione, you scared me!" Lavender…the Death Eater…Lavender

said, their mask splattered in blood as they bared their teeth at her. "No one knows
who did it. And no one is fessing up."

Hermione's wand swayed a moment longer before she dropped it to her side, and
she swallowed hard to keep herself from vomiting. She tore her eyes from the
wreckage in front of her, closing them, and hoping it would all disappear when she
opened them again. Coldness was dropping in a heavy weight to her stomach, and
she couldn't get her mind to stop spinning.

This was impossible. Wasn't it?

- 164 -
 Hermione looked over her shoulder at Ginny, the redhead's face covered in more
cuts than it had been before. "They're Death Eaters, Hermione!" she screamed, and
Hermione shook her head viciously.

"I offered up two Galleons, and no one took that either. Not even to tell me who."

Leave, leave, leave, run, go, leave. Hermione's hands reached her shoulders
before she dropped them, desperately wanting to cover her ears and block out the
screaming.

"I'm going to go study," she choked out, her voice thick.

She skirted around the edges of the common room as quickly as she could, her
knees feeling weak under all the weight of what had happened. Whatever had just
happened. She was shaking when she emerged from the portrait hole, and her first
instinct was to run.

She took off down the hall, then seven flights of stairs, leaping over the gaps. All
she could see was the mess of blood and torture she had left behind, and the Death
Eaters approaching her as they spoke like her Housemates. She tried to shove them
out of her mind, along with the memories of flying curses, Hogwarts' torchlight
reflecting off masks, and red eyes above a manic grin when he had thought himself
the victor and she had thought Harry was dead.

Hermione shoved the doors open to the library, and they both banged off stone.

"Miss Granger!"

"Sorry," she gasped out, clutching her side as each breath burned down her
throat.

She needed to be quiet because she was in the library. She was in the library
after Harry killed Voldemort and they had won the war. She was in the library
because the Hogwarts wards were in place, and Death Eaters could not enter this
castle again. She was in the library because she was supposed to meet with Justin
and Malfoy about the visions. The fake, unreal, product of a creature visions.

Hermione slowed her steps to a normal pace as she headed towards the stacks,
barely glancing at the snickering students as they whispered in her wake. She
looked over her shoulder, expecting the injured vision of Ginny to be behind her, but
nothing was there.

- 165 -
 Their table was empty. Hermione paused at the end of the row, catching her
breath, and searching for logic. All right, it was the creatures. It was a vision that
knocked--

She opened her eyes at the scuff in front of her, and jumped when they connected
with bright grey. Malfoy looked at her like he didn't want to ask but was going to,
and he knew he wasn't going to want to hear the answer and so needed to formulate
a plan to escape listening to it. Hermione wasn't going to give him a chance to do
any of it.

"We have a problem. A serious, very big problem!" She couldn't keep the edge of
hysteria out of her voice as she stepped towards him. "It made them all look like it!
Before, it jumped on things, it crawled on them, but it never changed a person--"

"What are you talking about?"

"Death Eaters!"

"Sh!" he hissed, looking over her head.

"They were all Death Eaters!" she whispered harshly, her voice rising more with
each word. "None of them looked like themselves! You know, before, there would be
a bug on them, or an animal attacked them, but they were always them. The only
time before--"

Malfoy grabbed her arm, yanking her out of the aisle. "Keep your fucking voice
down, Granger."

"--Neville, and it was able to do that, because it wasn't really Neville. But this
time it was like the visions were-- No, no, like the people were the visions! They all
looked like Death Eaters, and the others were dead, or being tortured, or"-her hand
waved frantically in front of her face-"with the jaw, and hanging, and all the blood.
The--"

"Gran--"

"I couldn't tell! Not until they started to talk! I almost cursed all of them! And
there was this screaming, and I kept hearing kill her, kill her

Her back met the wooden panel on the end of the stacks, and Malfoy's fingers

- 166 -
dug into her shoulder. "The entire floor can hear you," he whispered through his
teeth.

"But my wand, Malfoy…my wand was on Lavender." Her eyes glazed for a
moment, and then focused back on the hard edge of grey right in front of her. "Well,
it didn't look like her, but it spoke like her. It's like, it's almost like the vision was
telling me to do it! And I couldn't differentiate it! I couldn't figure out if it was real
or not. Do you understand?" Hermione let out a gasp of air. "Do you-- It was trying
to get me to kill people! I can't even trust reality! I can't even trust my own mind!
It--"

"No, you can't, when you're letting yourself go insane

Hermione shook her head, attempting to take a step forward, but Malfoy was too
close. He was completely taking up her personal space, his thighs brushing hers
every time she swayed, and all she wanted to do was pace. Was to work out all that
spastic energy boiling inside of her.

"It had an agenda, Malfoy! It didn't just show me a fear, but it made it look like
people were the things I feared in an attempt to get me to kill them! Or at least hurt
them--"

"Ke--"

"--it could have just created the vision anywhere for me to see! Why would it latch
onto people? How can it? It even made me see curses coming at me, it made me see
blood and torture, and even when they were talking, it showed them as Death Eaters
who were trying to attack--"

Hermione pulled in a breath through her nostrils, Malfoy's palm warm against
her mouth, with his fingers cold against her cheek. His eyes glinted like stone, but
she could make out the blue this close, bursting around his irises. If his face was any
closer, she'd be risking going cross-eyed to remain eye contact. His thighs were
against her own now, and though his fingers were firm on her cheeks, his thumb
was just barely grazing the underside of her chin.

He stared at her silently until her breath had evened out, and she took to
counting the routine clenching of his jaw to calm herself. Her heart didn't stop
racing.

- 167 -
 "If you keep screaming about blood, torture, killings, Death Eaters, and visions
trying to get you to murder, I can guarantee you that a horde of people are going to
start coming down on us. You can hand Mungo's the contents of your bank vault
now."

Hermione nodded, shutting her eyes for a second as she pressed her hands into
Malfoy's chest. Some distant part of her mind recognized the warm firmness
beneath her palms, and the texture of his shirt. He didn't move, raising his
eyebrows. She gave him an impatient look, grabbing his wrist to pull his hand off
her mouth. Fine, she had gone a bit…er, loud, but she was calm enough now to not
scream out the insanity.

"We're studying fish!"

Hermione and Malfoy both jumped at Justin's voice to her right, and Hermione's
panic began to swell again as she saw Ginny standing in front of Justin. Or…maybe
Ginny. Hermione felt the tension in her chest grow tighter, and part of her wanted
to scream or cry at the idea that she couldn't just see her and know.

"I was going to hex him, but then I saw you had your wand in your hand and
weren't using it," Ginny said slowly.

Hermione studied her. It didn't say anything if the three of them could see Ginny
there, but judging by the hand Justin laid on her shoulder, it was really her.
Hermione thought of Malson on the stairwell, but that must have been really him,
with the vision producing the blood and torn robe. They had never been able to
touch a vision before.

"We're working on a project for Advanced Muggle Studies," Justin said.

Ginny still hadn't stopped looking at Hermione. "You don't take that class."

"Malfoy does." The lies were stuttering in her head. Ginny could have been a
blinking, neon sign shouting danger for all the alarm bells going off in Hermione's
mind. "We're assisting him in a project for that class, since Justin and I are both
Muggle-born."

Malfoy let out a low breath as he took another step backwards. She didn't know if
he disproved of the lie because of the position it put him in, the way it made him
look, or he didn't find it good enough. Maybe it was all three.

"We were acting out a scene," Hermione blurted out.

- 168 -
 Ginny's eyebrows shot up, Justin gave a thoughtful look to the ceiling, and Malfoy
groaned.

"A Muggle play," Justin said. "A recent one. By Claude Heelhopper. It's about the
dangers of Muggle drugs. And science. And the constrictions of society with,
uh…class wars. Which ties into the pureblood and Muggle-born business, as you
know. Well, you don't really know, since you're a pureblood as well. Which is why
we're helping out Malfoy. Because he doesn't know either."

Malfoy looked moments away from smacking a hand into his forehead, and
Hermione tried not to cringe.

"He asked?" Ginny gave Malfoy a malicious look.

"Yes," Justin said.

"We offered," Hermione answered at the same time. "Malfoy said no at first, but
then he asked if we were still offering the week after that."

Ginny crossed her arms, her hip swaying out to the left, and an image of Molly
flashed into Hermione's mind. "So you two just offered to help Malfoy with a play,
when you didn't even know--"

"The play was Justin's idea." God, she hated lying. She was rubbish at it, and
Ginny knew it, but she couldn't stop digging the hole now. "The professor wanted
something original for an end of term project, and she asked me if I was willing to
help out a few students with ideas. I asked Justin--"

"Sounded fun."

Hermione gave him a look which she really hoped he read as shut up, shut up. "I
helped Zabini with a paper about Muggle wars a few weeks ago. When Justin and I
were studying in the library, we saw Malfoy looking through the Muggle Studies
section--"

"I had always wanted to do a play," Justin said. "The--"

"You're having a laugh," Ginny said slowly. "You're--"

"N--"

"Yes," Malfoy cut in, stepping towards them, and ignoring the looks Hermione
- 169 -
and Justin both gave him. "Finch-Fletchley and I were partners in Advanced
Herbology two weeks ago, and we were meeting to exchange notes since his"-Malfoy
glared at Justin-"accident cost both of us several weeks worth of notes. Granger, of
course, couldn't let the ickle Hufflepuff go on his own to meet the big, bad
Slytherin."

Ginny's icy glare slanted towards Justin. "Why didn't you get the notes from me or
Hermione? We both take Advanced--"

"Not that it's any of your business, Weasley, but some of the notes were
project-specific." Malfoy looked down his nose at an imaginary fleck on his robes,
and then brushed the back of his hand against it. "Or did you not have to partner up
with anyone two weeks ago? Do they just add the Advanced bit onto your schedule
to make you feel more intelligent, and you're actually in a different course plan?"

Apparently, the key to a good lie was by sticking to the truth as closely as
possible. Hermione would have been impressed had she not been worried he could
lie that well to her, or the fact that he was acting too casual in the face of Ginny's
hatred.

Ginny raised her wand, taking two threatening steps forward. "I will curse--"

"Ginny, you'll get in trouble," Hermione whispered, stepping towards her.

"It'll be worth it. What are they going to do - tell me not to do it again? He's a
Death Eater, they won't--"

"Don't," Hermione said quietly, grabbing Ginny's wrist. Ginny gave her a look that
would have sent weaker people scurrying, but Hermione had dealt with far worse
than Ginny's temper. "You--"

"Why weren't you doing anything when he had his hand over your mouth? Why
did--"

Hermione winced. She wasn't entirely sure why she hadn't shoved him away from
her either. There had been something calming in the face of his rock-steadiness,
rather than the usual fury it inspired in her. He had been cool, collected, and
reserved, if not a bit angry, and it had given her something to focus on and mimic
when she had been about to explode.

Not that there was a single way she could explain that to Ginny.

- 170 -
 "We were arguing." She hesitated for the lie, and lowered her voice. "I wanted to
see if he'd actually do anything. I was daring him to. Because if he had…" She
glanced over at Malfoy, and he looked back at her blankly. "Which is the only reason
you should ever attack him, Ginny. You're better than that."

Hermione pushed Ginny's wand down, and Ginny didn't bother trying to raise it
again. "It's not like he hasn't done things to warrant it."

"He was a kid. We were all--"

"Last year?" Ginny scoffed.

"He didn't," Hermione said, and Ginny looked back at her in surprise. "He didn't
do anything to our side after he let the Death Eaters in. As cowardly as it was, you
can't punish a person for doing nothing. Which is why he's even here."

Ginny narrowed her eyes with accusation, and it bothered Hermione far more
than the anger had. "You're defending him? You--"

"I'm defending my morals, which--"

"Bollocks! You're defending him! If he hadn't let the Death Eaters in, Dumbledore
would still be alive, Hogwarts wouldn't have been taken over, and--"

"We don't know that. Dumbledore knew Malfoy--"

"He didn't know the Death Eaters were coming! For some reason, he thought
Malfoy would change his mind--" Ginny rolled her eyes up.

"He did," Hermione said. "Harry--"

"Oh, he changed his mind, all right! He--"

"And Dumbledore wouldn't have set up the agreement with Snape had he not--"

"Had Snape not taken the Unbreakable, and Dumbledore decided to give up his
life for--"

Hermione shook her head. "This has nothing to do with Malfoy--"

"It has everything

- 171 -
 "--to do with Voldemort," Hermione said. "Voldemort. That's who caused all of
this. Other people helped him to, but especially--"

"I can't believe--"

"The war is over. We can't--" Hermione cut herself off when Ginny's head reeled
back like she had just been punched in the chin.

Ginny opened her mouth three times, and Hermione thought she was about to be
hexed before the redhead turned on her heel. She watched Ginny storm out of the
library with guilt clawing up her chest. She knew where Ginny was coming from,
and she understood, and she had felt that way sometimes, too. But Hermione had
fought so hard against hatred that she couldn't allow herself to stew within her own.

Maybe she should be. Or at least went along with Ginny to not let her feel alone
in it. Ginny had probably only come to the library to check on Hermione, and there
she was, arguing for Malfoy's sake.

"Malfoy's left," Justin whispered.

Hermione clutched her forehead, closing her eyes.

Hermione and Justin stiffened as the doorknob rattled, excuses flying through her
mind, before she caught sight of bright blond. Malfoy slid into the room quickly,
shutting the door behind him, and Hermione reopened her book.

"We're looking at maps of the Forbidden Forest," Justin said, sliding a stack of
books to the edge of his table and tapping the top of them. "We figured that we
could compile them into one map. A lot of them are different, but if there's more
maps that say the Blood-Sucking Bugbears nest to the east - which they do so far -
we'll mark them in the east on our map."

Hermione looked up when the silence stretched into something uncomfortable.

Malfoy was staring at her, and there was something in the near-blankness of his
expression that she couldn't decipher. She looked back at him, but his eyes dropped
when she turned curious, and the look was far less penetrating when he raised them
again. She cleared her throat, remembering the argument in the library that he had
been listening to. She wasn't completely sure why the tips of her ears were heating
up.

- 172 -
 "From what I gathered of your manic rambling earlier, the visions were actual
people?"

The heat spread to her cheeks, and she saw the memory of his eyes wide and
unblinking on hers over the curve of his hand. In hindsight, her panic was
embarrassing - especially when she had exploded on him.

"They became the people. It's like they attached themselves, and though the
person was real, the vision was not. They looked exactly like Death Eaters, and
others looked like they were broken, tortured." Hermione shook her head slowly.
"There was no trace of the actual people and what they were doing when I reached
the common room."

"It must have been terrifying." Justin faked a shiver.

"It was. I nearly cursed them. And the vision of Ginny was just a vision, since I
heard Ginny's voice behind a Death Eater later. Yet it looked exactly like her, and
real. Real down to hair moving when she walked, and breathing hard. It came to get
me. It was like the vision orchestrated itself into a nightmare that was more than
just seeing something scary, but turned into an event. It wasn't a fear--"

"So you don't fear that happening?" Malfoy asked.

"Perhaps I thought of it subconsciously"-Malfoy lifted his fingers off his folded

arm-"but this wasn't just hearing the screaming, going to the common room, and
seeing the visions amongst the people. The vision specifically came to me, led me to
the common room with the screaming, and then completely took away the sight of
the people and turned them into something I feared."

"Maybe the Pavorlarua connected itself to the people…one for each person,"
Justin suggested.

"But it's never made someone disappear behind it. It's like it…did it purposely." It
felt evil, but saying that might get her a laugh. It all felt evil, it created things based
on fear, but this felt like it had planned it. It was more than a creature showing her a
fear, but creatures that created one for the intent that she would harm other people.
"Why else would it do it?"

"To make you believe more in the fear. We've all grown more complacent,
knowing it's the visions. The Pavorlarua may feed off fear as much as a…" Malfoy
shrugged a shoulder, then continued, "a Dementor feeds off happiness. They go to
more extremes to get the desired result."
- 173 -
 "Maybe. Yet, a Dementor doesn't create happiness to get more of it for
themselves."

"But a Dementor can feed on any host who contains good emotions. Pavorlarua
can only feed off those who consume that potion."

"Is that a theory or in a book?" she asked.

"It's deduction. Why else would the potion be needed?"

"To see the visions. It could feed off fear of people that can't see them. There's
plenty in the world."

"They're magical beings. If they were around people constantly - which they
would be if that were the case - a lot more would be known about them."

"It's just guesswork, anyway," Justin told them. "There's not much about them in
general. At least we know they're capable of this now. That they're intelligent
beings."

Hermione frowned at the tabletop, trying to erase the images from her mind. "I
don't know. I just think we all need to be very, very careful now. The lines of reality
and dream have blurred even more. It keeps growing, evolving. It keeps getting
closer to reality."

"We just can't attack anything," Justin said, spreading his hands, but didn't look
too pleased with the idea. "Even if it looks like it's coming after us."

"And we'll have to be a lot more careful about people seeing us react to things."
That had nearly turned into a disaster.

"Especially since half the school no doubt thinks you've lost it," Malfoy drawled.

"No, someone thought I was doing it to find out who stole the greenhouse plants,
so I could get a review sheet and right the wrong."

Hermione snorted, shaking her head, but Malfoy huffed a laugh, and Justin let out
a small snicker. She glared at both of them.

"Just watch out. I'm telling you, there's something bad about these things.
Something…dark." Hermione pulled a book to her. "Let's compile these maps so we
can form our own for tomorrow night. The sooner, the better, as they say."
- 174 -
 *

Hermione dug her elbows into the dirt, then pushed the top of her trainers down
to shove herself forward. She pulled her knees up and surged ahead again, light
bobbing as the wand wavered in the clench of her teeth. Her knees settled on the
top of a tree root, and she winced as things crunched in her kneecap when she
pushed forward.

Malfoy growled to her right. "Finch-Fletchley, if you put your knee on my hand
one more fucking time

"What? That's not me, Malfoy," Justin said, and she could hear Malfoy's
movements still until Justin began panting out a laugh.

"Hilarious."

Hermione breathed a laugh, pausing to cast another Repelling Charm into the
dark around them.

"You've dug your knee into my hand seven--"

"Then move over," Justin huffed out.

"You have--"

"There's no room over here!" Justin yelled. "There's vines or some such."

Malfoy grumbled something, and then his shoulder brushed hers on the next
surge forward. Hermione shot him a quick look of warning, but it only met his own.
There was no way she was moving closer to whatever was scampering in the dark to
her left. She'd take Malfoy's knees on her fingers over some unknown creature
sinking its teeth into her.

She was really beginning to rethink their idea that crawling under the thicket of
fallen trees, thick roots, bushes, and forest debris was better than working around
it. They sent out Repelling Charms every few lurches, but Hermione could hear the
moving, crunching, ticking, and twittering in the blackness around them.

She pushed her bag up as far as her arms could extend, then dug her elbows and
toes in. She could see a slant of blue moonlight ahead, and it sped her up. She was

- 175 -
feeling claustrophobic and itchy, and the dirt was starting to turn into mud with the
sweat on her forearms.

"Finch--"

"It's not like I meant it! Sorry, does that make you feel better?"

"Not at all," Malfoy growled.

"We're almost out." Hermione did not want to break up a fight between two
sweaty, dirty men in a space more befitting a casket.

"Thank God," Justin said as he surged into the moonlight.

Malfoy escaped a second later, and Hermione was quick to follow. She jumped to
her feet and left her bag on the ground, pulling off her robe. Her clothes, arms, and
hands were covered in dirt, but she was more worried about anything with legs and
teeth being on her. She shook out her robe, looking for anything alive, and heard
Justin and Malfoy doing the same. She bent at the waist, pushing her hair over, and
ran her fingers through the curls.

"Is there anything on me?"

Hermione straightened, dropping a tiny stick she had pulled from the depth of
her hair. Justin turned in a slow circle as she inspected him.

"You're fine," she told him, turning when he twirled his finger.

"You too."

Hermione gave a sigh of relief, but couldn't help feeling around in her hair again
to be sure. She scanned Malfoy from head to boots, plucking a sliver of leaf from the
back of her hair. "You're clear in the front," she told him.

"And the back," Justin said behind him.

Malfoy was paused in motion, looking at her feet, and then gave a solid nod as his
hovering hand finished its sweep down his robe. Hermione pulled the square of
parchment from her pocket while biting the end of her wand again, and unfolded the
map.

"We're still heading south," Justin confirmed.

- 176 -
 Hermione narrowed her eyes at the path she had drawn before leaving the castle,
and then looked into the waiting shadows ahead of them. She pulled her wand from
her teeth and turned around, startled when she nearly clipped her nose on Malfoy's
shoulder.

"Oh," she whispered, looking up at him in surprise. "Uh, we're heading straight
still, then we'll head southwest when we reach a small pond. The patch should be
there shortly after."

"How are we going to crawl back under there with bags of Moondrops? And then
get back to the castle in time?" Justin pulled his robe back on, nodding his chin over
his shoulder.

"We won't. As long as we don't make any turns, we should reach the castle just by
turning back around. Hopefully we'll be far enough west to miss this, but if not, we'll
go around."

Hermione's confident strut forward was sabotaged by a tree root, her trainer
catching on the thick line hidden under dead leaves. Her bag flew somewhere
ahead, and her hands shot out to catch herself on the ground, when she was jerked
back into balance. Malfoy didn't even look at her as he released her arm and kept
walking, but Justin grinned and whispered a number as he passed her.

Hermione muttered a thanks that Malfoy might have heard, and shot Justin a
look. "I haven't tripped six times."

Justin nodded, looking up at the shapes of sky through the tree branches. "You're
right. I think it's seven now."

The path was easier now than it had been entering the forest, and there were
only two spots in which they had to climb over a downed tree or push their way
through thick brush. They spanned out as much as any of them felt comfortable
within this forest, and that would still allow Malfoy to see without his own
wandlight, searching for the pond. They formed a tight line through a large group of
trees that seemed to be inhabited by Bowtruckles, making sure not to anger them by
touching the trunks. Justin nearly derailed them when he went winding towards a
flash that might have been a unicorn, and Malfoy glanced icily at the other man at
least every ten seconds to be sure he wouldn't do it again.

The clouds were thickening in the sky, and the forest was growing darker.
Hermione could feel the agitation rising the longer they stayed within it, and they
were all looking over their shoulders more. Malfoy was doing a fairly good job of
- 177 -
biting his tongue despite the length of time it was taking them to find anything, but
Hippogriffs flying above the treetops they were under was enough to set him off.
They'd been arguing for five minutes now, and it was distracting her from actually
looking.

"How do you even know there is a pond?" he snapped.

"It was on several different maps!" she said, again.

"Even if they were right, ponds can dry up, or shrink to puddles. Why in the hell
would you choose a pond as--"

"It was close to the Moondrops! And--" She raised her voice when he started
talking again. "And it was a good checkpoint. If we got lost from the pond, we just
needed to find it again to figure out where we are. Rather than staring at trees that
all look the same!"

"We would have been better off marking the trees than going scavenging for a
pond that clearly doesn't exist."

"Just because we haven't reached it yet, or passed it on accident, doesn't mean it

doesn't exist." Hermione shook her finger at his swaying shoulder line. "That's like
saying it doesn't matter if other people have seen dragons, I haven't, so they don't
exist."

"Dragons are well-documented creatures that--"

"The pond was well-documented!"

"It was in four different texts!"

"Five!" she yelled back.

"Oh, well that changes everything."

"There's only a billion ponds in the world. I don't know why thousands of people
haven't bothered studying this one for confirmation of its existence!"

"And I don't know why you're so sure it's there that you would base our entire
sense of direction on it, when you have never seen it. Not even when we were
supposed to have reached it twenty minutes ago."

- 178 -
 "You agreed to--"

"Yes, I suppose I momentarily caught your stupidity by having trust in your

half-arsed plan."

"It was not half-arsed! It was--"

Hermione and Malfoy both jumped as Justin broke into laughter. It was loud
enough to upset the birds in the trees above, wings beating hard in the cold air as
they took off. Justin had his eyes shut, a loose fist shaking in the air, and Hermione
had to stop herself from stepping back when Malfoy did.

"Justin?" She waved a hand at her face to try cooling her skin, but if the freezing
December air wasn't working, her hand waving didn't stand a chance.

"Perfect!"

"Wh…what?" She shook her head at him.

Malfoy took four steps away from them, then stopped, as if remembering that he
didn't have a wand to find his own way back. She heard the mutter of him talking to
himself, but didn't bother trying to hear what he was saying.

"It's right there!"

Hermione followed the sway of Justin's wandlight, and grinned triumphantly as it

sailed across thousands of flowers, their petals shining an opalescent blue. "Finally."

"Indeed," Malfoy drawled, and she was tempted to swing her bag out and hit him
in the back of the knees.

"Are we going to have time to get back?" Justin asked.

Hermione stilled, watching the moonlight pass over the flowers, and the petals
open up in a wave across the ground. The stamens were a navy blue from the bright
yellow center, the tips rounded and white. "We'll make sure we do."

Hermione pulled three bottomless coin bags out of her school bag, smelling the
sweet and earthy scent of the Starthistle brew, and handed two of them to Justin
and Malfoy. She worked her way into the field of flowers, trying not to step on any,
but wanting dozens of them near her before they started plucking the stamens.

- 179 -
 "We'll wait until this cloud passes, and then we'll start. Pick as quickly as you can
- remember that the hour time frame starts as soon as we do. Don't get any petals--"

"And don't pluck the flower to pull the stamens out, because they have to be in
the ground when its harvested," Justin finished.

Hermione blushed at the knowledge that she had repeated herself that many
times, but the facts were important. She was distracted from it just seconds later
when the moonlight cut across the flowers, all of them opening around her. Silence
fell as they worked in quick, sporadic bursts under the moon, ignoring the distant
howls and beating wings.

- 180 -
 Chapter 9

Hermione rolled out of bed, grabbing her wand off the bedside table to stop the
alarm. She stumbled over to the cauldron in her fireplace, and took the crushed and
dried Staghorn root off the mantle. She was glad she had foreseen how exhausted
she would be, and took the time to measure it out before calling defeat to sleep.

The emotional exhaustion of the visions, exam week coming up in a few days, and
making it back to her dormitory with only two minutes left for the Moondrops, had
left her incapable of holding up against the physical exhaustion. She almost felt
out-of-body, and she had class in four hours.

Hermione poured the Staghorn root in slowly, stirring the potion clockwise until
the last of the ash brown powder disappeared under the liquid. She stirred
counter-clockwise once, and the potion turned a deep brown, gleaming with a pearl
hue.

Hermione scrunched her nose at the stench of mold that puffed up, hoping that
was the appropriate response of the potion. The smell vanished after a moment, and
she lumbered back across the room. She collapsed on her bed in a splay of limbs,
and was back asleep before she could pull the comforter over her.

"Mister Malfoy."

"Draco."

Hermione looked up in surprise, turning her head to look back towards Malfoy's
table. Her breath hitched at the tall robe and Death Eater hood obscuring her sight
to Malfoy. Her angle was awkward, but she could make out half of Malfoy's face, his
eyes wide and his expression slack as he stared up at the person in front of him. The
Death Eater was holding a hand out towards Malfoy, the fingers crusted red. The
robes were inky black, but she could see red on the boots from where the lights
shined on it, as if they had stepped in a puddle of blood.

She couldn't see what was in the hand, but Malfoy looked ashen.

- 181 -
 "Earn it," a voice said gruffly, and Hermione had heard it in enough situations to
know.

She turned halfway in her seat as McGonagall repeated Malfoy's name, and the
blood-crusted hand pressed onto the tabletop. The side of the hand touched the side
of a quill, and Malfoy's eyes dropped to it, watching it roll off the edge. His gaze
darted back up to a face that must have looked like his father's.

Malfoy jumped out of his seat when that bloodied hand touched his shoulder, his
chair crashing to the ground. Hermione rushed to her feet at the same time, her
heart pounding.

"McGonagall!" she yelled. Their professor turned sharply towards her, and
Hermione coughed over the caught breath in her throat as Lucius Malfoy sneered at
her behind his black mask. "Er, Professor, I mean. I witnessed a few younger years
practicing Befuddlement Charms in the hall, and I believe Malfoy might have been
hit with one."

The snickers rose up again, and Hermione tried to hold Lucius' eyes without
raising her wand.

"Hermione Granger," Lucius drawled, in that darkly excited tone that so many of
their lot got when they had a person backed against the wall. Goosebumps broke
down her arms, and she balled her hands into fists.

"I see," McGonagall said.

Lucius flicked his hand in a motion that was barely visible, but Hermione knew a
wand had just dropped into it from his sleeve. McGonagall's sleeve. It's not him. He
aimed it at her, his lips pulling back from his teeth, but then he spun around to face
Malfoy. McGonagall cast the counter-charm at the same moment that Lucius yelled
out the Cruciatus Curse. Malfoy jerked back, hitting the table behind him, and it
seemed to take a second for him to gather that he wasn't convulsing in pain.

Malfoy blinked and shook his head. She hoped he knew it was only slightly
confusing to come out of it, and he didn't overplay it as if he'd just had a week's
worth of amnesia. He still looked ashen, but as long as he had got his bearings
enough during her distraction to grasp it wasn't Lucius, they would be fine.

"Mister Malfoy?"

"Yes?"
- 182 -
 "Were you under a Befuddlement Charm?"

Malfoy's eyebrows furrowed, but he didn't seem to lose his nerve when he met his
father's eyes. "Perhaps, yes."

McGonagall clicked her tongue, and Lucius raised his nose. "Very well,"
McGonagall said. "Begin practicing. Miss Gr--" Lucius said something that blended
the two voices together, and no words were decipherable.

"Yes, Professor." Hermione guessed at the correct response.

McGonagall moved back to the front of the room, and Hermione shared a look
with Malfoy that lasted too long for anyone who might have been watching. He gave
a near imperceptible nod of his chin after several moments, and she turned to walk
back to her chair. Hermione gasped, leaping back as Lucius tilted his head right in
front of her. Hermione turned it into a cough, glancing over at McGonagall's
returned form across the room as her heart pounded in her throat.

"Potter's little Mudblood," Lucius whispered, and Hermione glared until her eyes
burned, moving back to her table.

If she had been stronger than the man, she'd be stronger than the vision.

Hermione down the potion in two gulps, slipping the vial into her pocket. She
yawned behind the back of her hand as she stepped over the bench, sliding her bag
to the floor before taking her seat. She was tired, midway through the third day of
exam week, and there was an odd feeling of coldness just under her skin. No matter
how tightly she pulled her robes around her, she couldn't shake it. It wasn't likely to
go away until she was curled up under a heap of blankets and sunken into a
mattress, but she couldn't think about that now. Sleep was a low enough priority
that the call for it was a hindrance.

She yawned again, reaching for the pitcher of pumpkin juice. She knew she had
forgotten something important in her History of Magic essay and it had been
bothering her all day. It was bound to continue until after the students returned
from holiday and she got her marks back. She estimated the same amount of time
until Ginny started speaking to her again.

Reaching for her Herbology book in her bag, she forked a slice of turkey with her
other hand. Her nerves were causing her hands to tremble…or maybe that was the
- 183 -
Invigoration Draught. She hadn't been able to study nearly as much as she wanted
to the past month, but that had never stopped her before. She was going to be fine.
She thought. Maybe. Hopefully. Oh, please, let me remember everything.

The only perk was the silence. She wished every day could be like exam week at
Hogwarts. Not for the stress of comprehensive tests, but the quiet around the castle,
students reading even at meal times, and no gossip, whispers, or wasting of time
during class. Knowledge was what they were here for, after all.

Hermione looked up at a loud bang, shifting to view the entrance to the Great
Hall. Goyle was hurrying to pick up a load of dropped books, and seemed too
nervous to notice the students that laughed at him as they passed. She looked up as
a pair of legs rounded into the Great Hall behind Goyle, and was surprised when
Malfoy passed the other man without a glance.

Malfoy must have been confident about his exams, because the swagger was back
from whatever dormant place it had been the past few months. Or maybe he was
incredibly nervous, but overcompensated before the sharks could taste blood. He
walked with a confidence bordering on arrogance, his chin up and his eyes never
staying more than a second on one person. He looked like he was dismissing all of
them, and she was sure people were bubbling with indignation at the sight of him.

Hermione, however, rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to her text.
She might be inclined to walk like that after holiday, when the visions were
absolutely gone, and she had perfect marks in every class.

It was odd not to be meeting with Justin and Malfoy every night now, but she'd
been too distracted to really notice it. She supposed she wouldn't be seeing Malfoy
in any conversational situation again once she handed him the counter-potion in
January. It made her feel strange - some distant, undefined emotion - but there was
no time to analyze that.

Right now, Hermione just needed to concentrate on her exams without cursing a
friend wrapped in Pavorlarua. Just three weeks or so and she'd be free of these evil
things. Three weeks.

Hermione splashed her hands through the water and then shut off the tap,
crunching a towel in her fists. She opened the loo door as loudly as was possible to
open a door without kicking it, and looked both ways down the hall. Hopefully Harry
would think she'd been near his bedroom for the loo and not to replace the
- 184 -
Invisibility Cloak. It had taken her longer than she wanted to make sure it looked the
way it had when she'd taken it. Harry hadn't said anything to indicate that he
noticed it missing, but if he had, she was sure he'd be pointing fingers once he saw
it back again.

Harry emerged when she was making her way down the staircase, and he smiled
at her anxious look. "Try not to be scared the entire break," he said, and her spine
stiffened, her foot nearly missing the next step. "I'm sure you got perfect marks on
everything."

She laughed nervously and he shook his head at her, muttering something that
involved her name. She had thanked her mind a lot in the past, but her reputation -
however misconceived it was, because really, it wasn't like she was crazy for liking
to know the answers and caring about her marks - had saved her quite a bit over the
last few weeks.

"You're leaving for your parents' tonight?"

"Just for a few days," she said. "Then I'll be back here, if that's all right?"

"You don't have to ask me that, Hermione," he said quietly.

"Thanks, Harry." She smiled at him, pushing a finger against the side of his
frames to fix the crooked angle of his glasses. "Do you want to come with me?"

His eyebrows disappeared into the fringe hanging across his forehead. He shoved
his hands in his pockets, looking at her closely. He might have looked casual had he
not been focused on her so intensely.

"I was joki--"

"Do you want me to?"

Yes. Hermione stopped wringing her hands when she realized they were giving
away her nerves. Though Harry knew her well enough to recognize them anyway.
"You can't."

There was silence for a few, terribly long seconds, and something tightened in
her chest. She and Harry had argued twice about this over the summer. He was too
protective, she was too guilty, and she thought he might have harbored some of his
own guilt about it. It had been her choice, though. To go with Harry, to fight in the
war, to hide her parents. Harry had never asked her to do any of that.
- 185 -
 "They'll forgive you. You did what you had to do to protect them. You didn't want
to, but it saved their lives, so it was worth it. Don't regret something you'd do
again."

Hermione heard the echo of a conversation she'd had with Ginny about Malfoy,
and remembered the way it shook her when Ginny had snorted, rolled her eyes, and
smashed that argument apart. There was a part of Hermione that could understand,
or…or relate with Malfoy. She didn't know what that made her decision, or what it
made her.

"Yeah."

Harry's expression grew hard. "They will."

Hermione stared at the cover of the book until her vision blurred. She had read
the book before, and in hindsight, it reminded her greatly of one person. She had
been thinking of a way to get a note to him, but hadn't been sure how when it was
likely someone checked his mail first. A blank parchment would be obvious, but a
book with a note charmed to him would be better. She had a few strands of his hair
for the potion, so she could do it… But it wasn't like the note was that important.

Hermione bit her lip. She could Apparate to Hogsmeade tonight, and use one of
the school owls to deliver it. Or send it in a day or two, so it was less of a Christmas
present and more of an extravagant note holder. They'd be going to the Burrow later
tonight, though, and it would be harder to make an excuse to leave. She didn't have
to mess with the potion for a week, having gone back to Hogwarts five times since
term ended to add to it. But if she did go back, it would confuse the Pavorlarua, and
buy her some more time without them at the Burrow.

She ran her finger down the spine of the book, and then grabbed it impulsively,
cradling it to her chest. She'd just buy it and be done with it. It wasn't a big deal.
Just a way to deliver a message. She kept repeating this to herself as she slid it
across the counter with the rest of her picks.

"Merry Christmas, Hermione Granger," the woman told her, grinning widely.

"Er, Merry Christmas."

Harry was standing at the door, his glasses glinting in the dark of his hood. He
stepped back against the door when she neared him, pushing it open, and letting her
- 186 -
slide past into the street. Flakes of snow were twirling in the cold wind, and people
hunched against it, hurrying in their winter coats to get to the next shop. Window
displays twinkled lights onto the fine layer of snow on the pavement, and red lights
sparkled from their winding path around every lamppost.

It reminded her of last Christmas Eve, and how she had spent it with the man
beside her now, somewhere else, where the air had been harder to breathe. She felt
her eyes mist over, and she looked at Harry as the wind pushed his hood back. His
eyes were wet behind the fogging glasses, but she was pretty sure his had more to
do with the nip of winter against his eyeballs.

She gave him a trembling smile, hooking her arm around his, and he drew it
against the warmth of his ribs.

"Let's get some ice cream," he said. Hermione leaned her head closer to him,
because she must have heard that wrong, her eyebrows raised and knitted together.
"Why not?" He shrugged.

"You mean, why not, since the cafes and all places serving hot cocoa are shoved
full of people who might bother us, why not?"

"It would be better if you just thought of it as why not. It makes it more exciting."

"As if we haven't had enough excitement." She slipped over hidden ice, and
Harry's arm tightened on hers, pulling her back to him.

He took a deep breath and looked like he was going to make a joke, but he shook
his head instead, releasing the breath in a long, heavy whoosh. "Yeah."

"Why don't we just go to the Muggle world?"

He grinned. "Maybe the papers are right, and I do keep you around for your
brains."

She snorted. "Yeah, and I'm only loyal to you because I have an obsession with
people in glasses."

"Really?"

"Mm-hm."

*
- 187 -
 Christmas at the Burrow was the sort of affair that greeting cards and joyful
lighting alluded to. It was a day that didn't fail the feel-good anticipation of the
month leading up to it. It was the way it was supposed to be, Hermione figured, as
laughter burst into the room. There were a few thick, pensive moments where
memories and harder emotions threatened to spoil the joy, but she could take those.

"Hermione," Molly said, a smile stretched across her face.

Hermione lifted her smile to greet the older woman, accepting the package she
held out, and feeling the wrapped fabric fold over her hand. She already knew what
it was, but the colors and the feel of it on her skin was what mattered.

Hermione emerged into the common room, and her brisk walk stuttered when
she caught side of the bugs crawling across the ceiling. There were only a dozen or
so, but the bright purple shells were a hard contrast to the dark stone. They were
scampering over one another, and looked to be feeding on something in the middle.
They looked like a type of beetle, or--

She hissed at a sharp pain in her shoulder, turning her head to look at the source,
and then jerked back as if her shoulder wasn't attached to the rest of her. Hermione
swiped the beetle off her, and immediately tried to swipe at the rest of her body in
case there was more. The bug hit the floor with a click before scampering off under
a couch, and she patted her hair down.

She moved out from under the patch of bugs above, plucking at the back of her
shirt and flapping it in quick, sharp pulls. Maybe that was another part of the visions
- make the person go insane, people suspect that they're insane, and make the
person vulnerable to real creepy, scary things, because they were too busy assuming
it was the fake kind.

Hermione rubbed her shoulder, scowling as she hurried to her bedroom. She only
had a few minutes to shred and add the Haliwinkles, and she refused to let the
potion be ruined because of bad timing. She'd barely made it out of the Burrow in
time, and she was going to have to hurry back before anyone noticed her gone. She
couldn't wait to be done.

Hermione watched the owl perch on the windowsill outside before taking off into
the night, and she rubbed her fingers together to get the residue of its treat off her
- 188 -
skin. Plopping down onto the couch, she pushed her glass of eggnog between her
knees and held it there, examining the brown package. She knew what it was before
she opened it, and could smell the musk before she'd got more than a strip of paper
off from around it.

The edges were worn under her fingertips when she pulled the book out, and
then inspected the inside and outside of the brown paper for a name, but there
wasn't one. She should have been more careful with handling unmarked packages,
but a quick spell showed no proof of Dark magic. Magick was printed in deep red
letters on the faded black cover. It bore no inscription inside, but it would have
defaced it, the book being handwritten - no doubt magically copied from the original
- and very old.

She had a feeling this book was very rare, and given who she thought it was from,
very significant. Hermione looked at the scrawled title of the first chapter across the
page. Blood magic, her fingertips traced, and she fell back against the couch,
stunned.

The flames crackled loudly, gold, red, and yellow flicking the air, and clinging to
the left side of the massive entrance doorway. For a moment, the air was cooler, the
ground shook with the steps of giants, and every window in Hogwarts was lit with
the colors of streaming spells and curses. Then it was gone, back into that place
Hermione refused to live in.

The snowball fight between two dozen students on the front steps and lawn
continued, the fire unrealized. Hermione dodged the stray snowballs, and felt the
heat of the fire as soon as she reached the steps. It intensified the closer she got,
burning heat across her skin. She eyed the flames, contemplating if she should turn
around before she dismissed the idea as ridiculous. The visions made her think she
was feeling heat, but it wasn't really there.

Hermione grimaced as she darted through the doorway, and had to check her
shirt to be completely sure the heat hadn't burnt holes there. The fabric wasn't
singed, but the heat had been strong enough for her to duck away from the flames
when they flickered towards her. She didn't think she had ever felt a vision that
strongly before. The coldness from the Death Eater had been intense, but it hadn't
bordered painful.

She rubbed her arm again as she ran up the next staircase. The castle was filled
with a thick silence - the sort she'd only experienced here in the dead of night or
- 189 -
before the sun had broken the horizon. Even the library had footsteps and the sound
of turning pages. Now it was only her footsteps. If she hadn't just arrived back at
Hogwarts from a busy Burrow, she might have felt lonely.

The common room was empty, but there was a book on the couch that told her
she'd be renewing the charms that kept the potion smell from the dormitories. Most
of the dorm room doors were opened to empty rooms, the shut ones hiding those
who had stayed the holiday, or belonging to the paranoid lot who left things behind.
The wards on her bedroom and trunk weren't tampered with, and the potion seemed
perfect - her main two concerns when away, despite everyone thinking it was her
marks.

Hermione emptied the jar of Dittany into the potion, and began stirring as she
carefully squeezed in Boom Berry juice drop-by-drop. She looked back at her
bedside clock when the last drop hit the potion, then began stirring twice clockwise,
twice counter-clockwise. The potion began to turn from a vibrant blue, to violet, to a
murky brown-green at the end of the five minutes.

Hermione crinkled her nose and pursed her lips, drawing back at the sulfuric
scent that burned her nostrils. That had better change when she added the final
ingredient of Knotgrass tomorrow, or they would all need help swallowing it past
their gag reflexes.

Hermione tapped the spell book she had borrowed from the library against her
thigh, having finished reading it over the holiday. She'd drop it off and pick up the
one her Care of Magical Creatures text had mentioned, and get a bigger start on the
upcoming term.

She glanced over into another corridor as she passed it, having heard the
banging and scraping all the way from the Fat Lady. Students and teachers were
working on the damaged walls and floor in a flurry of movements and directions,
both of which were repetitive once she was looking for five seconds. Her steps
slowed when she spotted Malfoy's bright head of hair, and she came to a full stop
when she saw Justin a few feet to the side of him.

Justin was fixing a long, deep crack in the wall, and his progress was slow from
constantly looking around him. His skin looked pasty and his hair was a mess. It was
odd that he looked so paranoid - he should have received her letter that let him
know they'd be taking the potion tomorrow. He was going to draw attention and get
people asking questions if he kept it up, and they didn't need that with one day to
- 190 -
go. She was a little surprised Malfoy wasn't giving him death looks…

Apparently because he was too busy giving death looks to her. His face was
shining with a thin layer of sweat, and his cheeks were flushed from exertion. She
wished perspiration was enough to destroy the fine structure of his face. She wanted
to sneer at him like sweating was an unfortunate trait he should really work on
changing, but she got stuck on surveying the color to his complexion, and admitting
it didn't make him unattractive. It must have been something subconscious in her
related to good men and hard work, or maybe Malfoy was just unnatural. And turned
just so in the right amount of lighting. Yes, that was it.

Malfoy raised his eyebrows, and he might have given the tiniest shake of his
head, looking at her questioningly. Probably because she was staring at him like an
idiot. The tips of her ears felt warm, and she gave him a look of disgust that might
have come out looking more pained, before she hurried off to the library.

She remembered early in their sixth year wishing Malfoy looked more like Goyle
or Crabbe. When Ginny had asked her why, Hermione had told her because someone
so ugly should look it too. It had been in the silence that followed that Hermione
realized she had unintentionally admitted to finding Malfoy attractive. At the time,
Ginny had laughed at her. Now, she'd likely transform into a dragon and set
Hermione on fire.

Hermione didn't see anything but his hatred and the points to his face when they
were younger. But Malfoy had a way of gaining attention - the way he carried
himself, to the words he threw at people, to the shining beacon of his hair - and
when he eventually filled out and in, Hermione noticed a bit more in all that
noticing. Malfoy still had hard lines and sharp edges, but her eyes strayed along
them a lot longer and more often than they ought to.

Hermione shot a look at the wall when she heard the footsteps behind her,
knowing already, because that was the way it worked when you thought too much
about someone. She wanted nothing more than to continue on to the library without
acknowledging him, but if he had followed her, it might have been important.

Sighing, she turned, and held the hem of her shirt to do something with her
hands. Malfoy looked back at her, his gait quick and decisive.

"Did you nee--"

Malfoy reached out and grabbed her arm, not slowing his pace as she turned with
his movements. She humphed as she stumbled behind him, her other arm flying out
- 191 -
for some balance. She looked at him with wide-eyes, speeding up her steps to match
his. His gaze remained on the corridor ahead of them, barely blinking as he turned
them down another.

Hermione looked over her shoulder, but didn't see or hear any approaching
danger. She yanked her arm back, but his grip remained firm, only giving as much
as her skin did.

"I'm perfectly capable of walking on my own," she whispered harshly, tugging

against his grip. "Malfoy. Malfoy. If you don't stop dragging me along, I'm going to
stomp on your feet. It'll likely break your toes, and then I might still be inclined to do
it aga--"

Malfoy yanked a door open and let go of her arm, only to plant a palm against her
shoulder blade and shove her inside. She stumbled, and then whipped around,
stepping towards him as he stepped inside. He shut the door behind him, which left
no room for her push to send him staggering back. He swayed instead, his back
skimming the door, and his glare not leaving her eyeballs.

"What the fuck, Grang--"

"Do not pull me around! If you want me to go somewhere, just tell me like a
normal human being, and if I--"

"Shut up! Shit. I…" Malfoy growled at her like some possessed animal, and hit the
side of his fist against the wall.

"What is your problem?" she spat out.

Malfoy was back to glaring, and she jumped when his hands closed around her
hips, pushing her back, and turning her until she hit the wall. She looked up in
surprise, meeting his angry look. His nose was nearly touching the tip of hers, and
his hands relaxed then clenched on her hips. Hermione's breath hitched at how very
close he was, and her mouth snapped shut with a click. Was he…

He slid past her, his hands dropping away, and disappeared around the
protruding wall. She sagged a little, as if no longer seeing him released the pressure
in the air that had been holding her upright. She could hear his shoes tapping as he
checked what she realized to be the boys' loo.

She couldn't think straight for a moment, feeling flustered. Nervous, too, though
she wasn't sure why, and…and flustered. She moved forward, back, turned towards
- 192 -
the loo, and then back to the door. Her hands were doing an odd dance of
unknowing in the air, until she finally gathered enough mind to cast a Silencing
Charm.

Malfoy really had to learn how to stay out of personal space. Normally she was
too angry to notice. He'd likely done it to appear intimidating. Hermione snorted
loudly, raising her chin, and snorted again. As if he could intimidate her with his
unexplained anger problem. Maybe he'd got into trouble over her note...but no one
else should have been able to find it.

She walked around the wall as he pulled back from the last stall. He surveyed her
for a moment before starting towards her. "Did you get my note?"

"Note?"

"You didn't check the back of the book?" By the way he asked, he already seemed
to know the answer and wasn't happy about it.

Oh. She had been hoping they'd both stick to not mentioning those books. "No, I
don't--"

"Shit," he muttered, shoving a hand through his hair, his anger evident in the way
he curved his fingers against his scalp.

"What? Did something--"

They both looked towards the end of the loo as a door creaked, and Hermione
looked back to share her panic with Malfoy. They both darted towards the last stall.
Hermione almost fell onto the toilet as Malfoy shoved in behind her, closing the door
a little too loudly behind him. She winced, the footsteps outside growing louder.

Malfoy was looking at her accusingly, and she gave him an incredulous look in
return. It hadn't been her responsibility to lock the door. Even if it had been, he was
the one who distracted her with…with proximity. Like now.

Hermione tried to backup, but the back of her legs were touching the toilet, and
she couldn't get any more space between them. Malfoy was a bit towering at this
angle, his frame wider and imposing. She imagined his chin would skim the top of
her head if she were to sway towards him, then wondered why she was imagining
that at all.

He just had to follow her into this stall. Git.

- 193 -
 Someone cleared their throat, and Malfoy rolled his eyes up to the ceiling before
looking down at her. His throat bobbed as he swallowed, and he lifted a long finger
to his lips. She rolled her eyes, then raised an eyebrow and cocked her head at him,
because he couldn't honestly think she hadn't got that idea when the door opened.
He turned his wrist to point the finger at the floor, and then mouthed something.

What? Hermione asked.

Library, his lips formed, and he held up four fingers.

Minutes?

She shook her head at something he mouthed, and watching his lips move around
the words again. She repeated the head shaking, and he gave an annoyed huff of air.
He moved his hand like he was taking something off his chest-- No, out of his
chest…pocket. His hand was curved around air.

Four o'clock.

Oh, she mouthed, nodding, then paused. Wait, what? Four o'clock? Tell me now! I
can't--

His lips pinched for a second before he turned away from her, opening the door.
She reached out for his arm, but he pulled it out of her grip, closing the door when
he stepped out. Hermione's hand turned into a fist, and her teeth clenched. If it
wouldn't explode in her face, she'd be marching right after him.

Hermione pivoted a step before hitting the wall, and stalked back across to the
other side of her bedroom. The clock still read 3:17 from the last time she looked at
it, and she wondered why time only went slow when people were paying attention to
its speed - most things were the opposite. Time, she figured, just liked to mess with
people.

Or Malfoy did. She had been waiting for four hours now, and nearly every
situation had played out in her mind. Making her wait this long to know what had
happened was painful, and if she found out that he'd only done it to take a nap, read
a book, or something of that sort, she was going to make sure he was the next one
finding his decision painful.

Hermione pivoted, heading back to the other side, and only wavered a second
- 194 -
when she saw the eyes across the room. The man in the wall was back, a portion of
its face protruding into the room. She ignored the goosebumps that rose along her
shoulders and spine, glancing briefly at the dented head and crooked nose.

"You had better be a Pavorlarua," she muttered. "Did they find something else?
Did someone find out about the plants or potion ingred-- Or us going to the
Forbidden Forest." She paused in walking and speech, and then shook a finger in
the air. "Which would explain why they were both doing repair work." Hermione
hummed, resuming her pacing. "But if he's able to meet me at four, and no one has
sai-ah!"

Something clamped around her forearm. Hermione's head snapped up and she
spun around, the icy grip on her arm tightening. She looked up into white eyes,
devoid of irises around black pupils, and then down at the grey hand clamped
around her arm, moving like liquid metal.

For a moment, a deep quiet settled inside of her as her stomach flipped and her
heart lodged itself in her throat. It was the switch from thought to instincts, but
when she yanked her arm and it wasn't freed, panic overrode sense. Hermione made
a strangled sound that edged into a scream when something seared into her skin,
and the man moved closer to her, shoulders and torso emerging from the stone.

Hermione's heart was thrumming wildly, and there was a roaring in her ears that
seemed to block out thought. She dug her heels into the ground and threw herself
backwards, and those points of heat in the cold grip tore across her skin like fire.
She screamed out at the pain, but it was cut into a hard squeak when her back hit
the floor. She rolled to her knees, her body tingling and numb as she climbed to her
feet and into a run. Her breaths wheezed down her throat with every pound of her
steps, and her vision was blurry with panic as she swiped her wand from the bed.

She spun around with her wand held high, expecting it to be right behind her, but
it was just air. The wall was empty as well, and she scanned all of them,
remembering how well it blended in with the stone when its eyes were shut. All she
could hear was her breathing bordering on hyperventilating, and the pounding of
her heart. Her blood was pulsing through her so hard that it felt like she was
shaking all over.

What was that, what wasthatwhatwasthat. "Oh, God," Hermione breathed,

scanning the room again.

She looked down at the pain in her arm, and gaped at the blood coating her skin.
She turned it in the light, inspecting the three gashes that ran the width on top. It
- 195 -
cut her. It touched her, and injured her, and it touched her.

Hermione swiped her robe off the bed and pulled it on in jerking movements, her
wounds protesting the scrape of fabric against them. She slammed her door behind
her, getting to the top of the staircase before turning around, and had to cast the
locking spells twice before the doorknob stopped turning.

The run to the library was a blur, but nearly every portrait caught her gaze as
they moved in her peripheral. She avoided going too close to the walls, sure that he
was following her and waiting, and any second he would reach out from the stone
and sink his grip into her skin. She must have looked more paranoid than Justin had
earlier, but the halls were mostly empty…

Justin had looked paranoid, and Malfoy was freaking out. This must have been the
reason. Jesus, how long had they known? If Malfoy had sent the note with the book,
they had to have found out at least a week ago.

Malfoy was standing in front of the library when she skidded into the end of the
hall. He looked over at the loud screech, and there was a beat of silence before he
closed the library door. He began walking the other way, and she followed after him.
If he read the panic all over her, he should know he had no hope of escaping.

He entered a room one corridor over, and she sped up into a jog, wanting to get
there before someone entered the corridor. It felt like being forced to wait and
round back around to the room would cause something to explode inside of her, and
there was a moment of relief when she pulled the door open with an empty hall.

Malfoy was standing just out of the way of the door when it flung open, his
shoulder propped against the wall and his arms crossed. Hermione shut the door,
quickly locking it and casting a Silencing Charm. She whirled around, scanning the
walls before settling her eyes on Malfoy. She imagined she felt much like a hunted
animal must when the hunter could be anywhere around them, and they were
trapped behind fences with no escape.

Malfoy was surveying her calmly, his eyes flickering across her face. It did
nothing to ease the jumbled mess of her insides.

"We have a big, big problem," she rushed out in a breath. "I don't know if it's the
same, but I'm thinking if it's not-- It touched me. It touched me. It was the man in
the wall, and I've seen him before. He was the one that when we were testing to see
if we could feel them, after the girl with the coldness, and he reached out to grab
me? But I didn't feel anything. This time…huh! I was pacing, and I turned, and it
- 196 -
touched me. It was a vision, Malfoy, and it physically grabbed my arm, and it hurt
me. This wasn't…I felt it! Just like it was--"

"I know."

"--fore, but it…it felt… What?"

Malfoy shifted off the wall, uncrossing his arms and ankles. He glanced at her in
a look she couldn't place, and then turned to walk the length of the room. "I know.
There were insects in my room, though I wasn't positive they had been a vision in
the first place--"

"Oh, the bugs," she whispered.

"--grab his leg when we were doing repairs a week and a half ago."

"A week and a half ago? You didn't think to--"

"Had you checked the back of the book, you would have found that I informed you
of the situation."

"I checked today, and there was nothing there." She looked around the walls
again, narrowing her eyes at a spot that was slightly discolored.

"The last page?" Malfoy was giving her a cautious look. "Were you the first to
open the package?"

"Yes to both. I looked at the back, and I looked for a piece of parchment between
any pages, but--"

"It wasn't a piece of parchment - I attached the parchment as the last page. It
looks the same as the others."

Hermione stared at him for a long moment. "I glanced at it, but the script was the
same--"

"I'm aware."

She tossed her hands into the air and let them plop to her sides. "Did you think
I'd have read the entire book in a week?" She'd only managed a quarter of it at a
place like the Burrow. "How was I to--"

- 197 -
 "As if your coding wasn't excessive." She didn't appreciate his incredulous tone -
she'd done it to ensure his safety, or at least the safety of their secret. "I apologize
for overestimating your intelligence."

She barely processed the insult with her mind too busy on a world of other things.
"Did you read it?"

"After thirty minutes of decoding--"

"The book, I mean."

His gaze remained on her, but his expression was inscrutable. Perhaps that was
too personal, or crossed some sort of line in the pretending that the books were just
carriers of letters. But she knew she had picked that book specifically, no matter if
she wouldn't have had she not needed to give him information. She figured Malfoy
would have sent her something far less rare than he had if it was just for the sake of
a note.

Hermione grew uncomfortable in the silence, and though she was curious to
know the answer, she realized she wanted to go there less. "There's nothing that
says Pavorlarua do this," she said, dropping her eyes.

"There's not enough known about them to know it's impossible. Though--"

"Which is why we'll try the potion. There's no sense in discussing and researching
alternatives yet, when it could still be the Pavorlarua. They are creatures. It's
possible they can become solid. More so with your theory that they have to go to
more extremes to get the needed amount of fear out of us."

"When will--"

"Oh, God, but I don't know. I don't know. Why would they have attached
themselves to people in the common room if they could become solid on their own?
Unless it's main purpose was evil, was for me to injure them. Why have they
evolved? Why was it the visions, the sensation, the hearing, and now feeling? And it
hurt me! It wasn't just trying to scare me, Malfoy, it actually--"

Hermione wrestled her way out of her robe, the fabric sticking to the sweat from
her run, and the blood on her arm. The casual slope of Malfoy's shoulders
straightened as he did, his stance rigid as he stared at her arm. The top of her wrist
was still bleeding, and she belatedly realized that the high-panic blood pressure and
ten minute sprint had done nothing to ease the flow.
- 198 -
 She clamped her hand over the wounds. "I mean, is it real? Or does it just feel
and look real? Which, by that definition, isn't it real, and just invisible to other
people? If it is invisible to other people, I don't know. Is it just some sort of magical
residue they left that makes me feel like it, and makes it look like it to us, but will be
gone in the morning? Because if not, this thing… Oh. Are you squeamish?"

"It's fine," he said tightly, looking more pale than usual.

He took a few steps forward, flicking his hand in the air. Judging by how he was
still staring at her arm, she assumed he meant to remove her hand, and she did,
angling her arm for him to see it better. She stiffened marginally when he raised his
wand, but it didn't seem to deter him if he noticed it, the spell rolling off his tongue
in a fluid, sure tone.

Her arm tingled, and a sensation moved from her wrist to elbow like a wave of
water had hit it. He cast a Cleaning Charm, and they both watched as the blood
disappeared, revealing three deep grooves in her skin. He had stopped the bleeding.

"It doesn't appear to have any magical components. Can you feel your arm?"

She nodded. "It's a little numb where the cuts are, and it hurts pretty badly, but
that's to be expected." She paused, glancing up at him. "Thank you."

He slid his wand into his robe, nodding his chin at her arm. "Since the bleeding
stopped as well, I doubt they infect with anything when they reach the blood. If
something does come of it, you'll need to make a sufficient excuse for how you got
it."

"I'm aware of that." It wasn't like she was going to blow everything.

He finally looked at her, raising an eyebrow. "Something along the lines of

getting scratched by something when you were retrieving a fallen object from under
a car, or woodpile, or whatever you might have encountered during holiday.
However, not something along the lines of a Muggle play for my Advanced Muggle
Studies class."

Hermione flushed, shooting him a glare before she removed the blood from her
robe. "I can lie quite efficiently, thank you." Most times. "I don't have any plans on
visiting the infirmary, anyway, unless the wound gets worse." She glanced down to
where he had tucked away his wand. "Do you have a class later?"

"No."
- 199 -
 "Oh. Just… You have your wand."

"Your powers of observation are unrivaled by most blind people, Granger,

congratulations."

She glared at him, pulling her robe on carefully. "It's just because I know they
normally take it from you when your classes are finished."

His lips parted slightly, and she thought he was going to deny it. He shifted on his
feet, and crossed his arms again, leaning against a table. "They're letting me keep it
until eleven now, in an effort to observe and restrict within a small environment."

"Before you leave Hogwarts and are allowed your wand any time?"

"Exactly." There was a stretch of silence where Hermione debated keeping on or

changing the subject, and Malfoy surveyed her discomfort with nonchalance. "Did
you touch it? The vision."

"Well…in the way that it touched me. I--"

"No, I mean did you reach out and touch it afterward, or cast a spell on it?"

Hermione paused for thought and then shook her head. "No, actually. But if
they're solid enough to touch us, we should be able to defend ourselves now." She
was really hoping she wouldn't have to. "I mean…even if we just perceive it to be
solid, it was still solid enough to wound me."

"You can perceive a stair to be higher than it is, but it doesn't mean you aren't
about to fall down a flight of steps because of it."

Hermione shook her head. "So if it's just making us believe it's solid, that this
wound is really here, that I can feel it--"

"But it's not solid…" He shrugged a shoulder, but his gaze was too intense to not
contrast the casualness.

"…We'd have no way of fighting back." Hermione gave a quick shake of her head.
"It's pointless to go over this until we have proof one way or the other. And we might
not even need it. The potion will be ready tonight, and we'll meet up tomorrow--"

"What time will the potion be ready?"

- 200 -
 "Eleven. Well, 10:43 exactly."

"Seventeen minutes," Malfoy murmured.

Hermione caught onto his train of thought quickly. "It'll be close."

"It doesn't matter." He straightened up. "Bring the potion to that alcove near your
staircase."

"The-- Why not the cauldron room? You'll get back to your room quicker."

"Because I can move faster than you." He continued at her confusion. "You'll
leave your dorm at 10:43, at which I'll already be in the alcove. It'll take me a
shorter amount of time after that to get to my room, than it would for you to get to
the cauldron room after the potion is ready."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "It's only because you have freakishly long legs. You're
like a spider. But…you know, who had a tragic accident concerning the other six
legs, and so now you just have the two, like a man on stilts. But without all the weird
wobbling…movements."

Malfoy blinked at her, his eyebrows furrowing. "Right."

- 201 -
 Chapter 10

"No…Crookshanks."

Hermione tried to nudge him back into the room with the side of her foot, but he
was having none of it. He jumped over her leg and took off towards the staircase,
ignoring her finger snaps as the Fat Lady shut behind her.

"You aren't supposed to have animals running about the school--"

"Oh, yes. I'll go get him now." Hermione tossed a smile over her shoulder, and
wrapped her hand around the vials in her pocket to keep them from clinking
together as she walked away.

Crookshanks was probably bound for whatever dwelling he wanted to catch

spiders in, but she'd have to find him before going back now. She liked to let him
roam, and he always found his way back to the common room, but there weren't
many students that would be opening the portrait for him to get back inside.

Crookshanks seemed to have other plans for the evening, though, unless a vision
was the cause of the scuffling she heard in the alcove.

"What is that?" Malfoy hissed.

A low murmur answered him, and she was glad Malfoy managed to give the
location and time to Justin after their meeting. They didn't have to take it all at the
same time, of course, but she would have hated to leave Justin on his own the whole
night. Especially now that the visions had changed.

Malfoy and Justin were both standing to the left of the small alcove when she
ducked inside, and Crookshanks was sitting across from them. Malfoy and her cat
seemed to be measuring up one another, and neither of them looked very accepting.

"That's Crookshanks, my cat."

"So Finch-Fletchley said," Malfoy said slowly, lifting his leg to wipe at the bottom
of his trousers. "Though I don't believe I'd classify it a cat."

- 202 -
 "Him," she corrected, fishing the vials out of her pocket.

"I thought it-- he was a vision at first, but then I recognized him," Justin said.

"I believe your exact words were, it's going to eat us," Malfoy drawled.

"He's a bit large! And plus, with these visions now, I mean…it's possible! I've
never heard of anything like this. Not ever. Now it can touch us, next it will be
eating us."

"Calm down. There's still a very good chance the potion will work." Hermione
held the vial out to him. "And if it doesn't, we'll research and find the right cure."

"If that's the case, you'd better hope we can find the cure in days! Because if it
can hurt us, and we can't find back, it'll kill us! It'll--"

"Sh," Hermione and Malfoy hissed.

"I'm just saying that we'll be in serious trouble."

"There's a number of factors--"

Malfoy coughed loudly before muffling it into the back of his hand, his look
accusing over the length of his pinkie. "…shit."

She didn't know if he was proclaiming the potion shit, stating it about the way the
smell tended to burn the nostrils, or had said something where the word ended in it.
She did know that anything dealing with shit once smelling the potion was very
accurate.

"It's a bit…"

"Rancid," Justin said thinly, holding his breath.

"Just drink it straight down. Hold your nose if you have to."

They both stared at her, and Crookshanks wound his way through her legs. She
rolled her eyes, uncorking the vial. "Fine," she muttered.

She held her breath and tossed back the potion, swallowing it as quickly as
possible. She gagged, and the liquid bobbed in her throat before she kept it down.
Her eyes watered as she coughed into her hand, her stomach churning. The
- 203 -
aftertaste was sulfuric, and her mouth and throat went dry as heat spread to the
bottom of her stomach. It was as if someone shoved something disgusting in her
mouth and then lit a match, before the flames shot down her insides.

Her stomach rolled repeatedly in hard waves of heat and nausea, and pressure
built inside her head. She pushed her palms into her temples, squeezing her eyes
shut as it became a constant roar of pain. She thought her skull might crack to
release the pressure, and then she thought nothing at all.

She became lost in it, unsure of how much time passed before it began to ebb.
She heard herself yelling through the clench of her teeth, synchronizing with the
sounds Justin and Malfoy were making. Crookshanks was kneading his paws into the
side of her leg, and Justin was rigid against the wall next to her.

The pain faded to a hammering sensation at the front of her head, and then was
gone so completely that she was stunned with the loss of it. Her stomach was in a
dull cramp and her mouth still tasted of sulfur, but the worst of it had gone.
Hermione blinked her eyes open, pulling in deep breaths, and wiped the wetness
from the corner of her eyes.

Justin and Malfoy were quiet now, and she guessed they had taken their doses
shortly after her. She reached down to stroke the top of Crookshanks' head,
watching Malfoy slump against the wall, his head in his hands.

"Were those side-effects mentioned?" Justin asked, his voice an octave higher
than normal.

"No," Hermione said. "At least we know it did something."

She poked around her skull, expecting to find some tender spots, but her head
felt as normal as it had before taking the potion. All she needed was a glass of water
and she'd be fine. Well, a glass of water, and for the potion to have got rid of the
visions. She wouldn't be able to know that for sure until she saw one, or had gone
until tomorrow night without seeing one.

"You couldn't have added a bit more Honeywater to that, Granger?"

"I wasn't sure if adding more would ruin the potion. I wanted--"

Hermione snatched her hand away from Crookshanks when he hissed loudly. His
hair was standing on end in a line down his back, his tail held high and stiff. He
turned to face the exit of the alcove, his head down and back curved.
- 204 -
 "Didn't you tell me your cat seemed to sense visions?" Justin asked lowly.

"It probably saw a rat--"

"He wouldn't be acting like this-- Crookshanks!"

Crookshanks leaped out of the alcove, and she heard his claws scratch against
the ground. If he was sensing or seeing a vision, she certainly didn't want him going
after it. If she couldn't see the visions, she had little in the way of protecting him
against them.

"If it's a vision, we should follow him to see if we--" The rest of Justin's sentence
was lost as she hurried out of the alcove.

Crookshanks wasn't in sight, but she heard the dull thud of his paws falling
between the sounds of Justin and Malfoy's footsteps. She sped towards the turn into
the first corridor, a short hallway that only housed the door of a Charms classroom
for younger-years. Crookshanks was hunched as he stalked towards the end of it, a
thin stone wall that only featured a block of lighter, newer stone.

"Do you think he sees anything?"

"There's nothing conclusive to tell us if it does or doesn't, and so--" Crookshanks

launched himself at the wall before thudding back to the ground. "It's obviously
insane or senile."

Hermione glared at the wall, not bothering to turn fully and aim it at Malfoy. "You
sound like Ron. Crookshanks proved him wrong, though, didn't--"

Justin broke into laughter. For a second she thought it was over the sweeter
quality to her tone when directed at her cat, and then she realized Malfoy must have
been making a face of great offense. Crookshanks turned from the wall when she
approached, and he jumped up to push his paws into her chest. There was no way
she was going to let him hunt possible visions, no matter how badly he wanted to.

"Do not compare me to that thick-headed--"

"Ron once came to the same thick-headed conclusion, so-huh!"

Malfoy was saying something, but she could only distantly make out the angry
tone as she ran her fingers through the wall. It felt like she was moving them in
room temperature water, thick and surrounding, but fluid and easy. Hermione
- 205 -
pushed her hands in deeper, watching with wide eyes as they disappeared up to the
wrists.

"--ermione? Hermione?"

"Huh?"

"Do you see something?" Justin asked.

"I…it's…" Crookshanks mewled loudly, his back paws scraping along the floor as
he tried to push harder against her. "The wall isn't solid."

"What?"

"Perhaps she's hallucinating. Her animal didn't go through it."

"Do you thi--" Justin cut off when he reached the space next to her, and Hermione
glanced at him. "Christ."

Hermione straightened up, and Crookshanks spun around, clawing at the wall.
She stepped over him as she pushed deeper, submerging herself in the feel of water
before it was gone. She entered a dark place, and heard someone come in next to
her a few seconds later.

"I've never heard of this passageway," she whispered, reaching for her wand.

Something bumped into her, followed by something firm and warm pushing
against her back. She stumbled a step as she moved forward, lighting her wand, and
a hand ghosted the fabric of her shirt.

"It wasn't on that map?" Justin asked from her left.

"No. And if it's always this easy to get in, it would--"

"What. Is. That?"

"Unless you're really a first-year Muggle-born, you should be able to recognize

runes by now, Finch-Fletchley."

"Have you been here, Malfoy?" Hermione asked.

"I mean why is it--"

- 206 -
 "No."

that. We go through a wall into some place we've never been, and find fifteen
different runes painted on the wall." Justin's light traveled around the crumbled
stone in the small, circular room. "I don't like it."

"I don't know who would have done this," Hermione said. "Or why. If this place
was always here, someone would have found it by now. A student could have just
leaned against it."

"It's weird. I say we leave." Justin turned his wandlight to the ceiling, and
Hermione looked up at the one symbol there. "It looks like a giant asterisk."

"Do you think it's a vision?" she asked, turning to glance at Malfoy. "Crookshanks
didn't get through, though. It wouldn't have been able to keep him out. They would
have just made it look like he disappeared."

"Uh-uh, I don't like this," Justin said, his foot rolling over rubble as he stepped
back. "Damn," he whispered, and Hermione turned to look at him. "Damn it!"

Justin's palm was pushing against the jagged stone, and his foot thunked loudly
when he kicked it. The wall didn't give. Hermione moved around Malfoy as he
turned to check it himself, and her palm also met solid rock, stone dust coming off
onto her skin.

"We're trapped! It locked us in here! Should we blast it apart? Or…" Justin's eyes
settled on Malfoy just as Hermione's did. He glanced at both of them, and then
scowled at the wall.

"I'm not a human transport device."

"The Portkey should be activating any minute now. It's a lot better than blowing
the wall apart and have McGonagall asking questions."

"Or staying in here a minute longer," Justin said. "Though we could just say we
fell through the wall. This might not have anything to do with the visions."

"I don't know," Hermione said, turning to face the runes again. "Crookshanks
came here for a reason, and this was never on the map. Why would someone draw
runes in here? There's… Is that-"

- 207 -
 "Nightmares," Malfoy said, leaning forward to press his fingers to a set of three
runes.

Part of his chest met the side of her back, and Hermione blinked at the wall,
caught off guard by his warmth before she slid to the side. She rarely touched
Malfoy, and it was usually under heated situations. Casual, accidental touches that
pressed against her were foreign and strange.

"This one looks familiar," she muttered, tracing it with her eyes. "I've seen it
someplace be--"

She looked back to meet Justin's eyes as he grabbed her hand, and she felt the
tug behind her bellybutton. She tried to look at the runes one last time, but they
disappeared into a blur as she was pulled to Malfoy's bedroom.

Her knees wobbled as the ground settled beneath her feet, and she blinked into
the darkness before Malfoy lit the torches and fireplace with a flick of his wand. He
looked at her, eyebrows raised, and nodded his chin towards the loo. Hermione
tugged on Justin's hand, running into the room with him. They took a spot behind
the open door, and she squeezed his hand when he went to close it. The Auror might
get suspicious if it was shut.

She dropped Justin's hand, clammy in her grip, and wiped the sweat off on her
jeans. Malfoy and the Auror were silent, and all she could hear was the rustling of
clothes for a short time, and then footsteps. The stone entrance began moving again,
and then the room was quiet. Hermione strained to hear the presence of anyone,
and she thought Malfoy had left until she edged around the door.

He was standing with his back to them, facing the closed entrance, and
unmoving. Hermione started towards him until she remembered that her sudden
and odd need to pat his shoulder was highly inappropriate.

"Oh, crap," Justin said softly.

"What?" Hermione asked, tearing her gaze from Malfoy's back to look at Justin.

"It didn't mark me with something, did it? I mean, this isn't some sort of… I think
it's blood."

Hermione looked at the two smears of red on Justin's arm, and then looked back
at Malfoy as he turned towards them. She strode over to him, reaching out for his
hand. He pulled it back quickly, surprised, but she was quicker, dragging it towards
- 208 -
her. His palm was smooth under the slip of her fingertips.

The slight pull of his hand, as if he had been waiting to yank it out of her grasp at
any moment, went slack when she flipped his hand over. The fingertips of his middle
and index were a deep red.

"From the runes," she said.

"Is that blood? Because…" Justin looked like all his fears had combined into the
space of Malfoy's fingers.

"I don't know." Hermione shook her head slowly, staring at Malfoy's hand. "If it
is…"

"Blood runes," Malfoy murmured, rubbing his thumb against the two fingers.
"Blood on runes for nightmares."

"And other ones that were unrecognizable," Hermione added. "In a place that
wouldn't let us out."

The three of them shared a panicked look, but none of them seemed ready to
voice it out loud. If the runes were the cause of the visions, the potion wouldn't have
worked. Worse, blood magic was notoriously strong, and in some cases,
unbreakable.

Hermione's inhale shuddered, and Justin took to muttering to himself across the
room. She looked up to see Malfoy's reaction, but he was just staring down at her, a
hint of curiosity in his expression. Was he waiting for her to say it? Because she
wasn't going to take it there unless she needed to. Justin was already close to having
an epic fit of nonsensical yelling and arm flailing.

Malfoy's fingers twitched against her hand, and she belatedly realized she was
still holding it, with her fingers running over lines in his palm as she thought. She
released it quickly, heat rushing into her cheeks as she avoided eye contact. She
cleared her throat and turned away from him, shaking her head at a square of floor
across the room.

"I was, uh, very deep in thought there for a moment," she said, busying herself
with removing her robe. "I lose track of other things all the time when I'm really
concentrating on my thought process. You should probably wash your hands. It's not
good to keep something like that on your skin, especially unidentified somethings. I
do hope Crooks finds his way back into the common room. There's a few students
- 209 -
still around, so he might be able to…" Malfoy disappeared into the loo, and she
slumped, exhaling heavily.

A small object flew out of the loo and onto the bed, and Justin jumped, pulling his
wand. "It's healing salve," Malfoy said, his voice echoing off tile.

Justin lowered his wand but didn't bother putting it away, watching Hermione as
she plucked the jar from Malfoy's mattress. She recognized the mixture, and
wondered what Malfoy was doing with a healing balm that also helped to lessen
scars.

"You just keep healing salve in the toilet? Ah, you do get into a fair amount of
fights." Justin plopped down onto the bed, but whatever look Malfoy aimed at him
from the loo had him flying right back off of it.

"Thanks," Hermione said. Malfoy didn't respond.

Her brain usually took a few minutes to catch up to things and think clearly in the
morning, but the moment Hermione's eyes snapped open to the screaming from the
loo, she knew. Her paranoia and worry made for light sleep, and her brain was
whirling before she even got to her feet.

She saw Malfoy roll out of his bed and to his feet in the dying light of the
fireplace, before she spun and ran for the loo. She pulled her wand from her pocket
and slammed a palm into the door, skidding to a halt on the tile. Her breath released
in a gasp at the animal crouching across the room. It looked like a wolf, but the body
was hairless beyond the head and a line of black fur down the middle of its back.
The eyes were purple and glinting with hunger, four long fangs hanging down over
the row of sharp teeth and gums on the bottom jaw.

Hermione hit the door with a crack as Malfoy shoved past her, snatching the
wand out of Justin's hand in the middle of a spell. Justin reached for the shower bar,
screaming again as the animal snapped its teeth at them, crouching into a pounce
position. Hermione shot forward, grabbing Justin and Malfoy's shirts, and yanked
hard enough for a tearing sound to momentarily fill the room. They all stumbled
back, tripping over one another, and Justin slammed the door shut.

"Can't they go through walls?" Justin yelled as the three of them ran backwards to
the other side of the room.

- 210 -
 "I don't know--"

"--did before."

"But not when they were solid--"

"Sort of."

"Sort of? I should have grabbed the shower--"

"We can't cast spells in here--"

"--bludgeon it with a fucking curtain bar?"

"--the Auror."

"--hell are we going to do? It's not the Pavorlarua!"

A loud tearing sound started on the other side of the loo door, wood splintering,
and Hermione swore she could feel the growling reverberating in her chest. Justin
spun in a circle, his hands out and shaking, as if he expected to find a weapon at any
moment.

"Why do you not--"

"It could be tied in--"

"--sharp or blunt and heavy!"

"Then the potion would have worked."

"It's not--"

"We need to leave! Now!"

"We can't leave-"

"We'll find a way, because I am not being eaten by--"

"We need to calm down, because if it is linked to fear--"

"It's not the Pavo--"

- 211 -
 "--could go away! It's--"

"It's the runes! It's those--"

"Are you sure the wards detect magic? Why isn't it detecting--"

"Where is my wand?"

"--wandless magic, and he was here within thirty seconds. I'm positive."

"If I have to cast--"

"You're not casting shit--"

"Give me my--"

"--Azkaban for your--"

"If we need to use magic--"

"--dying because--"

"--swear to God, Malfoy, if you try to take my wand--"

"--all comes out, then it comes out, and we'll…"

They all fell silent as the tearing and growling stopped, looking at the door. There
was a long swipe of wood that was blistered up from the surface, but that was the
extent of damage from their side. Hermione held her breath, trying to listen for any
noise.

"Do you think it's gone?" Justin whispered.

"Maybe we should check." Her suggestion was met with two looks that made her
feel like she was mad. She didn't miss the way both their hands twitched towards
her like they were ready to restrain her if necessary.

The back of Justin's head clunked against the wall a second later. "It's only one. I,
for one, am not sleeping until that bloody door opens."

- 212 -
 Hermione woke up feeling exhausted. Her body was cold and cramped, and she
somehow felt worse than she had when she was fighting against the tide of sleep.
Her shoulders and arms were the only things comfortably warm, pressed up against
Malfoy and Justin's arms to either side of her. Her bum was sore from the ground,
and her back was stiff from being pressed against the bed's footboard the past
several hours.

She reached up to wipe at her eyes, scanning the room for any visions, but it was
safe for the time being. Justin was snoring softly, his legs stretched out in front of
him. One arm was extended so he could grip the top of the footboard, and his other
hand was clutching his wand to his chest. Malfoy's knees were raised, his sock-clad
feet planted on the floor, one black and the other navy blue. She wondered if he had
noticed the difference, or hadn't cared. She doubted many people saw his socks.

She raised her eyes from his forearms laying on his knees. His head was resting
against the board, his neck long and exposed as it bobbed over a swallow. His face
was relaxed but tired, pale blue smudges along his eyelids. They fluttered open, and
his eyes slanted towards her, bloodshot.

"Morning," she whispered, shifting and turning her head away. She hoped he
didn't think she'd been staring at him.

"Good morning," he said slowly, his voice coming out raspy and rough.

Hermione rubbed her face. "This is bad," she groaned.

"No shit, Granger. Maybe you should go for something intelligent next time,
instead of wasting air."

"You're a prat," she told him, but it lacked the heat in which she usually declared
it. "Oh!" She held up a finger, turning her head to look at him. "Also obvious. It
seems I've started a bad pattern."

He glared at her for a second before slowly lifting his eyes to the ceiling. "You're
only funny when you're trying not to be."

"Because you're cruel, and your sense of humor is confined to humiliation."

"When you do it so well, I would think it wasn't that humiliating."

"It's what you perceive to be humiliating, even if it's not. Like that twitchy eye
thing you do."
- 213 -
 "…Twitchy eye thing?"

She nodded and huffed a laugh. "When you get very angry, your eye starts
twitching. Completely ruins the credibility of your anger, because I'm too busy
laughing at you from the inside. But you can't help that. Just like all the other things
that are wrong with you."

"That's your main problem, Granger. You're so busy finding fault with everything
and everyone around you, that you don't find the time to see your own."

"I'll have you know that I'm a very compassionate and understanding person.
Everyone has their faults. If I wasn't able to look past them, I doubt I'd be speaking
to you right now."

"Your compassion is mostly reserved for magical creatures. Relate well to them,
do you?"

"They have little rights in this world, and are usually treated horribly. I
understand what that feels like. If they can't fight for themselves, they need
someone to fight for them." There was a deep quiet for several seconds, that only
crossed into uncomfortable when Malfoy turned his head to give her a pensive look.
"Was that a roundabout way of asking me to champion ferrets?"

Annoyance flashed across his expression, and they were back to normal. "One day
you're going to infuriate me into an aneurism, and I'll receive hundreds of
guilt-knitted hats that even the house-elves didn't want."

"Is that your goal in life?"

"Yes. It's right up there with having my skin ripped off."

"Well, if you work hard, you can make all your dreams come true, Malfoy."

"I don't believe you'd want that. At least one would involve you without a tongue,
to finally grant the world some peace from that maddening know-it-all tone as you
prattle on about rubbish."

"Oh, sod off, Malfoy."

"Clever," he drawled. "And disappointing. Which isn't uncom--"

"I just woke up. I'm not infallible."

- 214 -
 "I've noticed." She shot him a glare as his mouth twitched into a smirk. "Though it
has nothing to do with what stage of wakefulness you happen to be in."

"And I've noticed that you're still an ass, no matter what stage of danger you
happen to be in. Do you see this?" She gestured to her face. "This is my warning
look. You should fear what would come next."

"I'm terrified, Granger. I'd take the beast in the loo over your stabbing fingers any
day."

"That can be arranged, you know."

"I highly doubt your ability to get me across this room without magic."

"Is it still there?" Justin murmured, his voice heavy and tired.

"We don't know," Hermione said. "I do think we should draw up those runes
before we forget them. Do you have parchment, Malfoy?"

Something cracked in his arm when he pushed to his feet, disappearing around
the bed. Justin yawned loudly and stretched his arms above his head, groaning at his
soreness.

"I was really hoping that potion worked."

"Me too," she said. "Once I saw the runes, though…"

"Yeah, I had a feeling after that. But once I saw that creature of hell growling at
me from across the bath, I figured we were really screwed."

Hermione sniffed, pulling her knees to her chest. "We're not screwed. Classes
start in two days. I'm going to go get as many books as I can about blood runes and
visions, and bring them back today. The problem with runes is that there doesn't
have to be a specific spell - it could be one the person made up. But if we find the
proper runes to counter their spell, as well as the base of their--"

"How can we be sure it's the runes? We were sure it was the Pavorlarua."

"We had no proof of the Pavorlarua. It just matched up pretty well with what was
happening to us. I don't think we can call blood runes - three of which stood roughly
for night and terrors - in some undiscovered, magical room in the castle, which only
allowed us access, a coincidence. Even more so now that the potion failed."
- 215 -
 "What do you think Crookshanks was chasing into the room?"

She shook her head, watching Malfoy rise from where he'd been prodding the fire
back to life. "I don't know. Crooks has a way of sensing things, though."

Justin sighed as Malfoy took his former seat, pushing two books, quills, and a
stack of parchments towards her and Justin. Hermione grabbed one of the books and
quills, and uncapped the second inkwell. Justin handed her a sheet of parchment,
and Malfoy began scratching out a rune.

She started with the one that had looked familiar but implacable, sketching it
four times before settling on what it had looked like. Sometimes the slightest
alteration to a rune could make its meaning completely different, and even if it
didn't, a mistake made it ineffective in a spell.

Hermione glanced at Justin and Malfoy's parchment, and saw that they were both
drawing the symbol that had been on the ceiling. She thought it might have been
representative of the sun, or the channel the magic had passed through to activate
the runes. It appeared to be the least significant of those they had seen, and she
wondered why both of them were pulled to it anyway.

"This one's a bit wider," she said, angling over to the small rune Malfoy had
drawn in the corner of his parchment.

The bottom of her arm pressed to the top of his as she sketched a bottom line out
in a wider angle, but she couldn't help the contact. She studied it for a moment, and
then added some length to the top center line.

"We should try"--Malfoy snapped his head back when she sat up, the top of her
head nearly clipping his chin-"to remember what order they were in. Order could be
everything."

Justin grinned. "That's a very Hermione statement."

She narrowed her eyes at both of them when Malfoy breathed a laugh. Since
when had those two joined up? "What do you mean?"

"Is that the dastardly warning face again?"

"Shut up, Malfoy."

"Hide the pointy objects."

- 216 -
 "Justin."

"Sorry."

Hermione tapped her foot as Dean got sidetracked again, breaking off into a joke
about Quidditch that she stopped understanding around word three. She had almost
backed up into her room when she opened her door to hear a riot of voices from the
common room, but she knew Justin and Malfoy were waiting on her. She just had to
listen to Dean finish this story before she could excuse herself without offense.

If he ever finished the story.

"So what did Neville say when he saw you and Seamus like that?" she prodded.

"Wait, first tell us how that lamp got like that!" Parvati said.

Hermione glared with a little too much hostility, though she didn't realize it until
she saw Padma giving her a curious look. Hermione cleared her throat, looking back
to Dean.

"...so the whole thing exploded. I mean, shards here, shards there, one in the
wall. In the wall, embedded! Turns out…"

Hermione glanced at Padma, and then followed her eyes down to Hermione's
arm. Her robe sleeve had ridden up from the anxious wringing of her hands, and the
three grooves were showing across her wrist, the scabs dark red and the skin
around them swollen. Hermione looked back at Dean, sliding her arms against her
legs as she brought her hands higher into her lap. The sleeve slid over the cuts, and
she hoped Padma didn't bother asking about it.

"…warrior lamp. Right? But then Neville gets this look on his face, and the next
thing I know…"

"And we also know that it evolved. Which would mean the magic got stronger.
They could have added more runes, they control it somehow, or it was meant to get
stronger."

"They must be using some sort of object, though. I mean, I've never heard of
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runes being able to make solid magic." Justin held up two fingers and a thumb,
reminding Hermione of a Muggle child pointing a pretend gun at the ceiling. "And
they could have started using an object two weeks ago, when they saw that we
weren't all ending up in Mungo's for madness. They decided to try killing us now."

Hermione finished writing Justin's theory, and nodded slowly as she tapped the
end of her quill against the parchment. "We'll have to study more about it. Runes in
blood are intense spells."

"It's blood magic," Malfoy said. "It wields the strongest results of any magic, it's
unpredictable, and near unbreakable."

"I still don't know how we got in there. Hermione said it's never been there
before--"

"I don't know for sure, of course. I do know that it is not even a remotely known
place. I'm sure Hogwarts has hundreds of passageways. I only know them in the
dozens."

"Yeah, but right there, in the wall?" Justin sucked in as he pulled his bottom lip
out from between his teeth. "It would have been found."

"But Crooks couldn't get in--"

"Which all suggests that the magic of the runes exposed the place." Malfoy leaned
back in his chair, and she could hear the rub of his trousers as he stretched his legs
out. "Possibly, to only those the magic effects."

"So who would know it was there in the first place?" Justin asked, looking to
Hermione as she shook her head. "And how would the runes be able to focus only on
us?"

"I checked my body for any runes, and I didn't find any," Hermione said. "Our
blood?"

"Unlikely," Malfoy said. "They couldn't have got it here. Even if they had been
holding it since the war, Finch-Fletchley wasn't here. It's doubtful that anyone would
have been planning this since before then."

Justin cleared his throat. "Especially with how random the people are. Maybe
they infiltrated our bedrooms while we were sleeping? All of us are Repeats, so - er,
sorry, Hermione - but we all have our own rooms. Well, Malfoy's is pretty tight."
- 218 -
 "Unless it's the Auror." Malfoy only seemed half-serious.

"Not that I don't believe in corrupt officials, but probably not. And even if it was
him, he wouldn't get past my wards."

"It's an Auror," Justin said, in case she had missed that bit before.

"I know. But they're my wards."

Justin huffed a laugh. "Too bad you can't block out the visions. Or whatever they
are now. We still don't know if we can fight back, or how to. If spells didn't work on
the magic before, they probably won't work now, even if they are solid. It's the same
magic."

"Maybe," Hermione said, and then stretched her mouth into a wide grin as she
pushed piles of books towards both of them. "Only one way to find out!"

"I'd talk to McGonagall, but there's a good chance she can't enter the room. I
think she would handle it quietly, but I don't want her thinking I'm having a mental
breakdown. Or to deal with what that thought would earn me."

"No one is told," Malfoy said, as if she would listen to that if she thought
differently. "No one else can be trusted."

Hermione rubbed her temple, skimming over a paragraph on blood runes.

"Sometimes I think it would be easier to find who did it, and then find out how they
did. There's more possibilities of how than there are of who."

"There used to be. We have the runes, we just need to figure out how they were
meant to be used, and then use what we think is a greater spell to break them. I
thought you would enjoy the possibility."

"Of what?"

"Having parts of the information, making up the rest, and then going for it while
hoping for the best. Isn't that what Gryffindors do?"

"And apparently Slytherins scoff at the idea of that, until all other options are
exhausted, and then merrily jump onto the plan."

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 "Note the all other options being exhausted bit. Also, I hardly think I'm merrily
doing anything."

"It would make this far less tedious. Go on, Malfoy," she said, grinning, "give a
little song and dance. You can have a top hat and cane. Maybe some glitter or
confetti." She laughed at the mental image. "No?"

"Normally, if someone fantasizes about me at all, I'm dead or naked. I--"

She rolled her eyes. "It's not always strictly love or hate, Malfoy. Sometimes it's
just humiliation."

He arched an eyebrow. "You don't have to love someone to want to see them
naked."

She dropped her eyes when his didn't waver from her, the tips of her ears turning
hot. She flipped a page in the book despite not being done with the previous one yet.
"Don't put it into my head. There's a possibility the visions still run off fear."

"I'm sure it would ruin the purity of your mind."

She huffed. "My mind is hardly pure, I…" She looked up, hoping he hadn't just
made of that what she thought he might, but his smirk crushed that to the pit of her
stomach.

"Really?" he drawled, the amusement written all over his expression. "Do you
imagine what sort of shorts Weasley is wearing, or snogging a random bloke in a
broom closet after too much Butterbeer?" His wand spun between his fingers as he
looked at her in speculation, and his voice dipped a little lower. "Or is it more
naughty? Do you imagine--"

"Why are you so interested in what I fantasize about?" she asked in her strictest
tone, raising her book in front of her face to attempt hiding the red in her cheeks.
Also, the intensity in which he was looking at her was making her nervous, and she
hated nerve-induced stomach fluttering. "If I fantasize about anything at all, not to
say that I don't. Or do. The point--"

"There's nothing wrong with fantasies, Granger. Perhaps if you indulged in them,
you wouldn't be so rigid."

"Psh. You're like a…an albino oak tree. Rigid, and cold, stubborn and…scratchy.
And you might be intriguing from a distance, but none of the animals go near you
- 220 -
because they know something is off about an albino oak tree. With a stone wall
surrounding it, followed by a frozen lake. A smile is like ice cracking. You think, oh,
it's Spring, but you're really about to fall into deathly water. And there's lots of
snakes. Lots."

She waited a few seconds to be sure the heat was completely gone from her face,
and then lowered the book to the table. She glanced long enough at Malfoy to see
that he was looking at her, and then busied herself with parchments.

"Snakes move rather fluidly for your plethora of rigid metaphors."

"Yes, like how you walk all…like this…with the… Sleek and predator-like, before
they bite you, and try to swallow you whole, and infect you with poison."

A beat of silence. "Did the mental instability begin before or after the visions
did?"

"I'm going to find grounds to stab you with my quill if you keep talking, so please
ramble."

"I'm going to go with before. You are friends--"

"It's very sharp. It'll go through with little effort."

- 221 -
 Chapter 11

"There was a dead girl in my room last night, and I couldn't get her out of my
bed."

Her discussion with Malfoy ended as Justin made his presence known, which was
a shame since she was just about prove her entire point on her theory of death. Er,
not a shame, she decided when she looked down at her blank parchment. She had
got it from her bag at least thirty minutes ago, and they had just wasted a good
amount of time. That kept happening lately, and at this rate, they wouldn't have an
answer before the end of this term.

Malfoy was beginning to prove himself a good conversationalist, as long as no

personal details were included. She thought it was because he liked to counter
everything she said. She didn't know why she couldn't shut up around him lately, but
she had started to think of his mind as a book. And she very much enjoyed reading.

Malfoy raised his eyebrows at Justin, and his hand darted out to grab the inkwell
when Justin's bag nearly crashed into it. "Those are the sort of things you should
keep to yourself."

Justin plopped into his chair, dropped his elbows to the table, and pushed his face
in his hands. "Her stomach was cut open, and she was bleeding all over everything. I
woke up because she was touching my face, and she kept talking to me in another
language."

Hermione gave him a pat on the arm. "That must have been terrifying."

He nodded. "I locked myself in the loo for two hours, and now all my Housemates
keep ribbing me about potions for proper bowel movements."

"Also something you should keep to yourself."

"I found something, though, on a positive note," Justin said, reaching to pull
something from his bag. "The rune with the square around it? It's meant to show
boundaries. Either from…to keep the spell from leaving those boundaries, to trap
something, or, if used with another rune, to keep the magic of that rune within
certain boundaries of the spell."

- 222 -
 Justin started thumbing through the book, and Hermione had to put her hands in
her lap to keep from grabbing it. "Why would they want to contain it to Hogwarts if
it was possible the spell could spread? Unless they wanted the school shut down,
or-- But no, because it only effects us."

"It doesn't make sense, which is why it was likely used in a different way," Malfoy
said.

Hermione frowned. "There's something that's bothering me about this."

"It's bothering me that you keep saying that without the actual problem attached
to the end of it."

She gave a glare to Malfoy, shuffling through her papers and pushing them
around the table. She grabbed the one they had all settled on as the closest runes to
what they remembered from inside the room, and pushed it to the center of the
table.

"With these runes, it appears to be a protection spell. Or at least had protection

as one of the components."

Malfoy's eyebrows were furrowed as he pressed his fingertips against the

parchment, bringing it closer to him. He studied it carefully, his eyes tracking over
lines. "They could have been protecting themselves."

"Wouldn't that have spread through the whole school?" Justin asked. "They
protected everyone but us?"

"No, it's impossible with this type of magic, and the use of blood. The spell would
have had to been specific to us, with the protection aspect specific to them. It can't
be all, with the exception of, unless it was two different spells--"

"In which they would have countered one another," Malfoy said.

"It's like a disease," Hermione said to Justin's unsure look. "If you put a potion in
the body that is meant to protect the entire body from…say, the venom of a snake,
someone then can't inject snake venom into you and have it work. More so, they
can't have it work, and only work on…the arm, or just the foot, or just the lungs.
Other spells with other magical foundations, yes, but not this one."

"The protection spell might have been a second spell, but it would have had to
have been specific to them. Though the boundaries rune is too far to have been
- 223 -
working only with these runes."

"We didn't look at the wall behind us," Hermione said. "We all touched it, but
none of us put a light on it. Or the floor. They would have to have closed it in with
another rune behind them, or a circle on the floor."

"We're missing a point here," Justin said. "If the bad bits of the spell were specific
for us - since the whole school isn't going mad - then why would they have needed
the protection spell in the first place? It shouldn't have done anything to them."

Malfoy tapped his fingers on the parchment, and then reached for a book in the
middle of the stack next to him. "Releasing that much magic might have risked the
caster, and so they needed to protect themselves from it. Also, the spell might have
effected everything it came near in the moment it was born, before it located us."

"Or maybe we were near it as well, and it actually wasn't intended for us. Which
would make a lot more sense than someone targeting this group. Er, as a single
entity, rather than our separate parts. No offense, Malfoy."

Malfoy lifted his eyes from the book long enough to shoot Justin a glare.
Hermione found it a bit hard to imagine Justin with enemies - being the person he
was, and more distantly, the amount of people who did the same during the war -
but it seemed too big of a coincidence for her and Malfoy to be effected.

"I don't doubt that anyone would want to target me specifically as well, though it
is a possibility it was accidental. Just not a very big one." Hermione bit her lip as she
looked over at the parchment. "I think we should go back to the room. Have a
thorough look."

"It'll trap us," Justin said. "And Malfoy said the Portkey felt strange last time, as if
it wasn't going to work at first. What if it doesn't break through the static magic this
time?"

"We'd have to break the wall." Hermione shook her head. "It might be
unbreakable. Malfoy would be late for his curfew, and there's no telling if we'd get
the wall back to rights without it being noticeable, or someone coming to see what
the noise was."

"Leave a note? We don't have to say anything about the visions."

"If we can't break out, they can't break in."

- 224 -
 Hermione looked to Malfoy and then Justin. "It might give us answers. I think it's
worth the risk."

The rat barely moved under the impact of Crookshanks' paw, despite the strength
that Hermione knew her cat to be capable of. And despite her own strength, there
wasn't a single spell she aimed at the dozens of rats that made any impact at all.

The man was naked and covered in filth. Hermione didn't know if the blood on his
chest was from his mouth bleeding, or the blood around his mouth meant something
far worse. He was growling loudly, and the chains holding him to the wall clinked
together as he yanked and pulled on them. He was staring at her, his teeth bared
and as red as his mouth.

It wasn't until his gaze moved past her that she became aware of the Charms
classroom again, students filtering in and talking excitedly about their holiday with
the people they hadn't seen yet. Hermione scratched the back of her neck and
looked in the direction the vision was. She almost didn't recognize Padma, the girl's
long, black hair flowing freely, rather than being in the plait it always was.

"I like her hair like that," Ginny whispered.

Hermione made a sound of agreement that turned into an odd gurgle when
Padma's eyes swung towards the vision. It was so brief that it was likely her
glancing around the room, but the man against the wall was still watching Padma
progress to her table. A shiver of suspicion raced down Hermione's spine.

Lavender reached out to touch Padma's hair, grinning as she picked up a section
to run it across her palm. Hermione saw a flash of something blue on the back of
Padma's neck before Padma pushed her hair back down. It must have been a bruise,
no bigger than a thumbprint, but dark with severity.

Hermione was on edge the rest of class, her mind swimming with so many
questions that she didn't find the time to be pleased with her mark on the returned
exam.

Justin tossed a large block of rubble towards the corner of the room, and Malfoy
- 225 -
scraped the side of his shoe across the floor to remove the small rocks and layer of
dust.

"There it is," Justin said as Malfoy tilted his head back to look at the ceiling.

"At first, I didn't think much of it, but this might turn out to be important."
Hermione looked at the large asterisk shape on the floor, and then the one directly
above it on the ceiling. "A way to channel magic?"

"Maybe. Maybe it channeled the protection spell and kept it within this line. We
still haven't found this symbol anywhere." Justin ran the back of his arm across his
forehead, though she didn't know how he planned to achieve wiping the sweat off
his forehead when it was shining on his arm as well.

Hermione nodded, continuing to sketch out the half of a rune on the wall. The
rest of it was lost from the hole in the wall. The entire room looked like it had
undergone damage spells - there were dozens of holes, dents, and strips of missing
stone. "The only other way is if they had the corresponding protection rune on their
body. Which could work, theoretically."

Malfoy scratched his jaw, rolling over a large chunk of rubble with his foot.
"There might be more, they were just destroyed. Which makes little sense if the
runes were here after the battle."

"Unless the magic really was damaging when it was released, and so the
protection spell and this mess," Justin said.

Hermione blinked at the wall, and then turned her head slowly, searching for the
dull glow of Malfoy's hair in their moving wandlights. "Of course it was here after
the battle. You…you didn't experience visions last year, did you?"

"No."

"From what I gather, last year was horrible enough without the visions," Justin
muttered, squatting to look at two red lines rising from a dent in the wall. "Hey -
wouldn't the damage to the runes mess with the spell?"

"The spell was already cast," Hermione said distantly, concentrating on the exact
curve of the line.

"But it's ongoing." Justin spread his hands out and shrugged. "I mean, they didn't
just release something and that was that. Even if they didn't need the runes to
- 226 -
remain for us to be constantly cursed… It evolved, right? It kept evolving. Which
means they would have had to keep the runes active as they add new parts of the
spell, or new runes, to make the original evolve. It's not like there's a time release
on this sort of thing."

"He's right," Hermione whispered, glancing at Malfoy. He looked like he was

thinking the same thing, but was far from admitting it aloud. "Why wouldn't the spell
end? Multiple spells? It took aspects away? Which should have made it… Nothing
about this makes sense!"

"Congratulations, Finch-Fletchley. You finally broke Granger's mind."

"It's this thing," Justin said. "It's like we're missing one part of the puzzle that's
going to connect everything. And it's not here."

"We didn't check under the rubble along all the walls, and there's that little nook
over the--"

"We're out of time," Malfoy said, pocketing the watch he'd taken to carrying. "It's
10:58."

"Crap." Hermione groaned as she hurried to finish the rest of the rune, and then
folded the parchment.

"I don't think there's anything there anyway. It seems to be centered here."

"…What are you two doing?" Malfoy asked lowly.

"Blankets, pillows," Justin said, enlarging his with a flick of his wand. "I have food
in here, too. I always get so hungry in your room, Malfoy. I think it's the boredom.
Not to say that you're not entertaining. Well, you usually just give us that look.
Which can be a bit entertaining. Not to you, though, obviously… This Portkey is
really taking its time."

"Perhaps you should just learn to keep your mouth shut," Malfoy said. "Every time
you open it, you dig graves for yourself."

"Was that a threat? Isn't that illegal for you? Not that I'm going to report it or
anything, I'm just saying, I'm not the only one who digs graves, it seems."

Hermione bit back her smile, and was distracted enough to finally grab Malfoy's
arm without all the hand hovering she had been doing before. There were only so
- 227 -
many ways you could ponder the art of touching someone before you just had to go
for it. Malfoy's muscle tensed under her hand but then relaxed, and she hoisted the
blanket and pillow up higher under her other arm.

Justin clutched his own sleeping gear to his chest, and grinned at Malfoy as he
grabbed his shoulder. Malfoy looked straight ahead as the pull started behind their
bellybuttons, and didn't seem pleased with being a human Portkey.

"There's that look!" Justin said happily.

"Graves, Finch-Fletchley."

Hermione glanced at the students filing into the Great Hall as she turned for the
staircase into the dungeons. Malfoy had been following her from a cool distance,
and Justin was less than ten paces in front of her, but it might raise suspicion when
they all headed for the dungeon at dinner. She'd take the long way round to the
cauldron room to separate their--

Justin started backing up, knocking his shoulders into students hurrying to
dinner. No one seemed to notice, but Hermione knew without needing to see his
face, and looked into the crowd ahead of them. She didn't see anything at first, and
she had just started to hope it was some bug infestation when she spotted it through
the gaps of moving students.

It looked like a dirty red lion with the face and snout of a crocodile. Its head was
lowered as it stared at Justin, but the top of its back was in line with the hips of the
seventh-year girls who were passing it. Its head lifted when Justin reached a spot an
arm's length from her side, and it seemed to rock its body back as if to launch itself.

The touch of Justin's hand on her wrist broke the stillness, and they both whirled
around at once, flying up the staircase. Malfoy was already running, but he was near
enough that he must have just started to. Hermione could hear the sound of massive
paws thudding the ground, and she swore she could feel heat at the small of her
back. She pushed harder, slanting through the thick of students, and grabbed Justin
to make sure he didn't lose her.

They followed Malfoy without a thought to the people watching them now,
darting up the staircase to the second floor, the third, the fourth. She could hear
nails scraping against stone as the creature bolted up the stairs after them. Her
heart was slamming so hard that there was an ache in her chest, but it felt like it
- 228 -
wasn't beating at all when she leaped from the moving staircase and onto the cliff of
the fourth floor.

Her knees buckled, but she shoved herself back up, sprinting after Justin and
Malfoy. The ground felt like it shook when she heard the beast hit the floor
somewhere behind her. Her feet skidded at every corner before she inevitably hit
the wall, and used it to propel herself down the next corridor. She wanted to dodge
into the rarely-used loo, but the men kept running, and she followed.

The creature roared, and it was so loud that Hermione thought it must have been
right behind her. She could feel her chest tremble with the sound, but they all hit
the next staircase with more speed than Hermione thought herself capable of. They
sprinted down three corridors on the fifth floor, and turned sharply, heading up
another staircase to the sixth.

She couldn't breathe properly, and when they rounded to go up a flight to the
seventh floor, she thought she might pass out. Justin gasped out something she
couldn't hear, but she heard Malfoy's breathless reply through the buzzing in her
ears.

"North tower."

The image of the ladder flitted through her mind, and while it would have been
perfect if they could make it through the ceiling in time, there was no way to know if
the professor was still in the Divination classroom.

"No," Hermione gasped out. "Profess…" She tried to get up the end of the word,
but it was killed by the heat in her throat. Oxygen was far more important.

"Wh-- Wh--" Justin tried to say something.

"Left," Hermione ordered when they hit the seventh floor, and Malfoy turned
when he reached the corner.

She rushed out the directions as they raced through the halls, until she finally
spotted the red tapestry. Malfoy shot past it when she yelled for him to, and she
really hoped it hadn't caved in since the last time she used it. The creature roared
again, closer now, and the sound was barely muffled by the tapestry swinging over
the entrance behind her.

She lit her wand, tripping over stray pieces of rock, and barely felt the cooler
temperature on her sweaty skin. The animal sounded like it was kicking each piece
- 229 -
of rubble against the walls, its paws pounding down faster, faster.

"Down!" Hermione yelled, her voice sounding strangled. She didn't know if
Malfoy heard her under the noise of the gaining creature, but Justin nodded his
head.

Thankfully, Malfoy didn't take the stairs to nowhere, and he went down the
rickety, narrow staircase that squeaked loudly with each stomp of their feet. They
went down two flights before sprinting the length of another passageway, and
emerged on the fifth floor.

Hermione had no idea where Malfoy was leading them until they rounded a
fourth corridor, and she heard the beast turn into it just seconds after she had. She
knew the entrance had changed to the fifth floor that year, but she never would have
guessed this would be the place Malfoy would lead them. Weren't people supposed
to instinctively run for where they felt the safest?

Dread dropped coldly to the bottom of her stomach, but she still managed to slam
shut the door to the Astronomy Tower behind her. She felt like she was going far too
slow up the staircase, but her thighs were burning and her legs were wobbling. She
felt lightheaded, but filled with iron everywhere else, and her skin was prickling
with all the rushing blood beneath it.

She saw spots when she hit the landing, and there was a moment where she
couldn't get her feet to move. Justin grabbed her arm, and she stumbled as he
yanked them around from the front of the tower.

"Did you...close...door?"

She had to gasp in oxygen three times before she settled on nodding. She
grabbed the railings around the tower, trying to get some of her weight off the
weakness of her legs. If the animal managed to get through the door, they had--

"Ah-- Ack--" Two gasps for air, and then, "Accio broom!"

Hermione looked over at Malfoy in surprise, his wand extended towards the
grounds. His other hand reached out into the air, and before her eyes could settle on
anything speeding towards them, something exploded at the bottom of the staircase.

"Shit," Justin yelled, pushing himself against the railing.

Hermione stood upright and spun around, hearing the heavy paws clamor up the
- 230 -
stairs. Malfoy jerked back as the broomstick smacked into his palm, and quickly
swung a leg over it.

"Get on now, or…" Malfoy panted for enough air to keep speaking, then said, "I'm
leaving you both."

"Then stop backing up!" Justin snapped.

Hermione gave little thought to climbing onto the broom as the beast leaped into
the room. Justin shoved her up more, and she grabbed two fistfuls of Malfoy's shirt
as the rear of the broom dipped. Malfoy aimed the front of the broomstick up, and
they wobbled as he battled with controlling the broom under all their weight.

"Go!" Justin screamed, the creature pounding towards them. "Go, go, g--"

They jerked into the takeoff, and Hermione ducked as they sailed out of the
tower. Their created wind ripped coldness against her skin, which brought relief
until it killed her heat seconds later. She was more concerned with the unsteady line
of their flight, and then the Thestrals that circled the tower towards them. It wasn't
normal for them to fly around the castle, and she could have been wrong, but they
looked to be flying towards them.

Justin yelled when the creatures angled in their direction and tucked their wings
in, diving at them. Malfoy caught on himself, or from the yelling, or the way she was
yanking his shirt to the right.

"Fucking, lean," he screamed as the broom jerked.

Hermione slammed her eyes shut and leaned marginally to the right, her arms
shoving beneath Malfoy's to wrap around him. There was no way she was going to
splat just because Malfoy didn't like being touched. The broom was over capacity,
and Justin had her pressed so closely to Malfoy that she didn't have any portion of
the broom to grip with her hands. Justin had an arm around her waist, and she had a
feeling that if one of them went, they all would.

Hermione didn't fully realize how fast they were going until they were darting
over the treetops of the Forbidden Forest. The branches reached up towards them
like the arms of the dead, or giant claws, or anything else that would fit the image
she had of her foot being ripped off by hitting one.

There were more Thestrals flying in from their right, and two of them off-center
in the distance ahead of them. She didn't know what was real or magic, but she'd
- 231 -
rather not find out. She tightened her grip on Malfoy, and it took her a moment to
place the pounding beneath the palm over his heart.

"Stop pulling on me like a bloody horse, Granger!" Malfoy barked out.

Any reply she could make was overridden by a scream when he bent forward and
shot them into the depths of the forest. Justin hit her back, and she was squeezed
between the two of them, pressing her forehead against the space between Malfoy's
shoulder blades. She could feel the slight shaking in his chest and arms as he tried
to keep the broom steady and navigate, but he felt strong - which was odd, since
she'd rarely seen him that way. She wanted to check where they were, but she
couldn't look without a panic attack. If he killed her, she was going to come back
from the dead and tear him apart.

Something was still chasing them. Branches were cracking and splintering
somewhere behind them, before thudding to the snow-covered ground. She could
hear wings beating against the wind, and an occasional shrill cry that pierced into
her eardrums.

"Holy shit, holy shit," Justin started to repeat behind her, and she opened her
eyes, tilting her body when she felt them doing so.

She shouldn't have looked up. The sight was an instant punch to her stomach that
rolled it up into the bottom of her throat, and she didn't know if she was about to
scream or get sick all over Malfoy. They were bolting through the thick of trees at a
speed no one should have been able to navigate - they were whizzing by them in
blurs of muted colors, and the second they barely missed one, they barely missed
the next.

The broom was rocking like a boat, and the icy wind pricked her skin painfully.
Her eyes blurred with tears as the air rushed against them, and panic welled tightly
in her chest. She couldn't look away from the very real possibility of crashing
headlong into one of the trunks. She tried to concentrate on the steady beats of
Malfoy's heart against her hand, but it was beating too fast and hard, and the
rhythm did little for her nerves.

The rocking motion began to take longer tilts, and that's when she realized they
were slowing down. There weren't any creatures on the ground below them, or the
air around them. She felt Justin's grip tighten and the side of his chest touch her
back as he looked behind them, but she didn't know how to take his silence.

She thought Malfoy was going to come to a stop like any normal human being
- 232 -
would, but they were still going pretty fast when he leaned far to the left. Hermione
and Justin followed, unaware, until Malfoy spun them in a hard circle. Hermione
clenched her grip tighter, groaning as they flung around to face the direction they
had come from. The back of the broom clipped a tree, and snow fell on them in soft
clumps.

Hermione didn't dare use a hand to wipe it off herself, sure Malfoy would choose
that moment to do barrel rolls for no apparent reason whatsoever. It hardly added to
the coldness she already felt, trembling against the faint warmth of Malfoy's back.
The space in front of them was cleared of animal or vision, and the silence of the
forest fell on them like thunder.

"Whoever did this to us…I'm going to punch them until there's not a magic in the
world that could reconstruct their face."

"You're being too kind, Finch-Fletchley."

"Padma," Lavender sung.

Hermione was momentarily pleased they had diverted their attention from her.
She had thought they weren't buying her excuse to the rumor that she and Justin
had been running towards Gryffindor Tower at dinner last night, but she'd
eventually caught on to why they kept exchanging coy glances. She thought the
length of her genuine laughter was enough to derail them from the idea.

Padma jerked when her sister poked her, waking her from the trance. The other
girls laughed, but Hermione watched from the top of her Arithmancy book.

"You've been so jumpy," Parvati told her sister.

"Did you get bad marks or something?" Lavender asked. "Parvati said it took her
like an hour to get you out of the dorm."

Hermione remembered the bruise on the back of Padma's neck, and the way the
man had been looking at her. She couldn't remember any other time that a vision
concentrated on someone who couldn't see it. Maybe she was wrong…but if she was
right…

"You have been acting strangely," a younger-year, whose name Hermione could
never remember, said.
- 233 -
 "You do not even know me," Padma snapped at the girl.

"That just proved my point." Lavender fell back against the couch, crossing her
arms.

"Padma," Hermione said, closing her book and placing it on her lap, "I read about
these really fascinating creatures the other day. Pavorlarua - have you heard of
them?" Padma looked at her for a moment before shaking her head. "I was hoping
you would, since maybe you have some information that I don't. They're these
creatures that create delusions based on fear. Unlike a Boggart, no one else can see
the vision."

Padma's eyes had definitely widened, and Hermione didn't believe for a second
that it was due to interest. At least not yet.

"Tomorrow is Friday - do we really have to ruin it by talking about schoolwork?"

the younger-year asked.

Lavender laughed. "You might know Padma a little, but you obviously don't know
Hermione."

Hermione ignored them. "They're only drawn to certain people who consume a
potion. Some people are curious, of course, but sometimes the person will consume
it unknowingly. Then they think they're going mad."

"I'm going to go mad if we keep talking about this," Parvati muttered.

"You aren't thinking of taking the potion, are you?" Lavender gave her a repulsed
look.

"She probably would, just to see what would happen."

"People get crazy ideas in that library," Parvati said, which set off a round of
giggling that Hermione didn't want to know the reason for.

"People learn in that library," Hermione said, and then looked at Padma. "They
learn a lot of very, very useful things."

Padma was no longer meeting her eyes, and when Hermione's words ended in an
eruption of laughter, she went back to ignoring them.

*
- 234 -
 Hermione opened the cauldron room door, and Malfoy and Justin glanced up at
her before resuming their conversation.

"Uh…yeah, so I don't think that will work," Justin said. "If we had some extra
wands lying about, then I wouldn't mind, but I don't want to wreck mine by carving
runes into it."

"What is it?" Hermione asked, dropping her bag onto a table, and briefly
contemplating dropping herself there as well. She was exhausted.

"Carving runes into our wands so we can fight back. At least until we find out
how to end the spell. Do you think we can get extra wands?"

"Did you find something that would work?" she asked.

"A theory," Malfoy said.

"It's blood magic," she answered. "The runes wouldn't work unless they were in
blood--"

"And it wouldn't be able to hold to an object that is primarily magical--" Malfoy

started.

Justin rolled his hand. "Like a wand. Even if it did work…it might compromise the
wand itself. So we were also thinking of doing those protection circles!"

"We can't without knowing the spell that was used - we need more than just the
runes, and even those, we don't have all of them." Hermione pushed her shoulders
back and arched her spine, trying to relieve the pressure.

"So we have to figure out the spell to even protect ourselves, let alone stop it."

"Well, that's the thing - we stop it, we're protected," Hermione said.

Malfoy strode towards her, and held up a book, opened partway into the thick of
pages. "We can do a basic protection spell, using our blood combined for the runes.
We can't do it on the whole of the castle, but we might be able to prevent it coming
near us within a small area. The curse isn't placed on the castle itself."

"It's placed on us," Justin said. "But not actually on us, which would make the
protection spell fail."

- 235 -
 "If the protection runes they used in the spell weren't meant to negate anything
we tried to do like this," she muttered, reading over the runes.

Malfoy shrugged a shoulder. "If it was, it wouldn't work. This spell is too broad.
It's not specific to the original spell, so we don't have to outdo the strength of that
magic and use counter-runes. Since the original spell isn't on the castle itself, as
long as we don't cast it where the magic of it happens to be at that moment, it
shouldn't be able to destroy it."

"That…might actually work."

"Curses tend to ignore the simple in favor of the complex," Malfoy said. "The most
difficult part of this will be the location."

"Wait." Justin held up his hand and licked his lips. "Does this mean we'll have to
run to safe zones every time something comes after us? I think we'll need at least
three on every floor."

"Yes," Malfoy drawled. "Enjoy yourself when you're explaining how blood runes
got all over the castle."

Justin blew out a breath. "I swear Professor McGonagall looked right at me when
she was talking about someone blowing the door off the Astronomy Tower."

"We have to wait to try this," Hermione said. Justin looked appalled, and Malfoy
studied her before looking committed to hating whatever she said next. "There's
been a…recent development."

"In regards to?" Justin asked.

"Us." Hermione cleared her throat. "I think Padma i--" she paused, glancing at
Malfoy, "Patil is experiencing the visions."

Malfoy released a sound that neared a growl, and lowered his chin to glare at her.
It might have appeared intimidating to someone else, but Hermione just rolled her
eyes. Justin scooted himself and his chair halfway across the room to get closer to
them.

"There was a vision chained to the wall in Charms, and it watched Padma walk
across the room, and Padma looked at it. Just for a moment, but she did. She also
had a bruise on the back of her neck that looked like a thumbprint. Her friends say
she's been acting very weird and jumpy lately, and hasn't been wanting to come out
- 236 -
of her dorm--"

"The more important bit to all of this, Granger, is what did you do?"

She sniffed. "I brought up the Pavorlarua, and talked about visions--" Malfoy
groaned loudly, and she stood up straight. "But, no, no, I did it very
inconspicuously"-Malfoy groaned again-"and it looked like I was just talking about
them as something interesting. If it's happening to her, that's the only way she
would know it was real--"

"She's not going to know it's real, if she doesn't suspect you of thinking so
already."

"She doesn't suspect anything, unless she is going through it! She--"

"You likely cocked it up, and now she--"

"I'm telling you, she only knows because it's happening to her! She--"

"You make that assumptions based on what? That she--"

"She looked at the vision--"

"She looked around the room, or at something else."

Hermione shook her head. "The vision was staring at her, after staring at me. And
only at her! Not just looking about--"

"They've tried to attack other people before, it doesn't--"

"The bruise--"

"Common."

"Acting oddly--"

"Honestly?"

Hermione threw up her hands. "She went pale, Malfoy! I talked about the
Pavorlarua, and she went pale, and her eyes grew round, and she looked scared

- 237 -
 "Because she thinks you're--"

"Because it's happening to her! I know it. I'm sure of it."

Malfoy glared at her, his jaw clenching, and she noticed how close they were
standing. She could see the stubble on his cheeks, and could feel his body heat
against her. She could make out the faint traces of his scent in the dusty, stale air.
"You're not telling her."

"If she comes to me after that, yes, I am--"

Malfoy held up a long finger. "Unless she's trying to see if her suspicions are
correct by telling you--"

"If she comes to me and says she is seeing visions, I'm going to tell her. That's
that. If I didn't take that chance before, the three of us would have been alone
through this entire thing!"

"She's got a point, Malfoy. Padma is a good person. She wouldn't try to trick
Hermione, and if she's going through it, she shouldn't be alone."

Malfoy didn't even acknowledge Justin, and his eyes didn't waver from attempting
to dig through her own. He looked angry, but he wasn't teetering on the edge of
blind fury that she had expected.

"If she comes to you and everything matches up, fine. But remember, Granger,
this is your risk. Don't mention us."

"Fine. And we'll wait on the protection spell."

That muscle in his jaw popped out five, six, seven times. "Two days."

"Two days? I have to--" She scowled at the warning look he gave her before
sauntering back towards his bag. "Fine. Two days."

"What?"

Hermione nodded. "Jumping at nothing, trouble sleeping, more studying than

usual. Getting scared when there's nothing there to be scared of and then running
away, like something is chasing you."
- 238 -
 "I forget books sometimes, and have to run to the dormitory to get them before
class. It can be scary if the professor is harsh."

"What about when you run out of the dorm?"

"Late for class. It's not because I saw something."

"You?"

"Look, sometimes things happen. Just look at you and Justin running the other
day."

Hermione stared at Padma and raised her eyebrow, and watched her expression
shift from nonchalance, to curiosity, to disbelief. Hermione crossed her arms, and
Padma looked like she was going to be sick. When Hermione first brought her into
the empty classroom, Padma had been convincing enough to nearly change
Hermione's mind. But then she started to crack.

"Hermione, do…does…are those…"

"Are what?"

"The…" Padma shook her head, and then shook it again.

"You started acting oddly last term. October? November? Maybe you saw some
things and thought you were going crazy. Maybe it changed. You started feeling
changes in temperature. Heard things." Hermione tilted her head as Padma lifted
her eyes, wide and wet. "How did you get the bruise on the back of your neck?"

Padma broke into tears and slumped into a chair, and Hermione felt little
happiness in her victory.

Malfoy was crossing his arms and staring at Padma in a way that would have
made even Hermione twitchy. Padma was doing her best to ignore him and listen to
Justin as he filled her in on everything, but Malfoy had become hard to ignore in
some manner or the other since he turned fifteen. Not to mention that he hated
being ignored - he probably thought himself so superior that everyone should bow as
humble servants, graced with his presence. Well…not anymore, she supposed, but
she was allowed to think bad things about him when she was still fuming from their
argument earlier.
- 239 -
 Hermione hadn't noticed how much Malfoy had relaxed around them until now.
He was still stoic and a stone wall most of the time, but the hostility had died.
Sometimes he forgot not to tug at his hair, hunch over a desk, or mutter to himself.
She found herself laughing at a lot of things he said, and no longer in disbelief or
that forced laughter that preceded malevolent looks. Malfoy could actually be funny,
he was intelligent, and she liked discussing things with him. She'd seen him
genuinely smile five times, grin once, and full-on laugh three times - not including
when he laughed at her for things she'd rather not remember.

It was…very weird.

Now, however, he was as shut down as he had ever been in the beginning. He
was rigid, closed off, and angry. She felt like she could slap him upside the forehead
and he wouldn't blink. The idea was very tempting.

"If you don't stop giving me your manic grin, Granger, I'm going to spell your
mouth shut."

"You'd find that I'm very gifted at rebound spells."

Hermione paused, waiting for the snappy retort, but nothing came. It was
disappointing. Maybe she was a masochist.

"That's all very normal," Justin whispered, giving a little tilt of his head in the
direction of her and Malfoy. "But…right, that's why we think the protection spells
will work. Oh, do we have the parchment with the runes on it? We've identified most
of them, but like I said, some were lost."

Hermione knew for a fact that Malfoy had it in his bag, but he made no move to
reach for it. "Honestly, Malfoy, how many times do I have to tell you that she
checked out just fine? She even explained that black wolf-thing from your bathroom
in perfect detail without me saying a word about it. And the thing that travels in the
walls."

Malfoy turned his head towards her, and shot her a glare from the top of his eyes.
She rolled her own, sitting down in the chair next to him. She held out her hand and
waved her fingers.

"If we don't trust one another, we're in trouble, because we can't trust anyone
else."

"We can wait for that another time," Padma said weakly.
- 240 -
 "If she wants to see them, she can go through the wall and look herself."

"Is that the only way you'd believe me?" Hermione asked. "Have I lied to you once
through this entire-- Okay, about something actually important?"

Malfoy's lips thinned. "I'm not fighting with you about this again."

"I thought you enjoyed fighting with me, Malfoy. Or do you just enjoy--"

"I don't need to see the runes," Padma said. "I'll trust you guys are right. But if
you need my help wi--"

"Do you want her to go through the wall? Will you stop acting like a prat if it
allows her in?"

"I thought I always acted like a prat."

"Fine, a bigger prat."

"Don't stop, Granger. You're close to wounding me."

"Oh, yes, I'm very close."

"Just go through the wall. What time is it? Malfoy, will you go through with… I'll
take that as a no, then."

Malfoy had given Justin looks of promised death each time Justin came close to
telling Padma about anything personal. Which wasn't really all that personal to
begin with, but it had taken Hermione guesswork to figure out the curfew and
Portkey business herself. She also doubted Malfoy would allow anyone to catch him
in the vulnerability of sleep if he could help it. He must have trusted her and Justin
to some extent with it, even if it wasn't preferable, but he never really had the
choice. It wasn't like Padma would do anything, though. She probably wouldn't even
catch herself staring at him sleeping like Hermione had once or twice…or so, which
was the most line-crossing Hermione or Justin had done.

"Uh, all right, well…here's the spell we'll be using for the protection circles,"
Justin said, pushing the book towards Padma. "I believe we start it from this rune.
And I guess we'll be mixing the blood?" He looked up at Malfoy and then Hermione.
"That's a lot of blood."

"The runes will be small," Hermione said. "As small as possible without having
- 241 -
the spell fail."

"Aren't they going to notice this strong of magic?" Padma asked. "It's localized,
but-"

"The wards of Hogwarts detect someone attempting to tamper with the wards
themselves. I don't believe they even detect Dark magic, given the things that have
happened here in the past."

"And students botching a spell and accidentally performing a Dark one," Justin
said. He looked guilty, and Padma looked too curious about it not to steer the
conversation away from what they needed to concentrate on.

"I think we should discuss placement," Hermione said quickly.

"Our bedrooms." Justin shrugged. "We all have our own, right?"

"I share with Luna," Padma said. "We have more returning…seventh-years. Plus,
the spell might mess with the protection spells on all girl dormitories to prevent
males from entering."

"It's on the main entrance into the dormitories, and not on the dormitories
themselves," Malfoy said.

Hermione raised an eyebrow at him. "Spent some time in the girls' dormitory,
have you?"

Malfoy matched her expression. "If I didn't know you were so uptight about rules
before breaking as many of them as possible, I would think you sounded jealous."

She sputtered, feeling her face heat up. "Of what? I already deal with the visions,
thank you. I don't need any other horrors in the night."

His eyebrows raised, and there was a crack in his ice when his lips twitched.
"Found Weasley inept? Did he leave you wanting, Granger?"

She huffed, her eyes widening. "I was not… I was referring to you! If I even once
imagined such a thing, which I assure you that I have not, as I couldn't imagine why
I would imagine it at all, or have even the inclination towards imagining or thinking
of you, even for a second, like that. Obviously. But if I did, at all, I'm sure it would
have given me nightmares. So, that is to say, I am clearly not jealous. And if you
were to think I was, you would look like an idiot. I don't know any woman who
- 242 -
would-- Nightmares. Horror. Terror. Horrible."

Malfoy looked aggravated, and while he wasn't glaring at her, it was close to it. A
dark look she couldn't understand. "While you might scream, Granger, I assure you
it wouldn't be in terror."

It took her brain a moment to fly through that statement and sort it properly, but
then her mouth dropped and her cheeks flamed. Her lips formed soundlessly around
words, wha-huh-I--you--th--wha, and Malfoy's look didn't change.

She could barely latch onto anything in the stunned silence of her mind. She felt
torn between things she couldn't and didn't want to analyze, and wanting to ignore
it ever happened, or verbally attack him. She looked like a blushing, gaping idiot,
and she suddenly understood why that dark look was making her stomach roll. He
had no right to look at her like that, the...the...something evil, annoying, arrogant,
smarmy, smug, insufferable--

"Right, I think we should put a--"

"Sh," Padma hissed.

"What?" Justin looked around them and then gave a confused look to Padma. "I
think one of the circles should be in that passageway."

Malfoy finally turned his gaze away from her, and her breath shuddered out.
"What passageway?" he asked.

Was he smirking? She swore she could see a slight lift to the corner of his mouth
that wasn't there previously. First, he stepped way beyond the lines of appropriate,
and now he was smirking because it shocked her into stupidity. She had the sudden
urge to stab her quill into his ribs.

"The one behind the red tapestry on the seventh floor. I don't think many people
go in there."

Hermione turned forward, taking another deep breath. The heat was fading far
too slowly from her face, and her heart hadn't stopped acting strangely since it had
a spasm at the end of his sentence. She just had to ignore it. He had wanted to save
some pride and throw her off, and now he was winning. And Hermione didn't lose.

"Or here," Malfoy said.

- 243 -
 "Yeah, and this is...I'd say roughly the middle between our rooms." Justin glanced
around the table, and ducked his head forward when he looked at her. "You all right,
Hermione?"

"I'm perfectly fine, Justin."

"Shouldn't we do one in the middle?" Padma asked. Malfoy's hint of amusement

disappeared into a scowl when he looked at Padma.

"I agree," Hermione said. "An alcove on the fourth floor?"

"Why don't we just put one on every floor?" Padma asked. "We--"

"You're underestimating the amount of energy this is going to take," Malfoy said,
his tone bored and condescending.

"Even with small runes, that's a lot of blood." Justin seemed disturbed at the
thought of it.

"And something is more likely to be found," Hermione said. "If the runes are
found, or rumors are spread about it, and the person who did this to us hears about
it, they could alter something to prevent us from having any safe areas. Not to
mention, we don't know the exact nature of the original spell, so--"

"Right." Padma nodded, scribbling down notes.

"What are you writing?" Malfoy asked. It almost sounded polite, but it was asked
too carefully. Like a purr before the beast eats your limbs.

Padma looked up in surprise, and then glanced down at her parchment. "Just--"

Hermione cleared her throat a bit too loudly. "We can use the alcove on the
fourth floor, behind the painting of the tree. It slides, so we don't have to take it off."

Padma bent her hand to write it down, but thought better of it. "How do you know
all these passageways, Hermione?"

Hermione hesitated. Padma was sisters with one of the biggest gossipers in the
school, and Hermione didn't know how much Padma kept from her twin, or what
she'd find safe to reveal. Not that there was much harm in exposing the map.

Justin tapped his wand against the table in a pattern that could set her on edge.
- 244 -
He had stopped doing it as often, ever since Malfoy grabbed it and nearly broke it in
his grip one night, but habits were difficult to break. "It's a long story involving--"

"She was friends with Potter through six years here. How do you think she
knows?"

Hermione sat straighter in her chair, flashing a look to Malfoy's arm. Had he
sensed her unease and covered for it, or was it just to make Padma uncomfortable?
She didn't know why that question felt important.

Padma smiled, but it was nervous and small. "That's true."

"I say we wrap up this meeting," Hermione said. "It's almost eleven, and I've got a
paper to finish. We all need to study the spell and practice the runes. If we don't get
the spell exactly right--"

"We have bigger problems than the visions," Padma said.

Justin's head drew back on his neck as he looked at her, eyebrows furrowed and
eyes wide. "Just how much have you seen of them?"

Padma raised her eyebrows and brought a stack of books against her chest,
standing from her seat. "How much have you read about blood magic?"

"He's read a lot," Malfoy said, and Hermione could see the slight narrowing of his
eyes. "He's fully aware of the consequences. Worse is a vision that can rip you open
and apart, and you've no way to defend yourself. Unless you haven't experienced
anything like it to know."

Padma blinked a few times before turning her back to them, and grabbed the
back of her chair to push it in. "You don't have to believe me. I don't need your
approval to be here. No one needs your approval to be anywhere. I'll show you what
I'm capable of with solving this. Maybe then you'll shut up."

- 245 -
 Chapter 12

"Just prick the finger. Thumbs bleed a lot."

"They don't bleed that much."

"Hands do - we'll cut the palm?"

"So do heads, it doesn't mean we should bash open those."

"You don't have much logic, do you, Finch-Fletchley?"

"It's just a small cut," Hermione said on a sigh. "I know a cutting charm that will
do it just fine."

Hermione shifted, pressing her shoulder against the wall of the passageway. It
was a narrow tunnel, and four people in a circle cramped it severely. She couldn't
imagine being here with all of them for hours while they waited for a vision to leave,
but it was the best available on this floor.

"Hands are easier to control with blood flow, since we're going to be collecting
it," Padma said. "I know some healing charms as well - we'll be back to new in a
day."

"A day?" Malfoy's eyes glinted in the muted light of their wands, his pupils
shining gold for a moment. "Do you think we're going to stab ourselves through the
palm, or is your healing education limited to a book you read once?"

"A day is an acceptable time period for advanced healing spells." Hermione held
up a finger when Malfoy opened his mouth. "As long as the wound isn't deep, and
appears near invisible by the end of it."

"Does it matter? No one is going to be looking at our palms." Padma moved her
bag to the other shoulder and sighed loudly.

Malfoy glared at Padma. "Some people can't be trusted to keep the cut hidden."

"Is that about me?" Justin asked. "I said I was sorry about blinding everyone, I

- 246 -
just talk with my hands!"

"Sh, Justin," Hermione whispered. "And it's about everyone. We all have to be
careful."

"Which is why I suggested the finger prick."

"I'm not waiting here for three hours while your finger drips out the amount of
blood we need from you," Malfoy snapped.

"We only ne--" Justin cut into a scream so loud that Hermione's ears rung with it.

She jumped back as Justin flung himself forward, and something pierced the front
of her shoulder. Hermione screamed, wandlight exploding into her eyes, and jerked
to the side. A hand clamped around her throat and yanked her back, her head
colliding with the wall.

She gurgled on saliva as someone slammed into her midsection, screams and
yelling filling up the passageway. She reached up to grab the hand, and it felt like
ice, and just as hard and solid as the stone wall she kicked her feet back against.
She threw herself to the side, the rock grip sliding across her throat, and she hit the
ground.

Hermione gasped in a breath, pushing a palm into someone on the ground, and
jumped to her feet as something tugged and tore the left leg of her jeans. She hit the
wall on the other side, and something scratched and burned from her shoulder to
her elbow.

She tried to run for the exit as Padma shrieked, but collided with a body running
the opposite direction. She grabbed an arm, but it was wrenched from her grip as a
fist connected with her mouth. Hermione staggered, heat swelling from her mouth,
and lost all sense of balance at the palm that slammed into her chest.

Her back met something firm and warm, and a hand pressed against her ribs. It
journeyed across, wrapping around the other side of her, and the arm pressed up
under her breasts as she was hauled backwards. She grabbed the arm, the skin hot
as the muscles bunched, and knew it was human. Her heels dragged over a pile of
stone that hadn't been there before, and the arm pulled away two seconds after her
feet touched the ground. Pain flared brightly when a hand grabbed her arm, jerking
her backwards, and she turned sharply.

Hermione ran. She pushed a hand into the back in front of her - Malfoy's, she
- 247 -
thought - and then he was gone, feet pounding as hard as hers. Something ripped
across the wounds on her arm, but she ran faster, flying through the tapestry.

They twisted down three corridors before Hermione's panic settled enough for
her vision to clear, and she realized it was only Malfoy in front of her. Malfoy with
torn robes, and a flap revealing a red oxford that should have been white. She
glanced back, but the corridor was empty.

"Malf--"

"No."

"Justin and--"

Malfoy's shoes screeched to a halt, and his arms flew out for balance as he
whipped around. Hermione skidded to a step in front of him, caught in the wild look
he was giving her. She felt it inside of her gut and pounding through her blood.

"No names," he hissed, glancing above her head at the approaching footsteps.

Hermione went to turn and face them, but found herself being rudely yanked to
the other side of the hall. Malfoy threw open the door to a broom closet and pushed
her inside, following directly behind her. She spun around as he shut the door, and
she grabbed a fist worth of his shirt, jerking him forward.

"You have to stay away from the wa--"

His hand slapped over her mouth, and when she tried to step back, he grabbed
her arm to keep her in place. Pain shot through her, crumpling her angry
expression, and Malfoy's hand pulled away like he felt fire there. She breathed
through the bone-deep ache, and wrapped her fingers around Malfoy's wrist, pulling
his hand down.

"What are you--"

"Heard screaming, could be anyone. Now shut up."

"It's prob--" His glare was enough to stop her. "Nox," she whispered,
extinguishing her wandlight.

The closet went completely black, and her other senses grew sharper. She heard
the running approaching, and then Malfoy's breathing corresponding with the shift
- 248 -
of air she felt on her forehead. Heat was rolling off of him, and she swore she could
feel the rigidness even though she wasn't touching--

Hermione snapped her hand off his wrist, surprised he hadn't pulled away sooner.
He must have been as distracted with everything as she was. She needed to get out
of here and find Justin and Padma, if the running wasn't coming from them. She'd
never forgive herself if they were still in that tunnel.

She turned her head and shut her eyes to better hear the voices she heard with
the running now, the footfalls barreling down the corridor. She didn't know why she
bothered to shut her eyes, but at least Malfoy couldn't see to call her on being
ridiculous. It… The voices were definitely male and female. Was that her name?

Something skimmed her stomach, and then fingertips pressed gently against it,
like he was trying to tell her to stay put. Or preparing for her to take off. The voices
stopped, and then the footsteps stomped past the closet and down the hall.

"We need to get back to the passageway."

"They got out the other side, Granger." He whispered it on a breath, and it took
her a few seconds to piece together the letters and words around the harder sounds.

"Sure?"

"Yes."

"We need to get to the cauldron room. They'll end up the--"

"I know."

"The one with the numbing," Justin said faintly, his knuckles white as he pressed
his palms to the wall.

Hermione unscrewed the cap of the second healing salve Malfoy had handed to
her, and scooped some onto her fingers. It tingled against her skin and then deeper,
and her hands were numb before she'd finished rubbing it into Justin's lower back.

"You're sure they don't track any sort of spell in here, Malfoy?" Justin asked,
kicking his torn robe.

- 249 -
 She heard the tap shut off from the loo. Malfoy had disappeared inside of it a
minute ago, his face pale as he looked from his bloody hands and to her arm. Part of
her had been expecting a panic attack over having her blood on him, but his walk to
the bathroom had been a silent one.

"Yes, since there are no wards on this room."

Justin bent to pick up his robe, and then turned to give her a confused look. He
tilted his head at her in question, and she mouthed yet. His chin lifted and fell in a
long, slow nod.

"Where did you get all this healing balm anyway?" Justin called.

"Does it matter?"

Hermione glanced over at the loudness of Malfoy's voice, signaling he was out of
the loo, and then quickly looked away. As with all things horrifying, she looked back
again anyway, and her gaze swept from the hollow of his throat, to small, light
brown nipples, and down to the line of his trousers. Pale skin stretched over a lightly
muscled chest, a line of golden hair trailing down from beneath his bellybutton, and
his trousers were hanging loosely from his hips.

Hermione snapped her attention forward again, staring unseeingly at Justin

repairing his robe. Okay, perhaps it wasn't horrifying, but that in itself was a bit
horrifying. If this had been any other situation, she would have demanded he put his
shirt back on, instead of just…just…striding out here like that. A half-naked Malfoy
was not something she ever expected to see, and now she couldn't stop picturing it.

"I can't believe that thing has been in your bedroom multiple times," Justin said.

"Huh?" she asked, startled.

"It's been in mine once, but that was before they started attacking us," Padma
said. "This one either moved very quickly, or there was more than one."

"It was on both sides!" Justin said, leaning against the wall before he thought
better of it.

"Granger."

Oh, no, she was not turning around. "What?"

- 250 -
 "It got my hand, and up here, and right here on my leg, but I think one of us
kicked me in the ribs," Padma said.

"Here."

"Oh, yeah, check this one out," Justin said.

"Oh, just a second, I'm just…" She was just doing something important that did
not involve getting whatever he was offering near his naked person.

"Look at that," Justin said. "This one, too."

"Granger," Malfoy said, and she cringed at the amusement in his voice now. "I
don't think you have to worry about the dirt on the bottom of your shirt when half of
it is stained in blood."

She huffed, pulling down the hem she had been picking at it, and turned to face
him. She kept her eyes on his, unaffected. At least she hoped she looked unaffected.

Malfoy held out a container, and she set her eyes on it as she walked over to him,
refusing to follow it up the length of his arm and the ridges of his, in her opinion,
very attractive shoulders, that had…blood running down them. Hermione looked up
at him as she took the container, forgetting the distraction of his skin.

"You're still bleeding."

"The salve is for bruises." His gaze dropped to her throat and lingered there.
"Unless you plan on wearing a scarf the next week, I suggest you use it."

"Here, turn around." She drew her wand out of her pocket, watching the small
river of blood cross his collarbone. He had a short scar near the middle of his chest,
and a longer one that ran diagonally from his left ribcage.

She pinched her lips when he remained motionless, and she stepped around him
quickly, muttering under her breath. There were four wide but shallow wounds that
swiped across his right shoulder blade, and she was a bit surprised that he wasn't
whining about them. She cast three healing spells in rapid succession, and then
cleared the blood from his skin.

The skin around it was still swollen, and the mending looked a bit wobbly. It held
tight when she prodded around it, though, and the dark red lines were as smooth as
possible beneath her fingertips. He might scar, but hopefully he wouldn't see it to
- 251 -
know.

Hermione watched the goosebumps that emerged on his skin, and the slight
shifting of his shoulders as a chill passed through him. She pulled her hand back and
cleared her throat, and Malfoy immediately started towards his dresser.

The container of salve felt heavier than it should have in her hand. "Did you
want--"

"No."

Her sigh of relief wasn't loud enough to draw attention, and she headed towards
the loo to fix her neck. She felt oddly shaky and jumbled up. It wasn't like she hadn't
touched his skin before, or like she hadn't seen men half-naked. She'd seen loads of
men half-naked. Er, in a very friendly, nonchalant sort of way for the vast majority of
those.

Maybe just because it was Malfoy, and anything personal was incredibly strange.
Or maybe because there was something alluring in the shiver down his spine, and
the angle of his shoulders, and the curves and dips she now knew to line the front of
him. Malfoy was appealing. There was nothing wrong with someone noticing that
about him. There were tons of appealing people in the world, after all, and it only
took Malfoy opening his mouth for it all to evaporate.

So, yes, Malfoy was attractive. Like a bright red book in a sea of other red books,
with a scorch mark on the spine, and steel covers that broke your fingers off if you
touched it. So it was best not to touch it at all. Definitely not.

"You know, we should have just saved all the blood!" Justin said it like it had been
obvious the entire time, and they all turned to stare at him. "What?"

Hermione held her hand over the jar, bringing her fingers in to streamline the
blood. "I don't believe so, but they can be undetectable until they move or open their
eyes."

Justin moved close enough to press his arm against hers, and Malfoy shuffled a
step away from Padma when she slanted towards him and away from the wall. The
candles they had placed outside their planned circle were flickering shadows all
over the tunnel, and all of them found themselves looking around them more than in
front of them.
- 252 -
 Hermione corked the jar and held out her hand, and Justin squeezed two drops of
Dittany on her palm. She pressed her lips together at the flare of pain, but then it
was gone. Gripping the jar in front of her, she shook it as hard as she could,
combining their blood. Justin cleared his throat and turned his head away from her,
and Padma was giving Malfoy a strange look as he watched the shaking jar.

"All right." Hermione pulled the cork out with a pop, and held the jar in the
middle of them. "Is everyone ready?"

All of them answered by dipped their wands into the jar, the tips coated in blood
when they pulled them back out. Hermione did the same as they walked away, and
then found the spot on the floor she had reserved for her rune. She spoke the spell
quietly but confidently as she drew the rune, and felt something building from her
hand and down her arm. The rune flashed gold when she was done, and she smiled
to herself before nearly falling over.

The pressure from her hand was now like a dead weight laying against the front
of her. She felt compact, like all her weight had been shoved into something too
small to carry it. Her arm shook when Malfoy and Justin dipped their wands in the
jar, and blood was sloshing loudly against the glass by the time Padma finished.
Hermione dipped her own, and moved to her last spot, drawing the rune as quickly
as she could.

The pressure intensified, and for a moment, she was sure she would be unable to
stand. Her head was swooping with dizziness, and when she stood, the pressure
pressed down on the whole of her. The only time she had felt something like it
before was when riding a rollercoaster several summers ago. There had been the
near-weightless drop, and then the second you hit the bottom of the fall, when all
your weight caught up and shoved you down into your seat.

Each step towards the center of the circle was shaky and difficult, and even when
she took to sliding her feet forward, it still took so much just to move. She held the
jar out in the middle of the four of them, and they all moved in slow motion as they
dipped their wands a final time. Hermione had the urge to give up, to admit that it
was impossible, but the thought only had her pushing through it harder.

Padma was meant to draw the final rune, but she only got two lines done before
stopping. Justin drew the third, Hermione the fourth and fifth, and Malfoy the last
dip on the line closest to him. They all leaned in closer, shoulders and heads
knocking into one another. They pressed their wands to the center of the rune, and
the spell was spoken in perfect unison, voices rising and falling together in a
murmur of ancient language.
- 253 -
 For a second, Hermione found the weight pressing against all of her insides to be
unbearable. But just as she was about to faint, or die, or tear open, the pressure
broke. Golden light shot up, and then exploded through each space between them.
The weight left with it, and in its place was a crackling energy with a power she had
never felt before. She at once felt invincible and larger than the world, as if death
could never hold her. She heard a whisper of thoughts that didn't belong to her, but
her mind was clear and hungry, and all she could see was a gold fire in her eyes.

The feeling vacuumed out from her pores and then the air, until it was nothing
but a wisp of sensation, and then left her completely. Hermione first became aware
of her panting, and then something cold pressing against her. She opened her eyes
to blink at a low cropping of stone, but it wasn't until something pushed into her foot
that she realized she was on the floor.

She shut her eyes again, trying to catch her breath, and exhaustion sunk into her
bones. Sleep began to lull her as soon as her eyelids were lowered, and right then,
she wanted nothing more than to follow it.

"We've got to go," Malfoy said, his voice rasping and deeper than usual. "Wake up
Finch-Fletchley, Granger."

"I'm not sleeping, arse."

Panic burned through her, and she shot upright at the same time Justin and
Malfoy did. They all focused on Padma as another deep snore sounded from her
direction. Malfoy clicked his tongue and Justin snickered.

Hermione glared at both of them, and drew up the energy to reach over and
shake Padma. "It's only because her head is angled like that."

"Right."

"I wonder if the spell worked," Justin said, groaning as he tried pushing himself to
his feet. "It feels like it did."

"We'll find out eventually." Malfoy fell back against the wall when he tried to
stand.

"Come on," Hermione said when Padma opened her eyes.

"We can't do the other two tonight," Justin said. "No way."

- 254 -
 "We have to do the one in the cauldron room." Hermione used the wall and
Justin's outstretched hand to get up. "That way you two have a place."

"I'd rather run eight floors than do this again right now." Justin looked to Malfoy,
who only stared at the opposite wall in silence.

"Why don't we take a nap, and then all meet in that room in a few hours?
Maybe--"

"No, that won't work. Malfoy--" Justin blinked widely at the floor before snapping
his head towards Malfoy. "Wait a moment here…how are you going to get to the
cauldron room after curfew anyway? You're--"

"Oh, God," Hermione whispered, smacking a palm into her forehead. "Oh, I
completely forgot. How did I forget that? Why didn't you say anything?" The guilt
felt hot in her stomach, but she was too busy thinking to feel weird about feeling it.
"You'll be trapped. We have to put one in your bedr--"

"There are wards." Malfoy's voice was dull and emotionless.

"Then we'll figure out a way around them!" Hermione yelled. "Who is the Auror? I
bet there are files in the Ministry detailing what the wards can do." She snapped her
fingers. "You know, Ron probably read them just to…" laugh at you "...be Ron, so I--"

"You can ask him what the wards are! Or at least if they block out certain
magic--" Justin was nodding along to her thought process, and Padma looked
confused.

"Or if they detect it! No one would think runes, it's a rarely used magic. Just to be
sure, though, I'll go this weekend and--"

"Granger--"

Hermione turned around to wave a finger at Malfoy. "--in a nonchalant, curious

manner - I mean, everyone thinks I'm always curious, and Ron will love to prattle on
about it - and get the information. If it does detect it, there might be a way around it.
There's a very large selection of books on…"

Padma slapped a few books onto the table, but didn't move to pull the chair out.
She stared at all of them, her eyebrows raised, and her hands still clenched around
- 255 -
the books. Their attention slowly turned back to her, and when she had it fully, she
settled hers on Malfoy.

"It's a good thing I was finally shown the runes from the room, because I've found
something very important."

Malfoy glanced away from her as he leaned back in his chair, frowning. Hermione
and Justin leaned forward, and Padma wormed her finger against a bookmark and
between pages.

"Some of them are a bit obvious - protection, nightmares, summoning. But look at
this one." Padma turned the book and parchment around, and dropped it at the
center of the table. "This line is closed. See here, in the book, open. But with that
line closed…"

"It applies only to the space in which it is." Hermione hummed and pulled the
book towards her.

"And the rune that seemed to have the corner missing - I believe I found it."
Padma opened another book and turned it towards them. "You drew it having this
mark here at the bottom, so if there were an arched line…"

"It's evil," Justin said.

"No, not this one." Padma tapped the rune in the book. "This is meant to ward
against evil."

"Then it's not the correct one," Malfoy said.

"It matches perfectly--"

"There could be a line with three other lines there, and then the loop on the
bottom. There was a hole in the wall, it's impossible to--"

"I found no other runes that matched the rest of it, and still had--"

"Then maybe you haven't found it yet." Justin gave Padma a significant look
before purposely turning his eyes to a place behind Hermione.

Hermione turned in her chair, and gave a small jump at the man a few feet from
her. He was struggling against a large hand around his throat, his legs kicking
against the stone. The hand didn't let up grip, despite the man tearing into the skin
- 256 -
with his nails. The hand yanked harder, and the man went through the wall. All that
was left was the legs of his torn trousers and two dirty feet, fighting for purchase to
escape.

"Wards against evil? I don't think so." Justin faked a shiver.

"It might be part of the protection spell?" Hermione said.

"The placement is wrong." Malfoy was still watching the vision.

"We'll keep looking. Good try, though, Padma."

Padma stared blankly at the rune, and then raised her chin, sliding gracefully into
her seat.

Getting Ron to talk about it had been as easy as she expected it to be. It was the
little details that she needed, the things he wouldn't think were important - not that
he hadn't tried to dodge around it all anyway. She had already known that the wards
kept Malfoy in and were set off by magic being cast after curfew, and she thought it
was her lack of interest in that bit that opened Ron up more.

She knew by Ron's desire for the wards to be up all the time that they didn't
detect anything before curfew. When she had asked him if they checked for magical
energy, Ron had told her Malfoy was magical energy. Hermione rolled her eyes at
the memory, but at least Ron had went on to explain that they couldn't check for
that because of …certain things that would interfere with it. The look he had got on
his face had made her want to slap him, though she already knew he must have been
talking about the Portkey, or maybe Hogwarts itself.

At least she had found out what they needed to know, and she'd had some of
Molly's cooked meals. Malfoy had agreed to the protection spell…after awhile. They
just needed to do it before his curfew, and he'd be safe from the visions.

They'd do it tomorrow, as Padma had patrols tonight. Hermione could

concentrate on her Astronomy essay, and she'd start researching runes. So far, it
looked like Padma had been right, but it felt completely wrong. There had to ha--

A blue spell exploded into her chest, and Hermione flew backwards, landing on
her bum and sliding along the floor. She was back on her feet before she could take
back the breath that was knocked from her, or give into the splinter of pain prickling
- 257 -
up her spine.

She looked at the man across from her, shocked, and he seemed unsure of what
to do. Whispers circled the room, and he tracked them with his eyes, startled. He
grinned when he caught on to them being in his favor, and tossed his wand in the air
before catching it.

Hermione narrowed her eyes, then cast three quick spells. His wand was in her
hand a moment later, and his feet were in the air, his body bound.

"All right, Grewler is out, Fenley next!" the professor yelled.

Hermione widened her stance and cleared her mind, waving for Fenley to go first.

Hermione looked up as the discussion trailed off, and followed the focus to Malfoy
and Justin walking past the table. Malfoy kept walking as if he was used to
conversation stopping as people stared at him, and so was above paying attention to
it. Justin slowed down, scanning the table where her study group was currently
seated, and then gave her a nod before speeding up again.

"What's Justin doing with Malfoy?"

"Do you think we should check on him?"

"I don't know, he seemed willing."

"A spell? Seriously, he just went toward the back of the library with a Death
Eater."

Hermione pulled her nose from her stack of parchments. "If Malfoy was capable
of hurting someone, he wouldn't be here."

There was a thick pause, and she felt them staring at her now.

"Unless they didn't find enough."

Hermione held up her fingers. "The Ministry uses Veritaserum, Leg--"

"Not infallible."

- 258 -
 "And witnesses that hate him." Hermione sniffed and tapped her papers against
the wood, straightening them out. "He's not about to hurt Justin, and he doesn't
have him under a spell."

Sara Wheatey hesitated, about to say something, then decided to exchange looks
with the rest of the table instead.

"Then why is Justin walking with him?" Garrett Lawrence asked, and Hermione
didn't think it was possible for his bushy eyebrows to go any higher.

"They're probably working on a project. They're both intelligent, so it's not absurd
to think they teamed up."

They all stared at her, and she stared back.

"--ou can't defend me, and I--"

"I'll do whatever I want! You--"

"--cious. Furthermore, I don't need or want you to--"

"--assumptions were asinine, and--"

s," Malfoy hissed from whatever word he'd stopped in the middle of, the s drawn
out. "So are yours! You assumed the same just a few months ago, and you're
supposed to feel the same now! Dr--"

"It had little to do with what you had done, I knew--"

"--expected of you, and now they're all wondering why the hell--"

"--excuse to explain why you and Justin were together--"

"--ere to-- Which only gave another thing to need an excuse for! You drew
unnecessary attention--"

"They were wrong! I--"

- 259 -
 "It doesn't matter!"

"Well, it should!" she yelled, taking a step back to gain some ground and stop
having to tilt her head back so far.

He only followed. "But it doesn't, so keep your fucking mouth shut! It--"

"I'll do what I feel is right, always, and if you don't like it--"

"No, you're going to do what I told you to do, because you obviously"-she laughed
at him, turning for the door-"can't make the smart--"

She was wrenched back by the hand on her elbow, and she was still reeling in
shock when her back hit the wall. His hand left her shoulder to press into the wall
above it, and he came in close enough for his clothes to brush against her. He bent
his head and she lifted hers, reaching up to shove him.

"Are you out of your mind?" she yelled. "You do not tell me what to do, you do not
pull me around, and you--"

"Then start acting like you have a modicum of intelligence, Granger!" She shoved
him again, attempting to sidestep for the door. He grabbed her hand and pushed
himself against her. "Everyone's on their way to dinner, and you're going to storm
out of my bedroom after that shit at the library? I'm not going to stand by why you
screw it all up!"

"I don't just stand by. I make the choice, act, and then I stand by what I believe is
right! Nothing you do is going to change that, and if you don't--"

His jaw was clenching, and she could read the anger all over his face from this
close. His eyes were narrowed, and darker than she remembered them being. The
press of his body felt hot and overwhelming, and she hated the way it made her feel
small.

"And you still stand by it, even when it's the wrong decision."

"Maybe there has been wrong decisions." Why was she whispering? "But this is
right." His gaze was flicking across her face, and his body swayed. "Now if you don't
remove yourself from my personal space, I'm going to poke you in the eyes.
Savagely. And then tie you to the bed, and let the visions have at you."

She wouldn't do either, but she'd likely stomp on his foot and then pull her wand.
- 260 -
He stared at her, and she couldn't help but stare back, scrutinizing the exact colors
of his eyes. She felt trapped, and it had little to do with his body.

He swayed back, forward, and then leaned back as he slowly stepped away.
"Don't do it again, Granger."

He had been right to stop her before she stormed out into a potential sea of
people, but she would do whatever she decided to do. It wasn't like anyone was
going to suddenly connect her defense of Draco Malfoy into seeing visions that
violently attack them.

She pushed her hair back, trying to catch her breath. Why was she out of breath?
He just sucked all the oxygen out of the room, that was why. She could still feel his
warmth like it had sunk into her skin and was lingering there.

Malfoy fell to his knees beside his bed, and he angled his shoulders sideways and
down, reaching under the mattress. She had no idea what he was doing, but if she
asked him, he'd probably act like it was the most secretive thing in the history of the
world.

"Justin and Padma should be here soon," she said, looking towards the loo. They
would spell the protection circle under a strip of carpet - it was going to be small,
but he'd fit.

"Approximately twenty minutes."

"What?"

Something scraped and clunked, and then he pulled out two books, wrapped
together by a thick, pearl ribbon. Malfoy stood, undoing the knot. He laid the ribbon
on the bed, and then ran his finger down the pages. Hermione glanced at the
entrance to the room, and then focused on the books.

"I need to discuss something with you." Malfoy opened the top book. "I
recognized it when we first saw it, but I thought I might be wrong. It was just a
rumor my father used to mention when he talked about getting the Board to shut
down Hogwarts. Then I found a passage about it when I…a few summers ago."

She shook her head, confused, and accepted the book when Malfoy held it out to
her. It was heavy in her hands, and the cover felt grainy. Malfoy tapped a
paragraph, and she read it, then again with the one that came before, and then half
the page.
- 261 -
 "Malfoy," she said softly, forgetting her anger.

He was looking at her carefully, running his fingertips along the length of his
wand. "This was all that was in the Malfoy library." He muttered, "At least of what
they left."

Hermione grabbed the next book he held out, and started reading as soon as his
finger touched the paragraph. She circled around blindly, and sat when the back of
her legs touched his bed.

"The object was rumored to have passed through…in Germany when it became
the device it was last known to be… Also rumored to have been used at Hogwarts,
though it was never proven…initial creation…impenetrable boundaries
…localized…mass use in…never came to be…"

"There were rumors that the Founders used the device to make Hogwarts the
most secure fortress in all of the wizarding world. No matter the magic or the war,
the students would always be safe. I'm sure you've read the claims that Hogwarts
seems to have its own sort of magic, as if each stone was cast with protection before
being set into the castle."

"…where the device was cursed with Dark magic…form of

torture…madness…effort to overtake the…produced tangible, violent magic that
appeared as the dead, creatures, and some believe nightmares! Many reports
suggest that the magic could cause the victim to see things from their own
subconscious…no connection…static magical energy of those lives the magic has
claimed, Jesus, Malfoy."

"There was a book we once owned that included excerpts from the writings of
Salazar Slytherin," Malfoy said. "It only said the work has proved successful, but it
had the symbol in it."

"The symbol?"

Hermione was only a few sentences into reading the passage again when Malfoy
flipped it to the previous page. Hermione jumped up so quickly that she nearly lost
the book, tracking each line of the symbol they had found in the room. It looked like
an asterisk, but the middle line was incredibly long in comparison, just as it had
been in the room.

Hermione whispered a series of letters and sounds that made no sense, before
her mind slowed down enough for her tongue to catch up. "Why didn't you tell me
- 262 -
sooner?"

"I wasn't sure. I just got the books here yesterday."

"It doesn't matter if you weren't sure! This changes everything--"

"It barely changes anything."

"You withheld the knowledge of this for all this time--"

"I'm the one who suggested the Pavorlarua, and I wasn't about to be wrong
again."

Hermione growled in her throat. "We talk about anything sometimes, and I prove
you wrong, and you still discuss your theories with me--"

"That's not about the visions--"

"Exactly! If you can tell me your thoughts, even though they can be wrong, about
almost everything else, why not this when it's so incredibly important?" Hermione
licked her lips and breathed out heavily. "Okay. All right." She turned sharply to
walk the width of the room. "Okay. Let's think about this, Malfoy. Why would the
Founders risk putting this in here?"

"It makes the wards impenetrable. At least during their time."

"But it says the Dark magic was placed on it before it was ever rumored to be
here." She shook her head at him, but he looked back silently, almost expectantly.
"They would have had to do something that allowed the original magic through, but
stopped the Dark…"

She looked up at him in surprise, pieces clicking together, and amusement

sparked in the curve of his mouth. "The protection spell in blood runes."

"The protection spell in blood runes," she repeated, her tone wondering. "The
closed rune, the other to stop something from crossing out of that room, the one
Padma found to ward against evil." She shook her head, paused, and shook her head
again. "Which you argued against, even when you--"

"The room is only accessible to us. No one but those who are targeted by the
Dark magic can enter, and so the room should have remained untouched unless in
the event something happened."
- 263 -
 "But how…I mean…"

"Some of the runes were destroyed. Either the end of sixth year, or the night of
the battle. They wouldn't have thought the runes could be destroyed like that, since
they imagined the wards would protect the castle from any battles."

"And so they thought the blood runes spell would always keep the Dark magic
out. Since they were able to control it, the device was only beneficial." Hermione
studied the symbol again. "But…there was a summoning rune. Four of them,
actually."

Malfoy nodded and raised his eyebrows. A few seconds passed where she could
only hear her escalated heart beats. "Four summoning runes, Granger. Four people
who currently experience the magic."

"That… Why would they do-- Oh."

"What?" Malfoy asked, stepping closer to pull the book out of her hands.

"Four Founders. Malfoy…Malfoy, we're four Houses."

He looked at her a moment, shutting the book. "Perhaps you should evaluate
sentences in your mind before spurting them out in non--"

"A Slytherin, a Gryffindor, a Ravenclaw, and a Hufflepuff! You, me, Padma, and
Justin. Four Founders. Four Houses. But I still don't understand the…and
why…with… I need books, Malfoy. I need lots, and lots of books."

"Of course you do." Malfoy watched her race to her bag and pull out parchment
and her quill. "You believe this is it, then?"

"I don't know. I do know that things are making more sense now than they ever
have before. I think we're meant to do something, Malfoy."

"You always think you're meant to do something."

"Do you think this has happened before?" Justin asked, pulling the book from
Padma to read the page again.

"Maybe," Padma said. "There's no way to know that. The Battle of Hogwarts was
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the first real battle in this castle. If it was released because of the runes being
destroyed, this is probably the first time."

"What about it, though?" Justin asked. "Some of the runes were destroyed. Why
isn't the Dark magic all over the castle by now?"

"They could have been part of a second spell." Hermione shrugged. "Or the spell
continued, despite losing those parts of it. Whatever they were. Obviously something
went wrong, or we wouldn't have been summoned."

"Was the device in that room?" Padma asked.

"No, but it has to be somewhere in the castle or on the grounds," Malfoy said.

"Maybe…" Padma tilted her head. "Maybe it's like the Frielman Box. One wall of
defense, another, another, another, and then the thing you're protecting. The magic
hasn't reached the students yet, but a breech of the magic somewhere activated the
summoning runes."

"If it's set up like that," Hermione said, "the protective magic would be weak
when a link of it broke. With the Dark magic persistent, it's possible that it's slowly
breaking through each wall of defense."

"Which means it could hit the castle…any time," Justin said.

Malfoy nodded. "And how it progressed from what the visions were to what they
are now."

"We still don't know the exact nature of the Dark magic," Padma said.

Hermione held up her quill. "But we do know that blood runes can stop it. We just
have to find the missing pieces, and knowing what it is - the device - might lead us to
them."

Justin took a deep breath and leaned forward, crossing his arms on top of the
table, and then released the air heavily. "If the device isn't in the room…what if
Frielman Box isn't in the one structure of runes in that room, but those runes are
just part of it?"

"You mean literal walls of defense?" Padma asked.

Justin nodded and rolled his hand in the air. "And there's another somewhere
- 265 -
else, and somewhere else. Or even on the device itself. If the device is somewhere
else, they wouldn't want to let the magic run rampant up until it hit that room. And
how is the rest of the castle protected when it's just in that room?"

Hermione waited out the silence and lack of ideas. "You know my answer," she
said.

"I don't know it."

Malfoy looked at Padma like she had forgotten what to call the thing they were
sitting at. "It's research, Patil."

"Oh. How was I to know that? I haven't been doing this with you three--"

"The untamed animal that is Granger's hair can be deceiving of the enormous size
of her head. However, one would think you'd have learned in seven years of
watching Granger live in the library, and prefer touching hardcovers over human
contact, that--"

Malfoy dodged the ball of parchment Hermione threw at his head, unfortunately.

Hermione sipped from the cup of tea she had brought from the library, lowering
her eyebrows at Malfoy over the rim. He looked back at her in boredom, but she
knew he was interested from the way his eyes didn't leave her.

"It's true. Blue is the most depressing color, but it's also…you know, blue skies,
clean water--"

"Asphyxiation."

"The color of the Smiling Charm--" she continued.

"Mold."

"--favorite color--"

"Bruises."

"--who are puffy, cute animals that… Green is also the color of bruises! And
envy--"
- 266 -
 "Some forms of money."

"--sy, snakes, crocodiles--"

"Grass."

"--inexperience, also--"

"Inexperience?"

"Yes," Hermione said. "You know, he's very green at the job."

Malfoy had a way of looking at someone that made them feel like an idiot, even if
they were completely right in what they were talking about. "Fine. Growth."

She snorted. "The Killing Curse, then."

She leaned back and crossed her arms, mimicking his posture, and gave a smug
smile. There was nothing so wonderfully green that it could outweigh the evil of
murder.

"Potter's eyes."

"Wh…" Hermione stared at him and slowly dropped her chin to her chest. "What
?"

"Potter survived the Killing Curse, so logically, he trumps it in--"

"No, that makes no logical sense at all! And how do you know the color of Harry's
eyes?" Hermione's smile broke into a grin as she laughed. "Spent a lot of time
admiring--"

"I wasn't Weasley."

"Right." She rolled her eyes at him, and ignored the warning look he gave her.
"You could only watch desperately from afar."

Malfoy lifted his eyes up. "His sparkling green eyes, his bright green eyes, his
intense green eyes - or, my favorite from the papers - his eyes shining like green
embers, recalling to one's mind the curse Harry Potter survived. Twice."

Hermione opened her mouth to shoot his excuse down, but then the few articles
- 267 -
she had bothered to read flooded back. "They do like to talk about his eyes, don't
they." She hummed. "He can be a bit intense."

"I don't want to hear about your Potter fascination, Granger."

She glared at him. "Are you green with jealousy? Do you wish you had"-she wasn't
succeeding well at holding back the smile-"shining, green ember eyes? Rather than
the dull, weirdly translucent grey--"

"Translucent? They aren't that light, Gr--"

"Sometimes the light hits them at an angle, and I think I'm about to see right into
your eyeball."

He looked at her like she just told him she often thought about wanting to drill
her way in to see it. She actually thought Malfoy had rather nice eyes, but she
wasn't about to tell him so.

"You are possibly the oddest woman I've ever met." The corner of his mouth
twitched at her offended look, or whatever he was thinking. "And I'm including
Lovegood."

"What about Luna?" Justin slid into the seat next to Hermione, and looked mildly
surprised to see her teacup. He held up his own with a smile, and clinked it off hers.

"Nothing," Hermione said, shooting Malfoy and his smirk a dirty look.

"I talked to the Blue Lady," Padma said, cutting directly to business. "She wasn't
very forthcoming. Or she didn't know."

"Which one was it?" Malfoy asked. He looked annoyed when she shrugged.

"Does it matter? She--"

"Does it matter? Either she knows nothing, or she possibly knows everything.
That doesn't sound important to you?"

Padma shut her eyes for a few seconds, or took an awfully long time to blink.
"Either way, she's not going to say, which makes--"

"Everyone says, eventually."

- 268 -
 "Let's concentrate on what we know for a moment," Hermione said. "I know we
discussed alternate means to stop the device, but I think the Founders made the
proper choice with runes. Even the newer, advanced Dark magic has trouble
breaking runes since they're ancient magic--"

"So runes with blood magic…" Justin nodded.

"Incredibly strong."

Malfoy started spinning his wand between his fingers, and watched Hermione
spread a large sheet of parchment across the table. "We need to consider what it
would take to block magic of this sort, take into account the runes we know, and
figure out what else would be needed."

"Yeah, exactly," Justin said. "Even if it's just what aspects would be needed, and
then we could figure out the proper runes that we're missing."

"There's still no way to know the original spell," Padma said. "We could create our
own combination of spells, but combining them into one is always risky. Things
cancel one another out, other aspects are overridden, things have to be ordered
exactly right…"

"And that's just if we had an empty magical field." Hermione shook her head. "We
don't know what magic the device uses for the wards that could interact. Since the
Dark magic is still contained to some degree, the magic the Founders created is still
in place - at least parts of it. That could counter our spell."

"There could be literal walls of defense, too…" Justin looked on the brink of
saying what she was thinking.

"We need to find the device first." Malfoy said it before any of them wanted to -
he had a habit of shoving the truth at people.

"We can remove the broken magic of the Founders before casting our own, but
we'd have to work our way from the device and to the room," Hermione said. "If not,
the Dark magic would be unrestrained before we reached the object."

"What about removing it?" Padma asked. "Eh, maybe not. It could be holding
together more than we know."

"How the hell are we going to find it?" Justin spread his hands. "It could be any
where."
- 269 -
 "Locator spells," Malfoy said. "There are spells that track Dark magic, and they
tend to go to the strongest source. It might bounce around to visions, but eventually
it'll lead us to the device."

"If it can break through the wards created by the runes." Padma wrote something
on the parchment in front of her. "I'll try looking up a good enough spell tonight."

"You know, I think this is why it summoned us," Justin said. "It's like it knew we
would work well together."

"Or horribly. The runes were likely drawn by each of them, and then summoned
the one closest to that blood." Hermione looked up. "Not by relation, mind you."

"The Dark magic probably interfered with it in some way," Padma muttered,
digging through her notes.

"Because it summoned the weaker ones." Justin casually flipped through a book
before he felt all of their attention on him. "I just mean…there's…you know, there's
professors here and such. Or maybe we were just the closest ones. But, if the Dark
magic interfered in some way, it would try to direct it to the least strong of people
that it could reach on its way to... You know, o-or it was just because we were
closest in the strengths, weaknesses, and...so on and so forth." He looked back at
them a moment more. "You're all making me terribly uncomfortable."

"I gathered that," Padma said.

"Sorry, Justin, it's just--"

"I think we need to concentrate on the larger issues here."

Hermione glared at Padma, but lowered her eyes when she realized the severity
of it was making Malfoy smile in a knowing, sinister way. She just hated being
interrupted. Let alone reprimanded for not following the line of conversation
someone else want-- Hermione adamantly stared at the table when she found herself
glaring again.

"The important thing is that we were all summoned to work together to do

something that needs all of us to complete - to fix the runes before the Dark magic is
released and reaches the students. Hogwarts would never open again."

"More importantly, it would kill a lot of people," Hermione said.

- 270 -
 Justin sighed and pushed a hand into his hair. "How sure are we that this is it?
We wasted a lot of time on the Pavorlarua. There's not much information on the
device being here."

"It's a rumor," Padma said, "and there's always some truth in rumors."

Malfoy looked back to the parchment of runes. "The runes match up with what
would be needed to block something like this. Then there's the symbol."

"And this book describes the device in a way that fits with…here," she said,
locating the passage. "The magic appears as a solid being that is created by the
terrors of the subconscious, the imagining of the creator, and the rumored magical
energy brought from death."

"That--" Padma started to say.

"The magic appeared to be intelligent, focusing on the victims, and attacking

them with as much precision as an aimed curse. The wounds acquired in these
attacks were real and often life threatening… It goes on."

"So we should stop looking at other things," Padma said, examining her pile of
books.

Malfoy gave Padma a significant look. "And wasting time."

- 271 -
 Chapter 13

The executioner moved slower than the other things had, but Hermione didn't
calm the speed of her sprinting. Her bare foot skimmed the edge of a step, and she
slipped down four of them before getting a good enough grip on the banister to stop.

Chains clunked heavily down stairs, and Hermione took off again. Her arms
flailed for balance as she slid along the floor in her turn, but she still had several
paces on the vision. Portraits whispered to one another, and the others formed a low
hum of snoring that did little to dull the smacking of her feet.

She was careful to avoid the walls when she shoved the tapestry aside and lit her
wand. Pebbles and rocks dug into her feet as she ran down the passageway. "Ow,
ow, ow," she grunted, pain jolting from her feet and up her legs.

She killed her light and sent a flame to one of the candles they had left in the
passageway, unsure if using magic inside the circle would bother it. She turned to
face the executioner as he stomped into the passageway, his ax slamming off the
walls and exploding rocks around him.

Hermione braced herself, edging as far back as she dared, and she prepared
herself to keep running. He slowed as he drew closer to the circle, and she felt her
nerves prickling under her skin. The ax came up, and two giant hands tightened
around the handle.

She glanced down to the runes inches from the tips of his shoes, and then back
up at the black mask. He tilted his head at her, the ax turning and turning in his
grip, but he wasn't moving forward.

She still didn't relax.

Malfoy was gripping a large piece of stone, tendons in his forearms straining, and
the curve of his bicep clear under his sleeve. The small bit of skin exposed on his
arms were gleaming with as much sweat as that on his face and neck, and rock dust
was clinging to his skin. There was nothing graceful in his movements as he heaved
it up into a hole in the wall and paused to catch his breath. It was probably the most

- 272 -
manual labor Malfoy had ever done.

His hair was darker along his forehead from sweat, and his shirt was sticking to
his chest and back. Goyle was further down the hall, asking Professor Sprout if he
could remove his shirt, and there was a girl objecting loudly. Hermione's gaze didn't
stay long on the frustration of her professor, traveling back to Malfoy instead. There
was a drop of sweat sloping down his jaw, and she watched its progress until he
stepped back from the wall.

Hermione's thoughts strayed with her eyes, but she only reached that length of
fabric clinging to his chest before she cast a Cooling Charm a bit loudly. A bit too
loud, considering that heads turned towards her halfway down the hall.

"Er…everyone looked a bit warm," she said, pushing her mouth into a smile.

Malfoy looked at her with an odd expression, and she quickly moved towards a
pile of stones. She picked up a large one that wasn't heavy enough to break her
elbows, and moved towards Malfoy. She held it up for him to take, glancing around
his shoulder to be sure everyone had gone back to working.

Malfoy's eye twitched when he looked up from the stone, and he exhaled loudly
through his nose before taking it from her.

"I would have put it up there, but you're just hovering in my way."

"It's my way, Granger. You shouldn't even be here."

"You think everything is your way." She went back to get another stone, and only
caught a younger-year watching. Malfoy still didn't move away, but took the stone
without looking at her. "I think we need to go back into the room one more time."

Malfoy looked over his shoulder towards the rubble pile, but she knew he was
checking their privacy. "We found everything we were going to find."

"But the damage in the walls might let us know where runes could have been,
which would help us narrow down the thousand possibilities we have right now. We
also didn't check the debris, which could have had solid parts on them."

"You're reaching."

"What else do we have?" she whispered, going for another stone. Professor
Sprout was approaching them from the other end of the corridor, and Hermione
- 273 -
hurried back to Malfoy.

"There's no protection for us inside," Malfoy whispered.

"I know. We're going to have to try to find runes we can use to cast with at any
time. We only have the one rune we found connected with the device, but that
counter-rune won't be enough."

"We might need to look more generally - it won't make them disappear, but it'll
hold the magic back. You--" Malfoy cut off when he spotted Sprout nearing them.

"We need to meet in the library tonight, not the cauldron room. Same time."
Hermione pushed up on her toes, inspecting the lay of the stone, and raised her
voice. "I'm telling you, Malfoy, there is certainly a spot you've missed right there."

He turned his head back to glare at her, and she gave him her winning smile.

"He's not moving."

"I still think we need to leave."

"He's just staring."

"Why don't they talk? Shouldn't they just…say something evil. Like…I'm going to
chop your head off."

"…Where did you practice your evil voice, Finch-Fletchley? A bloody nursery?"

"Of course not, then it would have scared all the children senseless."

"Children are senseless anyway."

"Find it relatable, Patil?"

"Bugger off, Malfoy."

"Yes, I heard--"

"Don't. You dare."

- 274 -
 Hermione glanced between Malfoy's smug, sly expression, and the look of
promised death Padma was aiming at him. Her confusion didn't clear itself in their
expressions, though, and she quickly looked back to the man sitting on the table a
few yards away from them.

"Let's just…" Hermione was reluctant to drag her attention back to the mass of
parchments on the table. "Let's just go back to discussing the spell Padma found -
the one that might keep the visions away from us?"

"Yeah, it's, uh…boundaries, like a weaker…protection circle, and…" Justin

squinted at the man.

"Right, but the runes will have to be forged in blood, and wands don't bleed, and
nor do they keep blood on them while they're being--"

"Ah, here we go!" Justin yelled.

Hermione was about to tell him to be quiet when she spotted the masks moving
closer in the dark. Justin was frantically shoving everything in his bag by circling his
arms around the contents of the table and yanking it towards him. Half missed.
Padma jumped up to grab the fallen papers and books as Hermione threw
everything important into her bag. Malfoy was already three paces from the table,
his belongings under his arm.

"Do you think if they cast spells, it--"

Dark blue jetted past Justin's head and burst into the table. Justin and Padma
yelled, and they all broke into a sprint, darting through the stacks. Hermione didn't
think the spells could manifest themselves into actual curses, but it didn't mean they
couldn't hurt them.

"Did we get everything?" Padma asked from a row over.

"We're racing, we're racing!" Justin yelled, and Hermione emerged into the main
table area of the library, spotting Justin as he waved his arms wildly. "Gotta get
there first!"

Hermione caught a speeding flash of shocked faces before her hands slammed
into the library door, and Padma collided into her back. Hermione's forehead
whacked off the door, and for a second, she thought the bright yellow light was from
the injury.

- 275 -
 "Go," Padma breathed, and Hermione stumbled out of the room.

They ran down two corridors, Malfoy and Justin gone from sight. Padma
screamed, and Hermione looked back over her shoulder, slowing down as Padma
whipped off her robe. Part of it was in flames, and there was a wetness on Padma's
cheeks as she left the robe behind. Hermione's vision skimmed over the three Death
Eaters running at them, spells missing by wide margins and breaths of space.

"Where on the carpet? Where is it on the carpet?" Justin yelled.

Hermione turned sharply to the painting of a tree, shoving it aside, and grabbed
Padma's arm when she was close enough. She pulled the other girl behind her,
towards where Malfoy and Justin were standing together. Hermione searched the
carpet for the small black mark they had left for if their memory failed, and saw it as
they leaped past it. Justin and Malfoy both held out a hand, catching them before
they all collided.

"Are we all in? Is it wide enough?" Hermione looked around them, but there was
no way to tell.

"It feels right," Justin said. "Maybe come a little…" He grabbed her shoulder and
pulled her closer to him, nodding his head. "That's it. Just-- Ha!"

Hermione jumped at the sudden exclamation, and looked from Justin's grin to the
three Death Eaters who had entered the alcove. They were firing off spells, but they
just burst into the air around them like tiny fireworks. Hermione breathed relief
until her mind caught up to how hard Padma was gripping her wrist.

"Are you all right?" she asked, and Padma nodded. "What is it? I saw your robes -
are you burnt?"

"Not badly. Just…hurts a bit."

"I'll get the Dittany. Did we grab everything from the library?" Hermione hiked
her bag up to her chest, digging through it.

"Did you want to go back and check, Granger?"

"It was a bit rushed. I didn't make a list." Justin's eyes widened when she looked
up at him. "Sorry, it was a joke, but it came out a lot meaner than I planned."

"You should have tried it in your evil voice," Malfoy said. "Would have softened
- 276 -
the blow right up."

"Can I blame Malfoy?" Justin asked, turning his head to watch the Death Eater
circling them, and pressed closer to Hermione. "He's been stalking us a lot lately."

"Stalking? I'm not here by way of much choice. And you're the one who followed
me five floors yesterday."

"I was dehydrated."

"Was I carrying water? Did I appear as a river? How would that--"

"Do you mind?" Hermione asked, circling her finger in the air. "I've got…" She
nodded towards Padma, and both of them looked to the other woman. "Turn around.
Honestly."

Justin blushed and turned immediately, and Malfoy looked mildly annoyed before
turning slowly.

"Wait to try hitting him until after you're done?" Padma whispered. "Or he won't
turn around again."

Hermione slowly lifted up the back of Padma's shirt, and winced at the large burn
in the middle of her back. "I hadn't thought of it at all, but it does sound tempting."

"Or we could push him out of the circle," Justin said.

"I'd take you with me."

"Plenty of room for everyone in here, really."

"If one of us goes out, we all go out," Hermione said, watching Padma's skin heal.
"We're all in this together."

Justin immediately headed for the largest rock, and jumped when Padma scraped
her shoe on the ground. Hermione moved to a corner, and squatted as she began to
turn over each piece of fallen stone.

"Remember, check them in groups. If you find a piece of a rune, it's more likely
you'll find another in the same spot, so don't move them too much."
- 277 -
 "I'm just hoping we can really make a hole in that wall to get out if we need to,"
Justin said.

"Considering the damage, it should be possible."

If Malfoy hadn't thought it was possible, there was little chance Hermione would
have convinced him to go back into the room. He had refused three times - twice
outright, and she counted the third, since he had seen through her desire to discuss
a theory about equal parts and sacrifice. It wasn't until they had all sat silently with
dozens of rune possibilities and a dead end that he'd agreed.

"I found a curve," Padma said, "but there's nothing else around it. Just blank
peb--"

Hermione shot up at Justin's heavy grunt and a loud scraping noise. Padma had
her wandlight pointed in the nook to the right of the room, and she and Malfoy were
staring down at something. Hermione hurried over as Justin muttered a curse,
followed by more scraping noises.

Justin was kneeling next to a large hole in the ground, roughly circular, and
aiming his wandlight inside of it. He squinted his eyes and tilted his head in all
directions, but realization didn't register.

"Can you see anything?" Padma asked.

"No. It's too dark."

Hermione moved next to Justin and pointed her wand down the hole. The light
was dim, but it moved over bumps of black and grey. "It looks like rocks."

"Do you think it's another room?" Justin asked, looking up at her.

Hermione straightened up and put her wand between her teeth, moving to take
off her robe. "Let's find out."

"I…don't know how safe that is," Padma said. "We don't know what's down there.
For all we know, it can be the device. We aren't ready."

"Then we see the device, we see any runes around it, and then we go back and
know what to do next."

Justin hummed long and low. "What if getting that close to it does something to
- 278 -
us? What if--"

"What if it doesn't, and we find everything we need down there? Any day, the
magic could break through all the wards. Can any of us really live with ourselves if
that happens, and we could have solved it by taking a chance?"

"Yes," Malfoy said. "We could get ripped apart until we're dead the second we
land into the room, and I refuse to die that way for anything."

Hermione glared at him, dropping her robe down the hole. "If you'd rather do
what you're best at, Malfoy, then stay. I'm going."

Anger hardened his expression, and she turned her back to him. Justin looked
physically pained as she sat on the ground and put her feet in the hole. She edged
herself in, shoving her wand into her pocket. The drop didn't look too far down from
where her feet would be when she released her grip from the top of the hole, but the
rocks on the bottom weren't going to make for a good landing.

The walls around the hole cleared around her legs by the time she was clinging to
the ground with her forearms. She kicked her feet, but nothing grabbed them to pull
her down. She took a breath and drew one arm tight to her chest, and her weight
pulled the grip from her other arm. It dragged across the ground sharply, and she
lifted it above her head as she fell.

There was just a second of stability as rocks crunched, and then she was on her
backside, hard edges digging into her. Her breath escaped in a grunt, and she
rushed to her feet as she pulled her wand.

"Hermione?" Justin called.

She scanned the room in a circle, and her heart jumped as her wand lit another
wall of runes. She had to force herself to go past it, checking to make sure the room
was empty from anything that might harm her.

"Hermione?" Justin yelled it this time.

"I'm fine."

There was more rubble in this room than there was in the one above it, but her
heart was racing as she studied a new rune on the wall.

"Is the device down there?" Padma asked.

- 279 -
 Hermione ignored the question. If they wanted to know so badly, they would
come down themselves.

There were several runes missing from damage that had been on the wall above,
but the new one was what was important. The majority of the wall in this room had
been stripped, and she noted the same places where wall had been missing in the
other room.

"Hermione?" Justin, again.

"I'm still fine."

There was a large rock next to the wall that had one of the protection runes on it,
and a line from another. There was another hole in the ground at the left corner of
the room, and she had every intention of going down it.

Hermione was digging through a large pile of rubble when something crunched
loudly behind her. She turned, expecting Padma or Justin, but it was Malfoy wiping
off his trousers at the kneecaps. He backed up when another pair of feet edged
down from the hole, and met her eyes. There was no anger, or judgment, or
resentment, or open hostility. He just looked at her in a way she couldn't decide the
emotions behind, and she didn't know if she should keep looking until she figured it
out, or turn away from him.

Justin dropped next, falling back into Malfoy, and Hermione resumed digging
through the pile. She listened to their muttering about the wall and runes as Padma
came down last. There was a curve of a rune on the stone in front of her, but judging
by the width and hook at the end, they already had it.

"Is that another hole?" Padma asked.

"Yes." Hermione glanced back at them. "I'm going to go down it once I've looked
through these."

"We'll go with you - in it together and such," Justin said. "Do you think there's
more runes down there?"

"There might be. Unless the device is somewhere between these walls, they might
have done the runes on every floor."

"Frielman Box."

- 280 -
 "If that's true, we have…at least five more floors to go." Padma smiled as she
pressed her fingers against the wall. "If we can piece it together, we might find all
the runes in the spell."

"We have thirty-three minutes," Malfoy said. "We don't have time to search the
floor."

Hermione sent him a look from the corner of her eye, and checked the last two
large stones. It didn't matter if he was right - she was still a bit angry with him over
his cowardice. She didn't know what happened to change his mind about it, and at
least he had, but if this had been an emergency situation, they could have all been
dead because of it.

"Granger."

Hermione looked over to where Justin and Malfoy were standing to either side of
the hole, and Justin held his hand out to her. She scanned the room as she
straightened up, and noticed Padma was already gone.

"There's half a rune down here!" Padma yelled from below them.

Hermione cleared her throat. "I'm throwing this down!" she warned, dropping her
robe.

"All together or a new one?" Justin called.

"New!"

Hermione sat on the ground and put her feet in the hole, scooting until her bum
was on the ledge. Justin grabbed her arm before she could jump down herself, and
there was a pause before Malfoy's long fingers edged into her view. She followed it
up to his wrist, swallowed, and then took his hand. His fingers wrapped lightly
around her hand as he and Justin knelt, and then their grips tightened as she pushed
herself into the hole.

They lowered her down slowly, until her head had cleared the ceiling and her feet
were dangling a foot above the ground. She loosened her grip on them and
squeezed, and they both dropped her to her feet. She landed evenly despite the
strain under her arms, and slid her foot against the ground to clear the rubble for
their landing.

"Look, Hermione, it's right here."

- 281 -
 Hermione walked closer to the wall as someone came into the room behind her. "I
don't recognize this one either."

"It looks familiar--"

"I agree. I feel like we've looked at it before, but it's hard to know without the
other side of it."

"I have a parchment and an old bottle of ink in here, but no quill," Padma said,
inspecting the contents of her small bag. "I'd say to use our fingers, but there's not
much ink."

"I should have brought my bag." Hermione leaned closer to try determining if the
line curved slightly before the dent in the wall. "I'll check in my robe, but I'm…"

Hermione spine stiffened as fingers grazed the back of her hair and tugged up on
it gently. "We might even be able to find rolls of parchment and inkwells in here,"
Malfoy said lowly, and she was glad when her hair fell to mask the goosebumps.

Malfoy held her quill out to Padma, who took it with a grin. Hermione was very
aware of Malfoy's movements behind her as he stayed close to her back, looking at
the half-rune. Justin quickly worked through the larger pieces of rubble on the
ground, making sure there was nothing important on them.

They found the other half on the next floor, two on the next, one on the following,
and none on the two floors following it. The damage varied in each room, but none
of them were held together completely, or had all of the runes they had found up
until then.

Hermione hit the ground with a small thud, and immediately lifted her foot from
the rock digging into it. She stepped back to clear the way for Padma, and pulled
her wand from her pocket. The room felt even colder than the ones before it, and
her anxiety hiked with the chill up her arms. The only visions they had encountered
so far were bugs, but they all knew what the magic was capable of.

Hermione lit her wand, but the light wasn't half of the brightness it should have
been. She stretched her arm, illuminating a small portion of wall with dirty yellow
light.

"But, yes - I don't believe there was any portion of the wall near the runes that
was damaged, that we didn't see undamaged on another wall." Padma moved out of
the way as someone else jumped down. "Unless there were more runes down on the
- 282 -
bottom, or another wall, or the corners…"

The lay of these stones were different. The floor above had been different than
the others as well, but not by much. Padma's light was just as dimmed as
Hermione's, but no matter how close she got to the wall, she didn't see any runes.

"It's more likely the runes would have been near the others," Malfoy said.

"So we…" Justin trailed off as Hermione pointed her wand into darkness.

She moved closer to what she thought was a wall, but there was just more black
in front of her. Three other wandlights joined hers, shining on uneven stone floor as
it continued on into the dark.

"Is this the dungeon?" Justin whispered.

"It's below it," Malfoy said.

"What?"

"I knew that drop was longer from the ceiling," Padma whispered. "How much
time do we have?"

Malfoy's light slanted as he moved to check the time, but everything paused at
the low rumble in the dark. It sounded distant, echoing off the walls, and somewhere
down the long corridor in front of them. There was a rough, short sound that made
her think of a bull exhaling, and then the rumble began again.

"Oh, shit," Justin whispered.

All of them moved closer to one another without thought of doing so, and Padma
breathed a shush. If it was magic - Hermione had spent long enough in this castle to
know actual creatures were well possible - it wouldn't have to hear them to know
they were there. The magic sensed them on its own.

"Kill the lights," Justin said. "Ki--"

"Finch-Fletchley, if your hand moves over another inch

"Hurry up and activate!" Justin whispered harshly.

- 283 -
 "I'm not a bloody--"

"Sh, sh, sh."

Hermione looped her arm through Padma's, and reached blindly for Malfoy. She
encountered an elbow, and slid her hand up to curve her fingers around his bicep.
Malfoy made a sound of annoyance, but it was overshadowed by the rumble getting
louder.

"Crap," Hermione whispered. "Check the time. Do you think it's going to work
down here? The magic is stronger, our lights…"

"What do you mean?" Padma asked.

"Do you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

Hermione yanked her over. "Touch Malfoy."

"Wonderful," Malfoy drawled.

Hermione ran her hand down Padma's arm and then grabbed her hand, pushing it
into Malfoy. "Now?"

"Yes, but it feels…"

Hermione shut her eyes as the pull grew stronger, and then she felt herself lifted.
The whirling sensation was different this time, throwing them in hard jerks and
stuttering movement. Hermione felt like she was going to be sick or dropped into
the middle of a wall. She hit the floor on her back, with her stomach somewhere in
her throat.

If it wasn't for the stone grinding already, she would have laid on the floor
another five minutes. She jumped to her feet instead, swallowing hard, and ran with
Padma and Justin into the loo. Justin was greener than she felt, and made it as far as
the bathtub before losing it.

Malfoy was awake when she lifted her head from the floor to survey the room.
Justin was sleeping in the bathtub he'd recently cleaned out, and Padma was snoring
- 284 -
in the center of the protection circle. The room was empty of any Dark magic, but
Hermione's mind had taken to waking her every few hours to check.

Malfoy was leaning against his headboard, his legs stretched out on the bed.
There was a bottle in his hand and against his chest that she thought might be
alcoholic without inspecting, and he was staring into the small flames in the
fireplace.

Hermione sniffed, her nose running in the cold of the room, and sat up. "You
know," she said, her voice groggy, "we aren't going to do anything to you in your
sleep."

"You'd probably wake an enemy from sleep to tell them you're about to kill them.
I'm not worried about your honor." His left eyebrow raised and then lowered. "Or
you trying to take mine."

She wasn't sure how much honor Malfoy had left to his name, but she knew he
had enough pride not to comment on it. "I don't think of you as my enemy." Not
since she'd found out what a real one was, anyway.

That drew his gaze from the fireplace, and he settled it on her. "We're certainly
not friends."

She shrugged a shoulder, looking away. "You define friendship different than I
do."

She heard a low rustle of fabric, and then the slosh of liquid. "How do you know
my definition?"

"Observation."

"Which means your belief of it is half wrong and half offensive."

"Just like that sentence, then!" She flashed him a glare before looking back at the
fire. "I think…you used to base friendship on bloodlines, people you could use, and
those who stroked your ego. Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle were all purebloods, less
intelligent than you, from fairly influential families, treated you like a king, and were
loyal to the point of doing nearly anything for you. That was your main circle."

"I grew up with them. It was a bit more than who could fulfill my superficial
needs."

- 285 -
 She nodded. "But you grew up with all of them - Zabini, Nott, Greengrass, all of
them. Nott gives you away, especially. You can't tell me your fathers didn't associate
with one another often. He shared your beliefs. But he was intelligent, independent,
and wasn't keen to follow a boy who gave him nothing he couldn't get on his own.
Come on, Malfoy - you didn't want friends, you wanted followers."

"The two are not always inseparable. Most groups that have a relationship -
whether that's friendship, or business, or any other thing that's connected them -
has a leader. I was theirs as much as Potter was yours."

"That's completely different."

"I'm not surprised you think so."

Hermione glared at him. "Harry never ordered us to do anything, or put us down,

or made us listen to him brag. He might not have always liked our opinions, but he
listened to them, and we were equals. We were with Harry for the war - we did not
follow him into it - and we were with him because he was our friend."

She heard his swallow when he lowered the bottle, but his voice was still dry
when he said, "That's very touching."

"If I had something to throw at you, it would be hitting you in the head right
now."

Malfoy turned his head to raise his eyebrows at her. "In the head? You're
overestimating yourself. Perhaps if you aimed for the fireplace."

"I have excellent aim. I've missed before on purpose. You look like you bruise
easy."

"And you cared about bruising me?"

"…Yes. Now, back to my observation--"

"I've had enough of your observation."

"I do think you're loyal to your friends. I just don't think you realized what
friendship should be until you needed it most. Until they did. Then you found they
had had some of the same priorities that you did - wanting influence, power, and
following you for it. Then when you couldn't offer it anymore, they--"

- 286 -
 "I don't wan--"

"But you still cared. You're loyal to those you think are loyal to you, and you're
willing to stay with them even through the bad times. Even if they didn't seem as
willing. Even when they're three times your weight and the room is on fire--"

"Granger, I'm not telling you ag--"

"I just think it's changed, is all I'm trying to say. I think you're not looking for
people of influence or power anymore, or those who make you feel like you have it. I
think you're looking for honest friends. And since I'm obviously a very good friend, I
think you're intimidated by me."

"…Intimidated?"

"Because you don't know how to make an honest friend, Malfoy." She tilted her
head. "But I can tell you - it just sort of happens. And you can't help it when it does."

His tongue edged his teeth before pushing against his cheek, and his eyes were
hooded in amusement or exhaustion. "Are you trying to tell me that you think we're
friends?"

His eyebrows lowered and drew together when she walked on her knees to the
side of his bed, and then reached under and up. She felt along the books he kept
between the mattress and strips of board, and pulled the first one that felt big.

"Of course not, Malfoy."

She used the mattress to push herself to her feet, and Malfoy straightened up like
a wall when she plopped down onto his bed. She pushed her shoes off and swung
her legs up, keeping as far to the edge as she could.

"What are you doing?"

She paused in scooting back against the headboard, looking at the fire for a
moment. She shrugged, swinging her gaze to him. "I don't sleep well, either." They
looked at one another until she felt the desire to sit on the unforgiving floor again.
"Do you want me to put some pillows between us so you feel safe? Are you afraid I'm
going to touch your special places, or breathe on you, or spread some--"

"Special places?" He grinned; it was like a marble thrown into the cogs of her
mind, and they kept stuttering on the shape of it, and the lines around his mouth,
- 287 -
and the squint of his eyes. "What exactly are my special places, Granger?"

"Your…" She waved her hand, and he lowered his chin to his chest, raising his
eyebrows. "Your heart, or…soul."

"My soul."

"Your soul."

"I'm afraid you're going to touch my soul."

"Yes, with my profound statements."

"Uh huh."

"Which are very…meaningful and pro--"

"--found, right."

"Yes, and they can just…touch you. With meaningfulness. Which would be
touching the special place of your soul."

"Are you trying to touch me in my special places?"

Her eyes grew too wide, and he laughed at her, fully and loud. "Oh, shut up."

Hermione awoke to the forceful lifting of her person into impossible warmth. Her
eyes snapped open, and she saw the curve of Malfoy's jaw, and felt his body pushing
against her. She wasn't aware of what was going on until his hands slid from her
back and to her hips, and she hit the ground on her elbows and backside. Stone was
dragging loudly, and she almost got up to run for the protection circle before she
caught Malfoy's wide eyes over the edge of the bed.

Hermione breathed in so hard that she almost coughed it back out, and she slid
sideways, pushing herself under the bed. The stone stopped, and she knew the
entrance to the room must have been open. It opened automatically to anyone who
had been inside of the room before, so unless a friend of his was there after the
wards were dropped, the Auror was checking in on him.

There was still a sliver of her body sticking out from the side, but she feared the
- 288 -
sound of her movements without the grinding noise to cover them. She wished
Malfoy would throw himself into a new position above her, and then she'd be in
completely.

"Lumos," a voice said plainly, not bothering to whisper.

There was a tiny squeaking noise as the Auror walked around the room, and
kicked something that sounded like cloth. Hermione closed her eyes and
concentrated on keeping her breathing low and even, but they opened again in
alarm when she heard something rattle. It was the doorknob to the loo, she knew,
and if--

"Hey!"

"Ah, Obliviate!" Justin yelled.

Hermione gasped, and the bed shifted violently above her. "What the fuck are you
doing?"

"I don't know, I just reacted!"

"Oh, God, Justin!" Hermione pushed herself out from under the mattress, and
narrowly missed Malfoy stepping onto her stomach.

She staggered to her feet, and looked at the Auror staring stupidly at the door.
Padma stood in the doorway with her jaw slack, looking from the Auror and to
Justin.

"I just, surprised, and, bam, and I don't know!"

"He's going to come out of it in a second, what do--"

"You just buggered me to hell, Finch-Fletchley!"

"I'm sorry!"

"Go!" Hermione yelled. "Grab your things, go, go!"

She reached for the bottle of alcohol Malfoy had left on the floor next to his
bedside table, and shoved it into Justin's hand. He immediately started to drink it,
and Padma came flying out of the loo with her bag and two robes.

- 289 -
 "Justin, no, go! Hurry up!" Hermione spun around and ran past the Auror,
grabbing her robe from the floor. She pointed to Malfoy. "Lay down, now."

"I'm not--"

She pulled on her robe in jerky movements and ran out of the doorway. "Now!
Lumos."

Malfoy stared at her intensely, his jaw tight, and slowly put himself back in bed.
Hermione patted down her hair as Justin and Padma's running faded into silence,
and she caught her breath. She stepped back in the room, shining her light on the
Auror's back. If the wards were up, the Auror would know more than his spell had
been cast in the room - Ron had said it couldn't detect what spells, so hopefully the
Auror decided it was from her.

Malfoy was still staring at her, but his eyes slid shut when the Auror moved. The
man reached up to rub his eyes and shake his head, and Hermione pulled the book
she was holding closer to her. It felt like she had just been discussing the story with
Malfoy five minutes ago, but sleep had knocked away the movement of time.

The Auror finally spotted the oddity of light shining between his feet, and he spun
around, his wand half-raised. He blinked at her, and his scowl marginally relaxed.
Hermione made a show of looking at his Auror robes.

"I saw a door open and a figure moving about," she explained. "I thought a
student was in danger."

"There's no danger. What are you doing out of your dorms this late?"

"I was hungry. I'm off to the kitchen."

"Pesky that the house-elves don't come when summoned, isn't it?" There was
something strange about the way he was looking at her, and it made her think of
Lupin during the war.

Hermione frowned. "We can just as easily walk to the kitchen."

The Auror nodded, and she realized he'd been checking her identity. "Potter told
us about your plans to free the house-elves."

"One day."

- 290 -
 He nodded. "Go along then, Miss Granger. Everything's fine here."

Hermione nodded back and killed her light, backing out of the room. She glanced
at Malfoy, and he was looking back at her with an expression as curious as the
Auror's was. "Good night."

"Justin, for the thirtieth time, they aren't coming for you."

"I Obliviated an Auror. They could send me to Azkaban for less!"

"They aren't going to know! Just forget about it and stop acting strange."

"Then we can get back to the protection spells which can save our lives, instead
of talking about something we don't have to worry about." Padma adamantly poked
the book in front of her.

"You'd have to worry about it! You're all guilty of association, and withholding
information, and…several other things, I'm sure! It's just--"

"They aren't going to know!" Hermione said it as fiercely as she couldn't without
threatening to override the muffling charm. "He didn't know when he came out of it,
and if the wards were up, it can't detect the sort of spells. We're fine."

"Yet if you keep yelling about it and walking around with your hood pulled over
your face, people might catch on a bit." Malfoy pulled the parchment of notes out
from under Hermione's arm. "Shut up about it, Finch-Fletchley. And don't make eye
contact with the Auror."

"Make him more paranoid," Hermione muttered.

"He's a Legilimens."

"The Auror?"

"No, Granger, Justin has managed a feat even the most powerful of wizards have
been incapable of."

"Hey," Justin said, "first name."

"What?" Padma asked. "And why does it have to be the most powerful of wizards?
- 291 -
Witches have been incredibly powerful as well, in case you missed that bit in history
books or the world around you."

"He used my first name. Just so you know, Draco, I still don't like you."

Malfoy glared in open hostility at Justin, but at least both of them had shut their
mouths.

"These runes," Hermione said, snatching the parchment back from Malfoy, "are
essential to any protection spell against the magic. At least based off what we found
two nights ago."

Padma circled her finger around two runes. "If there's not a lot of the magic
around us, these two together could be enough counter-magic to disrupt the Dark
magic. At least with the right spell to activate them in the right way."

"Since it was used specifically to counter it by the Founders, it might even make
the vision disappear. As long as we're not dealing with a high amount of Dark magic,
and so multiple visions." Hermione looked to Padma, who nodded in response.

Justin bit the tip of his tongue and sucked in a breath. "I think the closer we get
to the device, the more powerful the magic - we're bound to encounter multiple
visions there."

"So we need a strong spell," Padma said. "It won't make them leave, not that
close to the device, but it'll act as a temporary shield. Here are the ones I think will
work."

"There are a few more general ones here," Malfoy said. "They're in the same vein
of what we used in the circles, but they might not do much when we near the
device."

"We can use this rune as well - the Founders did, and it might make the
protection stronger." Justin scraped his dry quill along a rune. "We still don't know
how we're going to do the blood runes on a wand."

Malfoy waved his fingers at them, and annoyance flashed when they stared back
blankly. "Our fingers. We carve small runes on our fingertips or anywhere else the
wand touches when we hold it. Runes forged in blood."

"We're living beings. They'll heal."

- 292 -
 "On their own. They should remain open long enough for us to reach the device
and cast the main spell."

"We'll have to practice first," Hermione said. "We can use a needle."

Justin grimaced. "I always have the funnest times with all of you."

Malfoy had a thing about pain on people's faces. Hermione wondered if that was
from the war, and the moment Harry had seen, and the reports that Malfoy was
forced to torture people. She remembered his hesitation or refusal to cast a spell on
her or Justin in the face of their distrust, and she thought he might relive it all over
again in his mind.

Hermione tried to keep her face passive as Malfoy pressed the tiny point of the
knife into the tip of her little finger, but he wasn't looking at her anyway. He was
fully concentrated on how to turn the knife to get the proper curve on the baseline.
The thumb and ring finger of his other hand were squeezing her top knuckle, and
she had the strong urge to crack it, despite it being a habit her mother used to
smack her father's hands about.

"Your little finger is ridiculously small," he grumbled.

"That's why pinkies are also called the little finger. Do you expect me to--
apologize?"

He glanced up at her odd huff for air, but she kept her expression neutral. The tip
had stabbed a little deeper than it had to, but she couldn't complain. He'd been as
gentle as possible while taking a knife to her skin, and possibly more gentle than she
had been when she did it to him - not that she hadn't tried her best to make it hurt
the least it could. She'd had the benefit of his wider fingertips and her smaller
hands, so she had expected more mistakes from him now.

Malfoy dabbed the edge of a washcloth against her finger, then pressed his index
to the side of her second knuckle, and ran the pad of his thumb up the other side of
her finger. He stopped it at the top of the nail and guided her finger back, inspecting
the small rune. The back of his other fingers were against the side of her hand, and
she wondered why he wasn't holding them away before she thought she was
thinking too much about it.

He got a little wrinkle at the top of his nose and between his eyebrows when he
- 293 -
was studying something. Her fingers flinched with the urge to push his fringe back,
but she wouldn't dare.

"Good?" he murmured.

"Hm?" she hummed. He looked up at her and his thumb wobbled her pinkie. "Oh."

"Last line," Justin said from behind Malfoy.

"Yes, Justin, so you can stop cutting off circulation in your leg. You act like I'm
cutting your fingers off."

"No, you're just cutting into them."

"Granger?"

"Yeah, it's fine. They're good."

He released her hand, then held the washcloth out for her to wipe the blood off
her skin. She took it with a muttered thanks, and watched the wrinkles disappear
from his forehead.

"You're all sure we don't need to cast anything on these?"

"If we cast anything on them now, they can only be used for one spell, and that
spell would have to be directly for our person. This way, we can use different runes
and combinations of them for all the spells we agreed on earlier."

Justin shook his hand when Padma pulled away from him. "Right, the blocking
spell, the banishing one, and…the other blocking one. Well, I'm sure it won't take
long to find out."

Hermione stood and stretched. "We'll meet tomorrow to discuss how the spells
worked, and work on the main one for the walls?"

"I have patrols tomorrow," Padma said, and glanced at Malfoy. "Hermione, maybe
we can meet up later and you can catch me up? Around midnight?"

"Sure, I'll meet you at the Fat Lady." Hermione waved her finger between Justin
and Malfoy. "Us three, library, eight?"

Malfoy gave a nod, pushing the knife towards her, and started grabbing his
- 294 -
things. Justin slung his bag over his shoulder, and threw his robe over it next.

"How are we going to keep people from seeing the runes? We can't wear gloves."

"Try not to wave at people," Malfoy told him.

"Just keep your fingers down. If someone sees, tell them…" Hermione pulled the
strap of her bag over her head, and pushed the bag under her arm. "I don't know,
tell them you drew it on with red ink in an effort to study for Ancient Runes."

"Tell them you cheated," Malfoy said. "They'll be more interested in the drama of
it than why it's on your fingers."

"All right. We'll walk together?" Justin nodded down the corridor as they all
exited the room.

"It's rather tempting to make the long way round." Malfoy started in the shorter
direction despite it, and Hermione and Padma exchanged a smirk as Justin started
chattering.

"What is that thing?"

"I saw them once," Hermione said. "Months ago. It's a bit more determined than
the spiders were. When I used the warding spell on them, they ran away."

"It doesn't seem to have traveled far enough to reach it. The shield might just be
directly in front of the wand." Padma backed up when the evil-morphed bunny grew
closer to them. "Try the blocking spell."

The jet of blue-yellow disappeared into the air before reaching its target, but then
the animal flew back. It looked as if a strong wind had lifted it from its feet, but
instead of tumbling through the air, it sailed. The image shimmered and then
disappeared.

"I rather like that one," Padma said.

"It's a better blocking spell since it goes further, but I don't think it will make the
magic retreat when it's in higher concentrations."

"I--"
- 295 -
 "You are not allowed to practice magic in the halls."

Hermione looked over her shoulder and down, finding a young prefect scowling
at them. There was a sparse line of students walking down the connected corridor,
but most of them were too tired or busy to notice them. They all looked to be
younger-years, so if they had heard the spells, they would assume it was from an
advanced class.

"We're both of age, and the corridor is empty," Padma said. "Have you never seen
a professor cast magic outside of a classroom?"

The boy hesitated, his mouth open. His teeth shined nearly as bright as his
prefect badge. "You're students."

"Under special circumstances, I assure you. Off to breakfast now, Robert. We're
busy." Padma's stern look didn't crumble until he finally turned and walked away
from them.

"Do you think he'll check with a professor to see if that's true?"

"Probably. Though if he tells them it was us, I don't know. Would you? When you
were younger, I mean."

Hermione put her wand away and walked with Padma out of the corridor. "I
would probably tell the professor I saw older students doing it. If they asked me
who, yes. Unless it was…"

"Harry, or Ron, or a friend?"

"I preferred to scold them myself."

Padma laughed, making a spot for them in the flow of students hitting the
staircases. "You're a loyal friend. Even when they do something you don't agree
with, as long as you find enough good to outweigh the bad…or excuses for the
bad…you'll stay with them."

"Friendship is more than just loyalty or weighing pros and cons. I can't make a
list of why I'm friends with Harry, for example. Con - go to war. Pro - go to war."

"Pro?"

"Sure. Who knows what would have happened had it not been the three of us that
- 296 -
did what we did. And I wouldn't have been there, in those moments, had I not loved
Harry. It also made us realize just how willing we were to die for one another. Which
is a con...and a pro." Hermione glanced at Padma as they waited for the staircase to
connect with another. "And by love, I mean friendship, not what the papers make--"

"No, I know. I was just thinking of how you look for the good in everything. And
everyone."

"Because there's good in most things. If you're not willing to look and see it, then
how is that person going to believe it's there when no one else does?"

Padma hummed as they moved down the last staircase. "Do you think," she
lowered her voice, "Malfoy," and raised it again, "would have been a different
person, or done different things, if it had been the same for him?"

Hermione blinked at the heads of students as they entered the Entrance Hall and
turned for the Great Hall. "I…don't know. I think…I guess Malfoy thought the good
in him was the sort his father saw, which brought him to do those things. Maybe if
someone would have showed him a different good, the kind that stopped him from
really…becoming those things…"

"You think it would be different?"

"I think Dumbledore would have still fallen. I think Malfoy might have even had a
part in that, to save his parents. But after… I don't know. Maybe he would have left.
Maybe he would have been brave enough."

"It's weird," Padma said as they entered the Great Hall. "Loyalty, and chance
meetings, and small choices, and how the world turns out."

Hermione looked towards the Slytherin table, automatically spotting the bright
blond hair. Malfoy was sitting by himself at the end of the table, his hand wrapped
around a goblet as he stared down at his plate. "It is."

Hermione tapped her wand against the corner and murmured the Sticking
Charm, then stepped back to admire the stretch of parchment. "I'm going to call on
one of you to draw a rune, and then--"

"You're what?" Justin laughed out the sentence.

- 297 -
 "To be sure we all know--"

"Granger, I understand you have a fetish for--"

"Fetish? I'm just--"

"--and the sight of parchment and desk space must make you--"

"Are you sure it's not your fantasy, Malfoy?" Padma asked, and Malfoy paused,
turning his head towards Padma. Hermione's angle made it impossible to see the
look he was giving her, but Padma seemed unaffected. "Because you can't seem to
shut up about it."

"Why don't we all just draw on our own, Hermione?" Justin asked.

"I want to make sure we're all prepared for when we're going to need to draw
them quickly, and with no hesitation, mistakes, or checking with someone else that
we did it right."

"How about we all go up together, and everyone takes a section?" Padma asked.
"It's less…belittling."

"Belittling? Going one by one, without the person choosing the one they know--"

"While you lord over them to tell them what is wrong or right, while assuming
they would have chosen one they knew to just…pretend to be more knowledgeable
about them than they are?"

Hermione pursed her lips at Malfoy, and moved forward to uncap the inkwell.
"Fine. We'll take sections. But bring your quills."

"Yes, Professor," Justin said, grinning.

Malfoy smirked, and looked on the edge of speaking, but though her glare didn't
set him on fire, at least it stopped him from talking. The smirk remained.

They chose the sections they stepped in front of first, muttering to one another to
decide where each of them would end and the other would begin. They worked
quickly, scratching the runes out on the parchment. They still moved more slowly
than they would be able to when actually doing it, but it was good enough for now.

"What is that line? That's not on that rune."

- 298 -
 "Those should be longer."

"This is arched inwards, not outwards."

"Is there four, or three?"

"You forgot that bottom hook. It's sharp, like…that."

Hermione tried to keep herself from looking smug, but Justin managed to wipe
the need right out of her. "That top circle on the right horizontal is bigger."

"What? No, this is just proportionate, since I drew the rune smaller."

Justin shook his head. "No, look…" He went back to swipe a book off the table he
had been sitting at, and flipped to a bookmarked page. "See, the circle ends in the
middle of the line, no matter how small or big the rune is."

"Ah." Hermione cleared her throat. "Right. Thank you, Justin."

"I guess we do need practice," Justin said.

"Yes, Granger - you were right about that."

Hermione hit Malfoy with her hip when she got back to the parchment, shoving
him over a bit more than she needed to. He looked a bit startled, and she had
trouble hiding her smirk. She drew the tip of her wand around the half-circle,
erasing it. "This seems to be all the runes we need to know, judging by what we
found in the rooms, and where the missing bits of wall were - there's no place that
wasn't revealed somewhere else."

"We need to find spells that activate the purpose of each rune, and don't counter
any spells that we use on any other rune."

"And the order," Justin said. "Spells that will still work right to left when we
combine them all into one spell."

Hermione looked down the parchment, taking in the order and placement of the
runes. "Any suggestions?"

"I don't think we've lost honor, I just think we've gained more people without it."
- 299 -
Hermione continued when Malfoy raised an eyebrow at her. "Long ago, there were
still people who fought without honor. They waited until their enemy was asleep, or
they went up behind them. But it was still risky, so not all cowards were willing to
do it."

"And you believe the risk has diminished?"

"Yes! Wizarding people and Muggles used to carry around swords and battle
axes, and when they fought, it was with their hands, and to the person's face, and
inches away from one another. Then wands were discovered to channel magic--"

"Battles could be fought from further distances, but barely."

"Yes, but now? The old rules of honor hardly apply - certainly not to most people.
Duels, they used to go one by one, they used to schedule a time for it to be sure both
had their wands. Now, a curse to the back, or from behind something to hide
themselves, from a distance to an unaware person. Formal duels rarely happen
outside of classrooms."

"It's not a matter of cowardice, it's a matter of survival--"

"Because they're afraid they'll lose if they do it honorably!"

"Power is the greatest motivator. There are those who kill because
they're"-Malfoy tapped his temple-"twitched, but nearly all battles, duels, and
killings are so the person gains more than they had before. Land, home, country, a
woman, respect, money, a law, a world, a government, a belief, a religion, freedom.
Even revenge is a reassertion of power. And if you're willing to fight for what you
want, no matter how you fight, isn't that in itself honorable?"

"No." She blinked at him and shook her head. "No. If a man walks up to a
defenseless, innocent man, and he takes his money and then kills him - how in the
world is that honorable?"

"I'm not referring to the means, I'm talking about the decision to take what you
want."

"The means are just as important! Fine, the willingness to fight…let's just say
that's honorable. But if you do it to a person's back, or while they are defenseless, it
completely erases any honor. You didn't win it fairly, you--"

"The world isn't fair, Granger."

- 300 -
 "And so it's not very honorable either--"

"So honor is a fair fight?"

"Yes!"

"Someone has to win. There can be no fair fight. Someone is going to be less
knowledgeable, or weaker, or slower. You both have wands, but it doesn't make it
fair. In that belief, honor never existed at all."

"But to give the person the chance to defend themselves with the same means,
that's honorable. You're giving them a chance to beat you, and not just die because
they didn't have a wand, or a gun, or a sword, or whatever."

"But die because they didn't have the knowledge, or the strength--"

"There must be some bravery in honor! You cannot fight and know you will win,
without a doubt, because you've stacked the odds against your enemy--"

"Isn't that what all wars do?" he asked.

"--fear, and the same that likely led you there. Fear is the greatest motivator.
People will go to great lengths when they are afraid. It is how people use power
against other people. Even those people who are afraid aliens are invading their
minds and wear those tinfoil hats--"

Malfoy's eyebrows drew together as he tilted his head. "Tinfoil hats?"

"Yes, they're…silver foil, and they shape it around their head so that
the…alien…signals don't reach their skull. Or something. But you don't see people
do that who aren't afraid. Fear causes wars, it causes--"

"But why do people fear?" Malfoy gave her a significant look. "They're afraid of
their inability to defend themselves against a greater enemy. They fear a loss of
power, and so if they fight, they're fighting to gain power. It's--"

"Guys, I cannot concentrate on a single word of this - in Latin, mind you - when
you're both going on, and on, and on, and on, and on." Justin looked at them in
exasperation.

"Really, I've studied in the Gryffindor Tower before, but you're both giving me a
headache from trying to concentrate through the noise."
- 301 -
 "Though I've read the concentration levels are supposed to rise when there's
background noises," Justin said.

Malfoy grabbed one of the books off the pile in the middle of the table and leaned
back. Hermione felt something brush the bottom of her jeans, and when she moved
slightly, she felt the hard give of leather against the side of her shoe. Malfoy must
have stretched his legs out beneath the table, but he made no acknowledgment to
the obvious press of his foot against hers. Neither of them moved.

"Background noises, not explosions of conversation. And it rises concentration

levels because you have to concentrate harder."

"Yeah, but I mean you concentrate better when there's--"

"You didn't need to end our discussion to begin one of your own," Malfoy drawled.

"Annoying, isn't it?" Padma asked.

"That whining quality to your voice at the end of every sentence? Yes."

"It never ends," Justin sighed. "I mean the conversations - not the whining in your
voice. Not that you…"

Hermione slid her legs out more, and her calf slid against Malfoy's. She saw him
glance at her over the top of her book, but he still didn't move his legs back. He was
a horrible invader of personal space. And when he was away from her, she could call
him the alien from personal space instead of outer space. Hermione huffed a laugh.
Then they could all wear tinfoil hats around him, and he would glare and sneer at
the implications. But then he probably wouldn't invade her personal space. Which
was what she wanted, really - non-invasions.

Maybe she'd skip the tinfoil hats. They'd probably make her hair stand on end,
anyway.

- 302 -
 Chapter 14

The stone slid open, and Malfoy's head jerked up, his expression more open in
surprise than she might have ever seen it. His hair was sticking up all over the
place, and his shirt was halfway down his chest.

Footsteps in another corridor had her stepping into the room, despite her sudden
need to run away from it. The stone slid shut as Malfoy continued to stare at her.
His eyes drifted down her body before he looked at his shirt, pulling it down the rest
of the way.

"What are you doing here?" He looked over his shoulder towards the clock, but he
had nearly twenty minutes left.

"Uh, a couple different reasons, actually. It's about what you said earlier with the
boundaries spell. I was wondering if you had the book?"

He looked around the room before turning for his bed, and she watched him
kneel beside it. She wondered if he kept them in some sort of order under there,
because he seemed to know exactly where to reach.

"I also brought this one back." She held up the book she had run out with the
night the Auror surprised them, though he wasn't looking to see it.

She walked up beside him as he pulled a book from underneath the bed, and he
turned his head to look at her as he held it up. Hermione froze in taking it at the
realization that his face was in line with the bottom of her stomach, and Draco
Malfoy was on his knees in front of her. Heat climbed along her cheeks as they
stared at one another, and something shifted in his expression. She didn't notice
Malfoy had frozen as well, until he reached to take the book she'd been holding out
to him. He slid it from her grasp without taking his eyes from her, and she snatched
the other book out of his waiting hand.

"I, uh…" Hermione took several steps back. "I also, um…" She shook her head
quickly as he reached under the bed to put the other book back. "I noticed on the
snakes earlier that you cast to make them disappear, the banishing spell, but it
didn't work. I thought we could go through that without Justin and Padma around."

- 303 -
 He stiffened, but didn't turn to face her.

"That is, not to be alone with you or some such, you just happened to be in your
bedroom, which is private. And works, because I thought it was better to be alone.
So they couldn't watch." Hermione rolled her eyes up. "So it wouldn't be as
awkward, and we could just do it, and no one had to know."

She closed her eyes for a moment, holding her breath, and then opened them as
she released the air heavily. She looked down, meeting Malfoy's eyes, with her face
flaming.

"The spell, obviously. The spell."

Malfoy's lips were threatening a smile, but it was a good thing he wasn't, or she
might have thrown her shoe at him. His eyes were roaming across her face,
searching for something she hoped he didn't find, and he got to his feet.

She decided to speak before he could say anything about it. "I'll never mention it.
The spell."

"I got that."

She nodded, and he continued staring at her. He made her want to claw her way
out of her own skin. "Well, I can't fully demonstrate it, since it's Dark magic, and I
can't hold something like that in place like a Levitating Charm, or…and such. But…"

She cast the spell, watching it disappear into the air, and then turned back to
Malfoy. It was the most draining of all the ones they had settled on for protection,
but it wasn't anywhere near as tiring as the protection circles had been.

"Go on, then. It's important you get this one - it's the best one we have." She
leaned back to look around him. "We don't have that long, so--"

He cut her off by casting it, and she watched each movement. Nothing came from
his wand. Hermione hummed and reached out for his hand before he could lower it.
She wrapped her fingers lightly around his wrist, the skin smooth and soft, and felt
his heartbeat against her fingertips. Pum, pum, pum, pumpum.

"This motion, right here…and-- Yes! Like that. And when you get to the vou, you
tilt it up just a little, right...yes. And then the ending ro, is a sharp twist, just…like
that. Like you're just hooking a knife into something. Don't look at me like that."

- 304 -
 "Hook knives into a lot of things?"

"No, though sometimes I daydream about it."

"It's always the…ones you wouldn't expect." His left eye squinted as he bobbed
his head to the side. "Not exactly a quiet one, are you, Granger?"

"Just do it."

His pronunciation was good, and the movements of his wrist and wand seemed
completely correct. He sighed, a low growl under his breath, and tried it again. It
was perfect - except that it didn't work. It looked exactly as she had done it, so
unless--

Hermione snatched his hand, but despite her tugging, it was her who had to go to
him. She pulled his wand from his hand, pushed back his fingers, and examined the
tips. "Oh, crap." The third line on his ring finger was missing.

"You messed it up."

"I didn't. It could have just healed."

He went to pull his hand away, but she pulled it back to her. She muttered to
herself, pushing the skin up, and searched for a healed cut - she didn't find one.

"Are you going to look all night?" Malfoy asked lowly, as she tilted his hand into
the light. "It's not going to appear and prove you didn't forget it."

"If it wasn't there, it's not my fault," she answered just as lowly, though she
doubted her voice dipped and dragged like that. "You were distracting me."

It definitely wasn't there, and by the looks of it, it never had been. A little bit of
guilt tugged at her, but it would have been far worse if something had happened to
him because of it. Maybe she had enough time to do it for him now.

His fingers twitched against her hand, and she looked up. She had meant for it to
be a glance, but her eyes got trapped somewhere along the plains of his cheeks
before rising to meet his own again. She was close enough to him that her nose had
nearly hit his chin when she lifted her head, and her arm was pressing to the side of
his chest in the slight turn of her body.

"Distracting you?"
- 305 -
 "Proximity."

"Then why didn't you step back?" His voice was still dragging in that way that did
something to her brain.

"Invader."

"What?"

She shook her head. There was a tension boiling beneath her skin that she
wanted to break open, but wasn't willing to touch. Malfoy must have felt it as well,
though - it must have been pressuring all his insides like it was hers, demanding
freedom, because she saw it. It was in the way his eyes kept flicking between her
own, and how his fingers tightened back on her hand, and the dip of his head. It was
in the rock of his body towards her, and then the look he settled on her. Determined,
set, unyielding, and she knew what was coming the moment she recognized it.

His gaze slid down to her mouth, and then he was there before she could inhale.
His lips were barely there, as soft and then gone as the wind, but Hermione chased
after it. She pulled on his hand and lifted to the front of her feet, and then she kissed
him.

Malfoy released a long breath through his nose, and his other hand closed around
the top of her arm. She thought he was going to push her back, and her stomach
flipped a little harder, but he just tightened his hold. His lips parted under the
chaste press of their mouths, and her heart banged against her chest when he
closed them around her upper lip.

Oh, God.

She took his bottom lip as her own, tugging on it gently, and felt him tug back.
His lips were soft, warm, and dry, and they moved slowly against hers. It was like he
was studying the texture, and how every millimeter moved against his own.
Hermione felt fragile, but she kissed him back the same, waiting for something to
shatter.

It didn't take long. She hadn't taken more than four breaths when the stone
began to grind, and both of them snapped their heads towards the door. Malfoy's
grip on her arm didn't loosen until he had pushed her towards the loo, where it fell
away completely. Hermione rocked to the left, right, before turning and running into
the loo. She slid around the open door, breathing far too quickly, and trying to
swallow her heart down from her throat.
- 306 -
 She felt hazy and overheated, and she pressed her fingers to her cheeks, gawking
at the door. She'd just kissed Malfoy. Well, Malfoy had kissed her, but then she had
kissed him, and there had been kissing.

"You look flushed, Malfoy."

"I don't feel well," Malfoy said, and his voice sounded rougher. "Flu. I'd like to go
to the infirmary for a potion."

"You can't deal with a little flu until the morning?" There was a pause of silence.
"Of course, you can't. Wait here, Malfoy."

Hermione released a heavy breath as she heard the stone sliding shut again. The
Auror must not have put up the wards yet, so she still had time to leave before she
got stuck there for the night. She felt jittery and wide awake, but foggy-headed and--

Malfoy rounded the door of the loo, but before she could even think to say
something, his hands were sliding along her cheeks and he was kissing her again.
Hermione's heart slammed back into her throat, and it stayed there as Malfoy lost
all vestiges of fragility.

He kissed her as if he'd been waiting to do so for hours, and could no longer
control himself. The gentle exploration was gone, and in its place was something so
consuming that she was instantly overwhelmed. His mouth tugged, sucked, and slid,
and her own captured, pulled, and dragged. She felt like she was trembling inside,
and all she could do was grab his shoulders and keep kissing him.

He tilted his head to exhale hot air on her cheek, and his hands began to drag
away from her as he lifted his head. He looked over towards the door, licking his
lips, which were redder than she'd ever seen them.

"You have to go." He sounded as breathless as she felt.

"I know." Before her heart exploded. His hands dropped completely from her, and
he looked back at her as she nodded. "Okay," she breathed, stepping around him.

She turned in an awkward, confused circle, not sure what she was looking for.
"The book," Malfoy said, stepping after her out of the bathroom.

"Right." She picked it up from the floor and scanned the room, but she hadn't
brought anything. "I'll, uh…" She swallowed, glancing at Malfoy as she walked
backwards to the door. "I'll see you…tomorrow."
- 307 -
 She escaped, a ball of trembling nerves, and her fingers over her mouth.

Hermione expected regret, but it didn't come. She felt a bit mad, but that was
normal. She doubted many people snogged Draco Malfoy and didn't feel a bit mad
after. She hadn't expected to kiss him. Hermione expected a lot of things in her life,
and knew that it didn't always go to plan. This was certainly not to plan. Him being
good at it was not to plan. Him making her feel like that was not to plan. Her not
able to stop thinking about it was not to plan.

Sure, she had noticed the buzz of anger she used to get around him shift into a
buzz of something interesting and curious. And when she had figured out what that
feeling was, she had tried to strangle it, and had noticed that it didn't hinder it at all.
But she hadn't ever thought it would explode, and leave her shaking all over.

Damn personal space invader. Damn buzzing.

Harry and Ron would have heart attacks. Harry would survive it. She wasn't so
sure Ron would.

"--anger? Miss Granger?"

Hermione plummeted out of her thoughts, and her eyes jerked from Malfoy and
to her professor. "Yes?"

She was just going to see what happened. Normal. Cool. Normal.

Hermione swallowed audibly as she drew another line on the vertical, holding
Malfoy's hand still. She could feel him staring holes into her forehead, or maybe it
was just her imagination that he was looking there. He seemed stiff and tense in
front of her, but that could have been because she was cutting into his finger. It was
the same hand he had wrapped around hers yesterday, and the one that had slid into
the hair at her nape when he was kissing her, before he'd made that little sound
like--

"I think this is the perfect combination of spells," Padma said. "I'd be surprised if
it wasn't the very one the Founders used."

"We've researched it completely." Malfoy's hand wavered a little as he spoke, and

- 308 -
she held it tighter. "It's the strongest spell there can be, at least with modern
resources."

"I'd still feel more comfortable if we could test it first," Justin muttered. "We're
not going to know if this works until we get to the device."

"It'll work - we've researched it thoroughly." Hermione had to stop cutting the
rune when she talked. "We just don't know if it will be enough to stop the Dark
magic."

"It should be," Malfoy said.

Justin sighed. "We have to know the spell pronunciation perfectly, and the runes
as well. The smallest thing goes wrong, and it all does. And, you know…it might take
longer than a day to reach the device."

"Unlikely," Padma and Hermione said.

"Malfoy's door opens at 5 o'clock in the morning. We'll go into the room at 5:30,
and we should be back by 11 o'clock that night. It can't be that far."

"That we know of," Justin said. "What if it takes longer?"

"Then we're probably dead-- Ow, fuck, Granger!" Malfoy waved his hand in the air
as he glared at her.

"Sorry, but you can't just say things like that when I've got a knife on you!"

"Or at all, please," Justin said. "Jesus."

"I think Justin has a valid point." Padma flipped to a new sheet of parchment.
"What if it takes longer? Hogwarts is a mysterious place. We don't know how deep
into it the Founders placed this device."

Hermione finally managed to grab Malfoy's hand and bring it back to her, giving
him a sharp look for acting like a baby. It wasn't like she'd stabbed it in. Much.

"If it comes down to it, we'll just have to explain to the Headmistress and the
Ministry when we return. They'll likely want memories to validate it, and though
they won't be able to see the visions, they'll have something believable when we find
the device."

- 309 -
 "Maybe we have enough to go to them now," Justin said. "Memories of wounds
appearing out of nowhere, and the room, and all our work--"

"No," Malfoy said.

"We can't go now, Justin." Hermione dabbed Malfoy's finger with a corner of
fabric. "The problem isn't solved. It summoned us specifically, and we have to be the
ones to fix it. The Headmistress would never allow us to. She wouldn't put students
in danger like that when there was another choice."

"What, close down Hogwarts?"

"Probably. Try to find the device and destroy it - and who knows if that's possible.
We don't have that sort of--"

"We're not telling anyone," Malfoy said. "I have a Portkey. If we're not done in a
day, we'll be back in my bedroom."

"If it works." Padma shrugged. "It barely did before, and we weren't as close to
the device as we'd be in a day."

"And there's no way we're going to go through who knows what, only to lose a
day of work and turn around again. If we need longer than a day, we'll always need
longer than a day. We can't Apparate back to the old spot."

Something dark passed through Malfoy's eyes. "I'm not going back to Azkaban,
Granger," he whispered.

"You won't, you-- No, listen to me, you won't. Once we have the memories of the
device, all the proof, there's no way the Ministry can--"

"I'm in a probational period of freedom, and if I break any rule--"

"I know that, but--"

"--not going to--"

"--understand that no one is going to do anything against you when they find out
what you've done! I'd be surprised if they didn't reward you for it! We'll have all the
proof we need, and the three of us will stand by you - and they all know we wouldn't
had you been doing something bad!"

- 310 -
 Malfoy sighed heavily and leaned back in his chair, surveying her. Hermione
stepped back from between his knees, and nearly tripped over his outstretched foot,
folding the strip of cloth dotted with his blood.

"I doubt they'd try, but I won't let them put any consequences on you. No matter
what I have to do. I promise you that much, Malfoy."

"Do you really think you hold that much sway in the Ministry of Magic?"

"Harry Potter does," Padma muttered.

Malfoy's expression closed into a stone wall, and Hermione rushed to speak. "I'm
on good terms with the Minister of Magic, and I've fought alongside him. If it comes
to that, I know he'll respect my story and my opinions, and nothing bad will come
out of this for you."

"At least in regards to the Ministry and Hogwarts. Christ knows what the device
is planning."

Hermione twisted to glare at Justin. "Not helpful."

"I don't doubt your intentions, Granger, but you can't guarantee--"

Hermione threw up her hands. "Malfoy, you're part of this! Whether you like it or
not, you are! You can sit there, and do nothing

"Not helpful, Hermione, not helpful," Justin whispered quickly.

"--a man who takes a risk, and does what is right because he knows it's right,
even if it might mean putting yourself on the line! We--"

"I'm not Potter," Malfoy bit out, standing from his chair.

"I'm not asking you to be! I'm asking you what your choice is. We're all scared of
the Dark magic, we're all scared of what might happen, but we're the only ones who
can make sure it doesn't happen to other people! And, if I may say so, we have a
pretty good chance of fixing it all!"

"I think what Hermione is trying to say--"

- 311 -
 "What kind of man do you want to be, Malfoy?"

"…Or that."

Hermione's arms smacked back to her sides. "We can't do it without you, you
know. I won't try to demand that you do so. It's your choice. I can only promise you
that I'll do the best I can to help you in the tunnel, and after with the Ministry. There
is a risk, there's always a risk, but I'd like to know now if you've decided not to take
it."

She stared at him, waiting. His jaw was clenched and there was a vein popping
up at his temple. He was in a rage, she knew, but all he did was step around her.
She heard his bag drag off the table, and then his footsteps, followed by the door
clicking shut.

"Brilliant, Hermione."

"It's okay," Justin said.

She slumped into the chair Malfoy had vacated and dropped her head back with a
groan.

Two days. It was two days since she had yelled at Malfoy before he acknowledged
her presence at all. Though she didn't know if she should count a quill feather as
acknowledging her. Sometimes she really had to wonder what her life had become.

She bent to tie her shoe, and waited until the students had passed her. She had to
retie her shoe four times, and must have looked like a complete idiot. She was going
to feel worse if the quill happened to just be laying there.

Malfoy looked up from the ground when she drew the tapestry back, and then
disappeared into the dark when it fell shut behind her. All she could see was the
light shining under and onto their shoes.

"Have I ever told you how horrible a quill is for signaling someone?" She had
meant to come out with something nice and short like hi, but his presence had a
habit of cutting off important connections in her brain.

"It worked, didn't it?"

- 312 -
 "It did."

Silence. That horribly consuming sound that Malfoy seemed to revel in to make a
person feel more awkward. He did silence well. He used it to his advantage with
blank looks, or a twitch of an eyebrow, or some mysterious look the person would
have to puzzle over. He seemed to love the intimidation of it. Or maybe how so many
other people hated it.

"I don't know where the Portkey is."

She blinked widely into the dark, as if hoping it would peel back the layers of
black and she could read his face. "The...uh…"

"Portkey. Do I have to speak slower?"

He seemed to know she was processing, because he didn't say anything else rude
while she thought over his words. That meant he was going then? It had to. She
thought there would be at least one more battle between them over it, which would
inevitably lead to her starting another if he still disagreed. Even then, she hadn't
been sure. She knew Malfoy took the route of self-preservation, and this had nothing
to do with that. She wondered if he was trying to be a man he wanted to be now.

The sound of her grin made an odd sound in the dark as her cheeks pulled back
from her teeth. She felt an obnoxious desire to hug him, but settled on reaching out
to squeeze his arm. "I'm glad you're coming, Malfoy."

"You didn't expect me to."

"I sort of did, actually." Silence again, but she didn't think he did it on purpose
this time. "The Portkey can't be inside you. It has to be something you're wearing."

"I only wear my clothes."

"Then they'll have to go."

"Are you trying to get me naked, Granger?"

"No!" she yelled, flushing. He made a sound that could have been amusement,
and she lowered her voice. "I mean,…with other clothes on! Someone else's, or new
clothes, or…clothed. Just not your own. If the clothes are all you wear or carry on
your person, it has to be the clothes. I'll talk to Justin about giving you some of his.
You can transfigure them. And then wear them."
- 313 -
 "When are we going?"

"Tomorrow. In case it takes two days. We're going to meet up tonight in the
cauldron room to cut the runes again, and do some more practicing. Have you been
practicing at all, or…?" have you been too busy cursing my name and your past?

"Yes."

"Good. Very good." She reached out for his arm again. "I'm gl--"

It was the strength with which he grabbed her arm back that pulled her up short.
His body bumped against her, and his breath was hot down the side of her neck.
"Stop pushing me, Granger."

He released her arm and pulled his back, and she was left standing in an empty
alcove a moment later.

Hermione dropped the letter into her trunk, closed the lid, and locked it. She
thought they were prepared enough to handle the magic, but she had to leave the
letter in case something happened. She felt nervous, but that was unavoidable.

Her fingertips were tender as she pulled her bag open, and she jumped when
Crookshanks' face greeted her.

"What are you doing in there, handsome?" she asked him, pulling him out as he
fought to stay inside. "You can't come with me, Crooks. It won't let you through the
wall."

She scratched behind his ears as she inspected the contents of her bag. She had
brought enough food from dinner to make her suffer jokes about her appetite for an
hour, but they would need it if they were down there for a few days, at worst. She
had three jars of water, several vials of Invigoration Draught, a knife, and a bottle of
Dittany.

There was nothing left to do but leave Crookshanks plenty of food and water, and
then try to sleep.

Hermione clung to her bag and dropped down the hole, landing much better than
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she had on the first jump - Justin had the foresight to clear the landing space.

"Those aren't your trousers?" Padma asked Malfoy. "You did well transfiguring
them."

Malfoy looked suspiciously at Padma, likely trying to detect any suspicion on her
part. He then slanted a glance at Justin, who was blushing for some reason.

"I transfigured them a bit, but they were still too short in the legs, and I, uh,
made some unnecessary adjustments--"

"I don't know if I should be flattered or laugh at you," Malfoy said, and Hermione
and Padma exchanged a look.

"I thought it was needed for torso length."

"With that," Padma said, edging herself down into the next room as Justin guided
her.

Justin jumped down after her, and Hermione glanced at Malfoy before moving to
the hole next. "There are some rats," Justin yelled up, "but they seem to still be in
the planning stages before attacking."

She looked up at Malfoy as he stepped to the side of the hole. He lowered his
gaze to the hole and then brought it back to her, opening his mouth. "Don't push
me," she told him, shoving herself the rest of the way through.

She was still trying to riddle out exactly what he meant with that comment in the
alcove, but she knew it angered her, no matter how he might have meant it.

"I don't think Malfoy is going to push you, Hermione."

Sure, he was. He was going to push her right over the edge of sanity, if he hadn't
already.

"I'm going to push you," Padma said, "if you don't go or move out of my way."

"Oh, sorry," Justin said, stepped to the side. "This is the dungeon, though, just so
you know, so you may want-- to not wait, apparently."

Hermione stepped up to the hole, opening her mouth to ask Justin if he meant the
sub-dungeon was next, when Padma yelled the blocking spell below them. Hermione
- 315 -
froze until she heard a roar of anger, and jumped through the hole before she could
think about it.

She landed hard, a sting of pain shooting up both of her legs, and her knees
buckled. She collapsed to the ground, her wand lighting an inky-black animal. The
width of its body was easily her height, and the length was twice that. She wouldn't
have been able to make out the onyx stones of its eyes had the light not caught the
gleam in them. Short fur was standing up by nature or anger as it ran at them. The
teeth were large yet dull, but it was the length of the claws she was worried about.

Hermione and Padma both yelled the banishing spell as the beast jumped into the
air, and two fire-gold jets of light burst into the belly. It was gone in an instant, but
Hermione still shot her wandlight back and forth before she released a stuttering
breath.

"Is it gone?" Justin asked.

"No thanks to you," Padma snapped.

"Sorry, did you want me to send several stones of man on top of Hermione?"

"It's fine, we've got it sorted," Hermione said.

"Several stones of man?" Padma whispered, and Justin dropped down.

"You both all right?" Justin asked.

"Yeah."

"How far do you think the device is?" Justin looked up and stepped back as
Malfoy's legs came through the hole.

"It's impossible to know. Magic can turn a square into three corridors." Hermione
dusted herself off. "It can be right down this tunnel, or three days from here."

They all started walking forward once Malfoy had landed. The lights were dimmer
than they should have been, but they saw well enough when the four were
combined. There was no other glow or crack of light in the tunnel, and Hermione
had a feeling they weren't going to encounter any of it.

"There's a turn," Padma said, shining her light on it.

- 316 -
 "I'd been hoping it would all be"-Justin waved his hand forward-"straight ahead."

"We should keep going forward. There's less turns to remember then, unless we
have to turn. In which case I brought the materials to make a bit of a map, just to
keep track."

"You think of everything, Hermione. Did you bring a portable loo, by chance?"

"Oh, Merlin, I hadn't even thought of that," Padma said, her cheeks reddening.
"How are we going to do that?" she whispered to Hermione.

"I brought toilet paper, and I figured we could use a Vanishing Spell for the rest
of it. Privacy shouldn't be that hard in the dark, we'll just go down a corridor. But
not too far - just in case. Would anyone like some water, or--"

"No, thank you."

"No."

"No."

"--so I said I was looking up fish--"

"You're always on about fish," Padma said.

"He's always on," Malfoy grumbled.

"I like fish. Do you know there's a certain kind of fish which pulls its whole self up
the cliff of a waterfall to get to better, safer water? It uses its mouth."

"I doubt as much as you do."

Hermione sent Malfoy a look that would have been a smile if she wasn't
aggravated with him, not that he could see it. She pulled out the scroll she was
drawing the map on when she spotted the dead end in front of them. "We can't just
walk in silence, Malfoy."

"Then there's ones that have a giant--"

"Silence would be preferable. I wouldn't have a headache, and we can hear things
- 317 -
better."

"You know," Padma said, "there's ones in the--"

They all jumped back when Justin did, and their lights moved from the dead end
and to the turn in the corridor. There was a man standing right at the edge of the
wall, dressed completely in white. His eyes were pink, and his pupils were the size
of a pin point. The man opened his mouth, baring gums, and released an unearthly
sound Hermione had never heard before, and never wanted to hear again.

A chill rushed down her spine, and the sound seemed to echo in her head. Justin
blew the man back with a blocking spell, and he disappeared before Hermione could
yell out her own. The quiet felt deafening after the sound had stopped.

"That was one of the creepiest things I've ever seen," Justin breathed.

"I think…" Padma trailed off at the clinking, chattering noise above them, and
they lifted their wandlights.

Thousands of bugs were crawling along the ceiling and over one another, moving
like a rolling sea of black and dark green. Hermione made a sound in her throat as
she finished drawing the line to represent their turn, and tucked the scroll and pen
back into her bag.

"What if they fall on us when we go in there?" Justin whispered.

"We'll run for it," Hermione said, following Malfoy's idea by pulling her hood over
her head.

"Should we blast them?"

"They're just bugs - we shouldn't waste our energy," Padma said.

"All right. Ready?"

Hermione started running first, but they all followed quickly after her. She could
hear bugs dropping to the floor in clinks all around them, but the ceiling of them
didn't fall like Justin had feared. She felt some landing on her robe, and one of them
crawling across her hood. She moved to smack it before it could crawl over and onto
her face, but another landed on her hand.

It bit her in a hard pinch, and she threw her arm out on instinct, slapping the
- 318 -
back of her hand into the wall. It crunched against the wall, and she ran faster,
several bugs crawling over her hood now.

They turned as sharply as they could into the next corridor, but still circled out
wide enough in their speed to brush against the far wall. The next corridor was clear
of any bugs, and they all whipped their robes off, shaking them out as they
continued running.

"What time is it?" Padma asked, before taking a bite of the ham sandwich she had
made.

Malfoy looked up from cutting into his treacle tart, and found all of them looking
at him. Hermione didn't comment, but she found it a bit ridiculous he had brought
napkins and a fork with him. "I don't have my watch."

"What? Why not?"

Malfoy raised an eyebrow. "You told me to stop wearing everything." She looked
away from him at the memory of his joke. "He could have seen I'd taken to carrying
a watch, and put the Portkey on that as well."

"Good thinking," Justin muttered behind his bite of food.

"I wish I had known that, I would have brought one."

"I don't know if you would have had room in the bag for it," Padma joked.

"You should have known it," Malfoy said.

"It's been hours, I'll tell you that." Justin shook his head slowly.

Hermione bit back any rude comment when she reluctantly noted Malfoy was
right. "I should have, yes. Oh, you don't have to look so surprised, you prat."

Malfoy nodded his chin at her bag. "Do you have anything in there to record
monumental moments? Granger actually admitting I was right."

"You're reaching. If someone is right, I tell them - it wouldn't be so monumental if

you were just right more often."

- 319 -
 "And she's back."

They walked in a row in the middle of the corridor, keeping out of reach of the
silver men who were moving through the walls. Hermione and Justin had ended
their Lighting Spell, but kept their wands raised in case any of the men jumped out
more than the group thought they could.

Hermione stopped at the end of the corridor, and felt Padma bump into her back.
She dug into her bag, running her hand over several objects before pulling out the
scroll, and then dug deeper for the pen.

"I think it would be better to mark the turn when we're out of this particular
corridor," Justin said.

"I don't know if we should go left or right."

"Right," Malfoy said. "Left would be going back."

Hermione hesitated in the turn when Padma's light hit purple and red flowers on
vines that traced the walls. There was no movement, but that didn't always mean
they were safe. Hermione lit her wand quickly, drawing a short line to represent the
left turn, and a longer one to mark the one they took.

"Padma, don't," Justin said quickly, and Hermione glanced back as Padma
dropped her hand. "It could be a trick of the silver creatures to get you near the
walls."

"Or the flowers could wound you."

"Did you think they just grew down here by themselves, and were too pretty not
to touch?"

"Piss off, Malfoy. They're interesting."

"No, they're dangerous. Much like your lack of logical thinking."

"They're flowers. I intended not to-- Oof, sorry, Hermione."

"Sh," she whispered.

- 320 -
 Something was whining up ahead, and Hermione's light made it just far enough
down the corridor to touch feet and the tattered bottom of trousers. She moved a
little closer, and heard the group shuffle after her, her heart picking up speed. The
rest of the trousers were just as tattered, but they changed at the thighs from a
muted brown to black.

"That's blood under him. It. No one else could be down here. That's living, any--
Oh, Merlin."

Hermione grimaced at the rips and punctures across the man's chest, turning her
wand away, only to illuminate another body. The woman looked around their age,
her head tilted back and her throat cut open in a gaping wound. Her clothes were
soaked in blood, and Hermione could smell it - the bite of metallic, and the heavy
stench of rot.

"Ugh, that reeks," Padma said behind her hand.

"I feel sick." Justin was muffled behind fabric, but she could still make out the
tightness of his voice.

"If you vomit on me, Justin, I'll push you on top of them," Malfoy warned, his voice
nasally like he was pinching his nose.

There was a young boy with slices across his torso and head, and part of his
cheek was folded over, revealing puffy tissue and the gums inside his mouth. His
eyes were blank and glossed over in white, and Hermione shut her own to look away
from him. She would have preferred to keep them shut, but they had to pick their
way around the bodies, as only small sections of the floor were cleared from puddles
of blood.

"What is this?" she whispered, and struggled with the next breath, the scent of
blood and corpses growing heavier in her throat.

Padma gagged behind her, Justin following, and Hermione looked up to a new
body. The torso was hacked away, and she could see the darker organs, the folded
climb of pink intestines, and the edges of ribs jutting over.

Hermione turned her head away and slapped a hand over her mouth, gagging
harder when someone's wand lit up a body with no face, just pulverized meat, tissue,
and fragments of bones. The stench she breathed in after each gag just sent her into
another one, and she had to bury her face in her robe to control it.

- 321 -
 "Christ, Christ--"

"Stop pointing your fucking wands at it, then!" Malfoy bit out.

"They've no legs! The bones--" Justin was cut off by a smacking sound, and his
light zipped across the corridor.

It was the scuffle directly after that brought them all to a halt. The whining noise
had stopped, and in its place was loud sniffling and gasps of air.

"Nox," Hermione whispered, extinguishing her light, and heard Padma do the
same.

Justin slowly lifted his wand, and light crawled along the flowered wall and
red-stained floor. Hermione lifted her wand as soon as Justin and Malfoy's lights hit
a young man who was staring back at them. He was absolutely covered in blood, and
holding a knife to his chest. There was an ax on the ground by his feet, the blade
red. He looked terrified.

Hermione almost lowered her wand when he whimpered, but something came
over his face that stopped her. She knew that look. The last time she'd seen it had
been on Harry when he turned to face Voldemort for the very last time, but she
knew the feeling of it, and that didn't leave a person.

The boy's hand slid towards the ax as the gasps for air stopped, and Padma
tugged on the back of Hermione's robe. They cast the banishing spell as the boy
surged to his feet, and all at once, it was all gone.

It still took Hermione a few breaths to notice the air was cleaner, but she felt like
the smell was still in her nose and mouth. "Do you think he saw them as creatures?
Like when it made Gryffindors into Death Eaters when I looked at them?"

"It's not real," Malfoy said.

"It could have been--"

"But it's not any more. Let's go."

Hermione rubbed her eyes, and rocked to her left foot as the man lunged at her.
The chains running from the wall and to his wrists were enough to stop him, though,
- 322 -
and he threw his head back to roar in anger. Tendons and veins popped out on his
neck and head, and a very broad, mud-caked chest puffed for oxygen. Hermione
doubted she could wrap both hands around his bicep, or the man's next to him. Only
the one on the end was sleeker, but still fit enough that she'd have to go for the
eyes.

They were growling and yelling things that might have been in German, and they
all looked murderous.

"I'm so bloody tired, I thought they were all naked at first," Justin said.

"I'm exhausted," Padma muttered. "We've been down here walking and casting
spells for hours, and we all woke up very early."

"And I doubt I'm the only one who didn't sleep much last night," Hermione said.

"What are we going to do for sleep? Take turns?"

Hermione stifled a yawn. "I don't know if any of us are going to sleep heavily
enough to not hear something if it comes."

"If it doesn't come quietly," Malfoy said.

Hermione was about to tell them that it was going to take more time up if they
slept in shifts, but her thoughts were wiped clear at the loud pops and cracks behind
her. Hermione went to spin around, but only made it halfway through her turn when
an extraordinary pain roared up in the back of her thigh.

Hermione screamed, hearing Malfoy's voice join her, and her leg froze up as she
fell forward. It felt like a steel claw had just dug into her thigh and ripped out a part
of it, and pain was searing like fire up her back and down her leg. Hermione gasped
out a breath through her teeth, her eyes watering, and killed the light of her wand.
She twisted, firing a banishing spell into the dark, and saw it light up blurry figures.
She cast it again, her body swooping with pain and exhaustion, and then once more.
The spell flew into nothing but air, and Hermione was taken by the fire inside of her
and into the dark.

Hermione became aware of the sound of her own groaning, and then the aches in
her body as she pushed her legs out. Her eyes snapped open when her brain caught
up, but it was only Malfoy standing above her and looking back. She could see
- 323 -
Padma's forehead at the edge of her sight, but then Padma pulled back, letting out a
hard breath.

The pain was gone beyond a few new aches in her side and arms. It must have
been from hitting the ground, and she probably pulled something when she turned
around to cast at the Dark magic. She could taste something bittersweet, and
figured it was the Invigoration Draught, despite her not feeling very energetic at the
moment.

"What happened?" Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat.

"They had axes and hatchets," Justin said. "Nearly killed the lot of us!"

"You all healed up pretty well from the Dittany, but if we didn't have it… I'd use
some more on Justin and Malfoy, but I want to preserve as much as I can."

Hermione pushed herself upright, and took Malfoy's offered hand before she
could think about it. She was on her feet in a second, and staggered forward a step
before her balance caught up with her. A muscle twitched twice in Malfoy's jaw
before he released his grip.

"You're both still injured?" Hermione asked.

Justin lifted up the bottom of his shirt, revealing a diagonal, thick cut in his
stomach. It was swollen and puckered open, but she could see the pink of healing
flesh within it, and knew it was shallow enough to manage.

"Draco stopped the bleeding, and it doesn't hurt too badly right now. Especially
compared to when I got it. I wish I had got it where you did, Hermione, because I
think a little extra cushioning might have--"

"Again, if you're incapable of recognizing that it wasn't her arse--"

"I've realized that, but there's still a bit more meat--"

"Justin, you have as much meat on your stomach as Hermione does on her thigh."
Padma glanced at Hermione. "He's got more, actually, you don't have that much
meat on your--"

"Can we stop talking about my meat, possibly?" Hermione huffed, grabbing the
bottom of Malfoy's sleeve, and yanked it up to his elbow.

- 324 -
 Justin should have given Malfoy a thicker shirt, because the thin cotton wasn't
going to do much for him, even with the longer sleeves. Malfoy went to pull the
sleeve back down, and Hermione shoved his hand down instead.

"Just let me look at it," she told him, rolling the rest up carefully, and stretching it
away from his skin.

She was hindered by his need to press his arm to his side, and when she was
about to ask him why he was being so difficult, she realized what arm she was
revealing under their wandlights. She released the roll of fabric he was holding to
his side, and skimmed her fingers down his forearm.

She felt the lines and knots of scarred skin at the same time Malfoy sucked a
breath in. She pressed his forearm to his stomach before he could pull it away, and
then reached for the sleeve again. She tugged on it, and Malfoy relaxed his arm
enough for her to roll it up the rest of the way.

"I'm glad the weapons left when the magic did, because I don't know if I could
have stomached pulling those out of all of you," Padma said.

"I ripped my own out." Justin waved his hands, and then made a wrenching
motion at his stomach. "I just went into panic mode, and ripped it right out. I've
never felt anything like that. I nearly passed out."

Malfoy's wound was still fairly deep, and she wondered how far the blade had
gone in. There wasn't any cushioning, as Justin so wonderfully put it, on Malfoy's
arms, and the blade must have sliced right through the bone.

Hermione put her wand between her teeth, then searched her bag for her bottle
of Dittany. Justin moved around her, and sucked a breath in when he looked at
Malfoy's arm.

"Here, I'll hold it," Justin said, taking the bottle from her and twisting the cap
open.

Hermione reached for it, squeezing the rubber tip, and moved the dropper to
Malfoy's arm. "I can still see tissue, so I'm just going to put a drop or two on it to
seal it up some more."

Malfoy's jaw clenched hard as the liquid met his wound, and Hermione watched
the tissue and skin begin to join together. Padma took the bottle from Justin, and
held it up as she shined her light on it.
- 325 -
 "You've got a bit more than I do, but if we're attacked like this again, we'll be
down to a few drops. The healing spells we know will only work on shallow cuts,
because using ones like that on deeper wounds can cause a lot of problems."

"I think we really need to think about each vision and the risk factors next time,"
Justin said, taking the dropper when Hermione held it out. "Just because it's chained
up, it doesn't mean it can't get free. We need to conserve energy, so it's better that
we don't cast on everything, but…"

"We should have on that," Padma said.

"There was no way to know they would have broken their chains." Hermione
narrowed her eyes at the cut, inspecting the raw red around it, and the depth of the
pink inside. "We do need to conserve energy, because we never know when
something worse is around the corner and waiting for us to be too tired--"

"But we have to be more careful." Padma put the bottle back in Hermione's bag,
and then swept her light down the corridor. "If we pass something, even if it's a
bunch of snakes, we'll have to watch it until we're in another tunnel."

"Agreed."

Hermione rolled down Malfoy's sleeve, and he looked at her from the corner of
his eye. "Did you bring any of that numbing salve?"

He looked caught off guard, and she had a feeling he hadn't remembered that he
did. He picked his bag off the ground and rifled through it, and Justin edged closer
to him.

"That Dark magic was strong - I think we're getting closer."

"If it takes two months to find it now, Padma, I'm going to hex you." Justin
paused. "Not really, I'd never do that."

"You're about as threatening as a Puffskein, Finch-Fletchley."

Justin pshed. "With rabies, at least!"

The nook in the wall was small, but it was big enough to fit them sitting in a circle
without touching the walls. Justin and Padma were already sleeping. Malfoy was
- 326 -
taking the first shift, and would wake Justin in approximately an hour to take the
next. Hermione was third, and should have been asleep, but the Invigoration
Draught was taking its time to disappear from her system.

"We should cast a Warming Charm," Malfoy said lowly, doing something that
skimmed his hand along her leg.

"Padma thinks using magic will make the Dark magic locate us - I don't think it's
just that, but it might help it to." Hermione sniffed, shifting closer to his warmth,
and her leg pressed more tightly to his. "It's best not to risk it when we're trying to
sleep."

"I thought there was no honor in lack of risk?"

She looked over at him, but the darkness was complete, and she couldn't even
make out a shadow of his form. It was the sort of dark where something could be a
millimeter from poking her in the eye and she'd have no idea until it was.

"There's risk enough," she whispered, and wondered if there was some way he
could tell by her tone that she wasn't just thinking about the magic.

"I thought it was the means, not the intention? What if the intention isn't
honorable?"

Did he know? Was he talking about the same thing she was thinking, or was this
just a normal conversation for him? "Do you have dishonorable intentions?"

He was silent, but she felt the faint touch of hot air on the neck of her shirt,
brushing her skin. She stared into the dark for a few moments, and then reached out
gently towards his face. She felt his breath on her fingers, and she moved her hand
over a little, pushing until her fingers met skin. Her heart picked up speed as she
felt along his jaw, learning the shape better than the image in her memory. Stubble
prickled the pads of her fingers, and then his earlobe folded against her index. She
pressed her palm to the curve of his jaw.

"Perhaps I should be asking you what your intentions are," he murmured.

She thought to make some excuse to ease the anxiety clawing up, but it was too
late to deny it now. "I…believe I'm going to kiss you."

She felt his skin pull up a little as he smirked. "I got that part, Granger."

- 327 -
 She pressed up, tilting her head back, and her lips brushed his chin. Something
clicked in his throat before he lowered his head, and her lips touched the corner of
his. She grazed his mouth as she settled into a better position, and then kissed him
gently. She hovered a moment, and then edged back at the way he had so barely
responded that she might have imagined the tiniest of pressure.

Malfoy's hands slid along her jaw, stopping her from further retreat, and he
cupped her face. He moved towards her as he tilted her head back, angling it, and
then sucked her bottom lip between his. Her stomach flipped, and the hand on his
face dropped to his shoulder before she thought better of it, wanting to feel the
movements of his jaw as he kissed her. He pulled his mouth away completely, and
then did the same to her top lip, the bottom, sliding his lips along it.

When he came back again, she kissed him harder, and followed his mouth before
he could pull away. He made a low, dragging sound, and his left hand fell to her
side, pushing along her ribs. His tongue flashed hotly up her lip before he pulled
away enough to tilt his head. Hermione flicked her own out when his mouth pressed
against hers again, and the tip of her tongue met his. Hermione's breath caught and
Malfoy moaned, both of them repeating the action, and once more.

When Hermione went to do it again, Malfoy's lips closed around the tip and
sucked in a gentle, short pull. "Oh," Hermione breathed, pushing a hand into his
thigh for leverage as she raised up to kiss him fully.

Her other arm slipped around his neck, and his wrapped around her waist,
pulling her closer to him. The thick silence in the nook was pushed away by the
sound of small pops and smacks, and heavy breathing. Her stomach was rolling in
an entirely pleasant way, and she felt like she was buzzing under her skin as her
tongue slid along his. His mouth was hot, and tasted faintly of the treacle tart he had
finished when they decided to rest again. It was also doing far more damage to her
mind and havoc to her body than his proximity could have even hoped to.

She twisted as he hauled her closer, the hand on her hip leaving for the back of
her knee to assist in her climb into his lap, when her other foot slipped out too far.
She paused when it pushed into someone, and Malfoy only took a second to notice,
right before Padma grabbed her leg.

"Sorry," Hermione breathed.

"Wh--" Malfoy started to say.

"Are you all right?" Padma asked.

- 328 -
 Malfoy's hand skimmed briefly above the back of her knee before moving away,
and Hermione thought she was going to burst open.

"Yeah." Hermione cleared her throat, slowly extracting herself from Malfoy, but
still utterly distracted by him. His breath touched her cheek, her neck, and then his
hands were gone and she was back to sitting beside him. "I'm, uh, just, uh…a bit
cold and tired."

She was actually very, very warm now.

"You should try to get some sleep - you're on after Justin." Padma yawned. "You
can come between us to warm up?"

"No, I'm not that cold, actually, but thank you." Hermione pushed her hair back
and released a heavy breath, aware of every tilt of Malfoy's leg against her.

"…You're sure you're all right?"

"Yes, yeah. Just getting some sleep now."

"Okay. Good."

"Very good." Though she didn't think she was going to be able to sleep for a long
time now.

- 329 -
 Chapter 15

Hermione woke up to warmth on one side of her, and shaking cold on the other.
She only had a second to revel in the oddity before the warmth pulled away, and
Padma yelled something.

"I hate rats!" Justin yelled. "When they attack, and they have those little, fumh,
fumh, teeth, and the black eyes. And the tails. They're evil."

"They're Dark magic, so of course they're evil."

Hermione rubbed her eyes, trying to adjust them to the wandlights. It felt like she
hadn't slept more than five minutes. Her nerves sputtered to life when she
remembered why she hadn't got as much sleep as she could have. It was stupid to
be nervous over something like that, but she still avoided looking at Malfoy when
she stood up.

"If they're magic - there could be rats down here. Unless it's sealed off to
everyone but us."

"Isn't it my turn to keep watch?" she asked.

"Padma took your shift since you didn't fall asleep until right before I came on,
and then the rats came, and we just decided it was time to go." Justin shrugged.

"I'd rather get this over with, and sleep a full night in my bed," Padma said.
"Justin, you said you have to…"

"Use the pretend loo, right." Justin rocked back on his feet, tapping his fingers
against his thighs, and looked at Malfoy. "Want to come?"

"No, I certainly don't," Padma told him.

"No, I was--"

"Fine," Malfoy said gruffly. "But you're going in another corridor."

Justin nodded, giving Malfoy an understanding look. "I get a bit shy, too."

- 330 -
 "It's not a matter of being shy - I don't trust that you won't--"

"If you guys just go down those corridors, we'll wait for you here. Just yell if
something happens."

Hermione picked up her bag, pulling the strap over her head, and glanced up to
Malfoy looking at her. She paused awkwardly, heat creeping into her cheeks before
he looked away.

"Don't worry, Padma - it'll be my first reaction of defense." Justin grinned broadly
at them before turning, and Malfoy followed after him.

Hermione smiled at the back of Justin's head, but it froze on her face when she
met Padma's frantic expression. "I need the toilet paper, Hermione," she whispered
fiercely.

"Oh, yes - here." Hermione took some for herself before handing it to Padma. "I'll
just go right down here."

"Sure, okay, yes."

Hermione started walking before Padma fell into a panic attack, but glanced back
once to see Malfoy round into another corridor. For the first time with Malfoy, she
felt in over her head. She had written up the first kiss as being a climax to a building
tension, but the one last night had felt just as good. Had felt better, and amazing,
and stomach flipping, and way in over her head.

She had no one to blame but herself, really. No. She just needed a couple minutes
to form a list of reasons to blame him. She'd start with his hair, linger about the
hands, spend some considerable amount of time on the mouth area, and then work
her way down.

"You look tired."

Even Justin's smile seemed tired when he aimed it at her, hiking his bag strap
back up his shoulder. "I'm in a haze, really. I can't decide if it feels good or really
horrible. So I figured if I can't decide, it must be really horrible, because it's even
causing me confusion over what it feels like."

Hermione laughed, reaching out to rub a hand against his back. "Maybe we
- 331 -
should stop so you can take a nap."

"We just started an hour ago." Justin huffed an unamused laugh. "Just started
with an hour ago. Yesterday I would have thought we had just started when it was
only five minutes in. If that was yesterday. Maybe it's still today."

He aimed a look at the ceiling that reminded her of Luna. She thought it must
have been some time into the morning of Sunday by now, but she could have been
wrong. Time moved differently here in the tunnels, but she was betting it was at
least late Saturday night. Perhaps the Auror had even discovered Malfoy was
missing. She wondered if Harry and Ron would come in an Auror search and
investigation team, and if they would stop by her room to see she was gone as well.

If it happened, they'd find the note she left, and she imagined a lot of craziness
would shortly follow.

"What are you thinking about?" Justin asked.

"Explaining to Harry and Ron why I didn't tell them."

"Because they would have thought us all mad."

Hermione shook her head. "No. They would have taken my word for it. They
might have doubted it, but…" She stared over Malfoy's shoulder and tightened her
grip on her wand.

"I know extreme exhaustion causes delusions sometimes, so, is it just me, or did a
creepy looking woman just appear out of nowhere in the middle of the tunnel?"
Justin asked.

The woman was wearing a white dress that looked like the ones young girls and
older women tended to wear to bed. Her hair was brown and limp, falling to her
waist, and her feet were bare. A wide mouth opened, and Justin slapped his hands
over his ears. No sound came, though, and the mouth kept stretching wider until a
black hole was covering half the woman's face.

"Oh--" Padma was cut off by a loud screeching noise that tore right into
Hermione's eardrums, and blackness exploded from the woman's mouth.

The cylinder of darkness spread out enough for Hermione to see large wings
beating on dozens of creatures, and then more joined them. They streamed out of
the woman's mouth like a horizontal tornado, and it was flying directly at them.
- 332 -
 A muscle in her arm stretched painfully with the amount of strength Justin put
into yanking her arm back. Padma and Malfoy turned as she did, all of them
sprinting back down the corridor and into a new one. The noise behind them was
getting louder, or closer, but it all narrowed down to one pair of wings when they
coasted by her ear. The wing sliced into her cheek, and then her hand when she
tried to bat the thing away.

She heard Padma scream, and then there were more wings around her, cutting
into her face in zings of pain, and then her arm when she threw one over her head.
Hermione ducked her face forward, and pressed the knuckles of her wand hand
against her shoulder. She yelled the warding spell as loudly as she could, light
bursting up to the ceiling. One of the creatures screeched directly into her ear, and
it felt like it shot right into her brain. Hermione screamed back in response, but it
was gone, the warding spell knocking them all away from her.

Hermione tried to keep track of the turns, but they were getting jumbled in her
mind under the loud screeching, and the sound of thousands of wings flapping hard
down the echoing stone passageways. Malfoy had rushed into the lead, and his turns
were sporadic at best. She didn't know if he was going more all over the place
because of all the options opening along the tunnels now, or from whatever cut on
his head was soaking his hair red.

She cast another banishing spell behind her, feeling the magic drop like a weight
down her arm and stay there. Right, left, right, no, right, right, left, and this is left,
so right, left, right, right, lef-right, left. Malfoy took another right, and she turned to
follow him, Justin beside her, and Padma just behind him. Hermione threw a
blocking spell back before quickly lighting her wand again, but the sound of the
horde behind her didn't stop.

She slammed into Malfoy's back when he skidded to a stop, and almost fell over
him when he was thrown forward. He caught his balance on the ground as a beast
with orange fur ran at them from out another corridor, another one right behind it.
Hermione cast the warding spell, knocking the first animal back enough for them to
turn down another corridor. The red-gold of Malfoy's spell flew over her shoulder as
they darted down the tunnel, and turned sharply into another.

Hermione's breath was wheezing into her lungs, and it felt like another person
had stuck themselves against her body to be carried in dead weight. Their
wandlights were bouncing all over in the dark, and she was waiting for something
else to barrel out in front of them, or swipe her into oblivion from the side.

Malfoy cast a banishing spell just before they turned into another tunnel, and
- 333 -
almost immediately twisted into a second. She could hear their feet pounding over
the screeching now, and two corridors later, she could hear her breathing. It took
her the length of one more tunnel before she realized something was very, very
wrong with the amount of noise they were making.

She slowed, her legs wobbling out of the routine of panic-driven adrenaline, and
she had to clutch onto a wall to save herself from collapsing. She turned and pointed
her wandlight, already knowing she would find the space behind her empty, but
dread waited to drop down her chest until her light caught nothing but stone.

She heard Malfoy's running slow and stop halfway down the tunnel, and then his
light hit her face dimly. She felt like crying, and it took all of her to focus on gasping
in breath while swallowing the burning knot in her throat.

"Fuck," Malfoy whispered.

Hermione nodded, looking back down the empty corridor. She didn't hear the
screeching, or wings beating, or yelling, or running. There was nothing at all from
where they came. "We have to go back."

"We can't."

"Malfoy--"

"You saw that Dark magic, our strongest spell didn't stop them! The banishing
spell barely did what the blocking spell used to d--"

"Exactly! What if something happened to them? What if--"

"They were just as likely to get away from it as we were. They must have taken off
down another tunnel for some reason."

"Why would…" Hermione swallowed, pushing her head back against the wall.
"The orange things. Justin was right beside me, but then I knocked into you. You fell,
and that thing came out. Two of them. I warded us against one, but it only lasts a
moment, and the second…no, the second just stood there, didn't it." Hermione
swallowed again and shut her eyes. "That must have been when. The animals were
right there, at the front of the corridor we turned into. Justin and Padma must have
kept going straight."

"There you are, then."

- 334 -
 "I saw at least one of the orange things behind us after that…the other must have
followed them." Hermione's eyes snapped open. "I bet they did it on purpose!"

"To get away from--"

"The magic! It's never been that strong, I bet we were close. Too close." She
turned towards Malfoy and waved her finger at him, but all she could see was his
wandlight at the bottom of his trousers. "It's intelligent, we all know that. It wanted
to send us away, in the wrong direction, before we found the device. It knows we're
here, and it knows what we're after!"

"Granger--"

"It did it on purpose. Separated all of us. It knows we're stronger together. Might
even know we need to be together." She raised her wandlight to Malfoy, her arm
trembling with weakness, but her other words backed up in clenches of her throat.

Malfoy narrowed his eyes and blinked in the light, but it was too dim on his face
to be the reason behind his discomfort. His arm was stretched behind his head, and
she belatedly remembered the blood that had been seeping out of it before. He had
a few cuts on his arms, and two on his face that looked pretty deep.

"Crap," she whispered, pulling her bag in front of her as she walked as quickly as
she could to him.

"Heads bleed a lot. It's just a cut."

"And a lot of blood loss. Get down so I can see it properly."

Malfoy raised an eyebrow at her, and she rolled her eyes, annoyed until the
moment he dropped to his knees in front of her. Hermione cleared her throat as he
lifted his eyes to her face, with a sort of knowing there that she hurried around him
to escape.

She stepped between his legs and bit down on her wand, opening the bottle of
Dittany. She winced at the bright red of his hair, and the blood covering the back of
his neck and shirt collar. She reached out to push back the strands of hair
untouched by the blood, the roots damp with sweat and the tips softer than they had
any right to be.

She bent closer, moving his hair forward in sections until she found two deep cuts
on his head, still bleeding profusely. "This is going to hurt."
- 335 -
 She opened her fingers in a v, trying to get as much hair as she could away from
the wounds, and then dripped the liquid onto them. Malfoy's spine pulled straighter
than the wall beside them, and his fists clenched at his sides. The cuts were shallow
enough to appear almost completely healed, but she didn't want to use magic to
clear the blood and be more certain.

"There," she whispered, stepping back. "We have to be careful with how much we
use, so just"-she put a drop on a cut on his arm, and scooped up the excess with her
finger-"put it on the deep ones. Do you have any on the other arm?"

She ducked around him as he went to stand, and ran a path of liquid across a cut
on his forehead. Malfoy stood slowly as she put another drop on her finger, and then
reached up to a deep line near his ear.

"We have to go back," she told him, squeezing a drop onto a cut on her arm. "I
don't know all the turns, and I doubt you do either, but we have to try. Justin and
Padma have very little Dittany, no map, and Justin was exhausted before it even
happened."

"They're fast runners, and just as skilled at the spells as we are. If we outran it, so
did they."

"If they didn't have a dead end, or less turns, or fell, or--"

"Granger," he said, his tone demanding her attention. She looked up at him as he
took the bottle from her hand. "Talking about it doesn't do anything but worsen my
headache. As far as I'm concerned, we can leave now and consider them buried.
Don't look at me to alleviate your fears, or expect me to disagree with any
possibilities of disaster. You--"

"You're a liar." She sniffed when his eyebrows shot up. "You wouldn't consider
them buried - Justin's your friend. Even if you left now, you'd still see if someone
else could find him."

He glared at her, but his thumb was gentle when it ran Dittany along the length
of a cut on her cheek. "Finch-Fletchley is a pesky fly that doesn't leave no matter
how often you swat at it."

"And your friend."

"And you're an annoying little chit."

- 336 -
 "But you're still coming with me." She looked at him for a moment as his hand
dropped from her cheek. "Right?"

"It was left. Look, we came down this way--"

"How do you know we came down that way when it all looks the same?"

"Well, how do you know?" Hermione asked him. "You're so sure--"

"Because I took the first available tunnel nearly every time. If we had come from
that way, I would have turned down the other two possibilities first."

"There were a couple times where you went for a bit, especially right after you
cast a spell!"

Malfoy's jaw clenched. "Why are you so sure it was this way when you have--"

"I have a good feeling about it."

Malfoy stared at her until she wished she had said something profound and
inspirational. "You have a good feeling?"

"Yes. All right? It just feels like we came down that way. And I think I remember
that little ridge up there on the ceiling."

Malfoy's eyebrows lifted, and he pointed his wandlight at the ceiling down the
other way. "That one?" He turned down the one they had just walked. "Or perhaps
that one? Maybe--"

"Fine, I just feel like this one is it!"

Malfoy shot her a glare before turning down the one she had been waving her
arm at. She went to scorch the arrow into the wall, but stopped at the wave of doubt
that swamped her.

"Wait." He actually growled at her. "How sure are you it was the other way?"

He turned back around, and for a few seconds she thought he was just going to
keep giving her murderous looks. "As sure as I can be when it's all stone walls in
weak wandlight, and sure enough to bother arguing with you about it. Again."
- 337 -
 "All right." She hesitated, and then turned the direction he had wanted to go.
"Let's try this way."

"You're sure?"

"If you are."

"Is this your way of blaming me if shit goes wrong? Because you chose the last--"

"No, you idiot," she snapped, forming the arrow. "It's my way of taking your word
for it. For now. Now can we hurry up, please? I'd like to find them and get some
rest."

Malfoy muttered something about rest as he followed after her. It said something
about how tired he was as well that he wasn't bothering to catch up to her. He hated
walking behind people, as if it made him look slow, or the lesser rather than the
equal or leader. He had a lot of annoying-- A woman's scream echoed down the
corridor, and Hermione fell into a run as quickly as she could while feeling like her
legs were lead.

She reached the end of the corridor, and found a vision in the one to the left. Her
adrenaline burst open at the sight of the two orange animals and a woman with dark
hair. She nearly ran at them, until she realized the hair was flowing freely. She
couldn't see the woman's face, but Padma would have had her hair in a plait.

Hermione narrowed her eyes. The magic was trying to trick them again, and--
Her eyes widened, and she stepped back when the animals tackled the woman to the
ground. Large jaws snapped, and the woman screamed as half her face was torn
away. The other swiped claws into her stomach, and blood sprayed out in an arc.

Hermione jumped when Malfoy grabbed her wrist and pulled her light away from
the vision. The light was smothered against his shirt, and she could just make out his
face and the glow of his eyes. She blinked repeatedly, trying to rid the gloss over her
eyes as the woman screamed again, and Hermione thought about Justin and Padma.

"That's the way," she whispered. "I remember the turn, and the other tunnel
forking instead of going directly off. That's where they went."

"We can't cast," he whispered back. "We don't have the energy. We have to go
this way."

"No."
- 338 -
 "If they take as many spells as they did before, and we have to outrun them again,
we'll collapse. We can't do it. If we turn this way, take a left, and keep fairly
straight--"

"It's still a different system, it might not connect us to the same tunnels--"

"If it doesn't lead us straight, we'll turn back. Granger…if they're gone, they're
already gone." He lowered his chin. "Do you understand?"

She shoved him away from her, anger ripping through her, but he was right back
in her personal space again. "Don't--"

"Shut up," he hissed. "These are the facts - you deal with them, or I'll leave you
here. We turn around, or we go the other way. We're not staying, and we're not
going by them. They're going to find us any second, so get your shit. Together."

Hermione was trembling with the urge to slap him, but even through her anger
and exhaustion, she knew he was right. She knew it, and it made her even angrier.
She stepped around him, killing the light of her wand, and turned down the other
tunnel, away from the vision and the last place she'd seen Justin and Padma.

"We're stopping."

"We're not stopping."

"You're moving at the pace of an oyster turning sand into a pearl, and--"

"Actually, it's usually not sand, but--"

"We're not getting anywhere, and if something comes at us now, we're not going
to be able to fight it." Malfoy stopped walking and pushed a hand through his hair.
"I'm not leaving this corridor, but if you're intent on going, then go."

She sighed and stopped walking, her eyes sliding shut as her body rocked. "We
have to sleep in shifts." She turned back, looking at the signs of fatigue on his face.
"We're both too tired to make it long, so one of us will have to do a short shift, then
wake the other person for a short shift. Once we've both had a bit of a power nap,
we'll take a shorter shift. I mean a normal shift."

"Fine."
- 339 -
 Hermione walked back to him, letting her bag drop off her shoulder. "I think we
should sit together, that way something will have to attack both. Not just one to you,
one to me, and then two places to cast with only one person awake."

She sat down a short space in front of him, and pulled her robe out of her bag.
Malfoy looked at the floor next to her for a long moment before settling into the
spot.

"Go to sleep, then."

"You're sure? I can--"

"Yes." He pushed his bag behind his back, and kept his wand in hand.

"All right," she said. "Make sure to wake me if you're about to fall asleep, even if
it's ten minutes from now."

He might have nodded or just lowered his head. Hermione pulled her robe up to
her chin, and found a hard spot in her bag to rest her temple on. Malfoy muttered to
end his Lighting Spell, and darkness rushed in around them.

"Was that a ye--"

"Yes, Gra--"

"Okay."

She was out in seconds.

"Granger?"

She sucked in a breath as a hand on her hip stopped shaking her. "Uh-huh."

...the pixies formed another code in the air, and she drew it quickly while Mad-Eye
threw glitter at the parchment. "Make it accurate! Granger? Granger?" The pixies
flew into another shape that wobbled and shook--

"Granger."

"Huh?" She pulled her eyes open as a hand clenched twice on her hip, then
- 340 -
started to shake her again. "I'm up. Sorry. I'm up."

"I'm finding it doubtful."

She had to try twice before she pushed herself up to a sitting position, and
reached to rub at her eyes. "Go to sleep." She didn't hear him move. "Really, I'm up,"
she told him, digging into her bag for a jar of water. "I'll wake you when I'm too
tired."

She felt his leg slide against her own as he stretched it out, paused, and then
finally lay back. Hermione shifted back and forth, but there was no comfortable spot
to find on the ground. She thought of lighting a candle, but didn't know if it would
bother him.

Now she only had the dark.

Hermione lit the candle with a swirl of her wand, and had to blink rapidly to
adjust.

She'd woken up Malfoy to sleep not more than an hour after he had lain down,
and he had let her until she felt better rested than she had since leaving her dorms.
She had waited patiently for him to catch up on sleep, but her patience had left
pretty quickly. There had only been a man dragging his way down the tunnel during
her watch, and so her mind had been on overdrive.

All she'd been able to think about was Padma and Justin, and if they're gone,
they're already gone. She wanted to go back for the tunnel they had gone down, and
while Malfoy might be a bit reluctant at first, they hadn't made it that far past it. She
didn't know where Justin and Padma were right now - and she had to believe they
were out there and still moving - but they might have been trying to retrace their
steps back to where they separated. It meant there was a chance they could meet
up, or that she and Malfoy could catch up to them, and Hermione wasn't willing to
ignore that.

When her anxiety reached the point that she was ready to wake Malfoy and
demand they run the whole time, she forced herself to stop thinking about it. And
that meant thinking about Malfoy, which was just as puzzling and requiring of a plan
of attack, but far more illogical and mad. But it felt good - and Hermione figured if
she was such a good person, then she couldn't feel so good while doing something
that was bad. So, logically, kissing Malfoy was good. Being attracted to Malfoy was
- 341 -
good. Whatever might happen…was good.

She liked spending time with Malfoy. She liked debating things with him, and
discussing anything that came to mind, and arguing with him when she won. She
enjoyed cataloging the different meanings behind his real smiles and grins, and the
wrinkles in his forehead when he thought. She liked the way she was getting better
at reading him, and how he didn't seem to mind as much anymore. She liked making
his reserved, cool exterior come crashing down, and slowly solving the puzzle of who
he was, and the way he looked at her sometimes. She loved the way he kissed her.
And, especially, she loved owning the feelings he brought her just a little more than
she feared them.

Not that she had a single clue where this was all going. Maybe it wasn't going
anywhere - and for the first time, that bothered her. Just a little bit.

The candlelight wasn't working to wake him. He didn't look peaceful as he slept,
like he normally did when she caught sight of him in his bedroom. There were cuts
on his face now, and at least a day's worth of hair growth on his lower face. He
looked like an escaped criminal, but she couldn't deny that it was a bit…alluring.
Hermione reached out to touch the bridge of his nose before she could think not to,
running her finger over the slight point at the tip. She smiled to herself when his
forehead wrinkled, but his eyes didn't open.

She lifted her hand to touch a lock of his hair hanging over his forehead, and
memorized the softness against her skin. Why hadn't she touched his hair before
this? If she ever kissed him again, she was going to bury both hands in it. There was
a slight tear at the neck of his shirt, and several in his robe that he hadn't mended
yet. His trousers-- Hermione's eyes widened and jumped back to his face, and she
folded her hands in her lap.

That was, uh…that was a bit…unexpected. Though she had read and experienced
that it tended to happen to men several times throughout sleep. Just a, uh…
Hermione's eyes drifted back down, and her breath paused in her chest, as if the act
of exhaling would tell him where she was looking. And she really, really shouldn't be
looking at all, it's not like she enjoyed men ogling her chest, which was always out
and about, and couldn't be made unnoticeable by way of clothes and robes, and just
because this was very much, definitely, positively noticeable, didn't give her the
right to, uh…yes, to look. But, really, she was just inspecting a normal, healthy,
bodily function. Reaction. That.

Hermione was experiencing her own natural reaction that made her eyes dart to
the sliver of floor between them. There was curious examining, and then there was
- 342 -
just wrongful ogling while the person was asleep. And reacting to it certainly made
it the latter. She cleared her throat lightly as she squirmed, and glanced up at his
face.

She would have given him longer to sleep and the heat in her blood to pass, but
they didn't have time for that. So she pushed back her shoulders, raised her chin,
and reached out to rub his arm. "Ma--"

"I'm awake."

She froze. How long had he been awake? Had he opened his eyes before that?
Had he seen her…seeing? Had he been up before that and felt her touching his
nose, or his hair? Why didn't he just open his eyes? Had he wanted to see what she
would do? Had he been trying to trick her?

"Oh."

She pulled her hand back slowly, and he reached up to rub his hands across his
face. His beard rasped against his palms, and he stopped to scratch at his jaw. His
eyes finally opened, and he blinked at the ceiling, adjusting to the candlelight.

"I have to pee," she said, and his eyebrows raised. "Er…yes. I'll be right back."

Malfoy wasn't in the corridor when she turned into it, casting cleaning spells on
herself. The arrow she had left to point down this corridor was shaky at best, and it
was missing the other line at the point. Padma and Justin would recognize it for
what it was, though, which was the important thing. She was going to have to put a
line through them or something on their way back.

"You want to turn around."

She looked over in surprise, watching Malfoy come back down the corridor
looking a lot fresher than he had before. He'd removed the beard, she noticed. She
refused to look past his neck, but she couldn't help but wonder if he'd taken care of
other things as well. The tips of her ears heated up at the image that flashed
through her mind, and she looked away from him, walking back to their things.

"Yes, I do. This way hasn't led us anywhere near straight, and there's no way to
know if we're connected to the same tunnels they're in. We're not only going in the
wrong direction to get to the device, but we're going wrong to get to them."

Malfoy nodded. "How many Invigoration Draughts do we have left?"

- 343 -
 "Five. I'm not sure if Padma and Justin have any. I want to save them until we're
back near the device, and at least two for when we're at the device. The spell is
going to take a lot out of us, and if it doesn't work…"

"We also have to cast it on a wall on every floor of Hogwarts. If we contain the
Dark magic, and we can only get to the walls when affected, we'll have to do it
before we leave."

"The only perk to that is that the visions will have stopped, and we can all rest
between spells."

"If we're not out of water, food, or Dittany for the attacks we're bound to suffer."

"Water is easy. Food and Dittany…" Hermione shook her head, pulling a peach
out of her bag as Malfoy sat down across from her. "Do you want one?"

"I have something," he told her, pulling it out of his bag.

"Oh."

"Why are you smiling?"

She shook her head. "Just because you're so…all the time, and yet you're
obsessed with sweet things."

He raised an eyebrow at the statement or her scowl-y face. "That's because most
people are complex beings." He lifted his eyes and grinned wickedly at her - she
hoped he didn't hear her breath catch. "And I just like taking apart sweet things
with my mouth."

Jesus.

"That's-- What do you think?"

"Who was in the lead?"

Hermione's cheek bunched as she thought. "I'm pretty sure it was Justin."

Malfoy looked at the tunnel to their left, and then the one farther down on the
right. He nodded his chin to the latter. "He wouldn't have wanted to turn that soon,
- 344 -
but wait until he had more speed and they weren't as likely to grab him when he
slowed for the turn."

"Makes sense," she muttered, starting for the tunnel on the right. "Anyway, as I
was saying--"

"How is it that you fight for animal rights, and yet you own a pet?"

She flashed an incredulous look over her shoulder. "Cats are domesticated--"

"So are house-elves--"

and Crookshanks runs around all he wants. I believe in giving fair rights to
magical creatures. House-elves have been brainwashed--"

"They haven't been brainwashed - house-elves are naturally inclined to be

subservient."

"I'll have you know that I've met--"

"Some aren't, just as not all wizarding people produce a magical child, or
Muggles produce only Muggles. A rare few Horntails are peaceful. There's
exceptions to everything. However, the majority--"

"No, it's like…like…relationships!" she said, and he gave her a look like she'd just
told him the tunnels were a great place to relax and sunbathe. "Men in relationships.
Men are naturally inclined to…you know…spreading their seed-- Don't laugh, men
are, no, listen-- But as time has gone, monogamy is the 'natural' way of life, and
cheating has--"

"Do you mean you wish to free all men from monogamy?" His eyes roamed down
her, and for a second, she was self-conscious of her own walk. "How--"

"No, of course not. I believe in monogamy--" She thought it was very important he
happened to know that.

"Wasn't your whole point about freeing intelligent beings from the restraints
placed on it by the misconceptions of society?"

"No, ye-- I was trying to show how people can call something natural and be

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wrong, but in terms you'd find relatable!"

"I never said I don't believe in monogamy. But you use an example that
contradicts your point and argues for mine." He looked like he was teasing her more
than being smug, and she had to look away to not be distracted by it.

"It does not. My point is that all beings desire freedom, unless the situation is one
they prefer over having other options because they chose that option, and they're
happy with it. And also, it's not just woman who made monogamy 'normal'. Men
can't stand when their significant other goes with someone else, even if they want
other women - which is rubbish--"

"You're getting off the point--"

"Which is that a man chooses to have the monogamous relationship, just as the
woman does, because it's preferable to them in many ways. They want it, and they're
happy with it--"

"House-elves want to--"

"They think they do because it's what they're taught they should do--"

"And people aren't taught to have monogamous relationships? Marriage, divorce

on grounds of adultery, jealousy. If their parents have lovers outside of marriage,
the children rarely see it. By your reasoning, monogamy is inherently wrong because
it goes against nature, and we're taught to--"

"No, because people - most people - are able to…" she paused, waving her hand, "
sample, learn their choices, and then choose. House-elves are mistreated, paid
nothing, given no rights, and they think that's all they're capable and allowed to
have. What's wrong with breaking social norms and showing them there are choices,
and allowing them to make them?"

She grinned triumphantly at his contemplation, and then turned to scorch an

arrow into the wall.

"Are you willing to break the social norms of a relationship?" he asked.

Her hand stuttered on the diagonal line, and it waved before ending vertically.
Was he trying a new approach to his argument, or talking about this personally?

"I already told you that I believe in monogamy." Had that been what he meant?
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Or was it about breaking the social norm of them being together? Or was this not
about that at all?

"And you've believed--"

"But other social norms, yes. It's about knowing you have choices, then choosing
what you want. Whether that breaks social norms or not."

He shut his mouth and stared at her, his expression unreadable, and then
hummed as he looked away.

Hermione's head whipped up as sound and light flooded the tunnel, and her sight
went white. There was sobbing loudly to her left, and dozens of voices screaming
words or in terror. Something banged into her shoulder as she squeezed her eyes
shut, pushing her into a person. They shoved her back, and she staggered as more
people ran into her, dropping her to the ground.

"Malfoy!" she yelled, blinking rapidly and trying to get to her feet.

She cried out when a heavy weight pressed fully into her hip and upper leg as
someone ran over her. She tried to stand again, and a foot connected with her ribs,
the person falling over her before using her to push themselves up. Hermione
shoved back at them, her vision clearing enough to see a brown robe.

She hurried to her feet, swinging her arm out, and was shoved between two
people as they flew around her. A woman was running at her with two children
under her arms, her face hot red and wet with tears. Hermione lifted her gaze to the
tunnel, lit as brightly as the summer sun, and absolutely filled with people.

They were all in a panic, running in her direction and shoving one another as they
screamed. She searched for Malfoy's head, but there were at least a dozen people
with platinum hair. The banishing spell only worked on four people in front of her,
but they were replaced by more people in the masses just a second later.

"Malfoy!"

She shoved her way back through the riot of people, but they barely moved, while
they were able to move her with more impact than a person should have had.
Hermione did her best to navigate around them, but they were determined to barrel
into her from all angles, and she still couldn't see Malfoy.
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 The blocking spell worked to throw them all back a space, but she'd be
completely drained before she ever made it to the end of the tunnel. Light flashed in
the corner of her eye, and she turned her head in time to see a blade sweeping
towards her face. She threw herself backwards to the ground, and a foot pounded
into her stomach, shoving all her breath out in a grunt. She wheezed in a breath,
and then gasped in a second, screaming the banishing spell as the blade came at her
again.

She rolled away from the sword when the spell failed, her heart hammering, and
rolled directly into several pairs of legs. The tip of the blade sliced across her hip,
and she yelled out, grabbing onto a passing man to use him in yanking herself to her
feet. She shoved her way back through the crowd, watching the two men fight their
way towards her, and then turned to run forward again.

Hermione thought her foot caught on someone else's when she fell forward, but it
just took her a moment to recognize the shape of a body curving against her legs.
She pushed a hand into the ground to lift herself up, glancing under her shoulder at
the fallen person. Her elbow gave out in surprise when she saw the back of a blond
head.

"Mal-ah!" she yelled, jerking her hand back as someone stomped on her fingers,
and cradling her hand to her chest. "Malfoy!"

No response. He wasn't even moving. Hermione scrambled backward, aided by

the woman whose kneecap slammed into her shoulder. She looked up, making sure
there wasn't any weapon about to fly at her, and then pressed a hand into Malfoy's
shoulder. She guided him back enough to see his face, but her panic hiked even
higher at the wet squish of fabric against her thumb. Malfoy's eyes were shut, and
there was a long, deep wound across his chest, as if he'd taken a direct hit with the
side of a blade.

"Oh, God," Hermione choked out, pushing two fingers into the side of his neck.

Something slammed into the center of her forehead, forcing her head back,
before someone fell on top of her. Hermione punched and shoved wildly, fighting
them off of her, and threw herself back to Malfoy. She reached for his neck again,
and found his pulse as soon as she pressed her fingers down. It was strong, steady,
and there, and she felt like she could breathe again.

People were falling over them and trampling over Malfoy; whatever had sent him
into unconsciousness, he didn't seem to be coming out of it any time soon. Hermione
pushed her hair back, panting for air. She couldn't stop the magic by herself, and
- 348 -
she couldn't run with him. Her mind was spinning through possibilities that kept
ending in failure, and she took it out on the man stomping over Malfoy's leg.

There were two spells they had been looking at for the banishing spell. If she
combined the roots of both, it would be two spells through the same runes at once.
As long as she didn't touch the wand with the other runes on her fingers, it might
have been enough energy. Or her hand would explode.

Hermione climbed to her feet, using all her strength to shove two women back
before they stepped on Malfoy's head. She shoved her way to his shoulders, and cast
the blocking spell. It gave her enough time to grab his arms and haul him back three
steps, before the horde continued pushing on top of them.

Hermione squatted, her arms shaking as she heaved Malfoy's head and shoulders
up to her chest. She wrapped both arms around him, then pitched them both
backwards. Hermione felt like she was in the sea during a storm, and was
desperately fighting against the crashes and pulls of waves to reach oxygen. Malfoy
was a dead weight dragging her towards the bottom, but that she was absolutely
unwilling to cut free of herself.

A large, broad man smashed into the side of her, and her teeth clinked together
as her head whipped to the side, her body jarred from the impact. Her feet skidded
sideways, and she almost lost grip on Malfoy. She hoisted him back up, spreading
her feet to attempt keeping ground, and reached to cast a blocking spell on the
group barricading her from reaching the wall.

Someone grabbed her wrist from Malfoy's chest, and she thought he was finally
awake until her hand was twisted and something popped in her wrist. Hermione
screamed, trying to jerk her hand back as pain slammed up her arm. Malfoy dropped
down her body, and Hermione yelled the blocking spell before the sword could sever
her arm. The man flew back, and Hermione was flung forward in the second before
his grip was lost.

She fell on top of Malfoy, and felt someone else collapse onto her back. Hermione
rolled them off of her, cradling her arm to her chest, and landed on her back next to
Malfoy. The banishing spell hit the man just a second before the tip of the sword
stabbed into her chest. Hermione gasped, expecting death or pain, but neither
came.

The man yelled and ripped the sword back up as Hermione dug her elbows back
and dragged herself away from it. Something changed about him, unnameable but
there, and she felt a sharp pain burst in the side of her chest. The tip of the blade
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came up red. Hermione grabbed the back of a woman with one hand, using the
unstoppable momentum to get her feet on the ground - using the magic against the
magic.

Magic against the magic.

Hermione pointed her wand at the man, spotting two others in the crowd behind
him, and her arm wavered. She pulled her index and pinkie from the wand, took a
shuddering breath, and yelled the spell combination. She knew she had forgotten a
vital element as soon as the spell left her mouth.

A ball of red flared around her hand, and then seemed to suck back into her skin.
She felt it enter her hand like all the bones were being crushed, and the strength of
her scream shook her chest as the magic thundered up her arm and through her
blood. It felt like a fire was burning inside of her, like her magic itself had
renegaded against her body.

Awareness came back slowly. She was moving, jostled to the side, and things
were making impact with her, but she couldn't feel them. Sound was dulled into a
distant murmur, like a whispered conversation heard through the floor. Then her
breath, like a strong wind against the covers on her eardrums. The compact, deep
ache through her entire body, and the cold of stone on her cheek. A foot stomping
into the middle of her shoulder blades, toes hitting into her cheek, and then a hand
wrapping into her hair.

She was pulled up to her knees, her vision blurry, but she saw the three men and
their swords. The noise of the horde was filtering back in, growing in volume, but
they seemed to run around her now. Hermione had to attempt swallowing three
times before she could get her saliva down the dry, tight passage of her throat.

A portion of the blade touched her jaw, and the man in front of her grinned, his
teeth webbed in decay. He pulled the sword back, leaving a quick, hot slice across
her jaw. Hermione tightened her grip on her wand, and then pulled back her pinkie
and index. She couldn't risk a blocking spell when there was only one that might
work longer than a second, and it needed all the energy she had left.

The man was speaking to her in another language as she ran through the spell
three times in her head, as sure as she could be. She hesitated, just a second, just
long enough for the blade of the sword to drop to her throat, and then she screamed
the spell.

A golden purple light erupted in her sight, and she felt wind against her skin as
- 350 -
she was lifted by the force of the spell and thrown backward. Her path was cleared
of any moving bodies, and that was the last thing she registered before she slammed
into a wall and everything was dark again.

- 351 -
 Chapter 16

Running water. Dripping water. No, that didn't make sense. It must have been
something-- Hermione meant for her eyelids to snap open, but they fluttered, and
dragged, and tried to pull themselves back down again. There was light flickering in
the dark, and then across the side of Malfoy's face as she located the source of the
touching. He was scowling and his forehead was wrinkled, deeply concentrated on
something to the side of her chest.

She felt something peel back from her skin, and then the shiver of a cold cloth
brush in tingles of pain. She closed her eyes as the images flooded back to her, and
she remembered the sword being pulled out of her chest. The spell must have
worked, then. Or she was dead and Malfoy was in the process of hiding her body so--

Hermione sucked in a breath, instinctively turning from the pain, but Malfoy
pushed her shoulder back down. Still very much alive, it seemed. It was the
bubbling, stretching sensation that came with Dittany, and she clenched her teeth,
knowing it would pass soon.

"Your chest." Was that her voice? She sounded like she was talking through a
hole in her throat.

"It's fine."

"Dittany?" It was an effort just to speak.

"Yes. I would have got this done sooner, but it was gushing too much blood - the
Dittany wouldn't take. I didn't want to cast anything that required too much or
prolonged magic."

She opened her eyes, swallowing hard, and he glanced up at her. The candlelight
alternated the color of his eyes from bright grey to the dark grey and black of angry
clouds, and it tricked emotions into them that she couldn't define anyway.

"Do you want some water?"

She nodded, and he looked back at her chest, wiping the cold cloth against it
again. He narrowed his eyes briefly, and then disappeared from her line of sight.

- 352 -
Hermione pulled her arms up, and felt like she was pushing them through mud.
Lifting herself to her elbows was harder, and her wrist creaked with a sharp pain.

Malfoy held a goblet out to her, and she gave it a questioning look. Had he
brought an entire kitchen in his bag? He misinterpreted it, or maybe took it just as
he should have, because he set the goblet down and grabbed her shoulders. She bit
her lips to keep back the groan at all the aches flaring up, and he turned her to the
side enough for her left shoulder to rest against the wall.

"Thank you."

"Here." He held the goblet out to her, and she took it, gulping down the water
without pause.

"Thank--" Her mouth fell open as she spotted her three water jars. One was in
shards, another had an inch left of the bottom and a jagged piece on one side, and
the last had half of a side smashed out of it. "What happened to the jars?"

"They were broken in your bag. There's one bottle of Invigoration Draught left.
The map is shot to hell, and only your fruit is left of your food supply. The books will
dry, though I don't know when you expected to fit in reading time, and your
parchment of the runes is now a parchment of ink blobs."

Hermione's eyes slid shut as she let out a defeated sound, and reached up to
clasp her fingers over her forehead. "This is horrible." She looked over at Malfoy,
and was caught off guard by his lack of shirt. How hadn't she noticed before? "We,
uh…at least we have the Dittany. And our lives, which, I assure you, I was not
terribly optimistic about us keeping…before - how long have I been sleeping?"

Malfoy shrugged, and she watched the movements in his shoulders before looking
at the cut across his chest. "I awoke about an hour ago. I don't know how long we
were out before that, or why the magic left us alone."

Hermione snorted. "Alone? More like repeatedly tried to murder us, and went
down kicking, screaming, and sword-swinging." She looked down at his chest again.
"Are you sure you used enough--"

"What are you talking about, Granger?" He looked suspicious - Malfoy always
looked suspicious before he looked curious.

She couldn't remember a time in her life before this when talking felt like too
much work. "What happened to you? You were unconscious when I found you, and
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you had the cut. The magic wasn't working. The blocking spell lasted a second or
two, the banishing spell worked on just a small portion of the magic, or stopped
them from hurting us for a few seconds."

"I got sliced with the sword while I was still blind from the light. I cast the
banishing spell, and I fell… I'm not sure what happened after that. How did you stop
it?"

"You probably got kicked in the head. Is your body sore? They were falling all
over us, and stomping on us, and I couldn't stop them. I tried to pull you back to the
wall, but…the horde of people, and the running and shoving, and then the men. They
broke my wrist." She gave a tired, distant look to her swollen and bruised wrist, like
it belonged to someone she'd only heard bad things about. "I'm sorry."

"That…" Malfoy's eyebrows drew together, and he looked genuinely confused.

Maybe on how to answer, or how it ended.

"I, uh… So, yes, the spells weren't working, and I remembered that other one
we'd been talking about in the library. How powerful they'd be combined, but it was
too risky since we didn't know if we could channel that much magic through the
small runes, and two in one, and such, so on."

Malfoy stood from his squat near their bags, and her sight grazed down his chest
before she blinked it to the ground. "You did it? You combined them? You could have
blown yourself to pieces, or killed us, or done--"

"I didn't have a choice." She tried to make her voice come out fiercely, but it just
cracked and croaked. "If I had, I wouldn't have done it. I couldn't do it by myself. We
might not have been able to together. You were hurt and out, and I couldn't run,
because I couldn't carry you. The crowd was too thick and strong to drag you. I had
to do something to save us."

There was a strange expression on his face. She'd never seen it before, and she
wasn't sure if she should shield herself or stare until she recognized it. It made her
feel vulnerable, and she didn't know why.

Hermione looked down, spotting her wand close to where she'd been laying. "It
failed at first. I forgot the eivla at the end, and I didn't realize until after there was a
pause, and just… I thought I was going to burst into flames. I thought we both were
dead. But then I did it again, and I flew back, hit the wall… It must have worked."

He was silent. He didn't speak, or touch anything, or move at all. She thought she
- 354 -
should look up at him and take apart his expression, and pick it all apart until she
could decide on what he was feeling. She was too tired, though, and when her eyes
drifted shut, she couldn't open them again.

Hermione stretched before opening her eyes, and tiny cracks went off down her
spine. She shifted, moving her legs and turning her head. She was still sore, but
besides her wrist, she felt better than she would have thought.

Candlelight was still moving shadows and light across her eyelids, and she
opened them slowly, rubbing at the corners. She used her right hand to push herself
up to a sitting position, no longer against the wall, and the robe that had been
covering her fell to her lap. She looked at it blankly for a moment, letting her mind
catch up, and then looked for Malfoy.

Her body gave a little jump when she saw him sitting to the side of her, next to
the broken jars. His legs were folded, and his chin was in his hand, his index finger
against the bottom of his nose, and his thumb on his cheek. He was just staring at
her like a creep, his forehead wrinkled, and didn't even pretend that he wasn't by
looking away when she caught him.

He still hadn't put his shirt back on. There were bruises along his shoulders,
chest, and ribs. Another on his stomach, near his right hip. He lifted the hand in his
lap, and two fingers batted an apple, rolling it towards her. She plucked it from the
ground, and ran her thumb across the skin, grainy from dirt.

"Did you sleep?" she asked.

"I'm not tired."

"How long have I been sleeping?"

His eyes dropped to the candle, a quarter of it missing where it had been whole
when she fell asleep. Hours, then. "Awhile."

She would have liked to ask him if he'd been staring at her the whole time, but
she didn't have much room to ask, considering her past habits. She noticed that he
must have ripped the neck of her shirt instead of lifting it to get to the wound on her
chest, which meant the least amount of ogling possible. It was more than she could
say.

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 "I can't believe you're not tired," she said. "I mean, I really cannot believe it. You
need to get some sleep."

"If I was tired, I'd sleep."

She pursed her lips at him, and rolled the apple back. "So if a vision came into
this corridor right now, you'd have the strength to banish it at least, say, three
times, and then run the length of two dozen tunnels if needed."

He didn't say anything, and she huffed, pushing herself to her feet. Maybe if he
saw-- Hermione paused in the middle of her step as Malfoy stood up. A glance of
that odd expression flitted across his features, and she thought to move slowly. Like
one would do in the presence of big, unknown animals, that had the weapons to kill,
but might not know how to use them.

She kept half her attention on his blurry figure at the top of her vision as she
walked to the goblet, careful not to spill the water when she picked it up. Maybe
Malfoy was scared. He'd been completely at the mercy of the Dark magic, and that
wasn't a position anyone wanted to find themselves in. Especially when they were
knocked defenseless.

"I thought you were dead," she told him, still unsure if she should even say it. "I
actually tripped over you - sorry. And all these people were banging into us, and you
just weren't moving. I couldn't find your pulse point at first, I got knocked back. I
was so…scared. Absolute panic, terrified."

She drank half the goblet, then put it back. She wanted all of it, but it might have
been the only water they had for a little while.

"But then I felt it, your heartbeat, and I knew it was going to be manageable.
However we got out, we'd find a way. There's always a way to find, Malfoy. As long
as we're both alive, which we are. That's the important thing."

She didn't think he'd lie down right away, but she thought he would settle and
stop staring at her. The staring remained, however, and just when she was about to
look away, he started towards her. The big, unknown animal had apparently made
its assessments of her, and then a decision that began with rocking shoulders and
sure steps. Intent slid the strange emotion from his face, and she stood like a wall.
Weren't the zebras running at this point? She didn't think they waited for the
leaping onto their person.

Malfoy's fingers skimmed her jaw, and his thumb touched down on the other side
- 356 -
before he tightened his grip enough to have a hold on her. Hermione swallowed
audibly, and watched his eyes lower to her mouth. The fingers of his other hand
brushed the shirt at her hip, and then took a handful of the fabric, balling it into his
fist.

Well, all right. She rather liked this decision so far.

His eyes flashed back up to hers, and she reached up with her good hand,
cupping the side of his neck. He leaned forward, and she shut her eyes, waiting out
a bang of her heartbeat before he kissed her. Her stomach flipped the second he
did, and the tingling sensation remained as he didn't even attempt the usual careful
beginning.

He kissed her fully and without reserve, his tongue edging into her mouth the
moment she parted her lips. His grip on her jaw gave him complete control over the
kiss, and for once, she gave it up without a fight. She slid her hand into his hair, and
he swayed against her, his pelvis bumping into her stomach. Her nails scratched his
scalp when her fingers curled into the locks of his hair, and she felt his hum vibrate
against her mouth. Her shirt pulled tight against the front and sides of her as the
hand at her hip reached around her waist. He pressed the ball of his fist into her
back and drew her against him, his body radiating heat.

Hermione extracted her hand from his hair, wishing she could use both of them,
and learned the curves of his shoulders and the feel of his skin. He released her
shirt and twisted his hand under it, running his palm over the small of her back, and
then up, his fingers tracing along her spine.

His hand fell from her jaw as they captured one another's mouths, released,
captured, released, and Hermione pushed to her toes to flick her tongue along the
dip in his lower lip. She moved her hand back up his arm, across his shoulder, along
his collarbone, and down the curves and lines of his chest. He released a breath of
hot air when her palm skimmed his nipple, and his hands moved to the hem of her
shirt.

Hermione dropped back to the balls of her feet, panting for air, and he didn't
follow. His fingers were still collecting layers of the bottom of her shirt, and her
heart started pounding even harder as she lifted her arms. She tried to keep her left
wrist as straight as she could as it throbbed at her, and Malfoy slowed to move the
fabric gently over wrists before pulling it off the rest of the way.

Hermione carefully lowered her arm to the side, and used her good hand to push
back the errant curls that were now sticking up. She looked down at Malfoy's
- 357 -
bellybutton as she did so, feeling his eyes on her, and a blush rushed up her face.
His hand pressed against her cheek, and she looked up at him as his thumb slid
along her lips.

He waited until she met his eyes, and then bent forward, moving his mouth to her
neck. Hermione's breath shuddered in as his lips dragged down her neck, and then
escaped in a rush when he kissed her skin. She grabbed his shoulder, pressing her
lips together at the suction of his mouth. He did it again, harder, and the moan
sounded in her throat.

Hermione shut her eyes as he trailed hot, sucking kisses up her neck, staying
longer in the places that made any form of verbal affirmation push up from the
bottom of her stomach. She felt like she was spinning in a daze, but he still didn't
distract her enough for her to miss the pop of her bra clasp coming undone. He
pushed a hand into her hair, pulling it back and cradling her head as he moved to
the spot behind her ear. Hermione moaned loudly, gripping the back of his neck,
and he sucked on the skin again.

His hand moved over her ribs and up, pausing when his thumb was pressed to the
bottom of her right bra cup. His lips moved to kiss the edge of her shoulder, and
Hermione reached for the strap on her other one, pulling it down. She had accepted
the inevitable path of him removing her shirt, and she was tired of anxiously waiting
for it between-- She jumped a little as the sensation his hands caused on her breasts
shot right down to the bottom of her stomach, and his teeth grazed the pulse point
in her neck.

"Oh," she breathed, gripping the back of his neck again, and felt the curve of his
mouth against her skin.

His thumbs circled, and then dragged over her nipples the same moment he
nipped the side of her neck. Hermione made a deep, unrecognizable sound in her
throat, and turned her head towards him. He lifted his own, and she kissed him as
he cupped her breasts again, sliding her tongue along his.

She felt hot and achy, and like she couldn't get close enough to him. His hands
dropped to her hips as she pressed her chest to his, skin against skin, and felt him
push back, hard and rigid against her stomach. Her breath caught in a little huff at
the feel of it, and his fingers clenched around her hips. She thought she might be
trembling, but she didn't know if it was her body or something inside of her.

She pushed her hand across his upper back, and when he rocked his hips
forward, her own answered in an instinctive knowledge of her own want. His hands
- 358 -
tilted, and then his fingers curled into the waist of her jeans. Hermione's heart
slammed in her chest, and she tried to tell herself through the fog of her mind that
this was the moment when lines were drawn. Then Malfoy flicked his tongue against
the tip of hers, and the only lines she was concerning herself with were the ones she
found in the shape of Malfoy's mouth and body.

He made quick work of her jeans and knickers, pushing them over her hips and
down to her knees. For several seconds she felt absurd through all the heated haze
in and around her as she kicked everything off her feet. But then Malfoy was
unbuttoning his trousers with a speed her stumbling hands wouldn't have reached,
and they were down with his shorts before her palm made it halfway up his chest.

She felt him sway as he toed his shoes off, and then yanked his feet from out of
the pile. His hands cupped her face as he pulled his head back, sucking in air.
Hermione moved her mouth to his jaw, kissing her way to the side of his neck. He
pushed a hand under and into her hair, his chest heaving against her own, and
wrapped an arm around her waist. He pulled her into him, and she released a hard
breath at the hot length of him against her skin.

She heard his breath catch when she kissed a spot at the bottom of his neck, and
he moaned when she sucked the skin. It vibrated against her lips, and she swore she
could dedicate hours to this spot just to hear him do it again. She was reluctant to
leave it, but Malfoy was more insistent on capturing her mouth again, and she
couldn't say she minded that much.

They swayed as he led her back three steps, and his arm slipped from around her,
his hand skimming her bum before rising to her hip. "Lay back."

She swore the sound of his voice echoed into her chest and down to the center of
her ache, and she almost waited just to hear him say it again. She awkwardly
hunkered down, putting her hand behind her and onto something soft. Malfoy
followed right with her, kissing her again as soon as her bum hit her robe.

He lifted his head to look at something behind her head, and he reached up to
shove it back before looking down at her. Hermione pulled in a deep, slow breath at
the sight of him. The mess of his hair, the darker, hooded eyes, the pink cheeks, and
his red, kiss-swollen lips. His gaze tracked across her face, and she wondered if he
was taking in the same details. His hand skimmed over her right breast, her ribs,
her side, and to her thigh. She spread her legs wider the second he pushed to do it
for her, and he settled between her thighs.

Hermione lifted her head to press her mouth to his, unsure of why she did it so
- 359 -
softly, but he quickly had her kissing him back like she was trying to claim his mouth
as her own. His hand left her thigh, and her hips bounced as his finger pressed into
her, drawing a whine from her throat.

Malfoy moaned lowly and muttered something against her mouth, pumping his
finger four, five times. Hermione lifted her hips, needing more, and more, and
everything, and Malfoy shifted above her. Her hand clenched on his shoulder, and
his mouth slid to her cheek as the tip of him prodded against her. Her heart skipped,
and a wild impatience sprang through her, but then his hips rocked, and he was
buried inside of her.

A deep, guttural sound shook through Malfoy's chest, and Hermione groaned
loudly, her head falling back. Malfoy pulled his hips back and snapped them
forward, back, forward, and she wrapped her legs around him as his mouth moved
to her throat. She felt full and whole, and every rock of his hips sent a wave of
pleasure up her body, until she was drowning in it, and him, and let it take her
completely.

Her wrist was throbbing, rudely destroying the warm and drowsy contentment
that was trying to cocoon Hermione. She winced as she brought her hand to her
chest, and upon feeling skin, watched dozens of images from the night before flash
through her mind. She could feel Malfoy's arm under her neck, their sides pressed
together, and the curve of his hipbone against the back of her hand.

She blinked her eyes open, and then turned her head to look at him. A muscle in
his arm tightened and relaxed, and his eyes were shut. They must have both fallen
asleep. Hermione let out a heavy breath as quietly as she could at the thought of
how lucky they were nothing had attacked once they were asleep. She should have
got up and got dressed, but everything had felt so good, and she had much preferred
the warmth between his arms than the cold of the tunnel.

Stupid.

Hermione sat up, glancing back at Malfoy, but he didn't move. The light of the
candle was deep in the cylinder of wax, and the tunnel was dim, but she still
managed to find her clothes. She forgot her bra, and her head went through a sleeve
in her shirt, and her knickers were up to her thighs before she realized they were
backwards. She kept remembering pieces from last night, and the phantom touches
he had marked into memories on her skin, and all the different sounds she could
make come out of him.
- 360 -
 She was flushed and flurried as she packed their things away into their bags, ate
a pear, and then made use of empty book pages while trying not to feel guilty or give
herself paper cuts. She was desperate for several cleaning charms, but she needed
to wait until Malfoy woke up in case it brought the Dark magic.

She didn't have to wait long. She was pretty sure he had built in survival sensors
for when someone looked at him in his sleep. Or maybe just when someone was
looking closely enough to try remembering every way each part of him had moved
the night before. She was busy with his shoulders when the outstretched arm slid
down the empty place beside him, and then shook like the limb had gone numb.

Hermione pulled her knees to her chest, and watched her fingers trace tears in
her jeans. There was a nervous tension cramping her stomach, and awkwardness
thickened the air around her. Would he ignore it happened? Would he try to do it
again? Would he just look at her until she wanted to dig her way out of her skin?

Hermione raised her chin and looked at him, aware he'd been looking back before
she saw it. "Hi."

"Hi."

"I fell asleep, too. Thankfully nothing happened. We were sleeping for…awhile."

"Awhile?"

"The candle is near gone. It had only been a bit more than a quarter burned when
I woke up yesterday, and it couldn't have burned that much before we fell asleep."
She paused, and looked back at him from the candle. "Not that that was…short or
anything, it's just not… It's a slow burning candle. That was a perfect amount of
time considering the--as we both… It was what-- It didn't have to be longer."

Hermione stared at him like the train crash of her words was happening on his
face, and apparently it resulted in his amusement. His lips didn't move, but she
could tell by his eyes - if his mouth had been hidden by something, she would have
sworn he was smiling behind it.

"Did you sleep well?" she asked.

"I did." He stretched, and she watched his robe slip down to his stomach.

"Are you sore?" She grew flustered the more the corner of his lips lifted. "The
people, the magic, it was very bruising."
- 361 -
 "I'm practically broken."

She rolled her eyes, but then he got to his feet. Her visual receptors and mind
went spastic for a moment as she tried to process every inch of everything. "Your,
uh, clothes are over there."

"…Unless they already happen to be on my body, a little more direction could be

helpful."

Heat swarmed her cheeks, her eyes flashing wide up to his face, and then away,
Hermione, away. "Right there, behind you."

He was standing a few feet away from her completely starkers, and he expected
her to not look? It was impossible. Like moths and flames, or car accidents, or art in
museums, or a very attractive, naked man that she had happened--

"You folded them?" He sounded incredulous as he flicked his wrist and the shirt
unfolded, but then he laughed before she could answer, low and rumbling.

She glared at his back, but lost her anger somewhere around the top of his bum.
"Sometimes I'm torn between strangling you or kissing you," she told him, before
she could stop herself from being too honest.

"I've felt the same more often than I'd bother to count. Sadly, strangling is
illegal." He clicked his tongue off the roof of his mouth as she smiled behind her
knees, wondering just how long he'd been thinking of kissing her. "I've looked it up,"
he said, pulling his shorts over his bum.

"Maybe we should strangle one another at the same time, and both claim
self-defense."

He bent to grab his trousers, and then turned to face her. "Yes, because the
considerable combination of our fury will surely wait until we've both perfectly
orchestrated our mutual murders to start at the exact same second. You'll carry lists
of the best researched positions in which to achieve our goals, and in the end, all
your work will be for naught when I've forgotten the watch."

She narrowed her eyes at him, fighting back the curve of her smile. "You sound
like you've thought about this."

He shrugged a shoulder, working on the buttons of his trousers. "I just have the
stunning capability of assessment and planning within seconds, rather than the
- 362 -
unfortunate Gryffindor trait of battle first, and plan
halfway-through-if-we've-got-the-time."

"That's untrue - I am a very thorough planner. I--"

"The first time we saw the same vision--"

"Voldemort."

"You flew back out of your chair and pulled your wand. The instincts I relate to,
but you still pulled your wand."

"That was because there was an immediate threat, and I was going to defend
myself. You can't tell me you wouldn't have done the same."

"I'm telling you that I saw him as well, and I didn't draw my wand. A moment of
thought and you realize it can't be real. When this all started, you told me you
followed a rabbit down the hall, and how you cast at things and it didn't work. They
weren't going after you, they weren't threats, but you battled first and researched
second."

Hermione sniffed, raising her chin. "Well, I'm proud of that trait, then."

He smirked, grabbing his wand from the floor. "Yet you denied it first."

She shrugged. "It's in my character to battle you first." He huffed a laugh, and
she grinned, watching him walk down the tunnel. "Hey, Malfoy?" He twisted back to
look at her. "Thanks for healin--"

"Make sure you eat something before we leave. I don't want to listen to you
deconstructing the different growls of your stomach again."

Hermione frowned as he kept walking.

"I'm getting so tired of seeing stone. At least there are portraits and tapestries
around Hogwarts, but here…stone. Sometimes I think of them as sounds."

Malfoy's forehead wrinkled as he shot her a look. "You think of what as sounds?"

"The floor. I step on the bigger stones with sharp edges, it's boingrr, soft edges,
- 363 -
bom. Small ones with cracks are urcha, no cracks are dee. These ones are bimbim."

"…How long have you been doing this?"

"Two days, I suspect. But see, it's…" She waited to step forward. "Bom, boingrr,
deedee, bimbim, dee, tra, lala, la, la, la, buhdum, buhdum, bom."

She couldn't make out the emotion behind his look in the wave of light. "Is that
the whole reason you were hopping about yesterday, and then told me your thighs
had gone suddenly numb?"

"Er, yes," she muttered. "I don't actually have Numbing Syndrome. I'm not even
sure if that exists."

His laugh echoed down the tunnel, and she thought she liked that sound a lot
more than the ones in the stones. Maybe she could make the large, sharp-edged
ones with the cracks the sound of his laughter. Or maybe she'd go insane if all she
heard in her head for an hour was a disjointed rhythm interlaced with laughing.

"Do you ever think about what we must sound like to other things?" she asked
him. "We can't hear the difference in the stones we step on, but maybe an ant
beneath the floor hears it like music."

"Or like the ceiling is about to crush in on him."

She shrugged. "Things are different to everyone. It's like a painting that a group
of people say is tragic, emotional, and beautiful, and all I see are a bunch of paint
splatters."

"Or a group of people see a magical creature with teeth fit to rip out a throat, and
all you see is something to love."

Hermione hummed. "That would all depend, really, but I agree with the point. We
perceive how we feel. That's why they say love is blinding."

"Or we feel because of how we perceive. Attraction comes before love, and in
order to be attracted to something, you have to perceive it first."

"But you perceive only part of it, based off knowledge of earlier perceptions,
which have resulted in feeling a certain way about certain things. It's like how
people love underdogs. No one loves the underdog with all the odds stacked against
them unless they feel like they've been or are the underdog themselves, in
- 364 -
something else."

"Perception still came first. Everything is unknown until it is perceived, and once
it is, that perception is always there to shape feelings about it."

Hermione nodded, glancing over at him. "But perceptions can change."

She saw him look at her from the corner of her eye as they rounded into another
tunnel. "Yes, they can."

"You know, when I was little, I used to think thunder was people walking over the
floor of heaven, rain was the dust that came down, and lightning was drawn up from
the earth so they could see us as they passed. Then when I got my Hogwarts letter
from McGonagall, I wondered if storms were caused by wizards, and it was Merlin
putting on a show for me."

Malfoy huffed a laugh, giving her an incredulous look. "Merlin whipped up an

entire storm just to entertain you? I see you've always been--"

"I was the only magical person I knew! I thought it was him showing me…" she
paused, waving her hand in the air, "I don't know, this whole other world I was part
of and belonged in." Malfoy's smirk slipped. "That I was meant to be in it. And that
idea, that perception, helped to bring me here. So even though I know better now,
sometimes the ridiculous and stupid perceptions are worth it. Because they make us
do things that changes us for the better in the end."

Malfoy was silent, and she went back to playing her stone music keys.

Hermione took the jar back from Malfoy, and then took another gulp. She cradled
it between her arm and chest as she screwed the top back on, silently thanking
repairing charms once again.

"There's…" Malfoy trailed off at the sound of footsteps in the next corridor.

Hope sprung briefly in Hermione's chest, but then a laugh rang out, and the hope
dropped with the chill down her spine. She stepped back in time with Malfoy, and he
killed his light before she could. She kept her wandlight trained on the end of the
corridor so he could see where to aim, but readied herself to end the spell in case
she needed to cast as well.

- 365 -
 A hand pushed around the corner, fingers drumming on the wall, before Bellatrix
sloped into view. Her lips curled into a smile as she looked at Malfoy. "Draco," she
sing-songed. "I was thinking of a game--"

He must have been doing his assessment and planning bit, because he waited
until then to cast a blocking spell, when Hermione would have shot it at her head
the second it appeared. He had immediately fallen into a proper duel stance, but he
relaxed when Bellatrix flew back. His grin was slow and sinister, and combined with
the way her wandlight lit his face, he looked evil, and as dangerous as she'd ever
seen him.

Hermione sensed something before she felt it, but she only managed to start
turning when something slammed into her back like a group of scorching knife
blades. Hermione's back arched as she cried out, staggering forward. She sucked in
a tight breath, and spun around, casting a blocking spell into the dark.

The spell lit five curses that were racing towards them, and as many Death Eaters
shadowed in the tunnel. The blocking spell blew it all back, and Hermione hit her
knees before the suspension ended, yelling, "Down!"

She heard the spells crash into stone, and then Malfoy yell the banishing spell.
Hermione lit her wand on a gasp, lighting an empty tunnel. Her back was burning
and throbbing, and it felt harder to breathe, like she was pulling it in through some
sort of straw. Malfoy's footsteps were quick behind her, and her strap pulled against
the side of her neck as he dug into her bag.

She wheezed in a breath, and saliva crackled in her throat as Malfoy shoved the
back of her shirt up. "Fuck."

That wasn't good. That meant it must have looked nearly as bad as it felt.
Hermione clenched her fists and teeth as she heard the cap of the Dittany being
taken off, but Malfoy stopped moving behind her.

"What?"

"I have to stop the blood first. It'll push the Dittany right out--"

"Shove it in."

"What?"

"Is it a puncture? Shove it in. The dropper, shove--"

- 366 -
 "I'm not shoving it--"

"I can't breathe, just shove it in!"

She heard Malfoy's teeth clink together, and when she tried to straighten up, he
pushed her forward again. She bit down hard enough to fear her teeth snapping, but
the scream forced its way up from her stomach when the dropper plunged into the
wound.

"You told me to fucking do it!"

Hermione couldn't function to pull in a breath as things began to mend

themselves together on only one section of the pain. She leaned forward until her
forehead was touching cold stone, and her breath shook in. Again, again, until she
was gasping with it, and the ache in her chest disappeared.

Her breath came in clearer, and the deeper pain ebbed. "Better. Why-"

"Did you want to wait with the others, or are you going to--"

"Others?"

"There's five punctures. Four are still unhealed--"

"Oh, God. Give me a moment."

He yanked her robe from her bag, and she heard him bundling the fabric up
before he pressed it to her back. She could feel his breath on the nape of her neck,
coming nearly as fast as her own. She spread her hands against the ground, trying
to calm herself enough to deal with the pain.

"We'll wrap it."

"You want to wait for the blood to stop?" he asked. "I can cast a spell to stop it,
but it might bring another vision."

"No, I mean…I'll wrap my back. Use my robe for now. They're just punctures, so if
I keep them wrapped and clean, I can deal with it. Do you still have the numbing--"

"Until the bleeding stops?"

"No, all together, the end, no Dittany, dealing--"

- 367 -
 "Are you out of your mind?" he asked. "Did they hit you in the skull and I can't--"

"We don't have enough! It's a waste-"

"We'd still have more left if we used it now--"

"And we're going to get more injuries, and we're going to get worse than this--"

"Perhaps I'd take your word for it if you were the one staring at the giant fucking
holes in your back--"

"We have to start choosing which injuries to use it on, and--"

"They're holes, not scrapes. If it gets infected--"

"I'll keep it clean," she told him, reaching to grab the ends of the robe to wrap it
around her. "I can manage--"

"You're in an underground tunnel, fighting for your life half the day, and you
expect to keep it clean, manage it, and ca--"

"Yes, now stop arguing with me! I'm in pain, and if you'd just let go of the robe--"

Malfoy snatched it out of her grip and off her back, and she jumped when he cast
the spell to stop the blood flow.

"The visions--" she started to say.

"I don't care," he spat.

"I-- No!" She scrambled forward, her breath catching at the sharp pain in her
wrist and back, but Malfoy's arm shot around her waist and hauled her back. "Do
not

His hot air hit the shell of her ear like a hurricane. "I will bind you to the fucking
floor, Granger, and if you struggle, the Dittany is going to end up wasted--"

"You're wasting it now! It's my back, I feel the pain, it's my choice! I'm not--"

"And I'm not carrying you through tunnels while fighting Dark magic because you

- 368 -
refused to heal gaping wounds, or explaining to the Ministry why you're dead! If it
wasn't serious, I wouldn't give a shit, so can you trust my opinion once in your
stubborn fucking life!"

Hermione closed her eyes, and her fingers curled into fists. The last thing she
wanted to do was waste it when they didn't know how long they had left in the
tunnels, or what injuries might come after. If Malfoy severed his arm tomorrow,
they'd need much more than what they would have after this.

She could blow him down the tunnel right now if she wanted to, but he was
asking her to trust him, and that was somehow more unfair than if he'd stolen her
wand and took aim at her with his.

"Fine. But don't heal them until they're shut. Just enough. Just."

- 369 -
 Chapter 17

"You're the most infuriating woman I've ever met."

"Because I think logically, and-mm, it usually counters your highly illogical

arguments!"

"My argument was completely-fuck, logical, you just wield bravery and call it
logic, when it's actually stupidity."

"Yet you're the one who goes from… Huh…huh…"

"You can pull my hair all you want, Granger, but I'm not leaving here."

"Then stop smiling just because…ugh. Ju--… You go from me just saying we
should skip a meal, to demanding we leave the tunnels! It's--"

"Logical, considering the loss of supplies, and that--"

"Illogical, considering we still haven't found Justin and P-P-Puh… Oh. Um. Padma,
Padma, and, uh…yes!"

"Mm."

"Don't look at me like that. Oh."

"Like what?"

"Like you're--"

"Urgh."

"--winning."

"I always win, Granger."

"And then you met me."

- 370 -
 *

Hot, damp, soft, and then a tug between teeth. If Hermione hadn't been sparring
with a very angry and naked Malfoy at least an hour earlier, she might have slapped
him in the face before she could process it. As it were, his mouth was doing things to
her ear that was causing reactions she hadn't known ears could provoke. He was hot
and hard against the top of her bum, and his fingers on her left nipple made her
arch back against him.

"I won, you know," she whispered, moaning on a sigh when he moved his lips
down the underside of her jaw.

"I think it's fair to say we both did."

She pushed her bum back against him when he sucked a patch of her skin into his
mouth, and he shoved forward hard enough for her to know he had less patience
than he did last time.

"It almost…" She slid her head back, and locks of his hair ghosted her cheek as he
explored further. "It almost makes me wish you keep saying such asinine things."

"Granger," he growled in warning, and his teeth nipped her jaw.

Hermione sucked in a breath as his hand pushed down her stomach. "Sorry. I
don't know how to quit."

"Then apply that to other things instead."

"Like what?" Her heart skipped as he pulled her leg over his own.

His smile curved against her cheek, and she turned her head to claim his mouth.

Malfoy wasn't talking much, and she didn't know why. He kept his responses as
short as possible, even when her prods into conversation were long enough to wind
her. She felt like she was talking to herself, and so she didn't talk at all.

Maybe he realized they were going in circles. She had thought she bypassed the
tunnel with her arrow on it quickly enough, but when their paranoia had trained
them to seek out anything abnormal, he probably spotted it. Malfoy hated to waste
time, and he no doubt thought they had. And he was probably blaming it all on her
- 371 -
in his head.

Hermione figured they had just eliminated that section. While it had been a bit
detrimental for not actually finding anything or anyone, at least they knew. She was
more concerned with the knowledge that they were heading back towards the
device. Considering their depth from where they had originally entered the tunnels,
and from where the magic had made them flee, they'd reach the device in a day -
maybe two.

Hermione yelled, turning in a circle as she jumped, her arm flying up into the air.
Her left wrist sent a frisson of pain up to her elbow each time she came back down
onto her feet, but she was too excited to stop herself. She also should have been
conserving her energy after having to cast three banishing spells on the beast that
had been blocking this tunnel, but she'd worry about that if another one came
around the corner.

"Do you see?"

Malfoy had been leaning a shoulder against the wall and watching her in
amusement the past minute…or so, but he sadly did not appear close to jumping in
victory. "You've been shining your light on it, adamantly pointing to it, and doing
some sort of tribal dance in front of it for the past five minutes. Yes, I see, Granger."

"And there's another one, right there, at the turn. I can see the blue just at the
edge. We found them!"

"We found the marks they left on the wall after losing them days ago. They could
have made it here from the tunnel they split into within a day."

Hermione bit her lips, looking up at the circle of blue with a line coming out of it,
pointing straight ahead. "They were walking back towards the device. They would
have known that."

"So they thought that's where we would go. That's where we were supposed to
go."

"No," Hermione said. "It's illogical. The magic is too strong that way for two
people, and the main spell can't be cast without all four. It's too risky. They would
have either traced back to find us, or…waited."

- 372 -
 "Waited?"

"Yes." She nodded, looked down the corridor, and then nodded again. "Padma is
highly logical. There's no logic in walking towards the device, a day's walk from the
tunnel they saw us go down, and just hoping they'll run into us on the way, or be
enough to fight a magic four of us had to run from."

"The logical thing would have been to turn back."

"They might have got lost and didn't know how to get back to us. I'm telling you,
they're either trying to find a way over, they're only moving to keep the magic from
catching up as much as possible, or they're following our arrows now."

"Wonderful. We'll all keep going in a giant circle then, shall we?"

Hermione shot him a look, but he couldn't ruin her mood. This was the first sign
they had from Justin and Padma, and, eventually, they'd find one another somehow.

"Would you stop?"

Hermione looked back in surprise, but slowed down when she saw how rugged he
looked. She'd been so busy chasing the marks, she hadn't realized how much the
last few spells took out of him. He had cast four times in rapid succession when the
group of birds had flown at them, and they had been gone before she got half the
spell out. She hadn't felt the draining pull of the magic, and had selfishly not
registered his own.

"I--"

"You've been stomping about for bloody hours now, as if we're going to find them
any second. You're like a nave child in a Death Eater dungeon, and I'm sick of
following after you."

Hermione narrowed her eyes. "This is the first time you said anything about
stopping--"

"I said it two hours ago!"

"Well, I'd forgotten! I'm sorry!" She pointed her finger at the blue mark on the
wall. "You can tell that they were running when they did this. It's in the middle and
- 373 -
not high up, and it's just a blast, or a line, with no indication of which way they went
until we find the next blast or line. We--"

"And they probably ran for another two dozen tunnels before the marks become
normal again, and they perpetually remain two days ahead of us."

She took a deep breath, her eyes wide and her look hostile. "What is your
problem? You've--"

"I'm exhausted, and I ache, and I am tired of running around tunnels in

blackness, while constantly being hounded by Dark magic and the mind-stabbing
sound of your chatter."

She was more offended than she should have been, but she knew the taste of him
on her mouth, and that changed everything. "Oh, well, I'm sorry being near me is so
terrible for you, Malfoy! I'm sorry this is such a hard experience that requires a little
effort--"

"A little effort? Our lives are at risk every second of every day--"

"It's nothing we haven't been through before, except--"

"Except I don't get off on this shit like you do!" he yelled. "I don't want to be a
hero, Granger, I'm not. Tried it once for someone else, and we all know how that
ended." He looked at her like she'd been the one to make him do it.

"No one is asking you to be a hero--"

"You did, with all your bullshit talk about--"

"No, I didn't, you made this choice! Just as you've made every choice, so don't
blame it on me! It doesn't matter that you're not this sort of person, because you're
here, and you have to be now. Sometimes life gives you more than you think you can
take, and sometimes more than you possibly can, but you do with it what you have
to!"

"I'm well--"

"People don't go out and just say, think I'll go save the world today. They do what
they have to do, because they're the only ones who can. That's what you're doing
now, and it makes you more than you think it does. But don't try to justify wanting to
give up to me, because I won't believe it."
- 374 -
 "I didn't say I wanted to give up, I'm saying it's rubbish that you expect me to not
be pissed off at the situation, and everything going wrong, just because solving the
problem is the right thing to do. I'm saying that I'm not taking this in stride because
I have a hero complex that requires I happily take a sword to the chest in the name
of people I don't give a shit about!"

Hermione's head pulled back like he'd punched her on the chin. "What people?"

He threw his arms out. "Everyone!"

She looked at him for a long moment, until the pressure on her chest became too
much, and she killed the light of her wand. She pulled her bag over her head,
throwing it towards the wall, and heard a jar crack open. "Go to sleep."

Silence. Hermione preferred it. She'd rather not talk to him at all for the moment.

She'd calmed down since last night, but it might have had more to do with the
fact that she hadn't slept well, and now emotions were dulled. It wasn't that she
didn't understand his point - er, when she did finally understand his point. Malfoy
didn't do things like this, and when the situation stacked almost all the odds against
them, Malfoy's instinctual reaction was to take stock and retreat. Maybe he did
mean to come back if they left for more supplies, but they couldn't go back now.

And he could have just talked to her like a normal person instead of getting so
angry! He should have just told her that he really needed to rest right then. She
might have fought to keep going a bit longer, though, since she'd been worried over
the marks. Then there might have been a fight anyway. Probably.

She kept wondering what exactly he meant by not caring about everyone. If he
had meant the students, or if he had included her in that. She didn't know what she
expected with Malfoy, or even what all she wanted, but she had thought…

Hermione shook her head, rubbing a palm against her forehead, and kept
walking.

Hermione broke off into another tunnel, desperate to pee. She scanned her light,
making sure there wasn't anything about to attack her.

- 375 -
 "Where are you going?" Malfoy asked gruffly.

"Do you really care?" she snapped. She had meant for it to come out a lot more
nonchalant.

She took a left into another tunnel, and cast a Muffling Charm before unbuttoning
her jeans. She transfigured a piece of parchment into softer paper, squatted, and
preceded to send looks of paranoia all around her until she was finished. Beyond
sleeping, it was the time she was the most vulnerable, and she didn't want to fight
anything with her trousers around her ankles.

She cast a Vanishing Spell, followed by a Cleaning Spell on her hands, and then
headed back towards Malfoy, quickly buttoning and zipping her jeans. He was
standing rigidly at the end of the tunnel she had turned into, his lips thinned and his
eyes hostile. Fantastic.

"You wore out my last nerve awhile ago, Granger."

"Then you shouldn't be feeling anything at all." A little better on the nonchalant
tone this time. "I'm sure the numbness is preferable for you."

"I tell you I don't give a shit about those people, and now I'm a heartless, evil
bastard with no emotions." Those people swung in her mind like a pendulum. "Not
only are you an assumptive, judgmental twit, but--"

"I am not--"

"Those people don't give a toss about me, so why am I going to care about them?
Most of them know I'm missing by now and are hoping I'm dead, at the same time
that I'm doing all this shit to stop them from being so--"

"Then why are you here?"

"I don't know!" he yelled.

They stared at one another in the silence that fell, but as much as she tried to
read him, the emotions were moving too quickly across his face. "You have to know."

"I--"

"You do the assess and plan thing, and you had to have assessed, and you have to
know why you're here, and not--"
- 376 -
 "Because I had to be! Because it chose me. Because if Hermione fucking Granger
believed in it so much, than it's probably the only right thing I've done in my life, no
matter how wrong it feels."

Hermione nodded slowly, crossing her arms, and Malfoy looked extremely
annoyed with himself, or her, or both of them. "Is that also why you're…why we're
…you and I, I mean…"

"Have I only been with you because it's the right thing to do?" He raised his
eyebrows, and the annoyance broke for a moment when his lips twitched. "I don't
think Draco Malfoy shagging the golden girl would be accepted by anyone as the
right thing to do. In fact, they'd think it was the very opposite of what I should be
doing, which is buggering myself to hell."

Hermione let out a breath she hadn't noticed she was holding, and nodded again.
The last thing she wanted was for all of this, with the two of them, to have been
some point he was trying to prove to himself or other people. She swallowed and
then cleared her throat, looking back up at him.

"I think it is the right to do. Uh, you being here, not…well, I mean, that's also…"
She blushed, shaking her head as if it would rid her of the anxiety. "You and I
are…however we feel about it, and what other people feel about it doesn't matter.
And it's the same for this whole situation, too. It feels wrong because it's different,
but you know it's right. It's not just me telling you it is, you know being here is the
right thing to do. And it doesn't matter what the world takes from that, it matters
what you do."

"I don't care what the world thinks of me anymore. That--"

"Good. Because you're not wrong as a person. You're not bad, you know. Not too
bad, anyway."

He raised an eyebrow, slanting his eyes to the side, and looked rather
unimpressed. "Thanks, Granger."

"You're like an earthworm," she told him, starting to walk again. "You cut it in
half, or pull it apart, and then throw it away from you in panic when you realize it's
still moving. And you think it's just the twitching of nerves in death, but the truth is
that it's still alive, and now there's two of them--"

"Are you claiming I have a split personality?"

- 377 -
 She snorted. "Sometimes I think so," she muttered. "I'm saying that most people
don't know how many hearts an earthworm has, and if you cut it in half, both sides
stay alive for a little bit. Eventually the bottom half dies, but the top half regenerates
itself into a whole worm again. So--"

"You've cut an innocent worm in half?"

She looked back at him, exasperated. "Have you not heard anything--"

"Granger's a worm killer. What would the house-elves say?"

"I was a curious child! I regret my experiments!"

"Experiments?"

Hermione walked faster.

When Malfoy thought with no deep concentration, a muscle in his jaw would
twitch every few seconds, and sometimes his tongue would press to the inside of his
cheek. His gaze hardly every wavered from the line of his light, though Hermione
knew her own tended to dart all over, even if she wasn't seeing anything. Unless she
was looking at him while she was doing the thinking, of course.

Malfoy turned his head enough to look down at her, and she met his eyes for a
second before looking ahead. She could feel him still looking at her, or maybe it was
her imagination. She glanced from the corners of her eyes, and he made a breathy
sound.

Hermione fought back a smile without knowing exactly why she felt like smiling,
and went back to scanning the walls for any sign of the blue mark.

Hermione and Malfoy pulled to a stop at the same moment, and Hermione held
her breath to better hear the dragging noise somewhere ahead of them. There was a
succession of tapping sounds, and two thuds, and then more tapping.

A dark figure rounded the corner of a tunnel further down the one they were
standing in, followed by a few quick taps before a woman emerged into the faint
reach of Malfoy's wandlight. She was dragging herself along the walls, and her
hands were clamped around her throat. There was blood pushing out from between
her fingers and flowing over them, and an oval of red was soaking her shirt from the
- 378 -
neckline and down to the stomach.

Hermione and Malfoy exchanged a glance just a second before galloping started
in the distant, dark reach of the tunnel. Hermione raised her wand, her gaze trained
on the line of Malfoy's light, and waited until the Thestrals emerged. There were at
least three of them, two flanking the one in the lead, and riders were atop each one.
Their robes were dark blue, and would have looked black had it not been for the
inky, skeletal shine of the animals they rode. The hoods were pulled over their
heads, covering their faces in darkness, and all of them raised their wands as they
raced towards the two of them.

Hermione yelled the banishing spell, but it only made the woman against the wall
disappear, as well as the several colors of curses that were shooting towards them.

"Shit," Malfoy whispered harshly, the sound nearly lost under the pounding of
hooves.

He turned, and she felt a hard yank on the sleeve of her shirt as the Thestrals
closed in on them. Hermione grabbed his hand instead, pulling back, and
surprisingly, he didn't rip it from her grip or launch her into a run by dragging her
with him.

"Trust me," she said, though she didn't know if he heard her, and she yelled the
banishing spell at the Thestrals.

Malfoy jerked once, but it was too late, and the Thestrals were barreling over
them. Hermione had to stop herself from leaping away from the hammering legs and
curses shot at them, but she knew from the sword that had been in her chest that
the magic couldn't touch them right now. Malfoy threw his arm over his head as she
yanked him forward, but she couldn't see much of his reaction in the midst of the
vision - she didn't think he fully processed what was happening until the Thestrals
had already moved through them. Hermione spun around, facing the backs of the
creatures and riders.

She pulled her hand from Malfoy's, and they both raised their wands, yelling the
banishing spell as the Thestrals tried to turn in the tight tunnel. The vision
shimmered, and then disappeared like a person had slowly slid an image of the
tunnel over them.

"What--"

"In the crowd, I cast the--"

- 379 -
 Something flashed at the edge of her wandlight, and Hermione chased it, lighting
a black figure. It looked like a silhouette of a person, but her light was right on it,
and the blob didn't change. Hermione killed her light and cast the banishing spell as
the shadow person flew at her. The light of the spell reached the tip of her wand,
showing the figure jerking to the left, and she flicking her wrist just as the spell left
her wand. The spell curved, then sunk into the blob a moment before they both
disappeared.

"Lumos," she said, spinning in a circle, and cast at another shadow as Malfoy
yelled the spell twice.

She turned again, and saw a flash of two at the edge of her wandlight down the
tunnel. She cast once as one of them yelled, and two balls of light burst into the
darkness. Both of the lights jumped apart as her spell slammed into the far wall, and
Hermione froze at the arm and leg she saw.

"Were those jeans?" she asked, breathless from the exertion of energy as Malfoy
panted over her shoulder.

Malfoy's light joined hers, and the two shadows were lit into people.

"Ah!"

"Ah!" Hermione yelled.

"Ah!" Justin repeated. Hermione ran at him, and he grinned, opening his arms.
"Slow down a little, though, or I'll fall."

Hermione laughed, sliding across the floor, and hugged him. "I was so worried! I
kept thinking something horrible might have happened--"

"--running, and running, and we had thought, okay, they were going pretty fast--"

"--found our way back, but you two were gone, so we left these arrows, did you
find those? I thought--"

"--we completely forgot our steps, and no, no arrows, but you found the balls? You
found the balls!"

"We found the balls! We found you! Or you found us!"

"Both! We heard the yelling, and the spells, and we knew the visions wouldn't
- 380 -
attack unless there was someone they were attacking, and my heart just started
bambambam, and we knew it was you."

"Malfoy."

"Patil."

"Sorry for casting at you, though, there were--"

"No, no, there were those shadow things. We've ran into them twice. I hit Padma
once with it because of 'em."

"Really? That was the first for us. The magic must have been weaker."

"That's what we thought, too."

"Are you guys all right?" Hermione asked, stepping back to rub Padma's arm in
greeting and survey them.

"A bit banged and scraped up, but better than I thought we'd be," Justin said,
turning his grin to Malfoy, and clapping him on the arm. "A vision cast a spell on us
when we were sleeping, and I just saw this flash of white, and I thought it was your
hair shining at me."

"It doesn't glow, Finch-Fletchley."

Padma nodded. "He just said, Malfoy?, then screamed in pain - which didn't deter
me that much from assuming you two had found us."

Malfoy glared at Padma, but he was too distracted from commenting when Justin
had moved to clapping him on the back. "It does have a bit of a shine to it, mate. You
use women products for that? Some pixie dust?"

"What supplies do you have left?" Padma asked.

"--spent more time in my bath than I have--"

"Barely anything. We got caught in a horrid vision, and we've had a lot of
injuries." Hermione pulled the strap of her bag over her shoulder, and took Padma's
bag as Padma took hers.

"--curls, and this dimple right here? I'm angelic, Malfoy, I don't need to glow, too.
- 381 -
Then people might sense that I'm trying to cover up my hard, rugged interior."

"You're a Hufflepuff."

"Exactly."

"That's how you combined them?"

"Yes. I made sure the other runes weren't touching the wand, though."

"What happened?" Justin asked.

"It lifted me off my feet and slammed me into a wall. I think it was the way it
drained me that knocked me out, though. Especially after the first one came back."

"But it got rid of the magic?"

"I believe I saw it disappear before I went unconscious, and it must have. We
were untouched beyond the injuries we sustained before that. We would have been
dead had the magic still been there."

Hermione glanced at Malfoy, but he was staring straight ahead.

"It's good for a last option," Padma said. "But a very last option."

"Yeah." Justin rubbed his hand across Hermione's back. "I can't believe you just
tried it. You could have killed yourself."

"I had to. What's important is that it worked. Thankfully Padma still has a few
vials of Invigoration Draught, though, so if we do run into a situation where we have
to use it, we should be able to bring ourselves back."

"We just need to be careful with it, and only use it when there is really no other
option - the spell and the draughts. We have to start wrapping wounds that are deep
but aren't as life-threatening."

Malfoy's jaw clenched, but he didn't say anything. Hermione cleared her throat. "I
agree. Malfoy has the numbing balm, so it'll help with the pain, and we can stop the
blood. As long as it's possible to deal with it in another way, and still be able to
continue on, we'll do that."
- 382 -
 "Is that working okay for you?" Justin asked.

"Wha-- Oh, this is broken," she said, and his eyes flashed up from her wrist. "In
that horde of people, one of the men with the swords broke it. I used part of a book
cover, though, and some fabric, so it's held pretty straight. Doesn't hurt much,
unless I grab something."

"Damn," Justin muttered.

"Which reminds me," she said, then pointed at Malfoy, "and I meant to tell you
this before, but I cast a banishing spell just before I was stabbed with a sword. It
didn't hurt, it didn't do anything. Then, as he was pulling it back out, it cut me. So I
think when they don't disappear from the banishing spell, they're weakened enough
to be like they used to. We just go through them."

"How long does it last?" Padma asked.

Hermione shook her head. "A few seconds."

"Better than the nothing I thought we got before," Justin said.

"It's just going to get worse." Malfoy looked left and right, and then turned into
the tunnel that had the nearest turn going straight ahead. "We're beyond where we
were before when the magic split us."

"I don't feel much like sleeping anymore," Justin said. "Oh! Padma and I were
eating breakfast, and this man with no. Face. Was eating this blood-spurting thing.
Now, I have a very weak stomach in the morning…"

There was a shift in the air. It could have been a sense of something watching or
there, or as subtle as a single degree drop in temperature, but Hermione felt it. She
moved to her knees, grabbing the low-burning candle against the back wall of the
nook, and leaned over Malfoy towards the opening. His breath touched the side of
her neck as he moved a little to the left, and the light of the candle flickered
onto…bark?

"What are--"

Hermione cringed as she used her injured hand to press fingers against Malfoy's
mouth, and lifted the candle higher. More bark, more - the thick trunk was close to
- 383 -
covering the entire exit from the nook, except a small patch high on the left, and a
larger passage even higher on the right where the branch bowed.

"Wake up!" Hermione yelled, flinging herself back.

Wax sloshed out of the candle, burning her hand, and Malfoy hissed. Hermione
pulled the strap of her bag over her head, Padma's head clipping her chin as they
both moved to stand at the same time. Malfoy was already on his feet, dragging up a
sleep-clumsy Justin.

Hermione blew out the candle before shoving it in her bag, and lit her wand.
Three other wandlights were already on the tree. "It's trying to trap us!" Justin
yelled.

Malfoy pushed his foot into the spot above where the wall and trunk met on the
right side, and launched himself towards the bigger gap, bark breaking under his
scrambling shoes. Hermione shoved her shoe into a sliver between the wall and
trunk, her ankle twisting oddly, and tried to pull herself up with her right hand. She
forced her left arm through the crack after a moment of failure, gritting her teeth at
the protest from her wrist. She moved an inch before hands slammed into her, and
she scraped up to the wider crack, bark burning into her hands and arms.

She sucked in as she shoved herself into the gap, her breasts and bum squished
as flat as they were capable of. Something yanked sharply at her hip, and she saw
Malfoy's face lit by the wand between his teeth, his arm stretched above his head
and a finger curled in the belt loop at her hip. He yanked again, and Hermione's
breath caught as she pushed herself into the air. He caught her around the hips, and
her wrist reminded her why she shouldn't be grabbing things when she clawed into
his shoulders.

He dropped her to her feet, and Hermione moved to Padma when she fell hard
from the other side of the tree. Hermione helped her up as Justin yelled from the
nook, and then cried out the banishing spell. He sailed right through the trunk a
second later.

"What are you doing?" Padma yelled. "You shouldn't waste energy, there's
bound--"

"I was bitten! It was this little gremlin thing, and it had vampire teeth, and it bit
my flesh."

Hermione looked at Justin's arm and the two curves of teeth marks, with two
- 384 -
punctures that were gushing blood. Malfoy grabbed his arm and cast the spell to
stop the bleeding, and Hermione turned her attention to Padma's straying
wandlight.

There were more trees up and down the tunnel, and some of them were so thick
that they took up the entire width of space unless they climbed. She only saw trees,
though. If the magic was trying to trap them and slow them if they ran, she knew it
hadn't just created one creature to attack them during it.

"Sorry, Hermione," Justin said. "It was just…out more, and I didn't mean to touch
you there."

Malfoy's eyebrows drew together, and he looked over his shoulder at Hermione
before turning his head to stare at Justin.

"It's fine," Hermione said. "I'm only worried about what the magic is trying to do
right now."

"It's trying to block us in. But the magic can only attack in forms." Padma looked
at her like a teacher waiting for the student to understand.

Hermione bristled. "Yes, obviously they are trying to hide the forms, but we're
standing here in the open, and it's not doing anything."

"Let's just move towards the end," Justin said. "Nox."

There was a rustle of leaves, and then Padma hit the floor on her knees,
screaming. Malfoy blew the creature off her back with a blocking spell, and Justin
dragged her to her feet as they all started running. Treetops began to rustle all
around them, until the tunnel was filled with a frantic crinkling. They dodged around
trees, hitting their shoulders off them, and tripping over roots across the ground.

Hermione gasped as ice cold fingers grabbed her arm, and small feet slammed
into her ribs as the creature launched itself up her side. Teeth sunk into the skin
around her collarbone, and the creature jerked its head, tearing out a chunk.
Hermione screamed, trying to push it off of her, but it was impossible. She cast the
banishing spell just as Padma did, and the creature flew back as the four of them
ran through a tree that had been too thick to go around.

Hermione clamped her hand over the wound, but only until the next creature
flung itself at her from a branch, and she shot it from the sky with a blocking spell.
Justin grabbed her arm, tugging her to the right, and they all continued running as
- 385 -
the creatures flew at them from all angles.

"Lavender will almost convince my sister that I ran off to some distant island with
a Quidditch player, and that I'm too busy enjoying him to owl. My sister, however,
will think something exaggerated, like a cursed book in the library taking me into
the world within its pages."

"And both will have already been spread all over the school," Hermione muttered,
pulling her robe on after checking all her bandages were secure.

"My House will just suspect Draco kidnapped me to feed me to fishes, or try to
get a full pardon from the Ministry or something. Eh, no offense, but they saw us
walking together a few times, and they think I've been cursed."

"If I was going to curse you, I wouldn't do it so that you stayed by my side,"
Malfoy drawled.

"What about you, Hermione?" Padma asked. "What do you think your House and
friends are going to say of your absence?"

"That I'm in an underground labyrinth at Hogwarts, fighting a Dark magic, and

stopping a device before it breaks into the school."

Justin laughed. "You just reckon Harry and Ron will figure all that out without you
there to do the researching?"

Malfoy breathed a laugh, and she pursed her lips, shooting both of them a look.
"They'll know because I told them. I left a letter in my trunk explaining almost
everything, as well as some books on the device. I'm not sure if they found that yet,
but if they did, I suspect McGonagall has cleared the school, and Harry is ordering
everyone to blow the floor out of the dungeon."

Silence.

"Saves us from explaining when we get back, huh?" Justin asked.

"I would have preferred Hogwarts not closing. Its reputation might not be able to
sustain this if it gets out."

"I would have preferred that as well, Padma, but the students are in danger. I
- 386 -
knew if we didn't stop it within two days, there was a high chance that magic would
get into the school before we blocked the device. I wasn't willing to risk that. Even
so, four students going missing would make headlines as well."

"Why aren't we leaving, then?" Malfoy asked.

"Because we don't know how far the magic will spread, they might not have found
the letter yet, Hogwarts will forever be abandoned if we do, and plenty of other
reasons."

"They'd keep the reason secret until they had the information, though," Justin
said. "If they've cleared the school, they probably told everyone some lie about it,
like a weakness in the wards or something."

Padma crossed her arms, holding her wand out over the bend of her elbow as
they turned into a new tunnel. "Do you think the magic reached the school? It feels
like we've been down here for weeks, but it must be at least Tuesday or Wednesday
by now. At least."

"It's impossible to know."

"Which is why we shouldn't think about it," Justin said.

But then there was silence, and Hermione figured that's all they were thinking
about now.

Hermione frowned as she watched Malfoy pull back the foil, and then pop the
sweet in his mouth. His eyelids drooped, his lips pursing and jaw moving as he
sucked on it. His tongue chased it across his cheek, and she watched the line of it
until it disappeared. The tip of his tongue flicked out to lick his lips, and she
remembered it doing the same to her. The little square had looked red, and she
wondered if his mouth and lips would taste like strawberries, cherries, watermelon,
or raspberries.

She looked up from his mouth, and he was looking back at her. His eyes were
hooded again, and she couldn't tell if they were darker from the bounce of the
candle flame or something else. She was feeling a bit warmer than she had when
she was sniffling earlier.

"What flavor is that?"

- 387 -
 He looked devious, and her heart gave a weird little jolt in her chest. "Would you
like to try it?"

Her lips parted in surprise, and she shot a quick look to Padma and Justin, her
cheeks coloring. "Uh, w-- Yes, actually."

The corners of his lips lifted into an irritatingly knowing smile as he pulled
another sweet from his bag, and then held it out to her. "I think you'd enjoy it."

She cleared her throat, shrugging as her fingers skated his. "Maybe." He raised
an eyebrow. "Sometimes the flavor isn't really enough. I also like complex flavors.
Little hints of other things."

"Like a good wine," Justin said, nodding around his plum. "You just roll it across
the tongue, swish it about."

Hermione's eyes widened as she looked down at the treat, not sure if she should
be paranoid or laugh. She just needed to get off this…thing they were doing all
together. "Honestly, Malfoy, you shouldn't just eat unhealthy things like this."

"I don't really care that it's bad for my health. It tastes too good to stop."

Her eyes flashed to his as the sweet slid into her mouth. She sucked on it,
twirling her tongue around it, and watched Malfoy do the same as he watched her
back. It tasted like a cross between raspberries and cherries.

"What do you think?" Malfoy murmured.

"It's not too sweet, which is good, and I like the combination."

"Mm."

She gave a pointed look to her bag before lifting her eyes back to him again. "You
really do need something more to sustain you."

"And you have all the sustenance I need?"

"If you're still hungry. I have--"

His smile curved slowly, and she realized he was still talking about something
very much other than food. Hermione's stomach clenched in recognition of the look
on his face, and Padma started making clicking noises as Justin whopped her on the
- 388 -
back.

Justin pushed away from her, drawing his wand, as Padma coughed violently. "I'm
fine, I'm fine!"

"I thought something was choking you."

"My food."

"No, I thought the magic--"

"It has no power unless it takes some sort of form. Which is why part of the
protection spell prevents it taking form."

"I know that, but it's evolved before."

"Because it had to break through runes to fully release itself to us. You could have
killed me."

"I didn't even cast anything!"

Hermione looked away when Padma looked over at her, and pulled her bag
towards her. She pulled an apple from the depths and held it out Malfoy. He gave
her an inscrutable look before accepting it, and Hermione made herself busy with
looking at her kneecaps.

"I feel like we've been looking for this thing forever." Justin cracked his neck and
swooped his wandlight in a circle.

"Commitment, dedication," Hermione said. "Sometimes you really have to keep

pushing yourself to find what you want and need, but it's worth it when you do."

"If you ever do," Malfoy grumbled.

"Some people are very satisfied with what they have," Justin said.

"Most aren't."

"I always look for something more challenging, and more knowledge," Padma
said.
- 389 -
 "Exactly," Hermione said. "People are always looking for something. You want
love, you find love, and then you also want money, so you have to keep earning
money, and you want a...pet unicorn, so you have to go through a ton of laws and--"

"Did you attempt acquiring a pet unicorn, Granger?"

"Yeah, but going by that, some people never find what they want or need," Justin
said. "Not to be pessimistic or anything, but there are a lot of tunnels. You know,
metaphorically. And actually. Take Padma - she wants knowledge, but she'll never
be all-knowing, and so she'll never be satisfied. So she'll never really find anything
at all."

"Thanks, Justin."

"No, not everyone finds it. Maybe even most don't find what they're looking for.
But people find a lot of what they need - love, or--"

"Love isn't always found either, Hermione," Padma said. "The majority of people
fall in love more than once, and most of them aren't looking for something that will
end - they're looking for a lifetime with that person."

"But they still have love, and they're still going to remember and hold that love
for a lifetime, in some capacity. It doesn't matter if they lost it, it matters that they
found it."

"People are rarely satisfied with having something they want and then losing it,"
Malfoy drawled.

"But they found it in the first place, and aren't they satisfied with that?" she
asked, looking over at him.

"I don't think many people find love, or understanding, or another person in the
world they match all up with, without settling for it because it's just close to what
they want." Padma shrugged. "So I doubt many of those people actually, really find
it."

"People are always looking for something more, something better...it's impossible
to find it, because there's going to be something better than the best they thought it
was before, or more than the most." Justin swooped his wandlight in lazy circles. "So
if they find it, and then they lose it, they're going to be looking for something better
than it had been the next time. Then better after that."

- 390 -
 "I don't believe that," Hermione said. "I believe while people might continue
looking for other things in their lives, there are certain areas where they aren't
wanting, because they've found the exact thing they want in that place, that makes
them happy. Not many people do, but...it happens."

"It's like a relationship, Granger." Malfoy flashed her a knowing look. "You're with
someone, and you're satisfied with that person, but you want them to stop dating
other people, or stop snoring, or get along with your parents, or put you above their
friends. Whatever it is, you want something more."

"Or a job," Padma said. "You want a higher position, you want more money, you
want more respect."

"It all depends on the good things in each one," Hermione said. "You might stay
with a job because you can't afford to quit, but what are you doing at the job? Are
you happy to go to work because you're doing something you really believe in?"

"But you still want more."

"Yet it becomes worth it. And relationships - I mean, if it's not what you want,
then you're probably not going to be with the person. The good outweighs the bad,
so you accept the bad because it's part of the person you love. You're satisfied and
so you're keeping it. At the end of it all, it's about finding things you can keep - and
we keep everything in some form or another."

"So the majority of the world are lookers, while Hermione Granger is a finder."

She gave Malfoy a glare without heat. "You don't think you're a finder in some
way?"

"Well," Justin said. "I'd really like to find the device, but I think I'm still a looker."

"And a bed."

"Food."

"A shower."

"A toilet."

"Warm, clean clothes, that…"

- 391 -
 Chapter 18

Sound hit them like the ceiling had dropped out and hundreds of people fell with
it into the tunnel - and they had. Hermione recognized the screaming and crying
before she made out the people all around her, though no blinding light came this
time, and then they pushed into her in a mess of stiff limbs and hard torsos. A
larger, strong hand grabbed her own, and she knew it was Malfoy's without looking.
Padma's arm looped around her elbow, and then immediately dragged Hermione
backwards and down as Padma was pushed to the ground.

Malfoy tugged her hand forward, and Hermione's forearm shook with the
strength it took to pull Padma back to her feet. Hermione shoved around the people,
grunting when someone hit off her wrist. A strong, orange light burst into life
behind her, and she twisted back when she felt heat prickling fiercely on the back of
her.

Justin was behind Padma, his arm raised towards the ceiling, and a large tunnel
of fire shooting from the tip of his wand. It blasted down the length of the ceiling in
the tunnel, lighting everything in dancing orange and yellow light. Malfoy pulled her
forward again, and she bent her arm tighter around Padma's, pulling her with them.
The crowd shoved, pushed, and ran right into them in a constant stream of hard hits,
and Hermione decided it wasn't just being lost in a sea, but a sea filled with strong
creatures and concrete blocks.

Hermione almost lost her wand as a woman crashed through the link of hands
between her and Malfoy. Someone banged into her from the side, and she
staggered. A man was grabbing shoulders to push himself faster along, and he
clamped onto Hermione's like a vice. She almost kept upright, but then Padma
collided into the back of her, and they both hit the ground.

Hermione screamed at a shock of pain from her wrist to her temple, that didn't go
away even when the foot left it. The toe of a shoe kicked into the side of her head,
and the world tilted before the stomps on her fingers and calf brought her back.

Padma yelled a blocking spell, and Justin helped Hermione halfway to her feet
before the horde was knocking them around again. She linked arms with Justin,
turning her head to make sure Padma was with them, and then looked for Malfoy's
hair.

- 392 -
 Hermione shoved the people, swiveling and bending her body around them as she
tried to get to Malfoy. She was just two people away from him when he found her
hand in the swarm, and she looked up from the man with a sword a few feet away.
She nodded her chin when her gaze met his, urging him forward, but then caught
sight of very familiar fingers over the top of a bald, bleeding woman's head.

Hermione's eyes flashed to Malfoy's, widening as the grip on her hand tightened,
and Malfoy's widened in response. She looked down at the hand, up a hairy arm, and
to the very large man who was standing still. His eyes looked like someone had filled
the iris with ink and spun it, except for the orange flames reflecting back at her.
There was a single second in which she was aware of other people in the horde
stopping, and the hitch in her breathing. Then the man snapped his hand out, and it
smashed against her chest.

Hermione flew backwards through a space between bodies, banged into

something that felt like rock, and hit the ground on her bum. A woman's lips pulled
back like an attacking animal, jumping towards her. Hermione jerked her foot back,
and the woman landed on the bottom of her leg rather than the kneecap she'd been
aiming for. Hermione grunted, scrambling to her feet as a hand grabbed the back of
her neck, another on her arm, another in her hair.

Hermione yelled the banishing spell, and the grips fell away as she rushed
forward. She moved through six people before she yelled it again, again, again. All
around her were vicious faces and swirling black eyes, and the flames Justin had
sent across the ceiling were fading. The horde was thinning, but there were still
enough people that she couldn't dodge around one without running within reach of
another.

"Hermione!" Justin yelled, his voice muffled, and she turned.

He was running towards her, his mouth bloodied, and shot a blocking spell to the
group between them. He grabbed her arm, and they surged forward as he cast the
banishing spell. They ran through four people, around two, and Hermione's head
snapped back as a chunk of her hair was ripped from the scalp. She cried out, but
the grip was gone, and she kept moving - through three, around five, through two.

It felt like she was lifting a stack of books in one hand as she raised her wand,
casting another banishing spell. She and Justin ran through a group of four people,
and then she spotted Padma and Malfoy at a corner to another tunnel. Padma
blasted a banishing spell towards them, and they surged through the rest of the
vision before the four of them sprinted down the tunnel. The last of the horde
followed after them, but the stampeding of feet turned into hammering, pounding,
- 393 -
and then a murmur.

Pain. Searing, grinding pain that overwhelmed her from the foot to the knee.
Hermione awoke on a scream, her body dragging across stone, and she heard more
join hers from behind. She snatched her wand as her leg was shaken violently, the
pain tearing now, and cast a blocking spell blindly to the area near her feet. She
scrambled back, but only made it an inch before teeth stabbed into the top of her
foot through her shoe.

Something heavy and warm leaped on top of her chest, and Hermione screamed
the banishing spell in the wolf's face as it lunged at her neck. She rolled as the wolf
went through her, but was yanked back by the jaws around her foot. Hermione
sucked in a breath, and it stayed in her throat as everything erupted into a golden
purple light.

Silence, and then puh-pampampampam of her heart, and a rush of yelling.

Hermione dug her elbows into the ground, dragging herself back as tears leaked
from the corners of her eyes. Her ankle was a mess of torn skin, blood, and exposed
tissue, and it felt like her leg was falling off by way of eating itself.

"Padma! Padma! Padma!"

"She cast the spell, it knocks them out," Malfoy wheezed out.

Hermione was shaking as she tore through her bag, pulling out the bottle of
Dittany. She had to squeeze it in her grip just to stop herself from shaking the liquid
out. She bent forward, pulling the dropper, and clenched her jaw as she squeezed
four drops onto her ankle. The liquid sizzled, but for the first time, she only felt the
pain lessen as the holes mended.

She turned, and her elbow brushed Malfoy's head. She forgot about being careful
of anything when she saw the thick chunks of flesh and tissue missing from his side,
beneath the ribs. Her ankle was throbbing, but she could still find enough strength
in it to scramble over Malfoy. There were bite marks on his arm, but they were
punctures, and he must have got the wolf off him before it could tear.

"Lie back," she barked.

"Can't, pain."

- 394 -
 Hermione thought it was going to hurt no matter how he was positioned. "Then
roll over some, Malfoy, I need to see the side fully," she told him, yanking his shirt
up. "Justin--"

"I've got us covered. Padma's Dittany is now gone, though."

Malfoy's knuckles turned bright white, matching the sickly pallor of his face, as
she watched the chunks from his skin begin to fill in. She squeezed another drop of
liquid into one of the tears, and scowled at the wounds.

"That's go--" Malfoy broke off on a yell. "Fucking shit, Granger, tell me when
you're going to do that!"

"Knowing doesn't make it hurt any less!" The tears were still deep, but they were
manageable if he kept them wrapped. "I'm sorry," she told him, and reached to wipe
the sweat from his temple before she could stop. "I'm doing your arm now."

"My arm is fine--"

"No."

"Should I use the Invigoration Draught on Padma? I think we should get out of
here."

"How many bottles--" Malfoy grunted as the Dittany sunk into his wounds.

"Three."

"Put a little in her mouth and see if she swallows it," Hermione said.

"Granger, you can't run with that, put another few drops on it."

"We have another few drops left."

Malfoy snatched the bottle from her, held it up in the candlelight, and then
shifted his eyes to glare at her. "There's enough for--"

"There you go, Padma, welcome back. Hi, hey. Is your arm all right, or do I need
to put more on there? It's just--"

"Give her a moment, Jus--" Hermione sucked air in through her teeth, yanking her
leg back, and looked up in accusation. Malfoy arched an eyebrow as he screwed the
- 395 -
top back on to the Dittany, and put it in his own bag.

"Give that back to me!"

"What happened?" Padma asked, pushing herself up. "Are they gone?"

"Yeah. All three dozen of them."

Hermione stopped trying to wrestle Malfoy's bag away from him. "Three dozen?"

"Did I take a blow to the head, or are you on Malfoy's lap right now?" Padma
lowered her chin and blinked several times.

She wasn't on his lap. She was hovering over it in a strategical recon mission.
"There were three dozen?" Hermione asked again, pulling a book from her bag.

"At least."

Hermione ripped out several pages from the book, transfiguring them into gauze.
She pushed herself off Malfoy's lap as she handed him a few pieces, and then held
out more to Justin. He could keep the Dittany for now, but if he even thought about
misusing it, she'd Accio it quicker than he could open it.

They all wrapped their injuries in silence beyond the occasional charm, and
Malfoy's jar of salve made its way around the group. No one said what Hermione
was thinking, but she doubted she was the only one. The air felt charged - it wasn't
like it had been after the first time she'd used the combination spell. This was
heavier, like every breath she took left something behind in her chest, making it
tighter.

They gathered their things, lit their wands, and started walking wordlessly.
Hermione limped for a few steps, but the routine motion evened out, and her pace
turned easy. She didn't think a longer, waking silence had persisted between all four
of them since they got here. The feeling in the air was growing with each turn they
made and end they reached, and the three minutes of walking felt like an hour.

Then there it was.

"Stairs," Justin said. "There hasn't been stairs before. I knew it. I knew it, I felt it."

"I felt it, too," Padma said, "but I wasn't sure if it was from the other spell or the
Invigoration Draught."
- 396 -
 "We have to get ready," Hermione said, feeling anything but ready at that
moment, despite all the preparation for this very one. "Runes? Spell? Everyone set,
memorized, been rehearsing through all this?"

"We're not going to have time to get the blood together when we're down there -
if the device is indeed down there--"

"There's stairs," Justin said. "And there had been wolves."

"It--" Malfoy leaned back when Hermione thrust the knife at him, and took it from
her gingerly.

She dumped out a jar of water and cast a Drying Charm on it. "The runes are
going to be pretty big - we're going to need a good amount of blood from everyone.
About here."

"Christ," Justin said. "No one happened to bring Blood Replenishing Potion?"

"Remember the lines." Padma pulled a book from her bag and then shoved it back
in. "The symbol for the device has to be around the device, and also done in blood."

Malfoy was staring holes into the palm of her hand, and she wondered if it was
because she hadn't bothered cleaning his blood off the blade before slicing her hand
open. There was a tremble in her chest from fear, panic, and excitement, and it only
magnified when she downed half a vial of Invigoration Draught. Justin was visibly
shaking, and Malfoy looked like someone had cast a Freezing Charm on him.

Justin and Malfoy kept their wands lit, lowering two beams of light down the
beaten stairs. A dozen steps, and Hermione's heart picked up a little more speed on
each one. She knew the feeling of walking into a place she was unsure if she would
come out of, but it never stopped it from freezing out her insides.

There were five people dressed in white against the far wall at the bottom of the
stairs. Hermione and Padma cast a banishing spell as soon as they saw them, and
the four of them broke left, darting down a curved tunnel. Lights skidded across
cracks in the walls and floor, and Hermione just missed tripping over a pile of debris
when that unearthly scream rang out. She heard the flurry of wings a second later,
and knew the hurricane of flying creatures was on its way.

She thought they were running over a floor of rocks, hard shapes digging into the
bottom of their shoes as they crka, crka, but a flash of light over the floor proved it
to be thousands of bugs. They were crawling over one another and back towards the
- 397 -
entrance, making the floor look like a moving river, and Hermione felt it in the grip
of her feet. Before her foot touched down in the next step, the foot on the ground
had been pulled back. It was as if she was running on a flat escalator in the wrong
direction, and her foot was close to slipping out from under her every time she
moved forward.

Padma cast a banishing spell behind her, and then the winged creatures hit them
like razor cuts all over their exposed skin. A few of them tangled in Hermione's hair,
pulling out strands and pieces, and cutting into her scalp. The tunnel was plunged
into darkness as the swarm grew thick enough to block wandlight, and Hermione
yelled the banishing spell, hearing the others do the same somewhere in the pulsing
beat of wings.

The floor turned solid again, and the creatures pushed back until they couldn't be
heard. There was something wet and warm streaming down the side of Hermione's
face, and the skin on her face, neck, and arms was stinging. She knew better than to
be relieved, though, and when three animals jumped out of the wall in front of them,
she was far less surprised than Padma.

Hermione saw one of the animals leap, and then Justin screamed as his wandlight
shot across the tunnel. Hermione raised her own as they were plummeted into
darkness again, and then something collided into her back with enough force to
send her flying through the air before she hit the ground. Deep, stabbing pain
erupted along her shoulders, and Hermione gasped, throwing a banishing spell
behind her. She rolled out from under the animal and to her feet, yelling the spell
again, and then again in the direction of a screaming Padma.

Hermione could hear a pounding sound coming from down the tunnel and
towards them, like dozens of feet or paws slamming into the stone. Light finally
came, and Padma cast a spell at the animal charging at Hermione before Hermione
even saw it. Hermione pushed forward into a run, shooting a spell with Malfoy at the
creature biting into Justin's arm, and the four of them finally broke past the
barricade.

Barely.

Justin and Malfoy's lights were moving all over the place as Malfoy dropped
Dittany onto the shredded wound of Justin's arm. Padma was breathing heavily next
to her, and her cheeks were wet.

"Are you all right?" Hermione gasped out.

- 398 -
 Padma nodded, glancing back at the animals that were losing ground, or maybe
at the pounding noise that was growing louder. "You?"

"Yeah. Malfoy?"

"What?"

There was only a second of hesitation, a rock back of shoulders and a lifting of
chins, at the giant wall of fire around the bend in the tunnel. The fire was blazing
hot on them even from a distance, but they had no time to guess or discuss.
Hermione only heard the shuddering of inhales before they all cast a banishing spell
and jumped through the flames.

For a second, it felt like standing in a windless, silent, even temperature room.
Then the heat flared so hotly she thought they hadn't made it through before the
power of their spells ended. Only the back of Padma's robe was set ablaze, and
Hermione helped her rip it off, throwing it against the wall. The small fire died in a
second, and then a snake lunged from the fabric and sunk its teeth into Malfoy's leg.

Malfoy yelled, reaching to pull it off of him on instinct, and Justin cast a blocking
spell. Hermione got out the first sound of the banishing spell, but the snake
disappeared.

"Were the fangs big?" she asked. "Do you need Dittany?"

"No. The Dittany is gone."

Heaviness settled around them, and it only felt harder to breathe in it when they
could hear the approaching storm of whatever the Dark magic had sent after them.

"I'd rather run around the curve, but I think we're turning here," Padma said.

Hermione glanced at Padma and then turned, looking at the wide tunnel to her
right. The water was murky and still, and across from it, she saw nothing but a wall.
"There's no exit."

"Unless it's like…wall at Hogwarts," Justin said through his panting.

"It goes toward the center. I think that's it."

Hermione nodded. "We'll blow the wall down if it--"

- 399 -
 There was a roar somewhere past the wall of fire, and it was followed by another,
another, a dozen more, until it felt like the air was shaking with it. They all turned
and ran, the ankle-deep water splashing up to her cheeks with the force of their
footfalls. It was freezing cold; the sort of water one would expect under the ice in
the middle of winter, and it shocked her system.

Justin made a loud, long hesitant sound that turned into a yell, and she heard
Malfoy curse viciously as wandlight fell on an Inferius rising from the water.
Hermione raised her wand, and felt an ice cold, bony hand wrap around her arm.
She gasped, pushing her wand towards where she thought the source of it was in
the darkness. Her forearm was shoved up to point her wand at the ceiling, and
another hand grabbed the top of her arm, yanking her forward. Hermione shoved
back, but the grip was unrelenting. She kicked out her leg, and felt it meet
something as unmoving as a wall.

Her forearm pressed into wet, grainy skin that gave, folding like soft rubber to
the side of her arm. She smelt the putrid rot of dead flesh, and could taste it along
her tongue. The Inferius dug its long, pointed nails into her chest, above her heart,
and Hermione snatched the wand from her captured hand. She yelled the banishing
spell and fled, wondering wildly if the nails had cut into something vital in her heart
when it danced erratically under the wound.

The water was up to her knees, then her hips, her ribs, her breasts as she
alternated lighting spells and runic magic. The Inferi kept rising out of the water in
brown and grey shapes, sloshing towards them from all sides, and were completely
unhindered by the rising water. Hermione couldn't get enough speed, and her legs
were cramped with the effort.

A hand slapped into her throat from behind, and she was flung backwards,
slamming into and under the water. Two lights crossed over one another above the
surface of the water, and then all was dark. Hermione pulled her wand towards her
head, and something grabbed and twisted it. The hand around her throat clenched,
nails digging into the side of her neck.

Hermione's heart pounded, adrenaline racing through her and making her tingle
with numbness, and fear filled her more coldly than the water around her. She
reached with her left hand, trying to twist herself, and another hand grabbed it,
wrenching it down. Her broken wrist popped, and Hermione screamed under the
water, releasing the last of her oxygen.

Something slivered against her hip, then the side of her face, and Hermione had
to force herself not to suck in a breath that would have been all water. There was a
- 400 -
deep pressure in her chest, and her throat kept clicking, but her mind knew better
than to breathe. She bucked against the hands holding her down as slick skin
dragged over her wrists and ankles, and then curled around her like snakes. It
tightened until the point of pain, and then the hands flew off of her.

There was a light above the water surface, and then something pulled on her leg,
her shirt, and then yanked on her arm. Her chest and throat were burning with the
lack of oxygen, and the light above her was dimming. Hands grabbed her upper
arms, and then something golden shot down towards her before she flew up, up,
crashing out of the depths of the water.

Hermione sucked in a tight breath that growled and whimpered in her throat, and
that she didn't feel at all. Justin stared at her, soaking wet, with wide eyes that
showed every bit of panic and fear she felt. Padma was behind him, nearly lost in the
outskirts of light as she yelled for them to hurry.

Hermione pulled in another breath, gasped, another, another, and her next
exhale came out in a broken, sobbing sound. The arm that had moved around her
waist yanked her again, her back pressed to something solid and shaking, and she
heard Malfoy growl something she couldn't hear over her breathing.

The bone-threatening grip around her ankles was immediately gone, and she
slanted backwards under the sudden release. She was desperately trying to not lose
her mind with the pain in her wrist and the ball of emotions in her gut, but the
broken noises continued as Malfoy spun her to face him. She slipped against his
chest, the water up to his chin, and her feet weren't on the ground.

His eyes were just as wide as hers, and she found something there that stabilized
her tottering on the brink - the way he looked at her like if she lost it, this was all
going to fail. And she wouldn't lose it now. Not yet.

He cast the Bubble-Head Charm on her without a word, and just turned her in his
arms and plummeted her back into the water. She lit her wand, and saw Justin's legs
kicking forward through the murk. Her teeth grounded together, the ball of panic
still alive and explosive in her chest, and spread her arms out into the water. Her
wrist felt like it was in flames, and she imagined there might have been tears had
she not been submerged, but she shoved herself forward anyway.

The runic magic cut like bullets through the water, tunneling in flashes of light.
The Nefari and snakes infested the water all around them, and no matter how much
magic they threw at the corpses, they kept coming. Hermione felt like she sunk a
little more each time she cast, but the adrenaline was making her whole body throb.
- 401 -
 Justin's feet disappeared in front of her, and she only had a second to realize
there was a wall there before she went through it. The stroke of her arms pushed
her hands against dry stone, and then she was sailing out into the air. Whiteness
blinded her, and she hit the ground with a thunk, a pressured squeak of air knocking
out of her.

"Roll!" Padma yelled, and Hermione did, a cry caught in her throat when she
twisted her wrist to tuck her arm against herself.

She heard Malfoy land where she had been, and he sucked in a breath before
releasing it with a stream of curses. Hermione dragged her waterlogged body to its
feet, staggering back as she squeezed her eyes a little tighter. She rolled them,
trying to ease the burn from the light, and then opened them into slits. Her back
bumped into something hard, and she jerked forward, clenching her wand. It
bumped into her again, pushing slowly, and Hermione shot a hand out to feel the
wall.

The walls were moving.

"Run, run, run!" she yelled, her voice croaking, and no one bothered to ask why.

She expected anything at any moment - a hand, claws, fangs ripping into her
throat. She had managed to lift her eyelids halfway now, but there was nothing but
light that was more blinding than the darkness. She heard Malfoy curse from behind
her, and knew that he had gone over enough to feel the closing walls.

She glanced over at him on instinct, and almost recoiled. All she could see was
the faint pink of his lips and cheeks, and the black irises turned grey in the light. He
turned sideways, and she felt the walls touch her shoulders two furious beats of her
heart later.

A ridge caught the toes of her shoes, and she fell forward as a loud grinding noise
started somewhere ahead. Malfoy fell on top of her, knocking her flat against the
ground, and then pressure rolled across them as Malfoy grunted in her ear. Padma
screamed in surprise when she fell over them, and Malfoy pulled up. Hermione
scrambled to her feet, sure the walls were going to close in, but there was a wide
space around them.

"Keep running!" Justin yelled. "Malfoy's door, Malfoy's door!"

Hermione's mind went blank on processing what he meant as she sprinted

forward, but then the grinding sound registered. Rock was sliding against rock, and
- 402 -
either the tunnel was falling in on them, or one of the ends was shutting. Piles of
debris and crumbled stone littered the passageway, catching all their feet, but she
couldn't hear any smashing sounds.

Hermione banged her forehead off stone, and she gasped for air, feeling along
the wall for the exit. She found someone's fingers pushing out, Padma's by the
length, and she grabbed her wrist. Padma edged slowly to the side before jerking
her, making a sound of triumph as they rushed through the narrowing gap.

The light was gone, and Hermione's eyesight burned red in the dark as she
turned. Justin was trying to shove through the gap as it continued narrowing, the
stone unmoving even in the face of his banishing spell. Hermione made a strangled
sound as she grabbed him, and Malfoy reached over her shoulder to grab the arm
Justin was holding above his head. They dug their feet in and threw themselves
back, and everything but his leg scraped out as they all hit the floor.

"Turn your foot!" Malfoy barked.

"I ca--" Justin screamed as something cracked loudly, and Malfoy hauled him back
just a second later, pulling him out the rest of the way.

Justin sucked in a breath and screamed again, tendons on his neck rising. He
shoved himself over, reaching for his leg as he pulled in another breath, but turned
instead, vomiting onto the floor. Malfoy leaned back, as if it could somehow bounce
off the floor, over Justin, and land on him.

"Oh, my God," Justin breathed. "I'm dying."

Hermione shook her head quickly, afraid to look at his leg. "No, but you broke
your leg pretty severely from the sound of it." She reached out to run a hand over
his wet curls, unsure who was trembling or if they both were. "Just breathe. Your
body's defenses will kick in in a moment."

"We have a problem." Padma was digging in her bag for something, and
Hermione lit her wand to look at where they were. "It's empty. There's a tunnel right
there, but…"

"No." Hermione looked at the square entrance to the rounded room. "This has to
be it. It's a room."

Padma knocked into her elbow, and Hermione looked at the vial before taking it.
She could feel the draught's path to her stomach, and then the tingling shoot out
- 403 -
into her limbs.

"But the room is empty."

"Get me up, please."

Hermione took a step forward, but it was Malfoy who lowered his hand to Justin
and pulled him to his feet. Foot. Justin's cheeks were bright pink, and he looked
dazed as he took the draught from Padma.

"There's runes," Malfoy murmured. "Center of the room."

Hermione turned her head to look, but before she spotted them, the image
shimmered and three wandlights illuminated a room of beasts. Hermione took three
steps back without a thought on holding her ground, her back hitting the wall that
had shut. She recognized several of them from the castle and the tunnels, but there
were larger ones now, their fangs as long as her hand.

In front of the entrance were five grey, striped animals, their backs as high as her
hips, and two fangs hanging over their jaws on either side. The animals hunched,
curved claws scraping against stone, and Padma breathed a word that caused all of
them to raise their wands as one.

The sound of the combination spell was lost under the roar of a giant, brown
beast at the center of the room, but the golden purple light exploded in the faces of
the beasts as they all charged forward. The pulsing force of the spell pressed
Hermione to the wall like the wind of a hurricane, and it felt like it took all her
magical strength to create itself.

Sound and light vacuumed from the space, and four pairs of legs gave out before
they all thudded to the ground. The feeling inside of her was dull but heavy, making
her think of rocks in a bag of skin. Her thoughts were blurred into thinly constructed
words, and fear took a few seconds to tear through the exhaustion. She opened her
eyes, and watched a single beam of wandlight sweep the empty room.

"We have to go now," Justin said, his voice dragging and cracking. "It's going to
come back."

Hermione struggled to her feet with one arm, and grabbed Padma's elbow when
the girl sunk back down again. "Do we have any Invi--"

"One vial," Padma breathed, pressing it into Hermione's hand.

- 404 -
 Hermione took two sips and passed it back, then shifted her bag to the front of
her. The draught started working as her hands sped up to the pace they should have
been at, but her whole body still felt heavy. They wouldn't survive another
combination spell, and there was no going back now. It wasn't even a matter of
principle or timeliness - they couldn't make it.

Hermione pulled the knife and jar of blood out of her bag, moving forward, and
jumped when glass shattered. She looked back, and watched Malfoy pick up shells
of brown. He handed it to Justin, who looked at in bewilderment.

"We can't cast the spell with the runes on our fingers."

Hermione let out a hard breath, walking back to Malfoy. She had forgotten about
the runes, and if Malfoy hadn't remembered, it would have been the end to
everything. She only felt mildly better when she told herself she would have
remembered when she was making the cuts.

Malfoy held out a piece of glass, and Hermione slid her fingertips against it, the
vestiges of Dittany stinging the tiny cuts. She inspected her fingertips to be sure it
was all gone, and then slid her arm around Justin, urging him forward.

"Do you have to hold the knife on my back like that? Not that I don't trust you,
but it's a knife. And it's on my back."

"Relax, Justin, just…"

"Hurry up," Malfoy said, finishing the sentence she hadn't wanted to.

"If you hadn't broken my leg--"

"The wall broke your fucking leg--"

The device was in the center of the room, shaking silently. It was a fairly large,
green, metal box with some sort of wheel rising from the top of it, and looked
roughly like one of the pictures had shown. There were runes around it, and large
cracks that ran through them. Hermione cast the strongest repairing spells she
knew.

"Just everyone shut up and hurry up!" Padma yelled.

Hermione looked at the runes around the device before Padma cleared them
away, and then made sure all the cracks were completely sealed. Hermione held out
- 405 -
the jar of their blood, the top frothy from being shaken, and they all dipped their
wands in it.

She moved as quickly as she could while making sure she didn't mess up any of
the runes, and was slightly less nervous about Justin when she heard Malfoy
snapping to draw the line straight. She didn't often like to expose her friends to the
sharper edges of Malfoy's personality, but this was one of those rare times where
she was glad he was doing it so she didn't have to.

She could hear things moving inside of the device, and the Dark magic gathering
strength to push against the remnants of protective magic they had unleashed.
Hermione finished her last rune, checking to see that everyone else was on their
last, and then threw the jar of blood out of the circle they had formed.

Malfoy and Padma were drawing runes at the end of the long line that ran across
the floor and through the center of the device. There were four shorter, grooved
lines that ran diagonal from the device, and Hermione took her spot at the end of
one. She slashed the knife across the palm of her right hand, above the cut she had
made earlier, and then across her fingertips with a grimace. She held the knife out
to Padma, her hand shaking.

Hermione bent, squeezing her hand into a fist, and watched the blood flow from
the bottom and into the line. The blood began to trickle, and she stretched her hand
out, then shut it again. It moved far too slowly down the line and towards the device,
but as long as it reached it before they finished the spell, they would be fine. She
just desperately hoped they had all done it right.

"Mine's touching, are we--" Justin started to say, but was cut off by a roar of fury
from somewhere in the room.

The sound bounced off the walls, followed by a weaker roar, and then one that
was even stronger than the first. Hermione's heart pounded as the adrenaline
picked up where the two sips of Invigoration Draught couldn't. Malfoy threw the
knife behind him, and then the tips of their four wands met directly above the center
of the device.

"Onetwothree," Padma yelled.

The spell rose and fell in lower consonants and higher vowels, their voices
moving at the same speed. Hermione did her best to clear her head of impending
doom and focus on channeling her magic down her arm and through her wand, her
bloodied fingers slipping along the smooth wood. She felt the spell take her magic,
- 406 -
in a bubbling, static heat that swelled from her chest and pulled slowly down her
arm.

A golden ball was growing around their hands, flashes of white and curls of red
moving within it. Hermione was frozen into place, her eyes caught in the storm of
magic within that expanding ball of light. All the energy she possessed seemed to be
draining out of her, leaving her statuesque and devoid of life.

The ball reached to her elbow, the red curls now flashing like lightning within the
gold, and her tongue was leaden as she pushed out the end of the spell. She was
going to collapse to the ground in a sack of skin and shrunken bones, but then the
ball erupted. Her head snapped backwards, and she was the light, and the magic,
and the air, and the blood. It felt like a terrible freedom - it felt like death.

Hermione's body was ice: cold, stiff, and cracked. Or perhaps she was dead, and
it was just the way the dead felt when they woke up to find themselves in such a
state.

She blinked open her eyes, and her breath whooshed, blowing up dust on the
ground. Her arm was there, caked in blood, yet golden from the firelight. She curved
her fingers, feeling the stiffness and tinge of pain.

She groaned as she pushed herself up to a sitting position, and had to fight her
body and herself to not collapse back down again. It was like someone had replaced
her skeleton with metal, and she was just waking up to the surprise. Her whole body
ached, and where it didn't ache, it burned.

She stared at the wall, blinking twice, and there was nothing in her hand when
she went to grip her wand. She stumbled and staggered to her feet, her head
swooping with dizziness.

"They've been there for awhile," Justin said. "I didn't see torches before the spell,
but…I don't think it's a vision. Nothing else has come, but I don't know what lit
them."

Her wand was against the wall of the room, which wasn't, as it turned out, very
far from where she woke up. She picked her wand up, and then turned to the device.
It was still thrumming, but the runes around it were glowing gold. Judging by the
dried blood on her, they had been asleep for awhile, but the blood in the grooved
lines around the device was still wet.
- 407 -
 "It knocked us all out of the circle." Justin nodded his chin to Padma and Malfoy,
both of them sprawled out on the ground. "They're breathing. I mean, they look
okay. Do you think it's over?"

Hermione swayed on her feet, and then moved to Malfoy, narrowing her eyes at
him. He liked to pretend to sleep too much for her to ever trust he wasn't awake. "I
know we're alive. I know we wouldn't be if the spell didn't work. We'll know for sure
by the time we reach the end of the tunnels."

"At least we have the arrows to guide us back. Should only take a few days. If I
don't die before then."

Hermione gave him a look. "You're not going to die. I want to wait until we're out
of the room, and then we'll try to heal ourselves up. I can transfigure you a walking
stick."

Justin leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes as he grinned. "I'd
like it to be silver, with a badger on the handle. We'll call it Hufflepuff Stick, and
whenever Malfoy gets out of line…"

"That's the least inventive name you could have possibly came up with,
Finch-Fletchley."

Hermione glared at Malfoy, but he kept his eyes shut as she made her way to
Padma.

"I could have named it Stick. And what do you care? The most you'll see of it is
when it's hitting you about the head and shoulders."

"And when I kick it out from under you."

Hermione wobbled under Padma's Levitation Spell, and Justin and Malfoy both
reached out a hand. The two of them looked at one another as Hermione reached for
both, but Justin dropped his hand away.

"Your arm is bleeding again." Hermione frowned at the gauze over Malfoy's arm
as her feet settled onto the ground.

He pulled back, but she was quicker, lifting the square. The skin around it was
still red and swollen, and while they had kept it clean, she still couldn't tell if it was
- 408 -
infected at all.

"We'll be in the infirmary in a matter of minutes," he told her.

She looked up, and found him close enough that her nose brushed his chin. She
paused, staring up at him, and couldn't read his expression as he stared back.

"If it's not the middle of the night," Justin said. "Don't get me wrong, I'm happy
for you bringing some of your clothes - and happier still that you didn't use them,
like-"

"But if it's the middle of the night, we're going to be trapped in your bedroom,"
Hermione said, and Malfoy's eyebrow might have twitched at the statement.

"If it even works!" Padma yelled. "Now can someone levitate me up, or do I have
to stand here all day?"

"Oh, here--"

"No, uh… Hermione?"

Justin gave an amused look to the hole before turning for the wall, and Hermione
pointed her wand at Padma, levitating her up. Justin and Malfoy cleared the wall of
runes, and Padma helped them repair the cracks and chunks as Hermione pulled out
the jar of blood. They drew the runes on the wall, and then wiped off their wands
before rolling the tips in the blood from the cut across their fingers. They all drew
their own summoning rune, and then cast the spell they had done seven times
before.

It didn't take as much for the runes on the walls, and Hermione didn't know if
that was because it wasn't around the device, there was no unleashed Dark magic,
or the runes were smaller. She did know that she was thankful it didn't take
everything from them each time. It had taken them at least two days just to do the
runes on the walls, and she hated to think what it would have been like if they were
knocked out after each one.

"Now? I haven't even caught my breath, you're going to make me sick."

"You're probably going to get sick anyway, Justin," Padma said. "Unless you're
really mindful of not putting that leg down when you land, it's going to be extremely
painful."

- 409 -
 "Well, now I'm minding."

"Let's just hope it works," Hermione said, tapping her wand against the wall. "Or
we're going to knock this wall down."

"Not the trousers," Justin announced. "Which, I'll have you know, you owe me a
pair."

Malfoy raised an eyebrow, then tossed the trousers at Justin, pulling out an
oxford next. Hermione knew to grab it when his eyes widened, and Padma and Justin
were quick to follow. She shut her eyes at the pull behind her naval, her stomach
fluttering with nerves.

Justin pitched forward when they landed, and Hermione darted out to push him
upright. Malfoy murmured a spell, and the torches around the room lit, revealing…

"It almost looks exactly like the tunnels," Justin said.

"Sod off."

"Except there's a bed." Padma said it like the person of her fantasies was on top
of it, and Malfoy's eyebrows drew together as he gave her a look between being
disturbed or cautious.

"Any food in here? It's been two days, and--"

All of them jumped, and automatically pointed their wands at the entrance when
it began grinding open. Three Aurors appeared on the other side, and Hermione
lowered her wand when she caught sight of glinting glasses and static hair.

"You think they're real people?" Justin whispered.

"There goes our claim to sanity," Malfoy muttered, tapping his wand against the
side of his leg.

There was a moment where Hermione felt like a child about to be scolded, but
then she lifted her chin. Harry raised his eyebrows in response, but it was all lost
when he hugged her to him. "Are you angry?"

"We'll talk later," he told her. "Are you all right?"

"Better now."
- 410 -
 "It--"

"You're not taking Malfoy," Justin said. "We forced him to break his curfew. We
actually, literally, forced him. With--"

"Justin," Hermione said, shaking her head at him.

"All I'm saying is that you're not taking Malfoy without taking the rest of us,
because--"

"We don't want Malfoy," Harry said, his eyes skimming over the blond. "Yet. The
Ministry has to interview all of--"

"The Ministry can wait until my students have been to the infirmary and have
their rest, Mister Potter." McGonagall pushed past the line of Aurors, and her hand
fell onto Hermione's shoulder. She was both relieved and disappointed, and
Hermione and Harry exchanged a look at the sight of it.

McGonagall ushered them out of the room, and Hermione turned to make sure
they were all behind her. Padma was giving one of the Aurors a suspicious look, and
Justin had decided to start telling Harry everything now. Malfoy was stone-faced,
and she had a feeling that the next two days were going to feel longer than the
entire trip back through the tunnels.

Hermione smiled to herself as she saw the blue and green feather of a quill
sticking out from under a tapestry. She glanced behind her, but the group of
students were far down the corridor. She pushed the tapestry aside, and a hand
snapped out to grab her own, yanking her into the dark.

He smothered her sound of surprise with his mouth, an arm wrapping around her
waist and pulling her against him. Hermione tried to speak, but he only took it as an
opportunity to flick his tongue into her mouth, and she was lost.

She pushed an arm around his neck, and the other curved beneath his arm, her
hand wrapping around the back of it. Malfoy pushed her against the wall, and she
let out a shuddering breath when she felt the reason for his rush.

"Not here."

"Yes, here."
- 411 -
 "We leave Hogwarts tomorrow," she said. "I'm not getting expelled the-mm, day,
mm..."

His fingers worked on the knot of her tie as his other hand pulled her shirt from
her skirt. "I'm not waiting until tomorrow."

"We-- My flat-- Oh."

"Your beast ripped my robes to shreds last weekend--"

"He just has to get used--" Hermione gasped out a breath.

"After dinner, then. My bedroom."

"Okay," she said, gripping his nape to pull his mouth back to hers.

She kissed him for a moment and then pulled back, but he grabbed her jaw and
pressed fully against her before she could move. "It doesn't mean I'm done, Granger.
You're not leaving until you're trembling, or I'll have to wait until you've finishing
coddling every wide-eyed first--"

"Trembling? Unless you suddenly turn into--" Hermione moaned, tugging hard on
his oxford, and pulling the hem from his trousers. "Prat," she breathed. "I'm bringing
Crookshanks with me now."

"You can try," he muttered against her neck. "You need a better familiar.
Something hairless."

"Crookshanks is the best familiar there is. There's nothing better."

"So you've found your perfect pet? He takes up that one little spot of the things
you're no longer looking for, and there's no hope for me to push him out a window?"

"There will be no pushing, or--" Hermione panted for breath. "Or, uh...I'll do very
bad, painful things to your person. Crooks is all I need for a pet." She swallowed as
his lips traveled across her cheek. "And I've stopped looking for other things as
well."

He paused, his hands stilling in her hair and the clench of his fingers on her hip.
He raised his head, and they shared a breath, chests rising and falling together.

"For now," she said.

- 412 -
 His lips curved against her mouth, and her own curled back.

Everyone in the world was looking for something. It was just a matter of realizing
that they were all finders, and sometimes, it found you.

fin.

- 413 -