Disclaimer: Everything besides the plot belongs to JK Rowling
A/N: This story is dedicated to my friend Cammie, for teaching me that I have no self-restraint.
Chapter 1: The Only Way
"There he is."
"What? Where? I can't see a thing…. Move over, Hermione!" Ron exclaimed, pushing her away from the cupboard door in order to get a better view of what was going on in the dark room outside.
Looking through to the charms classroom, Ron and Hermione could see the outlines of two men, one of them with the characteristic blonde hair of Draco Malfoy. The other, a darker figure, was standing with his back to Malfoy. Hermione immediately identified his voice as he started to speak.
"Did anyone follow you?" Snape asked with his unmistakable drawl.
"I didn't see anyone…" replied Malfoy, not sounding too sure of himself.
Snape spun around and barked at Malfoy. "Were you hoping to end up sharing a cell with your father in Azkaban, because that can be arranged!"
Composing himself, Snape lowered his voice and whispered with venom in every word, "Now I'll ask you once more, are you sure no one followed you?"
"Yes…yes, I'm sure." Malfoy replied.
Ron struggled to keep quiet, snorting at Malfoy's reply. Hermione had a hard time suppressing a chuckle as well, as both of them knew that Harry had been following Malfoy all the way from the dungeons under his cloak to make sure he was indeed headed for the charms classroom as they had thought.
For the past two months Malfoy had been meeting up regularly with Snape inside the walls of Hogwarts, somehow without the latter being detected by anyone. He didn't even show up on the Marauder's Map. So when Harry first followed Malfoy to one of these meetings he had been shocked to be met with the weary face of his former potions professor. Although they tended to move the location of their meetings regularly, they often stayed in one place for a few weeks in a row. This is how Hermione and Ron were finally able to come with Harry to spy on the two men. Harry had insisted to keep them out of it until Malfoy and Snape moved to a room where there was a broom cupboard close to the exit so Ron and Hermione could easily run out if they were found.
Following Dumbledore's murder, the remaining members of the Order of the Phoenix had made sure to monitor all of Draco Malfoy's post and kept a close eye on him and whoever he interacted with. For this reason only had he been allowed to stay at Hogwarts, even after his obvious involvement with You-Know-Who. Malfoy himself presumably believed it was due to his power and generous donations that he hadn't been expelled. The Order felt little need in correcting him in said belief as they gained invaluable information.
"The Dark Lord is growing restless. He wishes to hear news of progress. I hope you have something more to say than last time. You may be my godson, but even I cannot save you from his wrath, Draco."
"I'm almost done with the dungeons and kitchen. But it will take a while to finish…." Seeing the glare from his former professor, Malfoy hastily continued. "The castle and grounds are much larger than I thought, and that stupid mudblood and her prefects are everywhere."
This last comment resulted in Malfoy receiving a glare from each of the three hidden guests in the room.
"Very well….I will inform our Lord. Remember, if you do not finish by Easter he will be very angry. You will have to work quicker to make the deadline. If you wish to live to see your seventeenth birthday, do not disappoint him."
Hermione could see Malfoy's expression of rage and determination, and was not surprised. She herself knew the benefits of turning fear into anger. Hermione, along with her two best friends, had after all been in numerous situations where leaning on fear would have meant their deaths. It was a hard lesson to turn their fear into something useful, but a necessary one. One that she figured Malfoy wouldn't still be alive without. During the previous school year he had looked haggard, afraid and alone, culminating in his failure to kill his headmaster. This year, however, Hermione had noticed his arrogant posture return.
The former potions professor covered his head with the hood of his cloak, and walked towards the door. His hand hovered over the doorknob for a moment, before he turned back towards Malfoy. "Oh and remember, from here on in you are on your own. It is becoming too risky for me to be here. Besides, you should be able to continue this on your own." Then he walked out of the classroom. The young slytherin, whilst mumbling profanities, followed shortly afterwards.
With the two conspirators gone, Harry removed his invisibility cloak and immediately motioned for Ron and Hermione to come out of hiding.
"Blimey, Harry, what do you think Malfoy is up to this time?" Ron asked.
"I don't have a clue. Like I've told you, they're always careful to be vague in case someone is listening in. At least we have a deadline now –" Harry abruptly stopped talking and motioned for the others to keep quiet. Hermione looked towards the entrance to the classroom and heard what had stopped Harry mid-sentence. Someone was right outside in the hallway. Hermione could feel her heart pounding in her chest and kept completely still as she tried to make out who was out there. Just as the door was being thrown open with a loud bang, Harry rushed to his friends and managed to envelop all three gryffindors in his invisibility cloak. Trying to keep herself from breathing too loudly, Hermione's eyes focused on the now open door out to the hallway. Suddenly Peeves rushed through the wall next to the door and into the classroom, laughing maniacally and looking around, shouting "Students out of bed! Hiding from me? Where can they be? It's useless to fleeeeee!" Peeves continued his song while going back through the wall again to the hallway. Hermione could hear him further along now, opening up every door he came across trying to find them.
"Let's go back to the common room so Filch doesn't catch us. He's bound to come here with all this ruckus." Harry said, removing the cloak from over his friends and turning to leave. Ron and Hermione followed him out the door.
"I'm sorry Harry, I can't imagine how hard this must be for you, having to see Snape up close so many times and not be able to do anything." Hermione said, her hand comfortingly on Harry's shoulder while the portrait opened. The common room was empty this time of night, allowing the three some privacy to think through what had happened and how they would proceed.
"And now we have no idea if we will ever get the chance to pay him back for what he did to Dumbledore." Harry sighed, and Hermione could see his eyes fill with tears before he turned towards the fireplace. "But we have to keep going. The whole point of not touching those evil gits was to get information. We will have to figure out a new way to find out what Malfoy's up to. He's obviously being extremely careful, so we need to do something new…something drastic to make him slip up and spill his secrets."
Hermione dreaded this. She knew how difficult this would be, getting information on Malfoy without anyone noticing so that he wouldn't simply be switched out with another of the many willing and devoted aspiring death eaters. She had already been racking her brain to devise a new plan. She knew of the possibility of Snape and Malfoy ending their weekly meetings. She also knew how important this was to Harry. Naturally, it was important to her as well to end the war, but Harry had a much more personal stake in it. But despite hours upon hours of research in the library, she just hadn't been able to think of another way to spy on Malfoy that would produce results. He was just being so careful. He did nothing overly suspicious besides maybe taking a great interest in strolling around Hogwarts late at night, and his bedroom had been enclosed in so many wards and shields that no one besides him could enter or know at all what was going on behind closed doors. The only ones who would ever be let in there were the occasional girls, for reasons Hermione did not want to dwell on. Even they would be quickly escorted out only hours later.
"So what's the plan?" Ron said enthusiastically to Harry and Hermione, expecting one of them to come up with something brilliant.
Hermione sat down in a chair and her two friends followed suit.
"We're thinking Ronald, you could try that as well you know, just sit back, close your eyes and focus." Hermione replied sarcastically. Although Ron was clever when he tried, he just seemed to never even bother, which vexed Hermione greatly.
"Fine, I have a plan; let's slip the evil git a love potion so he'll fall in love with 'Mione, then he'll probably tell you everything, even the colour of You-Know-Who's socks." Ron looked triumphant, Hermione suddenly became very red. An image of what Malfoy did to those girls in the privacy of his room entered her mind. She quickly shoved the thought away and focused instead on her annoyance towards Ron. She opened her mouth to yell at him and tell him all the ways in which that was a terrible plan when Harry cut her off.
"That's….brilliant, Ron." He said, looking up at them both for the first time since entering the common room.
"WHAT?" They replied in unison.
After a moment's pause in which Harry seemed to deliberate the plan in his head and Ron and Hermione simply tried to recuperate from the shock of hearing Harry, or for that matter anyone, agree with Ron, the dark haired boy continued his train of thought out loud.
"It is! Think about it 'Mione, it's a bit rough around the edges, but it's a plan. Even evil gits tell their girlfriends all kinds of personal stuff. And Malfoy has been known to go after gryffindors before, so it's not that much of a stretch." Hermione thought she was going crazy. Or perhaps her friends were. In what universe would such a pureblood fanatic even consider dating a muggleborn like herself? Let alone Harry Potters friend.
"But Harry," Hermione said, obviously exasperated, "there are so many things wrong with that plan." She started, and made to stand. She always felt more in control while hovering over her friends. And control was just what she needed to hide the slight shaking in her voice as she realized she may just be forced to try this last resort. "First of all, he never dates muggleborns or gryffindors, he just uses them and discards them. And any idiot would notice that he'd been given a love potion, the effects are too obvious. Someone will suspect."
"Then don't give him a love potion."
"Oh, of course, I'll just win him over with my dazzling good looks, no problem there…" Hermione said.
"Oh come off it Hermione, you know he can't stand you… " Ron said, missing the obvious sarcasm in her tone. She sent him a glare deadly enough to kill. "Despite your dazzling good looks, that is." He quickly added to keep Hermione from slapping him.
Hermione didn't stop glaring at Ron until Harry finally spoke again.
"A love potion is too obvious but there are more…subtle ones. Remember back in fourth year when we brewed a potion to make you become more open minded towards a thing or a person?"
Hermione did indeed remember that potion, and silently realized how perfect it was for Ron's plan. Yet she refused to admit that their only hope was for her to try and get close to Draco Malfoy. Thus she felt had to find other flaws or, better yet, another plan NOT involving her getting intimate with the blond ferret-face. Just the idea made her breathe harder and feel hundreds of evil little butterflies flutter around in her stomach. She knew she was a decent actress, but acting amiably towards Draco Malfoy would be a challenge for anyone.
After a lengthy silence the trio decided it best to sleep on it and discuss it in the morning. As Hermione parted ways with the two boys to go up to the girl's dormitory she tried thinking of a way around her predicament and found no other solution to their problem. They had to get the information out of Malfoy as soon as possible, and without him discontinuing his mission.
Had they used veritaserum on him, or simply scared him into talking, they would have to remove his memory of the event, which Voldemort would most certainly pick up on when the young Malfoy showed up with no knowledge of what had happened the day before. Hermione's thoughts shifted over to polyjuice potions, but to successfully impersonate another person on such an intimate level and for every moment of every day for weeks or months was near impossible. And no one besides a beloved girlfriend could break his mental barriers enough to make him confess his plans, so a close friendship with Harry or Ron was out of the question. Although unwilling to even think it, Ron's plan would have to be put into action. It made Hermione wish she could crawl underneath her blankets and never get out of bed again. It made her so nervous she felt she thought she'd be sick. But it was the only way and Hermione knew it.