Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter series, this series is the property of JKR and I'm just playing around in the world that she created, and I am not writing this with the intention of making any profit or copyright infringement.

Persuasion
by Rayne Destiny

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Things weren't going well for Draco Malfoy at all. How could he possibly go through with such a thing? He entered the bathroom and rested his forehead against the cool surface of the mirror in front of him.

Problem 1: Dumbledore was still alive.

Problem 2: He still hadn't repaired the Vanishing Cabinet to allow the Death Eaters to reach Hogwarts grounds.

And the school year was rapidly coming to a close. If Dumbledore was still alive when the Hogwarts Express pulled back into Platform 9 and 3/4, Draco would fail his mission. The penalty for failure was death.

He didn't want to die.

His heart clenched with both fear and despair. He had been such a fool. He was so caught up in saving the Malfoy name after his father's fall the year before that he didn't realize that he had walked into such an obvious trap. He wasn't meant to succeed, to reclaim the Malfoy former glory. He was meant to fail, to be yet another punishment to soothe the Dark Lord's anger with his father.

What better way to punish someone than by destroying their family – by murdering their only child?

Draco had no intention of failing, but it looked like his failure was preordained. Dumbledore spent more time than ever away from the Hogwarts since the Ministry of Magic chased him away the year before. He hadn't been able to get close to him in public, let alone in private so that he could kill him. He'd ever resorted to roundabout ways of killing the headmaster, ways that met with failure as well. As for the Cabinet, he'd tried every magical repair spell that he could think of, and the thing still remained broken.

Draco closed his eyes as the tears silently coursed down his face and fell into the sink.

"Draco?" Moaning Myrtle asked as she appeared in the bathroom.

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Hermione, used to the pressures on her friends to win the final Quidditch game of the season, barely even acknowledged Ron's mad dash to the bathroom as she sat with her two – now one – friend in the Gryffindor common room. "Well, Harry," she said as she picked up her Arithmancy book from the table, "there's nothing that you can do about the game besides your best, so stop worrying about it." She rose from her seat.

Harry got to his feet as well and followed Hermione to the portrait hole. "It's not just the game…" he mumbled under his breath.

Hermione only looked over her shoulder at Harry with the look of speculation that she'd given him so many times lately. "I know," she said, ignoring the look of surprise that appeared on Harry's face when he'd realized that he'd been overheard, and slipped into the hallway. The two of them walked together from the tower, and it was there that Hermione turned to go in a different direction.

"You're not going to dinner?" Harry asked.

"I'll be along later," she replied. "I need to go see Professor Vector. I think I made a mistake on my essay, and I don't want my marks to drop because of it." She didn't see Harry shake his head in her direction as she rushed off. Hermione decided to take a detour instead of her usual route, thinking that it would get her to her destination faster. If it did, she'd be back in the Great Hall all the sooner, joining her friends for dinner. She was passing by the seventh-floor bathrooms, when she heard the muffled voice of a girl speaking. She thought nothing of it until she realized that it was coming from the boys' bathroom instead of the girls'. Hermione knew that she couldn't let that go by unnoticed, especially since she was a prefect and she took her prefect duties seriously.

Hermione wasted no time in pushing open the door, a sharp reprimand sitting on her tongue, just waiting for the opposing party – or parties – to come into view. She all but choked on her words when she saw who she was about to unleash them on.

Draco Malfoy was standing with his back to the door, his hands clutching either side of the sink, his white-blond head bowed.

"Don't," crooned Moaning Myrtle's voice – the same voice that she'd heard earlier, Hermione realized – from one of the cubicles. "Don't… tell me what's wrong… I can help you…"

"No one can help me," said Draco. His whole body was shaking. "I can't do it… I can't… It won't work… and unless I do it soon… he says he'll kill me…" Hermione watched the exchange in shock. In all her time at Hogwarts, she'd never considered Draco as a person that would cry – that could cry. She didn't hate him as much as Harry and Ron did, but she did consider him quite lacking in the emotional department. Shock gave way to embarrassment at witnessing such a private moment, even from the likes of Draco Malfoy. She began to slowly back out of the bathroom door to give him his privacy when he looked up into the cracked mirror hanging above the sink and saw Hermione staring at him over his shoulder.

Malfoy wheeled around, drawing his wand. His hex missed Hermione by inches, shattering the lamp on the wall beside her. Immediately Hermione pulled out her wand and yelled, "Expelliarmus!" but Malfoy blocked the spell and raised his wand for another—

"No! No! Stop it!" squealed Moaning Myrtle, her voice echoing loudly around the tiled room. "Stop! Stop!"

There was a loud bang and the bin behind Hermione exploded; Hermione attempted a full Body Bind Curse that backfired off the wall behind Malfoy's ear and smashed the cistern beneath Moaning Myrtle, who screamed loudly; water poured everywhere and Hermione slipped on the slick floor as Malfoy cried, "Crucio!"

"Prote—" Hermione began, from her place on the floor, but it was too late. Her sudden, tortured screams echoed around the empty bathroom, save for the two that that remained, Moaning Myrtle having vanished immediately after the cistern beneath her had been destroyed.

It took an instant for Draco to realize what he was doing. Horror filled him as he lowered his wand, stopping his Cruciatus Curse. Out of all the people to use an Unforgivable on, he'd used it on Potter's Mudblood Granger. She would no doubt report it to Dumbledore or McGonagall as soon as she left. He had to stop her. If she was successful, he'd be expelled with no chance to complete his mission. And if he didn't complete his mission…

Swallowing his pride, Draco approached the fallen prefect and knelt beside her. "Granger."

Granger silently pinned him with a gaze filled with horror, loathing, and receding pain. As quickly as she was able, she brought her wand up underneath his chin. "Get away from me, you monster," she said in a soft but determined voice.

Draco moved away from her slightly. He had no intentions of moving further than arm's length, in case she decided to suddenly bolt. "You can't tell anyone about this."

"Says who, Malfoy? I'm the one holding the wand now." Granger got to her feet, keeping her wand and eyes trained on him at all times.

"I'll be expelled if you report it to Dumbledore!" Draco exclaimed in rapidly growing desperation. "I can't be expelled!"

"Maybe you should've thought about that before you decided to use an Unforgivable on me. You'll join your father in Azkaban." She made an attempt to smooth her soaked, rumpled robes, but it failed miserably.

"You don't understand!"

"No, you don't understand."

It became clear to Draco that he would either have to tell her what was at stake and his mission to persuade her to not report him, or he'd have to force her to be silent. Actually, no matter how he looked at it, he'd have to force her to silent, so he decided to skip the pleading and just go ahead with the latter. At least this way, he still retained a little of his privacy. If he could only distract her long enough to cast a spell…

Just then, the Gryffindor Head of House burst through the door. Granger lowered her wand as Professor McGonagall asked, "What on earth is going on here? Myrtle's screaming all over the school about an attack."

"It was Peeves, Professor." Granger said without hesitation, giving Draco a warning look. "I heard a girl's voice in here and came to investigate. It was only Moaning Myrtle. I started to leave when Peeves started breaking things. Malfoy came in and tried to help me."

Draco schooled his features so that his surprise at Granger's actions wouldn't show. Wasn't she just about to report him? He didn't understand, but was thankful, nonetheless.

Fortunately for Granger, Peeves picked that time to appear. The cracked mirror that Draco had been looking into only moments before, shattered while the ghost cackled with glee.

"Peeves!" Professor McGonagall yelled. "You stop that this instant! You two – go on, I'll deal with him," she added as an afterthought as Peeves broke another mirror.

Draco gratefully left Peeves to Professor McGonagall and followed Granger out of the flooded bathroom. He'd barely made it through the door when he saw the prefect striding purposefully down the hall. "Granger," he called after her. She stopped, but didn't look back at him. "I… I appreciate it."

"You owe me, Malfoy. Remember that." Granger turned and walked away, leaving Draco alone in the corridor.