Harry Potter - Series Fan Fiction ❯ War of the Wizarding World ❯ Chapter 3

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

*****

"So what do you think?" Harry asked.

The four of them were sitting on Draco's bed in the Gryffindor seventh-year boys' dormitory, about half an hour after Draco and Hermione had officially become "an item". Shortly after sealing their new status with another kiss, Hogwarts' newest couple had made for the door of the Great Hall; they were both tired- Draco especially, after having just recovered from a near- fatal wound and all- and wanted to get a head-start back to Gryffindor Tower so that Draco could learn the ropes and get situated while it was relatively empty and quiet. The lower years would be fast asleep and the rest of the upper years would still be dancing for another hour or two.

Ron and Harry, noticing their stealthy departure, had ducked out immediately after them and caught them on the grand staircase; they were both exhausted as well, but more than that, still playing the deeply- ingrained role of over-protective best friends, they were not yet ready to allow Hermione and Draco to slip off for any amount of "alone time".

As a result, the four of them had entered the tower, and then the deserted dormitory, together, finding that the circular room had been magically expanded and Draco's bed and all his belongings had already arrived.

Hence Harry's question as the "Gryffindor Four" sat comfortably together, Draco taking in his new surroundings, the slightly dazed expression back in his eyes.

"Malfoy?" Harry prompted.

Draco's eyes snapped back into focus. "I think," he said, glancing around the room one more time, "that this dorm looks like its on fire- red and gold everywhere. Yecch. Plus scarlet makes me look washed-out. Green really did suit me better." Hermione poked him in the ribs good-naturedly as Ron and Harry rolled their eyes at each other.

"I also think it's a damn good thing my grandparents left me a comfortable sum of money in a Gringott's vault in my own name- (Harry flashed Ron a quick, knowing grin, as they both understood that a sum described by Malfoy as "comfortable" would likely be described by anyone else as "holy shit, I'm rich beyond my wildest dreams") -which I'll gain access to on my seventeenth birthday and which my parents cannot touch, and that Dumbledore has agreed to let me stay here on scholarship until then- because I'm fairly certain that my tuition checks have just been stopped cold." His wry tone was belied by the solemn look in his eyes as he added, "when father finds out that I'm a Gryffindor now, on top of everything else-" he was unable to suppress a small shudder.

Hermione scooted closer to him on the bed, trying to offer him some comfort and reassurance by wrapping an arm around him and laying her head on his shoulder. Draco rested his chin on top of her head, and his hand came up to begin stroking absently through her hair.

"If your father comes after you again, Malfoy, we'll be there, just like last time," Harry said with quiet conviction.

Draco's mouth curved into the barest hint of a smile. "There's just one more thing I think, Potter," he said, and allowed his eyes to drift shut- it looked like an effect of sleepiness, but was really because he couldn't quite bring himself to meet Harry's gaze as he continued, "I think I'm going to like having real friends."

When Lucius Malfoy brooded, the whole of Malfoy Manor seemed to brood with him. And Lucius was brooding now. Sunk deep into a black leather armchair in his study, he stared darkly into the fireplace, where a venomous green fire crackled and hissed fitfully, appearing almost as angry as Lucius himself.

He had reason to be angry. A party of Aurors had arrived at the manor with a warrant that morning and had spent the better part of the day carefully combing it for illegal dark objects. Several of Lucius's favorite possessions had been confiscated, and he was sure to face a heavy fine. At least they had found nothing serious enough to be grounds for arrest- and he could plainly see that they had been itching to arrest him. At least they hadn't found his potions lab. Thank the Dark Lord for small favors, anyway. Oh wait, that's right, the Dark Lord's DEAD. He could do Lucius no more favors of any kind. Well then FUCK HIM. His face suddenly contorting with rage, he hurled the empty brandy glass he had been holding into the fireplace, where it exploded in a shower of bright, poison-green sparks.

He then turned his attention to the object clenched in his other hand; a crumpled copy of the evening edition of the Daily Prophet. Yes. No sooner had the Aurors left, than this had been delivered, to add insult to injury. He glanced to his left, where a crumpled little heap of brown feathers lay just inside the open study window. Stupid bird had actually had the gall to wait around after making its delivery, clicking its beak at him and expecting payment for bringing him this- this- atrocity. Now, on top of everything, he would owe the newspaper for a new post owl.

Returning his attention to the paper in his hand, he smoothed it out and read it over yet again, jaw tightly clenched, face pallid, two bright fever spots blazing furiously, high on his cheeks. Having re-read the article for the umpteenth time, he flipped the paper over and stared once again at the full-page photo that graced the back. It showed Draco, his son, his fucking ingrate SON, standing on a dais in the Great Hall of Hogwarts, flanked by Potter and the youngest Weasley boy on one side, and that mudblood bitch Granger on the other. All four were wearing the same ridiculous pajamas he had seen on them in the hospital room, and had huge medals hanging around their necks- he recognized the Order of Merlin, First Class, of course- and were grinning ear-to-ear. And- this was the final kicker- this was what caused a red mist to descend over his vision every time he looked closely at the photo- his...son (he could hardly even think the word without choking on it) was HOLDING THE MUDBLOOD'S HAND.

Then there was the caption beneath the photo- "Gryffindor Four" it read.

Without being consciously aware of it, he had actually bared his teeth while staring at the picture, his lip curling back into a snarl of unadulterated wrath and hatred. Now, with a sudden, furious roar, he crumpled the paper a final time and threw it into the fireplace as well, where it curled, blackened, and was gone.

He sat for a long moment at the edge of his seat, breathing hard, hands clenching and unclenching spasmodically, looking as though he was about to lunge forward and throw himself into the fire as well- and truthfully, the idea was not without its appeal.

Then he sank back into the chair once more and bellowed, "NARCISSA!"

A moment later his wife swept regally into the room, a pale beauty resplendent in long black robes of the finest silk, which trailed behind her on the highly-polished floor. Giving the dead owl near the window a wide berth, she settled herself serenely in the chair opposite him and regarded him with one raised eyebrow. The many house-elves that inhabited the manor may have been cowering in the pantry at that moment, in mortal terror of Lucius's temper, but Narcissa was not the least bit intimidated. She was her husband's match in every regard.

"You called, my love?" she asked softly, completely unruffled.

"Yes," Lucius ground out from between clenched teeth, "indeed I did. Were you aware, Narcissa dear, that we now have a- a- Gryffindor-" he spat the word as a muscle in his cheek twitched- "for a son?"

"Why, no, darling," she replied calmly; "in fact, I was not aware that we had a son at all."

"Ah," Lucius said, a faint smile twisting his lips; she was a piece of work, his wife, he thought- "touché." And he closed his eyes, bringing up one hand to massage his temple with his fingertips, a gesture Draco had picked up from him.

After a moment's silence, the rustle of silks told him that Narcissa was on the move again, and in the next instant she had settled herself on top of him, straddling him easily in the oversized chair. Leaning down so close that their noses almost touched, enveloping him in a shimmering curtain of platinum hair, she murmured, "I think it's time we got to work on a new heir, don't you?"

Again Lucius smiled, and allowed her to begin kissing him deeply. But a moment later he broke the kiss and pushed her away. "In case you've forgotten, Narcissa," he spat out, "we no longer have anything to offer an heir. We were prepared to give Draco the world on a silver platter, and in return, he destroyed us. We have nothing of import left to pass on, because wealth-" with one hand he made a dismissive gesture that encompassed the richly appointed study- "is useless unless accompanied by power. And without the Dark Lord, we have no power, as our little visit by the Ministry today should have amply demonstrated to you."

"Lucius, Lucius," Narcissa purred, "silly man. You still haven't realized. Don't you wonder why the Ministry is so desperately eager to arrest you right now? It's because they are afraid, and they should be. A position has very recently come open that I think you are just the man to fill. The Ministry sees it as well, though they fail to share my enthusiasm for the idea. No, they are frantic to lock you away before you have a chance to step into this vacant position, which, to my mind, will suit you to a tee."

"Oh?" Lucius asked with a raised eyebrow. "And what position is that?" He was beginning to understand what she was driving at, but wanted to hear her say it just the same. Once he heard the words actually leave her mouth, spoken in that low, sensuous drawl of hers, the concept would begin to seem real to him; something that he could then start working and striving toward immediately.

"Why, the position of Dark Lord, of course," she said, smiling. "Think, darling- Draco would have been the son of the Dark Lord's second-in- command.....but our new heir will be the son of the Dark Lord himself. If that's not power-" she leaned down and whispered seductively into his ear, "what is?"

A slow smile spread over Lucius's face; a bone-chilling smile that would have terrified his hapless house-elves far more than his earlier ranting and raving.

"Well, Narcissa," he drawled out, "this IS an intriguing proposition."

"Our Lord's followers are in a state of complete disarray," she said, sounding suddenly breathless with excitement. "They need someone to step forward and take the reins, and naturally they will look to you, since you were second-in-command. The only possible obstacle to your rise in power, as far as I can see, is that some of them may think to question your authority in light of the disgraceful actions of our erstwhile son. We will simply have to make it known throughout our circles that we do not tolerate Draco's defection; we will have to bring him home somehow.......and make an example out of him."

Lucius's smile widened further, and a manic gleam came into his eyes. "I like the way you think, darling," he said, "but that will prove easier said than done. I received an owl last night from Dumbledore, damn him, informing me that he will henceforth be alerted the moment I set foot on Hogwarts grounds. Apparently he guessed the true purpose of my visit yesterday."

"We can work around that, my love, if you were to portkey in to a strategic location within the castle- Draco's dorm, shall we say- and then back out again in under a minute. Even if the old fool WERE immediately alerted to your presence, there is little he could do in a minute's time."

But Lucius was shaking his head. "There's more," he snarled. "He's placed a charm on Draco that the boy is not even aware he is carrying. If I set foot in the same room as him, anywhere in Hogwarts or even Hogsmeade, I will instantly be rendered Stupified."

"I see....." Narcissa fell silent for a long moment, pondering. Lucius let her think. She was brilliant, his wife. Surely she would come up with something.....

Finally, just as he was getting ready to shove her off his lap in order to begin pacing the room, a triumphant gleam lit her eyes and she exclaimed, "Aha!"

"Well, love?" Lucius prompted.

"None of Dumbledore's spells can prevent Draco from coming home voluntarily," she said simply.

"And he would do that why, exactly?" Lucius asked skeptically.

"Because, my darling, we will have something he wants!"

"And that is?"

"Come now, Lucius, THINK! Draco may be well protected from you, but there are no such protective spells on-"

"The mudblood!" Lucius cried. And now the expression on his face was downright diabolical. "Darling, its genius! We'll make them both pay; Draco for betraying us, and the mudblood for corrupting our only child. Oh yes.....how they both will PAY.........."

TO BE CONTINUED..............

(OK so there you have it.....look for my sequel which I believe I will call "Sometimes When We Touch", in probably about a month or so. It will continue the story as the "Gryffindor Four" face a new threat, (yeah, um, see above.....) and will also address the issues left unresolved at the end of this fic; and I do absolutely acknowledge that there are loose ends, loads of them, not least of which are Hermione's ongoing trauma stemming from the rape (she never really had time to think about it in You Gotta Breathe- what with everyone being in mortal peril pretty much the whole time- but what will happen when the routine returns to normal, for a while, anyway, and she has a chance to dwell on it? Hmm...) and the fact that Ron is still desperately in love with her, though he tries to hide it by putting on a brave face. I knew these loose ends existed when I wrote the last chapter, but hey, that's what a sequel's for! I've begun work already, but it is not ready to post yet, as I never write a story straight through- I write the most dramatic scenes, the ones that are most vivid in my mind, first, then sort of knit them together with filler. So chapter one isn't even written yet. Wacky, I know. Anyhoo, in the mean time, here is part of one of the aforementioned dramatic scenes, just to give you a little teaser.......)

FROM "SOMETIMES WHEN WE TOUCH"

Draco landed hard on his back at the top of the stone front steps of Hogwarts. Though the wind was knocked out of him by the rough landing, he instantly scrabbled to his knees, looking frantically about for Hermione. He located her some distance away, lying face-down, halfway down the steps. Her dark hair was fanned out about her head, and she wasn't moving.

"HERMIONE!" Not pausing to see where, or even whether, Harry had landed, he scrambled on his hands and knees down to where she lay. Bending close over her, he gently pushed her hair back from where it fell across her face. "Hermione?" his voice was a strangled whisper- "Hermione....please." He rolled her onto her back, gathered her into his arms, and struggled with her back up to the top of the steps.

Laying her flat on her back at the top of the steps, he slipped one hand beneath her head to cushion it and with the other, began stroking her cheek, his tears again beginning to fall unchecked on her still face.

"Malfoy," came a voice at his elbow. He raised his head to see Harry there, staring down at Hermione, ashen-faced.

"Potter," he croaked, "go get Snape. Tell him- the poison.....smells sweet, like licorice.....but tastes foul....takes two hours to show effects. I think it's a pretty new potion- maybe one of my father's original creations. Tell him if he knows what it is- if there's an antidote- to bring it, quick!" Still Harry stared at the lifeless form of his friend, seemingly in shock. "Potter, for God's sake, go- NOW!"

With a great, shuddering breath, Harry stumbled to his feet and made for the front door. He was bent nearly double, with one arm wrapped tightly about his middle, but though his jaw was clenched and his face betrayed the excruciating pain he was in, he still moved remarkably quickly. In a second's time he was through the door and gone. Draco knew that he himself, being for the most part uninjured, could doubtless move even faster, but he couldn't go. He could no sooner leave her there than rip out his own heart and leave it lying on the cold, hard stone.

"Hermione," he whispered; "oh God, please wake up." He fumbled his wand out of his robe one-handed, the other hand still cushioning her head. Placing it against her chest, he again murmured "Ennervate," just as he had back at the manor. Her eyelids fluttered and she gave a tiny moan; that was all. She had to be really far gone, he realized despairingly, in order for the spell to fail to revive her.........

Draco sat bolt upright in bed, his heart pounding in his ears, disoriented and alarmed. As he pushed his silver hair back out of his eyes, he heard it again; the noise that had awakened him- an unmistakable sound of distress from the next room. Hermione's room. In one fluid movement, he pushed back the scarlet covers and swung his feet over the edge of the bed.

Nightmares again, he thought groggily, wondered fleetingly what time it was, then, as a louder and even more panicked cry reached his ears, he launched himself toward the door with a speed that belied his sleepy state.

It took him all of perhaps five seconds to get from his bedside, across the small hallway that separated the head boy's and girl's rooms, to hers. Bursting through her door, he saw that she was curled tightly on her side in a fetal position, her back to him, trembling violently and sobbing pitifully. The covers around her were in complete disarray, some thrown off the bed altogether.

They were now halfway through their seventh year, and still it was like this every single night she forgot to take her dreamless sleep potion. He couldn't even begin to imagine how she would have gotten through the summer holidays, living in the Muggle world, where the potion was unobtainable, if he hadn't happened to have spent those same holidays with Professor Snape. Once a week like clockwork he had owled her a supply of the precious liquid; the only thing that allowed her to sleep nights. And yet now that they were back at Hogwarts where the potion was in plentiful supply, it seemed that at least once a week she forgot to take it.

Draco couldn't understand how she could keep forgetting something so important; she was such a meticulous person by nature, it didn't make sense. It was so unlike her, in fact, that he was just beginning to formulate a new theory; maybe Hermione, who was, after all, a fiercely independent person, resented her reliance on the potion and was deliberately missing some doses in the hopes of discovering, one night, that she no longer needed it. Was she doing this to herself on purpose? He shook his head in frustration.

Crossing to her bed, he sat on the edge of it and gathered her into his arms. She stiffened against him for a moment, then seemed to melt into his embrace, sobbing with her face buried in his chest. He realized that she was drenched with cold sweat and that this was likely at least part of the reason she was shaking so badly. Awkwardly, not loosening his grip on her, he pulled over the nearest blanket, untangled it to the best of his ability, and drew it up over them both.

"Shhh," he murmured, rocking her gently. "It's all right. It was only a dream. I'm here now, it's okay. Dear heart, it's okay. You're safe... you're safe... it's all right...."

He continued to murmur soothing nonsense to her as she cried herself back to sleep in his arms. Finally, when her breathing was again deep and regular, with only an occasional hiccup as evidence that she had just sobbed herself nearly to the point of hyperventilation, Draco allowed himself to sag back against the headboard and close his eyes, exhausted.

Though his face showed only weariness and strain, inwardly he was raging. Raging against Voldemort, who was the cause of this; who had, last year, raped Hermione up against a wall, as Harry and Ron had looked on helplessly, held back by an invisible barrier, in a disused corridor right here at Hogwarts, a place that was supposed to be a safe haven; a sanctuary from evil. He had robbed her of her virginity (Draco had been astounded when he had learned this, seeing as none of his female Slytherin classmates had reached sixth year with their virginity intact- he knew this for a fact, having been largely responsible), shattered her innocence and what was worse, if possible, was the fact that he had done it in front of her two best- male- friends, for the express purpose of tormenting Harry. Draco actually found himself halfway regretting the fact that Voldemort was dead- he wanted to kill him again at this moment, and not with his wand, either. He wanted to rip him apart bare-handed. His fingers were actually twitching at the thought.

The rape had had far-reaching consequences, and truthfully, not all of them had been negative. Voldemort was dead, after all, and that was a good thing, regardless of how much Draco would have liked to resurrect him at the moment, only to kill him again- and again- and again. And Draco's life had changed drastically, and mostly for the better. When he had come upon Hermione moments after the attack, cradled in Ron's arms, more than half-dead, he had been forced to consciously admit something to himself that he had known deep-down but had been denying for the better part of a year; he loved this girl. Loved her wholly and completely and fiercely; body, mind and soul. So when Potter and Weasley had gone AWOL to track Voldemort back to his lair and exact revenge, he had followed them, bringing with him, at her insistence, Hermione, who, typically, had demanded to be allowed to avenge herself. In the end, it had taken all four of them working together to defeat the Dark Lord, and Draco had very nearly died, not because of Voldemort, but because Potter, thinking he had brought Hermione against her will to deliver her to the Dark Lord, had stabbed him, just barely missing his heart.

He shook his head now, at the thought of it. Golden-Boy Potter- who would have thought he had it in him? Shit, but that had hurt. Once he had recovered, though, he had been hailed a hero- an entirely new experience for him, and rather an agreeable one at that- and had been resorted into Gryffindor House. Yes, this meant he had been disowned (his father had actually showed up at Hogwarts with murderous intent, but together with Potter, Weasley and Hermione he had managed to hold him off until Dumbledore had arrived and sent him packing), and yes, this meant that his former housemates, the Slytherins, had it in for him big-time, and were always trying to corner him alone in the hallways. But his disinheritance caused him no major concern because his grandparents had left him a fortune years ago, that he had recently come into on his seventeenth birthday, and as for the Slytherins- he was confident that he could handle them easily enough should the need arise. So far it hadn't. His new housemates (especially Potter and Weasley) were fiercely protective- the Slytherins had failed thus far in their attempts to isolate him.

So yes, there were drawbacks, but they were far outweighed by the advantages of his new life. The biggest of these being, of course, Hermione's love. It still amazed him when he took the time to really think about it, that she could love him as much as he did her- he felt wholly unworthy of her, after the way he had treated her and her friends for so many years. Yet she did return his love, and they had been dating since the night of his resorting; they had recently celebrated their one-year anniversary, in fact. They were easily the most celebrated couple in the school, seeing as they were Head Boy and Girl, and most of the student body treated their romance as a sort of fairy-tale come true; a real-life beauty- tames-the-beast story, since it was common knowledge that it was his love for her that had wrought this incredible change in Draco. But most of the student body failed to see what Draco was seeing right now- the fallout of the atrocity that had set this entire chain of events into motion- Hermione's rape. While the whole school knew that Voldemort had attacked Hermione, Harry and Ron were the only students beside Draco who knew that the attack had been sexual. And even they didn't know about these chronic night-terrors. Draco was the only one who heard her cries in the dark, since their rooms were so close to each other; located off a small private corridor that opened into the Gryffindor common room, beside the fireplace. (Each House within the school contained a similar pair of Head rooms- Percy had been the last to occupy the Gryffindor Head Boy's room four years ago, while his girlfriend Penelope had been in the Ravenclaw Head Girl's room, but both Gryffindor Head rooms had not been occupied at the same time like this since the days of Lily Evans and James Potter.)

It wasn't as if Harry and Ron couldn't sense something wrong, however. Of course they could. They had been so close to Hermione for so long that they couldn't fail to notice the changes in her lately. Her pallid complexion and the dark circles under her eyes that were sure signs of mounting sleep deprivation, coupled with a new tendency to doze off in the library, and once or twice now even in class, with her head on a pile of books, only to wake moments later with a violent start. Then there was her steadily dwindling appetite, and a new (and hitherto completely uncharacteristic) hesitance to walk the halls of the school alone. Yes, Ron and Harry could see as well as Draco that she was suffering both physically and emotionally, and that her condition was worsening with time, rather than improving as they had hoped it might.

The confident, outspoken girl she had been prior to the attack was fading away, and none of the three boys closest to her had any idea how to halt the process that was, slowly but surely, robbing them of the Hermione they knew and loved.

Furthermore, each of the three boys had demons of their own to battle.

Harry. He was being eaten alive by guilt because he knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the one and only reason Voldemort had attacked Hermione had been to torment him by forcing him to watch. Hermione had been nothing more to Voldemort than a means to an end; a way to make Harry suffer. Because his friends meant more to Harry than his own life, as Voldemort had well known. So suffer he had, and he still continued to do so a year after the Dark Lord's demise.

Ron. Like Harry, he had witnessed the rape and been unable to do anything to stop it. His guilt stemmed in part from this helplessness to save the girl he loved (and he did love her, oh yes- Draco knew this for a fact and accepted it without rancor, secure in the knowledge of Hermione's love for him), but Ron's guilt was more complex- he had, characteristically, been yelling at Hermione moments before the attack, and it was his harsh, angry words that had sent her dashing off alone, around a bend in the corridor and straight into Voldemort, who had been waiting to ambush Harry but had changed his plan when Hermione had presented herself as such an easy target. This, indeed, was the true root of Ron's agony.

And then there was Draco himself. All he bore was simply the guilt and regret of an entire lifetime, up until last year, wasted in the service of a monster. All his life he had been raised to revere Voldemort; groomed to one day take over his father's position as the Dark Lord's right-hand man. But that was before Voldemort had very nearly killed Hermione- the one friend (for that's what she had been at the time; his friend- the romance had come later) he had ever actually cared about.

He sighed and shook his head again, wearily. Hermione, responding to his unhappiness on some basic level, stirred and whimpered in his arms, but remained asleep. He dropped a kiss on the top of her head, then let his own head fall back against the bed once more.

"You gotta stop doing this to yourself, Hermione," he whispered, only because he was sure she couldn't hear him. "I can't stand it. It kills me. I love you so... so much...."

He drifted away into a troubled, almost feverish sleep.

00000

At breakfast in the Great Hall some five days later, both Hermione and Draco were unusually subdued, even by their normal standards of late.

For Draco, this was because he had just been released that morning after having spent two full days in the hospital wing; the aftermath of a Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch match three days earlier.

These matches were pure hell for Draco, due to the fact that the only objective of the entire Slytherin team was to knock him off his broom as violently as possible, as far from the ground as possible, and hopefully kill him. Really, it was only his utter, dogged determination not to let the Slytherins best him once and for all that kept him playing Quidditch; he had lost most of his love for the sport when he had had to give up the position of seeker. He was still a damn good flyer, and a skilled and aggressive beater, and an overall asset to the Gryffindor team, but he no longer looked forward to the matches with the keen anticipation that he always had as a Slytherin. Of course once he'd been resorted into Gryffindor he had known he could no longer play seeker; though they had welcomed him with remarkable ease into their midst, considering all the previous years of violent animosity, it had been too much to hope for that the Gryffindors would allow him to replace Potter; that would have been out of the question. Potter had brought them far too many victories over the years- he was a legendary seeker- youngest in a hundred blah blah blah. Plus Draco had never once beat him to the snitch, so based on that alone Potter was the obvious choice for seeker in his seventh and final year. Draco understood this. Still, he missed the thrill of the hunt for the snitch- missed the exultation of feeling his fingers close about the tiny, fluttering object, feeling the rapid beat of its wings against the cage of his hand. For he had caught it many times as a Slytherin- just never against Potter.

And he had come to realize in the time he had been playing alongside Potter instead of against him, that it was this knowledge, the knowledge that he had never yet beaten Hogwarts' golden boy, together with his fiercely competitive nature, that had been his driving motivation as Slytherin seeker; that had caused the keen anticipation he remembered feeling before every match he had played against Gryffindor- the thought that this might be the game, this might be the day- his day- when he would finally beat Potter to that bloody snitch. Ah, but that victory would have been sweet- and now it was never to come. Looking back, he had to admit to himself (he would never admit it to anyone else) that the game of Quidditch had soured for him as soon as he had realized that he would never again be in competition with Potter.

Still, one must keep up appearances, so resigning the team was not an option, and the matches against Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were borderline enjoyable; it was, at least, excellent stress relief to hit large, heavy objects at other students and attempt to knock them into space all in the name of good, sporting fun. He had discovered quite a talent for it, too. But these matches against Slytherin- ye fucking gods. They were a bloody nightmare, from start to finish. His former teammates literally did not care whether or not they won- he supposed after seven years they had realized that Potter was pretty much unbeatable anyway- and so they applied themselves fully- all of them, from the keeper to the new seeker- to attempting to murder him. The only mercy was that the matches were usually short, since Potter, unimpeded in his search for the snitch, always caught it quickly.

This most recent match, for instance, had ended in eight minutes, with Potter capturing the snitch at precisely the same instant that, at the opposite end of the field, Draco was hit with both Slytherin bludgers at once; one in the face, breaking his jaw and rendering him unconscious, and the other in the stomach, knocking him from his broom to the ground some fifteen feet below (he made a point of flying low when playing Slytherin). The first twenty-four hours after the match he had spent out cold; the second, merely in intense pain. The match had been played bright and early on a Saturday morning, so there had gone his weekend, and it had been a Hogsmeade weekend too, goddamn it all to hell. But here he was on Monday morning, having just been released by Madam Pomfrey, fit as a fiddle and ready for the day's classes, the first of which, right after breakfast, would be- double advanced potions with the Slytherins. Well wasn't life just frickin grand?

As for Hermione, she had spent the last two days by Draco's bedside, forgoing the Hogsmeade trip herself. However, despite her constant vigil during the daylight hours, Madam Pomfrey had refused to allow her to sleep in the hospital wing, the fact that it was the weekend notwithstanding. As a result, she had had two nights in a row of horrifyingly vivid nightmares, with no Draco to hear her cries and comfort her. The first night she had stumbled back to her room from the infirmary and fallen into bed exhausted, forgetting (genuinely this time) to take her potion; the second night, she had remembered to take it- how could she not, after the horrors of the night before- but the dream had come anyway; maybe it was due to the unusual amount of stress she was under, worrying about Draco, or maybe her dosage just needed to be upped. In either case, the dreams had been the same both nights; they had started out with her watching helplessly as Draco fell from his broom, unconscious, toward the hard and rock-strewn ground some fifty feet below, as the Slytherin Quidditch team jeered and turned somersaults in the air- but they had ended, as she knew they must, as all her nightmares did, with her once again in that dank corridor deep under the school, being pinned to the wall by Voldemort.

Both times, she had awakened in the dead of night to the sound of her own frantic screams, and had then laid awake, sobbing and shaking, until dawn.

Hence both Draco's, and Hermione's, subdued state that morning.

They were sitting next to each other at the long Gryffindor table, picking at their respective breakfasts, Hermione slumped exhaustedly against Draco's side, wondering how on earth she was going to make it through a day of classes when she had had perhaps six hours combined of restless, nightmare-strewn sleep over the course of the last two nights, when Dumbledore approached them, looking as every bit as sleep-deprived as Hermione felt, and extremely grave. Raising bloodshot eyes to the headmaster's face, Hermione knew instantly that this did not bode well.

Leaning close over the table, Dumbledore murmured, "Would you be so kind as to come directly to my office after breakfast, Mr. Malfoy? I have already made your excuses to professor Snape. The password is canary crème." Then, without another word to either of them, he left the hall.

Hermione glanced anxiously at Draco, who was merely looking dazed. How hard did that bludger hit his head, anyway? She thought fretfully. Finally dropping all pretense of eating, she pushed her plate away and her hand found Draco's under the table and gripped it hard. "I'm coming with you," she said, quietly but firmly.

Draco blinked at her, then his pale eyes seemed to come back into focus. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, sure." He looked listlessly down at his plate, then pushed it away as well. "C'mon- I don't see any point in hanging around here. Let's go see what this is about."

They stood together and Hermione glanced up toward the staff table, her tired eyes seeking Snape. She saw that he was already watching them, and when his eyes met hers, he inclined his head ever so slightly in her direction. She returned the gesture gratefully; he had just given her permission to miss potions, in order to accompany Draco. She then allowed her boyfriend to pull her by the hand out of the Great Hall.

00000

It was with a sense of deep foreboding that the young couple stood outside the gargoyle-guarded entrance to Dumbledore's office. "Canary crème," Draco said dully, and the stone gargoyle leapt aside, granting them clear passage through the door behind it and up the moving spiral staircase beyond.

"Come in," called Dumbledore's voice, just as they reached the top and Draco raised his hand to knock on the heavy wooden door across the landing. With a last glance at one another, they obeyed.

"Ah, yes," said Dumbledore. He surveyed them both over the tops of his half-moon spectacles, but his eyes held no sign of their usual sparkle. He looked as old and tired and grim as he had in the Great Hall. "Miss Granger- I had rather thought you might come. And Mister Malfoy- I have received some very distressing intelligence. There is no easy way to say this, so I shall choose the simplest way instead. A new Dark Lord is ascending to power; he is already well on his way." He paused for a moment to allow this news to sink in, then continued; "he is gathering Voldemort's former Death Eaters to him and many have pledged him their loyalty already- many, but not all of them. According to my intelligence, there is a task he will need to perform in order to secure the unswerving loyalty of all Voldemort's followers and thus complete his army. He must kill you."

Draco was barely aware of Hermione's horrified gasp beside him; his ears were suddenly ringing and he felt lightheaded. And yet he had seen this coming- had seen it a long way off, truth to tell. There is a subtle difference between shock and surprise; Draco was in shock. He was not, however, at all surprised by this news.

Faintly, over the ringing in his ears, he heard Dumbledore say, "Draco?"

"Father," he croaked.

Dumbledore came around the desk and gently clasped Draco's shoulder. "Draco?" he repeated, "do you need to sit down?" Draco shook his head and in so doing, succeeded in clearing some of the fog out of it. He looked around for Hermione and found that she had sunk into one of Dumbledore's plush armchairs, looking as pale as a ghost.

"It's my father," he repeated, returning his attention to the headmaster, "isn't it?"

"I'm afraid so," Dumbledore replied gravely. "The world has a new Dark Lord to contend with; Lucius Malfoy."

With a choked cry, Hermione dropped her face forward into her hands.

Normally she would never have succumbed to her fear in front of the headmaster like this- it was of the utmost importance to her that she project an appearance of outward calm and capability to all authority figures, including Dumbledore, at all times. Crying in front of teachers was simply not something she did. In fact, crying at all, except for in the wake of her night terrors, was simply not something she did. But she couldn't help herself now. Her defenses had crumbled completely under the onslaught of Draco's injuries and the two hellish nights she had just experienced, and this news was simply too much to take. If she lost Draco- oh God. It didn't bear thinking about. She had almost lost him once- she didn't think she could go through that again with her sanity intact.

She broke down and began to sob in earnest, cursing herself all the while for showing such weakness in front of Dumbledore, and for further burdening Draco with an hysterical girlfriend when he surely already had plenty to worry about.

He was on his knees in front of her in an instant, his own troubles apparently forgotten at the sight of her in distress. "Hey," he murmured, catching both her hands in his, "you all right?"

"I'm sorry," she choked, pulling one hand free and scrubbing the back of it vigorously across her puffy eyes. "I just- I don't know what-"

Her mind was in a whirl, her thoughts all jumbled up. There was only one thing she could think of to do in a situation like this; only one place she could go that could possibly calm her. "I need to- um- g-go to the library."

She shot to her feet and, pulling her other hand away from him, bolted for the office door, without so much as another glance at Draco or at Dumbledore.

*****

She was halfway down the spiral staircase before Draco had gathered his wits about him sufficiently to start after her- but before he could take more than two steps toward the door, the headmaster laid a restraining hand on his arm.

"You know where to find Miss Granger," Dumbledore said with a sad smile, "but before you go after her, there is much we need to discuss. I have a source within your father's inner circle who has been providing me with some useful information, and I want to be sure that you know absolutely everything I do. I once made the mistake of keeping Mister Potter in the dark about Voldemort's plans for him, and it was quite possibly the most grievous error I have ever made. I intend not to repeat it. You shall know everything I know about your father's plans, as soon as I know it. So please, Mister Malfoy- have faith that our Head Girl is a remarkably strong young woman who can look after herself for the time being, and do sit down."

With a last pained glance at the door, Draco grudgingly complied.

*****

Hermione's day just went from bad to worse.

She remained in the library, feverishly perusing huge old tomes on the rise to power of previous dark wizards, for the duration of potions, which, being a double period, lasted until lunch. By the end of her research session, her eyes kept slipping shut despite herself, and her chin was propped heavily on her hand, elbow on the table beside the massive book she had spread open before her. When Madam Pince rang the little silver bell she kept on her desk, signifying the end of morning classes and the beginning of lunch, Hermione, very nearly asleep, started violently- her arm jerked and her head fell to the open book. She hit it chin first, biting her tongue.

Tears of pain and sheer tiredness were threatening as she gathered up her belongings, plus the book she had been reading- a 5,200 page volume entitled "The Careers of Dark Wizards Through the Ages", and headed down to the Great Hall for lunch, more from force of habit than out of any real desire to eat.

Indeed, once she was seated at the Gryffindor table, the sight of the dozens of platters heaped with steaming food caused her stomach to turn over queasily. Muttering something incoherent to Ginny, who had just settled herself beside her- neither Draco, nor Harry and Ron were anywhere in sight- she popped back up from the table less than a minute after having seated herself and, grabbing only an apple from a nearby fruit bowl, beat a hasty retreat from the hall.

She ate the apple sitting on the front steps of the school, and felt somewhat revived afterward, both from the nourishment of the fruit and from the stiff breeze and slight chill outside. It was enough to see her through advanced transfiguration, though for once she was relieved that McGonagall never called on her during class. She began to fade again, however, during the final class of the day, History of Magic.

Draco was still missing. She hadn't worried too much about missing him at lunch, having elected to remove herself from the Great Hall before most students had arrived, and she didn't have transfiguration with him, and so hadn't expected to see him there, but they did share this class, and she was troubled by his absence. Harry and Ron, who also shared this class with her, made a beeline for her when entering the classroom, seated themselves on either side of her, and questioned her anxiously about her whereabouts at lunch- it seemed that they had been searching for her in the library during the brief appearance she had made in the Great Hall, and had reached the hall only moments after she had left, to be informed by Ginny that she had rushed out, looking ill.

She spoke words of reassurance, but Ron and Harry, listening less to the words themselves than to the dull, flat tone in which they were spoken, shot one another worried glances over the top of her head, appearing to be anything but reassured. She caught this, of course- if the two of them were trying to be inconspicuous, they were failing miserably- and was torn between amusement and annoyance. Just like a pair of mother hens, she thought, with an infinitesimal shake of her head.

And then class started and all her attention was absorbed by note-taking as she dutifully wrote down every single thing Professor Binns said, though none of the lecture actually penetrated her thoughts, which were all bent on Draco. She had a vague feeling that when she read her notes over later, it would be as if the material were brand-new to her. She almost wished she could give herself permission to lay down her quill and doze like the others all around her, but that simply wasn't who she was. So she wrote, and wrote, and wrote, her hand moving mechanically across the parchment while her mind whirled with anxiety and fatigue.

It was undoubtedly this fatigue, coupled with the fact that she had eaten practically nothing all day, that caused the drama at the end of the class. It happened just after Binns had floated away through the blackboard, as was his custom. All around the room, students were reviving from the collective stupor that had overtaken them during the lecture, were gathering up their belongings, beginning to chat animatedly, and heading for the door, for the Great Hall and dinner, content in the knowledge that Monday was drawing to a close and now only four days stood between them and the next glorious weekend.

All except for Hermione. When Binns had stopped lecturing, her quill had ceased moving, but she had not raised her head. To the contrary, she seemed to droop forward, over her parchment, her nose inches from the desk, her face all but hidden by the curtain of her thick, dark hair, her eyes open but glazed with exhaustion.

It was Harry who noticed her alarming state; Ron was already on his feet, cramming his things quickly and hap-hazardly into his bag, all his thoughts bent on dinner.

"Hermione?" Harry asked softly, trying to keep the sudden, desperate worry out of his voice. No response. If anything, her head seemed to slip a fraction of an inch lower, toward the desk. Her eyes began to fall shut. "Hey- Hermione. Snap out of it. Earth to Hermione-" and he nudged her gently on the shoulder.

Whatever he might have been expecting, it was certainly not the violent reaction his gentle touch provoked. She gave a startled gasp, her eyes flew wide open, and she shot to her feet with a panicked cry of "NO!" Then, before Harry even had time to stand up, she swayed, her eyelids fluttered, and she collapsed in a dead faint, falling sideways into Ron.

*****

Later, she would have no recollection of fainting. No recollection of slumping against Ron as Harry sprang to his feet with a cry of alarm and Ron, drawing on his Keeper instincts, reacted with lightning speed, dropping his bag and clasping her in his arms with a startled oath. No recollection of Ron sinking slowly to the floor with her clasped tightly to his chest, saying her name again and again in a voice that was suddenly, oddly constrained, pushing her tumbled hair back from her face as Harry crouched beside them both, shaking with reaction.

*****

The next thing she remembered was blinking up in confusion at Ron, who was leaning over her, upside down from her point of view. His eyes, wide and startlingly blue this close up, were overbright and unguarded, and held an expression of naked fear and- love.

The last time Hermione had seen that expression on his face was that night over a year ago when she had fallen off his broomstick. Once they were both safe on the ground, he had declared his love for her, for the third and final time, telling her it was the last time he would say it, but that he would mean it forever. She had started dating Draco the following night. True to his word, Ron had never mentioned his feelings again, but in this one brief, unguarded instant, she could clearly see that nothing had changed.

She was too disoriented, however, to dwell on this. "Ron?" she whispered, her brows knitting as she tried to piece together just what had happened; why she was suddenly lying flat on her back on the classroom floor, her head cradled in her best friend's lap while he looked as though he was teetering on the brink of outright panic.

"S'okay, love," he said hoarsely, and brought a big, Quidditch-roughened hand up to cup the side of her face, stroking her cheek with his thumb.

She took a deep breath and attempted to lever herself up onto her elbows, but before she could, Harry was looming over her as well, gently but firmly pushing her back. "Stay still," he murmured, "Madam Pomfrey's on the way."

This was getting really worrisome. She looked from one to the other, her eyes wide, questioning, and the echo of an earlier thought ran through her head- mother hens. But it didn't seem even remotely amusing now. What was she doing on the floor? Why were her friends treating her as though she were made of glass? And where was-

Draco.

She turned her head at the sound of a disturbance near the classroom door and there he was, racing toward her, vaulting over desks and shoving gawking students savagely out of his way. He reached her in an instant, throwing himself to the floor a good three feet from where she lay and skidding the final distance on his knees.

Looking back over his shoulder, he snarled at the students who remained clustered around them; "this is not a fucking sideshow! Get the hell out of here, NOW!" As they scurried away- Draco, for all his new status as romantic hero among Hogwarts' female population, was still capable of striking fear in most of the student body when irate- he turned back toward her, and she could see that his face was a mirror of Ron's.

Love and fear.

Fear and love.

She was almost more surprised to see these emotions on Draco's face than on Ron's. Though it was Draco who was her boyfriend, and though she was sure deep down that he did indeed love her, he was far from the demonstrative type. Unlike Ron, who had been trying to keep a brave face on since she had chosen Draco over him, but whose natural inclination was to wear his heart on his sleeve, and who Hermione was sure would have been a very expressive lover if given the opportunity, Draco kept close rein on his emotions at all times, even when the two of them were alone together. He had only ever admitted his love to her once, and that had been right before they had confronted Voldemort; an encounter he hadn't thought he would survive.

Ron hid his feelings because she had not chosen him. Draco hid his feelings even though she had.

And right now, seeing first one and then the other reveal himself to her in a moment of near frantic fear frightened her deeply. What the hell had happened here to scare them both so badly?

"Draco," she said uncertainly.

He reached out with both hands and framed her face between them- she realized distantly that Ron had withdrawn his own hand from her cheek. "I'm sorry I didn't come after you this morning," he said quietly; "Dumbledore kept me all day. He only just let me go and I came here to meet you so we could go to dinner together and that cluster of morons-" his face contorted for a moment with anger- "at the classroom door were saying you- that you-" he abruptly shook his head, pulled his hands away, and ran them through his silvery hair. "Jesus Christ, Hermione, are you trying to scare me to death?!?"

Hermione was taken aback. "Draco, no- I....." she trailed off, unsure what to say, and alarmed at the feeling of tears pricking the backs of her eyes; God, what was wrong with her? She didn't want to cry again today!

And then, as she stared up at Draco, it was as if shutters behind his eyes snapped shut, hiding the love, hiding the fear, as he retreated behind an emotion that was, to him, far more familiar and comfortable; anger. When next he spoke, his voice was harsh.

"Well then what the hell are you playing at, eh? Cause you're doing a damn good job for not trying! As if I don't have enough on my plate, now I have to worry about- Goddamn it! You've been taking shitty care of yourself lately, and now it's gone too far. This has to stop!"

Not trusting herself to speak without dissolving into tears, Hermione swallowed hard. It was Ron who spoke for her then, his voice low and dangerous.

"She doesn't need this right now, Malfoy. Back the fuck off."

Draco's pale eyes left hers then, snapping onto Ron's, and the two boys glared at each other, neither backing down, in mute hostility as Hermione continued to struggle against the threatening tears, knowing that she had brought about this miserable state of affairs; that this was all her fault.

Fortunately, the staring contest was cut short as Madam Pomfrey arrived, accompanied by the Gryffindor head of house, Professor McGonagall, and the two women shooed all three boys away as Madam Pomfrey set to checking Hermione over.

The examination lasted about fifteen minutes and at the end of it Madam Pomfrey declared Hermione to be no more than overtired and underfed. Rummaging around in the many pockets of her robe and apron, she eventually produced two items which she handed to the distraught girl; a large chunk of chocolate and a vial of extra strong dreamless sleep potion. She made Hermione eat the entire block of chocolate right then and there, watching like a hawk to ensure that she swallowed every last morsel, and as she did so, she explained that she had had Professor Snape concoct the modified potion especially for her. Finally, she released her with strict instructions to go down to the kitchens- dinner now being nearly over- and have the house elves make her up a plate.

"That chocolate should give you enough energy to go downstairs and get yourself some decent food, but it is not, in itself, a suitable dinner. You are under no circumstances to go back to Gryffindor Tower until you've put some hot food in you, is that understood?" she asked sternly. Hermione nodded meekly. "Good," the mediwitch said briskly; "then get going, girl. Your friends will be most anxious to know you're all right."

Released, Hermione slowly packed up her bookbag and slung it over her shoulder, staggering slightly under its weight. She walked out the classroom door slowly; apprehensively. She wanted nothing more than the comfort and security of Draco's arms, yet was desperately worried that he would still be angry. In her current state, she wasn't sure she could take that. And Ron- God, he and Draco had looked as if they were about to kill each other- all because of her, because she was weak, weak, weak.

The corridor right outside the classroom door was empty, but as she turned a corner in the hall, headed for the marble stairs and, ultimately, the kitchens below, she came abruptly upon the three boys who were her world at Hogwarts. Professor McGonagall had apparently been unable to banish them any further than this. They were sitting in a row on the stone floor of the corridor, their backs against the wall. Harry, in the middle- Hermione was sure this was no accident- had his head leaned back, face tilted up toward the ceiling, but she could see that behind the glasses his eyes were closed. His hands- those Seeker's hands, so swift, so skilled- were dangling loosely between his up-drawn knees. He looked as tired and haggard, as run-into-the-ground, as she felt. Ron, on Harry's right side, had his arms crossed tightly over his chest and was staring straight ahead into nothingness, his jaw set, his expression grim and angry. But it was Draco, on Harry's left, who most arrested Hermione's attention. His knees, like Harry's, were drawn up, but he had rested his elbows on them and dropped his face forward into his hands so that it was entirely hidden from view. His fingers were clenched in his fine, pale hair. His entire aspect was one of utter, abject despair.

Hermione halted in her tracks and stood stock still staring at the boys, Draco in particular. Seeing him that way hurt her right down to the core. Suddenly numb and nerveless, she let her bookbag slide from her shoulder; it hit the floor with a heavy thud.

This got the attention of all three boys, but it was Draco who reacted the fastest. By the time Ron and Harry had gained their feet, he had already reached Hermione, having unfurled himself instantly, with almost feline grace and speed, and crossed the distance between them in two long strides. Without a word, without a pause, he engulfed her in his strong arms, burying his face in her hair. She could feel that he was shaking.

She knew this was the closest she would get to an apology for his earlier harsh words. It was enough.

Draco released her at long last and as he bent to retrieve her bag and sling it over his own shoulder, she glanced at Harry and Ron. They were just turning away, Harry's arm slung over Ron's shoulder, but the brief glimpse she got of the redhead's face caused her to draw in a sharp, unhappy breath; he looked more bitter than she had ever seen him- more bitter than she had imagined it was possible for a person to look. She wanted to run to him, comfort him, but she could not; what comfort could she offer when she was the cause of it all?

And then the moment had passed and the four of them were walking; they parted ways at the marble stairs where Harry and Ron, reassured by seeing her back on her feet, headed straight up to Gryffindor Tower and she and Draco took a detour down to the kitchens.

*****

She made sure she ate regularly three times a day after that, though she rarely felt hungry or took any pleasure in mealtimes. She viewed food, in her logical way, as a necessary fuel that she required so as not to repeat her disastrous fainting episode. After a few days of glaring, Ron and Draco subsided first into a cautious truce and finally back into the odd state of pseudo-friendship they had maintained since Draco's resorting. Harry, who was now almost as close to Draco as he was to Ron (the friendship between Hogwarts' golden boy and the former Slytherin bad boy had gotten off to a rather rocky start, true, what with Harry having attempted to stab Draco to death, but had developed nicely since), was ever on the alert should he be called upon to act as peacekeeper, but no more crises seemed apt to present themselves any time soon.

Hermione even began catching up on missed sleep, as the new, more potent sleeping draught Madam Pomfrey had given her promised to keep her chronic nightmares at bay.

All seemed well.

For a while.

Weeks passed.

For a while, Dumbledore would meet with Draco for a few minutes every day, giving him whatever new information was to be had about his father’s plans, vague though it often was. After a while, though, the information stopped coming altogether; it appeared that Lucius had discovered, or at least suspected, that he had an informant on his hands.

If Dumbledore was frustrated at the lack of new intelligence, it was nothing to how Draco felt. He had really only been given enough information to know for a fact what he had suspected anyway; that his father wanted him- wanted him alive, but only for the pleasure of murdering him personally, as he had already attempted to do once. How his father intended to capture him remained undiscovered, and the effect that this had on Draco was predictable; he was becoming rather frayed around the edges.

He flatly refused to modify his routine in any way due to the threat his father posed; to do so would be to grant his father a victory over him, which was something he never intended to do. So he continued to go with Hermione to Hogsmeade whenever the opportunity presented itself though Dumbledore, stopping just short of forbidding him, made it clear that he disapproved, pointing out that it was a likely point of attack. He also continued to sneak out several nights a week- no one knew about this but Hermione- to fly solo over the school grounds and forbidden forest. He loved the quiet and solitude of these nocturnal flights, and it was then that he got some of his best thinking done.

But despite the fact that he would not allow himself to be cowed by his father into hiding inside the school, Draco was constantly worried and stressed out; how could he not be, knowing that plans were being made on his life, but not knowing what those plans were? As a result, and understandably, really, he was becoming more and more short-tempered and snappish as time wore on and no new information was forthcoming- and the person who bore the brunt of his irritability was, of course, the person who was closest to him in every way; Hermione.

Defeated, Hermione dropped her head forward into her hands. Another spate of giggling had come from beyond the large bookshelf, and her concentration was shot. Draco had snapped at her again, as was becoming more and more common these days, and so she had escaped to the solitude of the library to be alone with her thoughts. Settling herself at a small, out-of-the-way table and spreading a large book open before her, she had given the appearance of being deeply engrossed in study, as usual, but really she was contemplating the Draco situation.

Last night had been hard on them both. She had decided, for the first time in several weeks, to attempt a night’s sleep without the aid of the dreamless sleep potion, and as a result the nightmare had returned full force. She had awakened, gasping, drenched in cold sweat, in the dead of night and had immediately clamped down on the scream that was threatening to escape her, not wanting to wake Draco. However, it seemed that she must have already cried out while still asleep, for in the next instant he was there, bleary eyed and tousle haired, demanding to know why in the hell she insisted on doing this to herself, to both of them. She had dissolved into tears, those hated, weak tears that seemed always to be lurking just behind her eyes these days, and Draco had run a hand through his hair, hair the color of the moonlight that was streaming through her window, hair that was baby fine and sticking up weirdly in all directions- a rumpled silver halo- had sighed, sat on the edge of her bed, and pulled her into his arms.

Neither of them had slept again, but they had held each other until dawn and, safely ensconced in Draco’s arms, she had felt that the two of them together could handle whatever was thrown their way. But then Draco had snapped at her, right in the crowded entry hall after breakfast, and damn it, she KNEW the stress he was under, but that didn’t stop it from hurting. It hurt like hell. It had been all she could do to hold herself together, but she had, in large part because Harry and Ron were still breakfasting in the Great Hall, right through the open double doors not ten feet from where she’d been standing, and she hadn’t wanted to cause a scene that would result in them running out there and Ron possibly flying off the handle. So she had stalked away with as much dignity as she could muster, had tracked down Professor Vector, who taught Arithmancy, her first period of the day, and had requested that she be allowed to spend the period doing independent study in the library. It was one of the benefits of being Head Girl and the top student in the school that the professor had readily agreed.

But now she couldn’t even hear herself think due to all the whispering and sniggering coming from behind the bookcase and God, she knew whose voice that was- it was Pansy Parkinson and her gang of Slytherin girls; they had invaded the quiet library- shattered the fragile sense of sanctuary she had found there- for a gossip session. Hermione groaned softly into her hands. She so did not need this right now.

It had just occurred to her that in all probability they were skipping class, since first period was only half over, and that as Head Girl she would be perfectly within her rights to tell them off, deduct points from Slytherin, and most importantly, MAKE THEM LEAVE, when a snatch of the conversation caught her ear- Pansy had raised her voice slightly above the others- and, heart suddenly thumping painfully, stomach clenching, she leaned forward, listening intently.

“-see the look on her face?” Pansy was saying gleefully. “Seems there’s trouble in paradise. If you ask me, I think the traitor is finally coming to his senses and realizing exactly what he’s thrown away for that ugly little mudblood. Not that he’ll ever be given a second chance by true Slytherins like us-” there was a hearty murmur of assent at this- “but- just between you and me-” her voice lowered conspiratorially- “I think I’m going to try my hand at seducing him!” This proclamation was met by fits of giggles and a few soft, scandalized exclamations. “Not because I have any feelings for traitor boy, mind you,” Pansy continued; “it will just hasten the breakup, that’s all! The way I see it, that’s what’s causing their trouble; Draco was always a- a very physical person, shall we say-” more fits of giggles and some knowing murmurs; “after a year, being with that frigid bitch Granger must be driving him up the wall! I mean, God, I bet her legs are, like, locked together at the knees! Granger, the perpetual virgin!”

“Yeah,” came a thick, nasal voice that Hermione recognized as Millicent Bulstrode; “I bet the mudblood wears a chastity belt! Put on her by the Weasel!” Gales of laughter greeted this; they weren’t even trying to keep it down anymore. Madame Pince must be filing books in the restricted section or something; clearly, she wasn’t nearby.

Hermione felt as though she were sitting in a vacuum; all the air seemed to have been sucked out of the room; suddenly, she couldn’t get a proper breath, and it felt as though the library had started to spin. Not consciously aware of what she was doing, she began to shake her head, and raised her hands to cover her ears. The things they were saying- on top of her nightmare last night, still fresh in her mind, and then the trouble with Draco this morning, it was too much; she couldn’t take this. She just couldn’t. Granger the perpetual virgin- if only they knew!

She shot to her feet, nearly knocking her book to the floor. She couldn’t stay here a moment longer. She didn’t know where she could go- if the library was no longer a safe haven for her, then what was?- but she had to get out of here. Right now.

In order to reach the library door, she had to pass the table at which the Slytherin girls sat. She managed to hold it together long enough to get by them; walked out from behind the bookcase and past the snickering group- which fell suddenly silent at the sight of her- head held high and eyes for once miraculously dry. Dry and blazing as she sought out and held Pansy’s gaze, not breaking it until she was well beyond them and nearly to the door, which she passed though unhurriedly, pulling it firmly shut behind her.

Then she was off and running. Realizing vaguely that she had left her book, her schoolbag, all her belongings back in the library, not caring; she wouldn’t go back in there now, not for love nor money. Realizing, not vaguely at all but with perfect clarity, that the expression of spiteful triumph in Pansy’s eyes had said, louder than words ever could, that she had planned it all; had somehow known that Hermione was in there, just out of the line of vision of her little group, and had orchestrated that conversation on purpose; had perhaps seen Hermione entering the library and had skipped class and led her cronies in there deliberately for the sole purpose of tormenting her.

And then the tears were there; burning, stinging her eyes, blurring her vision as she raced through the halls with no conscious awareness of where her feet were taking her- not CARING where her feet were taking her, as long as it was away, far away from the library.

The halls were empty; everyone was in class. She was feeling distantly grateful for that fact as she rounded a corner and- slammed into something; a tall, solid, silver-haired something that said “Ooph” and stumbled back a step, nearly falling, but just managing to keep his balance. Draco, who shared her advanced Arithmancy class and had been sent by professor Vector to ask her to rejoin the last twenty minutes of class in order to hear the week’s assignment. She stopped for just a moment, panting, staring up at him with haunted, streaming eyes, then shoved him aside and ran on, ignoring his cry of “HERMIONE!”, ignoring his footsteps behind her. She was going to run until she found a safe place or until she could run no more; if Draco wanted to run with her, fine, but woe betide him should he try to stop her.

She found herself taking every turn that led down stairs; it was easier and faster than trying to run up. She thought that Draco might be able to catch her if she ran upstairs, and that, she felt strongly, would be bad for both of them. Lower and lower through the school she fled, Draco shouting after her, until she found herself in the dungeons, tearing past the open classroom door beyond which Snape was overseeing a group of third- year Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws engaged in brewing an elementary shrinking potion.

She was unaware of his startled glance as first the Head Girl, then the Head Boy raced past his room, unaware of his ordering the surprised younger students to stop what they were doing and sit tight until he returned, unaware of his leaving a class unsupervised for the first time in his career in order to give chase. She was already down two more flights of stairs by then, deep in the bowels of the school, where virtually no one ever came, in a cold, dimly lit corridor; a deserted corridor where, a little over a year ago-

God. Oh God.

She had been looking for a safe place, and her feet had brought her here. Here. Oh God, no.

Still, she couldn’t stop. Though she felt now that she was trapped in a waking nightmare- swimming, rather than running, through air that felt suddenly viscous and thick, she kept going; rounded a final bend in the corridor and found herself back in that same stretch of dim hallway where her innocence had been ripped from her and her life had come crashing down.

She knew suddenly that she couldn’t go on; this stretch of corridor, where such utter horror and pain had been visited on her, was trapping her, holding her tight. But still she didn’t want Draco to catch her, didn’t think she could bear to have him touch her, not now, not here. So she whirled about to face him, gasping for breath through her tears, bent nearly double from a stitch in her side, and, one arm wrapped about her midsection, threw the other one out, palm facing him, fingers splayed, in a silent, desperate command for him to stop, to come no closer.

He did stop, spreading his arms out at his sides, in a gesture that may have been intended to calm her, may have meant something akin to “I come in peace”; or may have simply been a sign of deep, helpless confusion. She could see from the horrified expression in his eyes that he too recognized this place. After all, he had come upon her here, unconscious in Ron’s arms, shortly after the attack. She had no memory of this, but had been told as much.

Though Draco had stopped advancing, she continued to back away, widening the distance between them, her hand still flung out before her like a small, yet formidable, barricade, until her back hit the wall; cold, rough and damp this far below ground. The feel of that wall at her back was too much; her legs gave out and she fell to her knees, skinning them; her arm still, even now, extended, holding Draco at bay. Then the sobs took her. Huge, wracking sobs of despair, of grief for the part of herself that had been lost right there. Convulsive sobs that shook her slender body and stole her breath, compelled her to finally drop her arm because she needed both hands to steady herself against the floor, her head bowed forward under the weight of her sorrow so that she never saw Draco, some ten feet away, drop to his knees as well; never heard him cry out to her in a choked voice, begging her to tell him what had happened, for God’s sake, why was she doing this? Sobs so wrenching and violent that they couldn’t be sustained; a moment later she was gagging, retching, choking, struggling to breathe as she was pulled, barely half-conscious, backward into a strong embrace.

Not Draco’s embrace.

She realized that instantly, because she recognized Draco’s embrace; knew, unquestionably, the feel of his arms around her. A glance in his direction confirmed it; Draco remained on his knees several feet away, watching her, his expression stricken.

Then who was holding her?

An icy bolt of terror shot through her; panic at the thought that she was now being held immobile by some unknown entity in this place of horror. She stiffened, trying to get a deep breath, trying to rally what remained of her strength for a struggle, when a voice, soft but authoritative, spoke in her ear.

“Miss Granger, no harm will come to you. Now please, try to calm yourself.”

Snape. She would recognize that voice anywhere. She wondered briefly, vaguely, how he had come to be here, but was too tired and distraught to dwell on it. It occurred to her that Snape must also recognize this place; Draco had told her that it was been the potions master who had carried her up to the infirmary from here. She relaxed back into his embrace, her head falling backward against his chest and her eyes slipping shut as exhaustion born of her flight overtook her. Her breath was still coming in shallow, rapid pants, but a feeling of security was spreading over her now; this man had helped her after the rape, and had snatched her from the air when she had fallen off Ron’s broom; she had been safe in his arms twice before; she felt safe in his arms again now.

She was distantly aware of him talking to Draco over her head, giving him instructions.

“..............blue crystal vial on the third shelf, right hand, in my private storeroom,” he was saying; “you recall the password from when you were assisting me over the summer? Good. Bring it straight back here, and please dismiss my class; the period ends in ten minutes anyway....................yes, we’ll be right here; get going, boy!”

She heard Draco set off at a run, the pounding of his feet diminishing rapidly into the distance, and felt Snape sigh against her back. “I don’t suppose you’ll want to tell me what brought this on, will you, Miss Granger?” the potions master asked wearily. She shook her head mutely; she could feel herself drifting away. She wanted to drift away; consciousness had seemed overrated of late.

“Did you come here on purpose?” Snape asked.

She shook her head again, more vigorously this time. God no, this was the last place in the world she had wanted to find herself, bar none. The last.

“I think I’m going to speak to the headmaster about closing this corridor off permanently,” Snape said quietly, as much to himself as to her, it seemed. “It is seldom used anymore, and leads nowhere that cannot as easily be reached by other means. Would you like to see this place blocked off, Hermione?”

She nodded without hesitation. Yes, she would like that very much.

“Consider it done. You shouldn’t have to worry about being confronted by this place ever again.”

They were both quiet for some time as her breathing began to slow. Then, abruptly, Snape asked, “you do realize how much Draco loves you, do you not?”

“What?” The exclamation escaped her before she even had time to think about it, so taken aback was she by this sudden query. She sat up straight, pulling away from him, then scooted around to face him, scrubbing a sleeve back and forth across her face in an attempt to wipe her tears away, succeeding only in causing several curls of her disheveled hair to stick crosswise to her damp, flushed face.

To her utter astonishment, Snape, the most feared and loathed teacher in the school, raised his hand and pushed her hair back in a gesture both tender and undeniably paternal, then, flipping his hand so that it was the back, rather than the palm, that was touching her, pressed it to her cheeks and forehead, frowning.

“You seem quite warm to me,” he said seriously, “and your color is high. I’m going to insist on bed-rest for the remainder of the day, and I don’t want any arguments out of you. Understood, Miss Granger?”

She probably would have been inclined to argue despite all that had just happened- there was a Defense Against the Dark Arts quiz in the afternoon that she had studied quite hard for- but she was so preoccupied by Snape’s mention of Draco that she agreed without thought.

“Yes, but- professor-”

Snape cocked an eyebrow, seeming to have forgotten the turn the conversation had taken before he had noticed her feverish state.

“You said- um- Draco-?”

“Oh, yes,” Snape said, sounding pensive, “yes indeed. Draco. I’ve known Draco for a long time, Miss Granger, and I know that there are very few things that boy values in life, and even fewer people. If fact, as far as people go, I suspect that in a very real sense, you may be it. Certainly he has a good rapport with me, and even seems, for some reason I cannot begin to fathom, to be building a friendship with Potter-” his distaste was clearly evident in the way he spoke Harry’s name- “but as far as real love goes- the kind of selfless love that would compel a person to lay down his life for another- I believe that Draco’s world begins and ends with you.”

Hermione stared at him for a long moment in mute shock, and when she did manage to find her voice again, she didn’t quite know what to do with it. “Oh,” she stammered, her eyes huge, “um-”

But Snape raised a hand, silencing her. “I know you were running from him when you stumbled down here,” he said; “I don’t know why, nor do I expect you to tell me. Out of all the teachers in this school, I am hardly the one most students choose to confide in- even the members of my own House, and certainly not Gryffindors. But I will say this- whatever was, or is, troubling you, don’t shut Draco out. You’re all he has. And though he may never tell you so in as many words, he needs you.”

Hermione opened her mouth again, this time to protest that Draco was under a lot of stress and that she was actually the last thing he needed right now, the very LAST, as high-strung as she had been lately, bursting into tears at the slightest provocation; fainting, for God’s sake- and she wasn’t a fainting kind of girl! She hated girls that were, girls like Pansy herself, the cause of today’s little scene, who had perfected the art of the dramatic swoon in order to bask in the fawning attention of boys too stupid to realize that it was an act. All this she wanted to say, but before the words could come tumbling out, the sound of running footsteps alerted her to Draco’s return and she shut her mouth again with a snap as Draco rounded the corner and skidded to a halt beside her, dropping into a squat and handing the vial of potion to Snape, though his eyes stayed locked on her. Breathing hard, he pushed his pale, sweat-dampened hair back out of his face in an abrupt, somehow anxious gesture, but did not speak.

Snape, meanwhile, uncorked the vial and handed it to Hermione. “Drink this,” he said curtly; “it’s a restorative. It should return your breathing to normal, steady you on your feet, and bring your temperature back down. “However,” he added, turning his gaze toward Draco (whose silver eyebrows had shot up at the mention of her temperature) though he continued to address Hermione, “I do still insist that you take the remainder of the day off class and use it to recover from this- ordeal. This potion cannot do for you what a day of rest can, and it is rest that you need. I will speak to your other teachers and will trust Mister Malfoy here-” Draco gave a barely perceptible nod- “to look after you, since when it comes to missing class, I’m not entirely sure you can be relied upon to follow my directions, even when they are in your own best interests.”

Hermione, studying his face as she downed the potion, was sure she saw the barest hint of a smile flit across it at these words. Was it possible that Snape- Professor Snape- was teasing her? Then the potions master was pocketing the empty vial and standing, he and Draco were both offering her a hand up, and, muttering something about having to go and inspect the damage those dimwitted third years had done to his classroom in his absence, Snape vanished around the bend in the corridor and was gone.

“Where are your things?” Draco asked, after a long and somewhat awkward silence.

Hermione looked around blankly for a moment before remembering. “I left them in the library. I-I was- in a hurry.”

“I gathered that,” Draco said. He reached out, as though to cup her cheek in his hand, but then pulled back, uncertain; clearly remembering how desperate she had been, just a few minutes before, to not have him touch her. “Are- are you all right?”

She nodded, looking away. She couldn’t bear the flash of pain she had seen behind those ice blue eyes when he had withdrawn his hand. No one else would even have caught it, but then no one else knew Draco the way she did. She had caught it, and it broke her heart.

Her attention now returning to the corridor in which they stood, she looked about for a moment in dull, weary horror, then said, in a barely audible voice, “I have to get out of here.” Still, however, she didn’t move- she remained, even now, paralyzed by the horror of this place. Until-

“Let’s go then,” Draco said, more gently than she thought she had ever heard him speak, and seizing her by the hand, led her unresisting around the corner and up the nearby stairs.

When they had reached the top of the steps, she felt a sudden rush of dizziness- giddy relief at being away from that evil place- that caused her to stop walking, pull her hand away from Draco’s and lean heavily against the wall for a minute. Her legs felt weak; they wanted to buckle, to slide her right down the wall to the floor and allow her to sit for a moment, regaining her equilibrium, but she kept herself upright by force of will. Sliding down the wall would only cause Draco more worry, and he was worried enough already.

God, she hated how worried he was on her behalf, when he had more than enough troubles of his own. He had even said it himself- in a moment of panicked anger, yes, but that didn’t make it any less true. As if I don’t already have enough on my plate, he had shouted.

And now he was speaking again, in a heartachingly tender voice; “hey- bookworm. You okay? Hermione?”

She felt her breath hitch, remembering what she had been about to say to Snape before Draco had arrived back on the scene, and suddenly she found herself saying all the things she had nearly said to the potions master to Draco himself, the words tumbling out of her mouth in a jumble, aware that she was stammering in her upset and her haste to speak before she lost her nerve; because as difficult as it was to say these things to him, she knew she owed it to him- owed him the opportunity to sever ties if he felt, as she did, that she was far more trouble than she was worth; owed him that choice.

“Draco, listen, um.............I know you’ve got a lot on your mind these days and, um, I’ve been having a really hard time keeping myself together lately, so.................so I guess what I’m trying to say is- is that- I’ll understand if- um- if you don’t want to be burdened with me anymore. I mean...............I’ve been n-nothing but trouble for you lately, and you can g-go with my blessing if- if that’s what you want.”

“Jesus, Hermione! What in God’s name would make you think that would ever- EVER be what I want? Tell me. Tell me what I’ve said or done to make you think that! Because whatever it was, it was unintentional. Whatever it was, I take it back!”

“No! It’s nothing you’ve done. It’s just that- you could have anyone you want. And I just- in a school full of pretty girls..............undamaged girls- I just don’t understand why you would want me.”

“Undamaged,” Draco echoed quietly, sounding aghast. “Undamaged.”

She stared at the floor, arms wrapped tightly about herself, blinking hard against the tears that wanted so badly to come, not wanting- not able- to look up until she felt his hand, ever so gently, yet insistently, slip under her chin and tilt her face up toward his.

“Hermione,” he said, so softly she could barely hear him, his pale eyes boring into hers, “you listen to me. You are not damaged. You are perfect, and you are the only one I want. The only one I’ll ever want. Wild thestrals couldn’t drag me away from you. Are you hearing me?”

She gave a tiny nod, constrained by his hand, still under her chin, compelling her to keep eye contact.

“Now I’m begging you- and you know damn well I don’t beg- but please, tell me what would even make you think such a thing? Have you ever seen me look at another girl? Because frankly, they don’t even register to me anymore. They all look the same.” He made a face of extreme distaste. “And the noise! Bunch of primped up, giggling, shrieking-”

She smiled despite herself, but it vanished almost as quickly as it had come.

“I just- um-” she pulled away and looked down again, swallowing hard- “overheard..............someone..............talking in the library and she was saying that- that you’d be getting tired of me soon because I don’t- because we haven’t- ”

“Pansy.” His voice was flat, uninflected, and that flatness was dangerous. Her eyes snapped back up to his face, suddenly frightened. When his voice went quiet like that, it meant he was mad enough to kill.

“Draco-”

“I’m sure you heard just exactly what she intended you to overhear. What did she say precisely?”

Hermione felt tears prick the backs of her eyes again at the memory of it, but she fought against them and won- for the time being, anyway. Eyes still downcast, partly because she didn’t want him to see the threatening tears, partly because she didn’t feel she could look directly at him when repeating Pansy’s scathing words, she whispered, “after a year, being with that frigid bitch Granger must be driving him up the wall.................that’s what she said.”

For a moment there was total silence. Then Draco exploded.

“That BITCH! That vicious, conniving little c-”

“DRACO!”

He broke off, his attention arrested by Hermione’s cry and the appalled look on her face. Then his eyes, which had gone dark- the color of gunmetal- and slitted with rage, softened and he reached for her, pulling her into a fierce embrace.

“Don’t you believe it,” he said, speaking into her hair; “don’t you believe a word of it, do you hear me? Promise me. You have to promise me that you will never believe what that- that- what SHE says, over what I say. Do you promise?”

She nodded against his chest.

“All right.” Draco took a deep breath, seeming to struggle for composure. “All right.” He squeezed her once, hard, crushing her against him for a fraction of a second, then pushed her back to arm’s length, still gripping her tightly by the shoulders. “Hermione. I wasn’t a whole person until I started to fall- until-” he broke off awkwardly, shook his head in frustration, and started again; “I can’t imagine being without you. I don’t want to. If I ever do get sick of you-” he smiled wryly- “you’ll be the first to know, I swear. But believe me when I say, Granger, that I don’t foresee that happening for a very long time. Okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered.

“Good. Now let’s get you back to the Tower. Snape said you should relax for the rest of the day, and I intend to see that his orders are carried out, even at the expense of my own afternoon classes. A regular martyr, that’s me!” And he gave her a grin which, though small, was so shot through with mischief that she could not help but return it.

“Poor baby,” she said sarcastically as they began to walk side by side. “I’m sure you must be heartbroken at the thought of missing our-” she stopped suddenly, mid-stride. “Defense quiz!” she cried, eyes widening in alarm. “Oh, no- nuh nuh nuh no! I’m not missing that! I’ve studied too hard!”

Draco rolled his eyes- he should have seen this coming. “Tell you what,” he said after a moment’s thought, “first period’s ending right about now. Soon as we get your things, we’ll go find the Nymph- I don’t think she teaches second period. If we ask her, I’m sure she’ll let us both take the quiz now and then we’ll have the rest of the day off. That’s the best thing about being head boy and girl- the teachers never tell us no!”

Hermione shook her head disapprovingly. “Being head boy carries a lot of responsibility, Draco- trust you to make it about seeing what you can get away with! And if Professor-” she placed a heavy emphasis on the word- “Tonks ever found out that you call her the Nymph, I think she’d make your whole ferret experience look like a Sunday walk in the park!”

“Hey,” Draco said, indignant, “I thought we had agreed never to speak of that again! It’s something I’d just as soon forget!” But he was smiling, seeming relieved that his attempt to lighten the mood appeared to be working. “And anyway- you haven’t yet said that it’s a bad idea.”

“No,” she agreed, beginning to walk once more. “No, I don’t suppose it’s such a bad idea at all. It’s your utter lack of respect for the professors that I take issue with, not your idea, which is actually pretty clever- for a former Slytherin.”

Draco looked deeply wounded. “I’ll have you know,” he said, “that Slytherins can be very clever. How is one supposed to be cunning, sly and devious without first being clever, hm?”

Hermione’s brows knit together in thought. “I suppose you’re right,” she said slowly, “and after all,” she teased, “who would know better than you, seeing as you possess all those qualities in such abundance?”

“My, aren’t you a suddenly a snippy little thing?”

“Well, you deserve it,” she said in clipped tones, “after your behavior in the entrance hall this morning.”

Up a flight of stairs and around a bend in the corridor, Draco spoke again, his voice now serious once more. “I was really worried when you didn’t show up for Arithmancy, Hermione- especially after the way I acted before class. I uh- I know I was being a real- um.....................” he trailed off, brow furrowed.

“Prat?” Hermione supplied gently.

He shot her a quick, keen look from the corners of his pale eyes before facing front again. “Yeah,” he said quietly, having the grace to sound suitably chagrined. “And I- I just want you to know that I feel- that I’m really- um- really......................”

“Sorry?”

“That’s the one,” he mumbled, looking everywhere but at her.

“It’s all right, Malfoy,” she said; “I’ve always known you were a prat- I love you anyway.” And waited, feeling as though her heart had suddenly leapt into her mouth, to see if he might- just might- actually respond in kind.

But all he said, hooking an arm around her and pulling her tightly against his side, was- “Course you do, Granger- you have excellent taste in prats.”

The following morning at breakfast there was an uproar when one Pansy Parkinson, of Slytherin House, took a huge swig from a goblet she had assumed held pumpkin juice- after all, what else would a goblet at the breakfast table be expected to hold?- and found it to contain, instead, undiluted bubotuber pus. In the ensuing madness, Hermione, studying Draco shrewdly through narrowed eyes, thought she had never seen him look quite so innocent. Their eyes met, his wide and guileless, and he mouthed to her over the din, "poor girl."

Hermione just shook her head.

Pansy spent the next three days in the hospital wing, during which time an extensive inquiry was of course launched, but the identity of the mean- spirited prankster was never discovered. Had it been, the guilty party would almost certainly have faced expulsion. Pansy herself was quite vocal (once she could do more than gurgle, that is) about her conviction that it was Hermione Granger, the Head Girl herself, who was responsible, but she refused to explain to the headmaster just why she thought so, and so, between the fact that there was no evidence whatsoever to support Pansy's claims and the fact that the faculty all agreed Hermione was about as capable of attempting to poison a fellow student as the Giant Squid was of moving into Gryffindor Tower, nothing ever came of it.

At nearly the same time as an extremely sullen Pansy was finally being released from Madam Pomfrey's care, Snape kept Hermione after potions in order to inform her that the corridor in which she had been attacked no longer existed. He and Dumbledore had seen to that. Any student now venturing that far down into the bowels of the school would, upon descending the final staircase, be met with a solid stone wall upon which had been placed the portrait of a very old, foul tempered wizard named Reginald the Recluse, who quite liked it by himself down there and would swear like a sailor at anyone who came near (what Snape neglected to tell her was that Reginald was, in fact, his own great-grandfather). Due to the fact that old Reggie's mouth was capable of sending the younger students into fits of hysterics- and not the good kind, either- "his staircase" would henceforth be on Dumbledore's list of prohibited places within the school.

Hermione was grateful, and even forced a smile to show it, which required a supreme effort because for her, smiles were hard to come by these days. Since the disastrous episode that had begun in the library and ended at the scene of her rape, Hermione had felt herself slipping deeper and deeper into depression. After all, though she had related some of what she had overheard that day to Draco, she had not told him the worst of it; the one comment, above all the others, that had truly devastated her and caused her flight- Pansy's sneering voice saying, "Granger, the perpetual virgin!"

It was this comment that ate away at her- this comment, which Pansy had intended as a scathing insult, but which had ended up causing Hermione far more anguish due to its inaccuracy than it ever would have had it been true. If it had been true, Hermione would have dismissed it for the spiteful, petty sniping that it was, but it was the fact that it was false- so woefully false-

So upsetting had been this comment, followed immediately by her unintentional visit to the very place where her virginity had been shattered, that she found herself dwelling on it nearly constantly and growing more and more distressed as the days passed.

*****

Thus it was that on the second Friday after the Pansy incident, she woke in such a black mood that she made the decision- for the first time ever since her arrival at Hogwarts seven years ago- to forego class when she wasn't seriously physically ill.

When Draco knocked on her door to collect her for breakfast, as was their custom, she raised her head from the pillow, in which it had been buried, long enough to call out to him that she wasn't feeling well and he should go to breakfast, and on to class, without her. When he asked to be allowed in, she refused.

She still hadn't gotten out of bed when Harry and Ron came around pounding on the door at lunchtime. She didn't bother answering them at all. No one else came by, and Draco did not return until after dark. By then, at least, she had gotten out of bed and showered, but had put her pajamas (pale blue jersey knit pants and a baggy white tee-shirt) back on and was doing nothing more than sitting in her window seat, staring out across the grounds. She had a book spread open across her lap, but had not read a single sentence since summoning it from her nightstand an hour before.

Dinner was over and she had been watching the Gryffindor Quidditch team, which of course included Harry, Ron and Draco, practicing as the Sun went down. They were now following the path back up to the castle, single file, broomsticks slung over their shoulders. As they disappeared through the double doors far below, she knew it was only a matter of moments until she would be once more under siege by at least one of "her boys", if not all three. Sighing, she turned her face away from the window, but made no move to get up. She lacked the energy, she lacked the will- at that particular moment, she lacked any conviction at all that it would be worthwhile to get up ever again.

*****

Draco trudged slowly up the many stairs that led to Gryffindor Tower, exhausted from practice and desperately worried about Hermione. That morning, when she had told him to go on to class without her, he had thought she meant that she would be missing the first class of the day- and that had caused him enough concern. But that she should miss them ALL- that she should go an entire day without once leaving her room, for class, for meals, or even to visit the library- that was just SO unlike her. Or was it? Come to think of it, was it really? Or was it just the natural progression of the depression that seemed to be claiming her more and more fully of late? And if so, where would she go from here? How much worse could things get?

He shook his head. No worse. He couldn't allow this to go on. He had to think of a way to make this better. She was suffering and he had to come up with a way to help her. He HAD to. But how? Dear God, HOW?

In the common room, he parted from the rest of the team; they headed up yet more stairs to their dormitories while he turned toward the door beside the fireplace. Harry grasped his shoulder briefly in a comradely fashion and the two boys shared a significant look. Draco knew that Harry- Ron too, for that matter- was as worried about Hermione as he was. Well, almost as worried- they didn't know about the Pansy incident, so they had one less thing to fret about than he did. But nevertheless, they could certainly tell that Hermione's state was deteriorating, even if they weren't aware of every single contributing factor. They had told him about her refusal to answer them at lunch time, concern etched all over their faces; she had only previously given the two of them the cold shoulder a handful of times over all the years they had been at Hogwarts, and only when the trio had been fighting over one thing or another.

Yet it had been Harry who had convinced Draco not to forego dinner and practice, when his inclination had been to nip some food straight from the kitchens and bring it upstairs to eat with Hermione. Harry had convinced him (not without some difficulty) that Hermione needed time, and would probably be more herself if he gave her until after practice. So, though it had been hard for him, he had waited. He was going to see her now though, come hell or high water. Oh yes indeed.

He stopped by his own room first, wearily dropping his broomstick on the bed and stripping off his protective gear. This was something that the rest of his teammates did down in the changing rooms, but not Draco- oh, no. Old habits died hard, and Draco Malfoy was not about to leave his expensive, top-of-the-line Quidditch equipment in a filthy locker down in the communal changing room, where just any riff-raff could lay grubby hands on it. And imagine the horror if it were taken, or accidentally mixed up with someone else's- not that that was likely- the accidental mix-up scenario, anyway- since his things were of such obvious superiority in quality and cleanliness- but one could never be sure, and it would be a cold day in Hell before he pulled on someone else's sweaty, grimy, stained equipment. Or worse yet- he actually shuddered- the extra "emergency gear" that belonged to the school. If it came down to that, he wouldn't play. He would see a game forfeited first, which he knew would sit very ill with his teammates- therefore, his gear remained in his room at all times he wasn't actually wearing it. And if his teammates sniggered behind his back at his insistence on wearing the hot leather equipment all the way back up to the tower after every practice and game, so be it (damn them all).

Ordinarily, he cleaned and oiled the leather gear immediately upon his return from any practice or game, but just for tonight he decided it could wait. Pulling his scarlet and gold Gryffindor Quidditch robe over his head, he used it to briefly towel off his sweat-soaked hair, then tossed it carelessly in a corner and, still wearing the remainder of his uniform- tightly fitted flying breeches tucked into dragonhide boots and his scarlet team jersey- headed across the hall to Hermione's room.

His knock at her door did not achieve the result he had intended- immediate entrance into her room- or, indeed, in any result whatsoever. It appeared that she had decided to extend her earlier silent treatment of Harry and Ron to him as well.

Only he wasn't going to have it.

"Hermione?" he called, his voice soft but carrying. No response.

He tried the handle. It was locked.

He sighed.

"Hermione," he called again, in the same voice, which managed to carry without actually being raised, his tone calm and matter-of-fact; "believe me when I say that I am coming in, one way or another. Now," he asked, almost conversationally, "are you going to open this door, or am I going to blast it out of my way?"

There was a long silence. Then, he heard a softly spoken spell from the far side of the door- the far side of the room too, by the sound of it- followed by a click from within the doorknob. When he tried it again, it opened.

*****

He first noticed that the usually neatly-kept room was in a very un- Hermione-like state of disarray. Two or three different homework assignments lay strewn haphazardly across her desk, all appearing to be only half done. The bed was unmade, sheets and blankets scattered all about, and clothes littered the floor and lay draped carelessly over the backs of chairs, presumably where she had left them after undressing the night before. He didn't think they were from today, at any rate, because when he noticed her- sitting curled in a ball in her window seat, a large book lying open beside her like a faithful but neglected pet, her face turned away from him, staring out the window at a night so dark she couldn't possibly actually be seeing anything- he realized that she was wearing pajamas which, by the rumpled look of them, had been slept in last night and then worn all day as well.

"Hermione?"

"I don't want to talk," she said in a dull, flat voice. "The locked door should have clued you in to that, but then you never were one to take a hint, were you?"

He walked slowly over and settled himself on the window seat as well- it was more than long enough to accommodate two people. She didn't look at him, choosing instead to continue her examination of the pitch darkness outside her window.

There was a long silence.

"Bookworm," he said at last, "this can't go on. I need you to tell me what it is that's torturing you like this. Not just some of it- ALL of it. Because you didn't tell me all of it before, did you?"

Finally, she turned eyes to him that were, as they had been in the hallway when she had nearly knocked him over in her haste to escape the library, haunted. There were no tears in them- not at the moment- but tear-tracks streaked her pale face. She swallowed, then dropped her gaze away from his. She whispered something so softly he couldn't make it out.

He leaned forward. "What?"

She dropped her head onto her knees and her next words were badly muffled, but by edging closer and listening intently, he managed to make them out.

"Pansy said something else."

Draco felt that now familiar protective rage flare within him, but he fought it down. He could tell that ranting and raving about the Parkinson bitch (bloody fucking whore!) the way he wanted to do would cause Hermione to shut down completely. If he wanted her to open up to him, he had to remain calm.

Unconsciously, he raised his right hand to his face and began massaging his temple with his fingertips. When he spoke, his voice was quiet; composed. "Tell me."

She made a sound that seemed as if she were swallowing back a sob, but when she raised her head from her knees, her eyes were still dry. Dark-ringed and despairing, but dry. She hesitated, and he could see the uncertainty behind those brown eyes. She was debating whether to tell him. Her hesitation pained him, but it lasted only a second, to be replaced by resignation.

"Granger, the perpetual virgin," she said in a monotone, then gave a short, bitter laugh. "I suppose it goes hand-in-hand with being a frigid bitch- as far as Pansy's concerned, at least. She said it to hurt me, and it did- but not in the way she had intended. I could have stood it if it were true- I wish to God it were true. It hurt me because it's so blatantly false." Her eyes remained steadily on his as she said, "because I don't care what you say to spare my feelings, I AM damaged and I know it. All I am is used goods."

Draco closed his eyes, fighting for control. What he wanted to do in that instant was take her by the shoulders and SHAKE her- shake her and SLAP some sense into her, if necessary. This was not a stupid girl sitting in front of him- she was the smartest girl at Hogwarts; the smartest girl he'd ever met, for Chrissakes. And he had met many highly intelligent people in his parents' circle (evil as the day was long, yes- but intelligent). Hermione outshone them all. So why in God's name was she allowing herself to buy into such complete and utter bullshit?!?

And the most frustrating part was that he knew that her very intelligence and innate sense of logic- which should have, but had somehow failed to, protect her from falling into this trap of self-loathing- would be his biggest hurdle to helping her claw her way back out of it again. Shaking her, yelling at her, even taking her into his arms and rocking her, telling her that he would give his life to go back and change the outcome of that day- all of which were things he wanted to do at the moment- would not work.

Assuring her that he, Draco Malfoy, was not bloody likely to waste his time on used or damaged goods and therefore she must clearly be nothing of the sort- in his opinion anyway, which was, after all, the only one that truly mattered- would not work.

He needed to prove her wrong with calm, rational logic.

But how?

What logic could he use in the face of such an emotionally charged situation? How on Earth could he make her see that what she was saying simply was not true?

All at once it came to him, in a blinding flash of inspiration. "Come on," he said urgently; "I have something to show you. Bring your book." And seizing her hand, he pulled her bodily out of her room, in her pajamas, through the crowded common room, which buzzed with conversation as weekend plans were cheerfully being made, and out the portrait hole.

*****

"Draco, where are we going?" Hermione asked anxiously, as he pulled her by the hand across the dark grounds toward the forbidden forest. "Will you please just tell me what is going ON? I don't-"

"Shh," Draco whispered. They had passed Hagrid's hut and were now skirting the forest, heading toward the enclosure that had at one time held four dragons during the Triwizard Tournament years ago. Though the stands had long since been removed, the enclosure remained, and was now used to house an ever-changing assortment of animals for the Care of Magical Creatures classes to study.

It was nearly empty now, for such a large space; only a handful of animals could be seen within as they approached, widely spread out, brilliantly white and shining in the dusk. A faint whinny reached their ears; a beautiful, almost musical sound.

"Unicorns," Hermione breathed. Having missed Care of Magical Creatures that day, she had not known they were there. One look at her face told Draco that she was utterly enthralled by them, as he had hoped she would be. As most girls were.

"C'mon," he said quietly, and led her toward the enclosure's gate.

"Wait," she whispered, when they had reached the gate and Draco was reaching for the latch; "I think I hear something. A voice. A person."

"Draco cocked his head, listening hard, and heard it too. A girl's voice, coming from off to their right, where the enclosure had been expanded to surround a small stand of trees, which provided shelter to the animals on hot days.

He jutted his head toward the sound of the voice, as much as to say, shall we investigate?

"I don't know," Hermione murmured. "Maybe we shouldn't intrude......"

"Let's just have a look," Draco said. "We've come all the way down here; it would be a shame to leave without seeing the unicorns. Maybe whoever it is will welcome some company."

They started off around the edge of the enclosure, toward the stand of trees, walking very quietly, as if both sensing, despite Draco's words, that the owner of the voice would not welcome their arrival at all. They were almost to the trees when Hermione stopped abruptly, peering through the slatted fence.

"Draco, look," she whispered; "I can see her. It's......it's Pansy."

Draco looked, and saw her too. Sitting cross-legged on the ground at the base of a nearby tree, with a book spread open on her lap, was Pansy Parkinson, Slytherin princess, queen of vicious words that cut like knives. Though apparently quite alone, she was reading aloud by wandlight, in a quiet, faltering sort of voice. Closer observation revealed the reason her voice was faltering; she was crying openly, tears streaming down her face as she continued to read. Several feet away, apparently listening intently, were two unicorns; a snow-white mare and a silvery half-grown foal, shimmering in the night, for it was now fully dark.

They occasionally tossed their heads and whinnied, but did not approach Pansy.

Draco and Hermione watched, silently, transfixed, for the next ten minutes as Pansy continued to read, her words becoming more difficult to understand as she cried harder and harder. Finally, with a great sob, she ceased reading altogether. The instant she stopped, the two unicorns pawed the ground, snorted, and turned away.

"GO ON THEN! Get out of here!" Pansy shrieked suddenly (in a voice still decidedly scratchy from her bubotuber ordeal), making Hermione jump- and, leaping to her feet, she hurled the heavy book at the unicorns. It thudded to the ground between them, and they reared and galloped away toward the far side of the enclosure. She then dropped her face into her hands and stood, shoulders hunched, for a long moment, sobbing pitifully. Finally, she raised her head, wiped her face on her sleeve, went to retrieve her book, and, without a glance in Draco and Hermione's direction, made her way slowly toward the enclosure gate, still sniffling.

They watched in silence as she let herself out of the enclosure and headed back toward the castle. Only once she was completely out of sight did either of them breathe deeply again- they hadn't even realized that they'd been holding their breath.

"Poor Pansy!" Hermione exclaimed at last. "I mean, I never thought I'd feel sorry for HER, but- my God! She was so upset. What was that all about?"

Draco was staring after Pansy, looking uncharacteristically shaken. "Class," he murmured, more to himself than to Hermione; "she must not have understood. And I noticed that she didn't come back up to the castle with the rest of us- so she's been down here for hours, trying to-" he shook his head. "Oh Pansy, you stupid, stupid girl."

Hermione's full attention was now focused on him. "Draco," she said slowly, "would you care to enlighten me as to what happened in class this afternoon? Because I am seriously in the dark right now."

Draco turned his eyes on her. As always at night, they shone faintly silver. "We learned some new facts about unicorns today," he said, totally unnecessarily. Hermione gave an impatient snort. "I gathered THAT much," she retorted; "could you elaborate, please?"

"Well, Draco said, sounding suddenly rather hesitant, "we learned that if a maiden sits on the ground beneath a tree and either sings or reads aloud, unicorns will come and lay their heads in her lap and go to sleep. It's a method that was used quite commonly in the Middle Ages to capture them; while they were sleeping, men would creep up and bind them. Very few people know about it anymore, as there are so few unicorns left. Pansy must have thought it could work for any girl- she either missed the word 'maiden', or she didn't understand what was meant by it."

"It means virgin," Hermione whispered, looking suddenly stricken.

"Yes," Draco replied, "which Pansy most definitely is not."

"And neither am I," Hermione said, in a small, choked-sounding voice. She was looking from Draco to the book tucked under her arm- the book he had instructed her to bring- over to the distant unicorns, and back to Draco again. Abruptly, she dropped the book to the ground. "Draco- why did you bring me down here? Surely you don't- you can't mean for me to-"

Tears were welling in her eyes, and she took a step back from him, then another, shaking her head all the while.

"Hermione, listen-"

"No!" Her voice was shrill. "I can't believe you would do this to me! After what I just TOLD you up in my room! You WANT to see them reject me the way they rejected Pansy? Why? WHY would you want to see that?!?" She dissolved completely into tears.

"Hermione!" Draco took two quick strides forward and grasped her firmly by the upper arms. "You WILL listen to me," he said commandingly, his pale eyes boring intently into her dark ones. He took a deep breath, and when she offered no further resistance, continued; "Pansy missed a large part of the lecture altogether. She and a couple of other girls wandered off to get a better look at that foal, either not realizing, or more likely not caring, that Hagrid was still talking. She missed quite a few interesting facts. Such as the whole discussion about virgins and, in particular, 'true virgins', which is a fine distinction that unicorns, as highly intuitive magical creatures, are capable of making." He shook his head again. "If she had bothered to stick around for the last twenty minutes of the lecture, she would have realized that she, being no kind of virgin, was a lost cause for the whole reading-aloud deal, and she wouldn't have wasted hours of her time and frustrated herself to tears."

Hermione, now staring at the ground, whispered, "I don't understand. We learned a little about unicorns in fourth year, when Grubbly-Plank was filling in for Hagrid, but she never mentioned any of this. Virgin, true virgin, what does it mean?"

"She probably figured- correctly, in my opinion- that fourth-years weren't ready to hear about it yet. A true virgin," Draco said quietly, "is a girl who has never- WILLINGLY- given up her virginity to a man she loves- or at the very least, thinks she does. Therefore it is possible, in rare cases, for a girl not to be a technical virgin, but still to be a true virgin. You are one of those cases. See, Pansy, for all that she may regret it now, gave up her virginity willingly to a boy she thought she loved. (Never would he tell her that he had been that boy, on the night of the Yule Ball during fourth year, so long ago.) You, on the other hand, have never done so." He tilted her chin up, forcing her to look at him. "You are a true virgin, Hermione, and the unicorns will recognize that, and they WILL come to you. You'll see."

For the briefest second, he thought he saw a wild hope kindle in her eyes- but it vanished as quickly as it had appeared. She was shaking her head again. "You're wrong," she whispered despairingly. "They'll never come to me. Never. Not after what he......" she trailed off, and a violent shudder wracked her body. "It was disgusting. I'M disgus-"

"HEY!" Draco, who was still holding her by the upper arms, was no longer able to resist the impulse; he gave her a sudden, hard shake. "Don't you say it, Hermione, do you hear me? Don't you even THINK it! Goddamn it," he swore, and she saw that he was really, truly angry; "that's complete and utter bullshit! And what's more, you're smart enough that you should KNOW that's complete and utter bullshit. For the love of God....." he trailed off for a moment, staring intently into her eyes, then, abruptly, yanked her to him, engulfing her in a tight, hard embrace. Resting his chin atop her head, he said, "I think deep down you know what I'm saying is true. You must. You're smart enough that you must. The things that bastard- that bloody fucking bastard- did to you- were just that; done TO you, wholly without your consent or participation. The unicorns will sense that, and they will disregard what he did. And they will come. They will come. I know they'll come; I swear it to you. And what's more, we are not. Going back. To the castle. Until you sit under that tree and bloody well READ! Do I make myself clear?"

It was a long moment before he felt her nod once, against his chest. Releasing her, he walked over to where her book lay on the ground, picked it up, and tossed it over the enclosure fence. He then beckoned her over to the fence; she came slowly, reluctantly. Without a word, he boosted her up and over, then easily climbed over himself.

Retrieving her book, he took her by the hand and led her over to the tree Pansy had been sitting against. He then did something that surprised her; he settled himself on the ground beneath the tree, leaned back against it, and patted the soft, springy turf between his legs.

Slowly, still with great reluctance, she lowered herself into a sitting position between his legs, facing outward, away from him. She then leaned back against his chest, allowing her head to fall onto his shoulder as one of his arms circled her waist and the other came up and began stroking through her hair. They sat that way for a long moment as her sense of unease slowly faded and she gradually relaxed into him. Then, reaching around in front of her, he placed the book gently in her lap, pulled his wand from the waistband of his breeches, and murmured, "Lumos."

Holding the wand aloft so that the faint light from its tip illuminated the book, he said simply, "read."

"They won't come," she whispered.

"They will," he said.

She opened the book, drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and began slowly, haltingly, to read aloud.

And they came. Not one of them, not two of them; they all came.

There were, as it turned out, five in total; two mares, two foals, and a stallion. The same mare and half-grown foal that had been listening to Pansy, albeit at a distance, were the first to come, followed by the other mare and her younger, still golden foal. The stallion came last, slowly, majestically, glimmering in the light of the rising moon.

The five animals ranged themselves in a semicircle around the young couple, then sank to their knees, all their eyes fixed unblinkingly on Hermione, as she made a concerted effort to continue reading, though her breath was catching in her throat at their beauty, their closeness, the fact they had come. They had come to her when she had never thought they would. Apparently, they didn't see her as damaged or sullied or disgusting; they, the purest magical creatures in the world, seemed to consider her to be just as good and wholesome and beautiful as they were themselves.

And Draco must agree with them, or he wouldn't have brought her here.

She was nearly overwhelmed by emotion, but she kept on reading and very slowly, never taking his eyes off her, the stallion lowered his head into her lap. As though they had been waiting for his signal, the mares and foals followed suit, jostling for position, their heads bumping gently, eyes still riveted on her face. If all five had been adults, they never could have fit. Even so, it was a very close thing. She finally had to stop reading, as one of the mares laid her head squarely on top of the book.

"You'd better start singing," Draco whispered in her ear, "if you don't want them to leave."

She took a deep breath. There was, of course, only one song that she would choose to sing under such enchanting circumstances.

The large, luminous eyes of all five unicorns fell slowly shut. By the time Hermione had finished the song, they were sleeping soundly.

"I think you can stop once they're asleep," Draco murmured. Hermione let her head fall back against his shoulder once again and stared up, between the gently swaying branches of the tree above them, to the starlit sky beyond. Silent tears were pouring from her eyes, but these were not the tears of despair she had been crying for over a year; these were tears of wonderment and sheer joy.

They stayed like that, sitting perfectly still, for well over an hour, until the unicorns began to stir and then, led by the stallion, got to their feet, tossed their heads, and trotted away. Hermione, leaning heavily against Draco, stretched luxuriously, then sat straight up and half- turned so that she was looking directly at him for the first time since they had settled themselves in that spot. He was staring intently at her, trying to gauge her reaction to all that had happened.

"Draco," she whispered, and then she threw herself at him, wrapping her arms tightly around him and burying her face in his neck. "I love you," she cried; "thank you, thank you, I love you so much!"

She thought she felt him smile into her hair as his own arms came up to pull her even tighter into the embrace. "I knew they would come," was all he said.

Every night for a week, Draco and Hermione went down to the unicorn enclosure. Always they would sit under the same tree; Draco leaning against the trunk, Hermione leaning against Draco, and always when she read aloud or sang softly, the unicorns would come. On the third night, and each night thereafter, they actually found the animals standing clustered about the tree, as if eagerly awaiting their arrival.

Every night, in the pasture, Hermione cried tears of joy.

She no longer cried any other kind, or at any other time.

Harry and Ron were the first, other than Draco, to notice the change in her; but before the week was out, nearly all the students and faculty had. She held her head up high again; she made eye contact with everyone she passed in the halls; her hand could be seen once again in the air during class; hesitant at first, but quickly gaining in confidence, to the delight of all her teachers, even Snape- though he would never have deigned to admit it. She smiled more often and more widely, and by the end of the week she had even been heard to laugh on two or three different occasions. Gone was the silent, preoccupied, and rather skittish girl that had been Hermione Granger for so long. She was finally coming out of her shell.

It was all a result of her interaction with the unicorns, though absolutely no one besides Draco, and of course Hermione herself, knew this. The only people forward enough to actually ask about the change that had come over her were close friends; Ron, Harry, and Ginny all mentioned it to her, but she didn't reveal the secret of the unicorns to any of them. She considered it to be an intensely private matter, for her and Draco alone.

On the following Saturday evening, a week and a day after their first visit to unicorns, Draco noticed that she was behaving somewhat oddly as they headed down to the enclosure. They were later than usual, because there had been a Hogsmeade visit that day, and they had dallied in the quaint little town until the very last possible moment before curfew set in. (Draco, in particular, was feeling rather smug about a certain purchase he had made in secret while Hermione had been lingering over butterbeers in the Three Broomsticks with Harry and Ron.) Then, upon their arrival back, as head boy and girl, they had been faced with the extremely unpleasant task of going over the sign-in sheets with Filch to make sure that all of the towngoers were back in the castle, safe and accounted for.

So after such a full day, he thought at first that the change in her demeanor could be explained by simple physical weariness. By the time they had reached the enclosure, though, he was definitely sensing that it was something more. She seemed- not sad, exactly, but..... solemn. Yes, that was it- there was an air of gravity about her that had not been present on any of their previous visits.

When they reached their designated tree, Draco prepared to sit down as usual, but Hermione stopped him with a word. She went down on one knee and rummaged briefly through the Hosmeade shopping bag she had been carrying. When she stood again a moment later, she was holding her major purchase of the day; a brand-new wizarding camera. She walked over to Draco and thrust the camera into his hands.

"You can't sit down with me yet," she said, and smiled somewhat nervously. "I want you to take a couple of pictures first. You know- of me with all the unicorns. I want-" her voice and expression were suddenly wistful; bittersweet- "I want something to remember this by."

Draco was thoroughly puzzled. "Hermione, you're acting like this is the last night we'll ever come down here. The unicorns will be here for the rest of the term- you know that."

"Yes, I know that," she replied, "and we'll still come down here sometimes, but this IS the last night they'll ever sleep in my lap, and so I want to remember it." She fell silent, watching his face intently, waiting for her words to sink in. Then-

"Wait a minute," Draco said slowly, his pale eyes widening.

Knowing that he had caught her meaning, she reached up and pulled him down into a deep, slow kiss.

"Hermione," he sputtered, when she released him, "you- you-"

She smiled up at him. She couldn't remember ever seeing him flustered before. It was completely out of character. It was also, she thought, utterly endearing. "What's the matter, Malfoy?" she teased. "Cat got your tongue?"

Draco shook his head. "I- you-" he trailed off, looking shell-shocked. Then, running a hand distractedly through his silvery hair; "are you sure? I mean, absolutely sure?"

"As sure as I've ever been about anything," she whispered. "I don't want to be afraid of it anymore. I love you and I trust you and I want you to show me that it can be good." Then her brow furrowed and she looked suddenly anxious. "It- it CAN be good.......right?"

"Well- yeah," Draco said, still sounding stunned. "Hell YEAH, it can be good."

"Then I want you to teach me. I'm ready to learn."

Draco surprised her then by suddenly bursting into laughter. "Trust you to make this about learning," he said. "What is this, your new research project?"

"It IS about learning," she replied, in a tone of exaggerated hurt, though a tiny smile was playing about her lips. "And if you'd rather I find someone else to help me with my research-"

"Don't even THINK it," he growled, and pulled her hard against him, into another kiss, this one far more breathless and urgent than the last.

They parted a moment later, gasping for air, and Hermione stepped back quickly, looking startled. Her eyes flew down to a point low on Draco's lean body, where something large and hard had pressed urgently into her stomach during the kiss.

"Draco Malfoy!" she exclaimed, sounding thoroughly scandalized, though her eyes were positively dancing with mirth, "control yourself, sir! I still have a date with the unicorns before- before I will require your assistance with my research!"

"Sorry," said Draco, looking away. He had the grace to appear embarrassed, but a grin was tugging at the corners of his mouth. He suddenly became very interested in fiddling with Hermione's new camera. "Let's get on with those unicorns then, shall we? I suddenly find myself growing rather-" he shot her a quick, rakish look from the corners of his pale eyes- a brief flash of silver in the dark- "impatient."

Hermione gave a most unladylike snort ("don't ruin the mood!" Draco complained) and promptly settled herself beneath the tree.

The unicorns, seeming to sense that there was something different- special- about this night, were quite patient with the little photography session that ensued; they were not at all skittish about the camera's flash, as Hermione had feared they might be.

After he finished playing photographer, Draco, not wanting to disturb the unicorns from Hermione's lap, made no attempt to slide into his usual position behind her. Rather, he sat against the side of the tree at a right angle from Hermione and, leaning his head back against the cool, smooth trunk, reached around and captured her hand in his.

They sat that way for a long time, first as Hermione sang the unicorns to sleep, and then in silence, both their heads tilted back against the tree trunk, gazing up at the crystalline stars. Though she sat utterly still so as not to disturb the slumbering animals, Hermione's thoughts were in a whirl. She was about to finally, after having been together for over a year, give herself up to the man she loved. And oh, she did love him. She did trust him. He said it could be good; she believed him. She was ready. She was elated. She was also, despite her earlier calm words, absolutely terrified. How could she not be, her one previous sexual experience being what it was? By the time the unicorns roused themselves and cantered away, her heart was pounding so loudly in her ears that she half-wondered if that was what had awakened them.

When Draco gave her a hand up, her legs felt like jelly. She clung to him as they made their way in silence back toward the enclosure gate, leaning against his side, his arm wrapped snugly, possessively, around her waist. With each step, she felt her panic rise. She attempted to calm herself through the use of logic; it had rarely failed her before. Draco loved her. He might not say it in so many words, but nevertheless, she knew deep- down that it was true. Therefore, he would never hurt her. And she was sick to death of living in fear of what should be an act of love. She had said she was sure she wanted this, and she was- but oh God- she couldn't help it- she was so scared.

Her thoughts were diverted from this track, however, as they came in sight of the gate. Beside her, Draco drew in a breath which indicated that he was as surprised as she by the sight that met their eyes- for there, standing directly in front of the gate, barring their way out of the enclosure, was the stallion, majestic in the moonlight.

They approached him slowly, wondering if he would step aside as they drew nearer, but he did not. He hardly moved at all; he looked like a statue standing there; a perfect sculpture of a unicorn in shimmering white marble. They stopped, uncertain, about ten feet away, glancing quickly at each other in perplexity before returning their attention to the magnificent animal before them, wondering what on Earth was going on. None of the unicorns had ever positioned themselves by the gate before.

Just as Hermione was readying herself to speak- to Draco or to the unicorn, she didn't fully know- the stallion tossed his head, and walked straight up to her, taking slow, high, prancing steps. Reaching her, he immediately bowed his magnificent head and laid it upon her shoulder, then whickered softly into her ear, causing her eyes, wide and startled, to fly once again to Draco's.

The unicorn held that pose, his head resting on Hermione's shoulder, his warm breath gently stirring her hair, for a full minute before he pulled away and danced back a few steps, turning his attention to Draco. He captured Draco's eyes in a long, steady gaze, then, very slowly, with great dignity and solemnity, he lowered his head and touched his horn first to Draco's right shoulder, then his left, and finally his right again, exactly like a king performing a knighting ceremony. This done, he backed away a few more steps, looked lingeringly once more from Draco to Hermione, then abruptly reared back on his hind legs, whinnied, and cantered away, leaving them staring after him, dumbfounded.

"Bugger," Draco said, with feeling.

"He knows," Hermione breathed; "Draco, he knows what we're about to do."

"More than that," Draco said; "he approves. I reckon he was giving us his blessing." After a long, thoughtful moment, he added, "holy shit."

"Draco Malfoy, I ought to wash your mouth out with soap!"

As they let themselves out of the gate and headed back across the grounds toward the castle, Hermione found that her fear had vanished, pushed out of her mind by the wonderment of their encounter with the unicorn. All that remained was a nervous, tingling sort of anticipation, and a feeling that she was floating, rather than walking, back toward the school, toward Gryffindor Tower, toward her room and her bed- with Draco. After all, if the stallion had intuited what they were about to do and had approved, had offered them his blessing, then it must be good; it must be right. She smiled and, without breaking stride, snuggled closer against her boyfriend- her soon-to-be-lover.

*****

Draco carried her over the threshold of her bedroom, and deposited her on the bed as though she were made of crystal; as though she were the most precious thing on the face of the Earth.

He dipped his head, his soft, silver hair falling about her face, and claimed her lips in a fierce kiss; it was not in his nature to kiss slowly or gently, even though his hands were the very epitome of tenderness as they roamed her body, caressing her through her clothes, awakening a need that she had never known before; never dreamed existed within her.

Finally tearing his mouth from hers, leaving her gasping for breath, he began unbuttoning her blouse slowly, slowly, planting a kiss on each new inch of flesh he exposed, until she was bare from the waist up, but for her plain white bra. Reaching a hand beneath her, he fumbled for a moment with the clasp, but to no avail (he was woefully out of practice with the bloody things).

"Damn it," he swore in frustration, causing her to giggle, and, grabbing his wand off the nightstand, vanished the offending bra with a flick of his wrist. Her laughter trailed off as she suddenly blushed deeply and looked away, bashful. She felt incredibly vulnerable all of a sudden; no one had ever seen her like this before.

"Hey." He caught her face in both his hands and turned it gently, yet inexorably, back up toward him. "Don't be shy, Hermione. You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. You're perfect- a goddess." He bent and kissed her again, then, "You know I mean it, right? I always mean what I say."

She nodded; it was true. By and large, Draco was a man of few words, and when he spoke, he spoke with conviction. He wouldn't have told her she was beautiful if he didn't truly believe it to be so.

Then all conscious thought was driven from her mind, her back arching clear off the bed as his hand found one of her breasts; his mouth the other.