'Cause she's a crueller mistress
And a bargain must be made
But oh, my love, don't forget me
I let the water take me

Lay me down
Let the only sound
Be the over flow
Pockets full of stones

1 September 1997

Hermione heaved her heavy trunk onto her new bed and took a deep, somewhat shaky breath as she began unpacking. She knew her door was still open behind her, which bugged her, but didn't want to close it for fear of breaking down. Harry and Ron had run off to hunt for Horcruxes, Remus and Tonks were having a baby, Moody was dead, the Ministry belonged to the Death Eaters, and she had to handle being Head Girl. Little over a year before she'd have been ecstatic at the opportunity, but now it only brought unneeded stress. The only good part was that she had so much more space: the Head Boy and Head Girl had their own suite, complete with a common room, and she had her own bedroom, instead of having to share with Parvati and Lavender. The room was massive, adorned with Gryffindor garb and filled with beautiful furniture that Hermione could imagine in the house at Grimmauld Place, back when it was inhabited by haughty and respected people. She was sure that the cost of furnishing the entire room could have been equivalent to the cost of furnishing the entirety of her former home. Her heart ached as she was reminded that she would not be going back.

At least I don't have to worry about writing letters to Mum and Dad, she thought optimistically, sitting herself dramatically on the edge of the bed. She reexamined her letter for what could have been the millionth time - Ginny had lost count the week before, somewhere past two hundred - and wondered who the Head Boy was. All that McGonagall had told her was that he was a Slytherin. While neither of them were exactly chaffed at the situation, McGonagall explained that it partly was to keep the distribution of power where it was; Snape was now Headmaster, and McGonagall kept her position, so with the addition of the two students, the school's major leadership was half Slytherin and half Gryffindor. Hermione couldn't help herself from remembering that Snape wielded more power than McGonagall, and that the Slytherins were males and Gryffindors were females, and reminded herself that most Slytherins thought Gryffindors were girlish and emotional, Snape included. She knew it wasn't a coincidence, since the two houses were now head to head in nearly all respects, but vowed to refrain from complaining about it. Within the Slytherin seventh-year boys, she didn't have much competition anyway, academically or even in terms of skill. Only Malfoy and a couple of his friends even came close.

She leaned back onto the bed, grimacing as her head accidentally hit her trunk on the way down. She gave herself a few moments to relax, knowing that McGonagall would come to collect her when she was needed. Right as she felt herself fading into sleep, a low, masculine drawl from the small hallway outside her door snapped her back to almost full attention. It sounded familiar, and she reasoned that it would be the boy moving in across the hall, her new partner for the year, with whom she could possibly retain order in the school. The sight of chocolate skin made her cringe, but she bit her lip to resist groaning. She only knew one Slytherin male with skin that dark, and he had always seemed to be Malfoy's best friend. While she would be obeying the rules about who and what was allowed to be in her dorm and when, she knew better than to expect Zabini to do the same.

Why couldn't Neville just be Head Boy, for Merlin's sake...

"Almost comparable to the Manor, eh, Draco? I reckon you're gonna have yourself some fun," he said, and at this Hermione completely awakened. Having Malfoy around would be even worse than having Zabini. Zabini was a righteous git, a drinker, and a partier, but Malfoy was...Malfoy.

"Not quite, ya git. And when'd your accent get back?" Hermione heard another voice say, which she logically recognised to be Malfoy's. It was a good bit lower than she remembered, and it made him sound like he'd grown up, which scared her so much she almost shook. If he was nothing but a matured version of his former, arrogant self then it could be safe to assume that he really had filled into his role as a Death Eater. McGonagall had said the Order's spy had reported that the man had tortured one of the men who had failed to capture Harry and Ron after their daring escape from Bill and Fleur's wedding, and his father had been bailed out of jail, for lack of better words.

"The second I stepped off the bloody Express this June," Zabini replied. Hermione heard what sounded like him lifting Malfoy's bag onto the bed in the other room. It worried Hermione that she could hear so clearly. She prayed their doors had magical sensors, like the stairs to the girls' dorms did, so that girls couldn't be over there past nightfall. If not, she might end up sharing a bed with Ginny for most of the year, and as much as she loved Ginny, that didn't sound very enjoyable. She sat herself fully up on the bed and glanced towards the doorway. She couldn't see anything, and she then moved to the exquisite vanity, a few meters from the foot of the bed where she conveniently was sitting. She started running her brush through her hair, pleased that it still looked presentable instead of returning to its former bushiness. That problem seemed to have subsided with age.

Malfoy seemed to grunt in response, then Hermione heard footsteps growing louder until they were replaced by his voice.

"You're here, Granger," he said, his tone shockingly softer than the one he'd used to address Zabini.

"An astute observation, Malfoy," she replied snarkily, without shifting her gaze from the mirror. Her peripheral vision saw Malfoy moving from the doorway to her bed, sitting himself down like it was his own room.

"I'm sure, and I've got another if you'd like. There's a mirror in front of you," he retorted, and his tone had returned to normal.

"Your point?" she scoffed, laying the hairbrush down on the vanity and swiveling herself around on its seat to face him, barely resisting the urge to throw a fit at him for being on her bed.

"I saw that, the eye-roll, the pursed lips, the slightly flushed cheeks, that look you get when you push yourself into your signature prudish attitude, when you want to hurt someone but you want to be polite so you don't do anything. You also get that look in another case, but I wouldn't want to force you to restrain yourself from hurting me. Not on our first day, at least."

"How very kind of you," she sneered, suddenly conscious that she wasn't dressed as modestly as she usually was at school.

"You're welcome, Granger."

"No thank you, Malfoy," she said harshly, standing and pulling him out of her room, pleased to see that Zabini seemed to have left.

"You know, you're pretty strong, for a girl," Malfoy said, yanking his arm away.

"And you're pretty weak, for a Death Eater," Hermione snapped immediately. Draco clenched his teeth together, growing the littlest bit paler. "What? Are people really not supposed to know about that now?"

"You don't know anything about-"

"About what? About the Mark on your left arm? About the battle? I was in the fucking battle, Malfoy, and I'm Harry's best friend. Everything I didn't see with my own eyes, I've been told about in detail."

He scoffed.

"Not everything, Granger."

"Just about!"

"Not even! You have no idea what I was going through last year!"

"Oh, I know damn well-"

"What I did. You know about what I did. But this isn't black and white, Granger. Everything is grey area."

"Really? Because you certainly seem to have chosen a side, Malfoy. Voldemort's side. And that tells me that some part of this is black and white to you." She knew it was somewhat cruel, but the name alone could break Malfoy in half. At least, three months ago it could. She'd just have to hope that he hadn't changed too much. She seemed to be in luck, since she'd already tapped into his sensitivity to it.

"Some part of this, yes: the part wherein I refuse to let my parents be brutally murdered in their own home. The part you don't know about. The day I took the Mark, and the reason. The only reason."

Hermione scoffed and sneered, "Because you don't agree with anything that bastard preaches, right?"

"Enough to use anti-muggle slurs, not enough to go to war for pureblood supremacy. Nowhere near. But close enough not to fight Him when he stands in my fucking living room, looks me in the eyes, and tells me, straight to my face, in front of my entire family, that if I do not take His Mark, if I do not do exactly as He says, He will trap the three of us in the Manor, torture us for an inordinate amount of time, and kill us - without using the Killing Curse. This isn't about me, Granger. It was never about me."

Hermione's stomach turned and she cringed inwardly, wanting nothing more than for him to be lying to her.

"Speaking of your parents, your father has managed to escape Azkaban, hasn't he?" she asked jeeringly after a deep breath.

"He was released. There's a difference."

Hermione crossed her arms and moved her face closer, so that their faces were nearly touching. He still stood close enough to her door that although she was standing in the doorway there wasn't even a meter in between them.

"Released by Voldemort, therefore, there is no difference," she asserted in a whisper. He glared at her for a moment, then inhaled loudly.

"It's high time you figured out that it's rare that something is what it seems, Granger. You've been lucky enough to live by your own standards. I've never had that luxury. I can't choose anything about myself, Granger. Just because I'm doing something doesn't mean that I agree with what I'm doing."

"Then why are you doing it?"

"I don't have the choice!"

"Of course you have a choice, Malfoy! Dumbledore told you-"

"It doesn't matter what Dumbledore told me! Dumbledore's dead! And it would have helped to hear all that when I was thirteen, not when I reached adulthood!"

"Do you mean to tell me that going up in that tower that night wasn't your choice? That sneaking multiple Death Eaters into Hogwarts wasn't your choice? That poisoning Ron wasn't your choice? That possessing Katie wasn't your choice?"

"Yes, Granger! That's exactly what I'm telling you!"

"That's complete rubbish!"

"Is it?" Malfoy jerked his left sleeve up in anger, placing his index finger at the top of his Dark Mark.

"Look at that Mark, right there. Does that look like rubbish to you, Granger?"

"No! That's my point exactly! You willingly took the Mark, did you not?"

"No, Granger, I did not!" he yelled, and then took a moment to catch his breath before continuing.

"It was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to run away and never look back. It hurt like hell getting this tattoo, Granger, but not because tattoos hurt like hell, even though they do-"

"Your Mark isn't your only tattoo?"

"No, it's not, but that's completely irrelevant. It hurt so much because I knew what it meant. I was prepared to run when He only threatened me. Scared clear out of my mind, but I wanted no part of that. Okay, that's not entirely true; power and glory are rather enticing, both of which He promised, but I damn well know that there are ways to reach those that don't involve being ordered to torture, maim, and kill people. What I wasn't prepared for was when he threatened my parents, and that was enough to keep me from running. That's why I did it, Granger; I'm not the heartless asshole you seem to think I am. I did it for them, to protect them. Do you have any idea how badly it would hurt to have my parents' lives on my conscience? No, of course you don't. You don't care at all," he told her, and then turned back to his own open door.

"Actually, I do, Malfoy," she said softly.

"Really?" he asked, turning back around, his voice falling back into the gentler tone it had been at the beginning of the conversation. Hermione noticed he was becoming less pale.

"My parents have no idea that I exist. I modified their memories so they don't know me. They don't even know they have a daughter, or what their real names are."

"Why are you telling me this? If You-Know-Who decides to find them, you know He'll ask. I'll be the first person, too."

"I know...but as I said, they don't know I exist. And the most information you could have on them is what they looked like when we were twelve, if you even remember. Besides, if He were to find them, I would know exactly who to blame," Hermione testified coarsely before they spent a moment standing opposite each other in their respective doorways, nearly ten minutes in pure silence before Draco spoke again, on a different topic entirely.

"Good job on making Head Girl, Granger. Not that it was unexpected, but it's still an accomplishment."

"You want something," Hermione said sceptically.

"No, no, I don't. I was just thinking that with all the time we'll be spending together, maybe we'll even figure out how to get along."

"Only in your dreams, Malfoy," Hermione reprimanded, retreating into her dorm and locking her door both magically and non-magically. She peeled off her v-neck top and her short skirt, replacing them with jeans and a blue scoop-neck sweater.

"I guess I'll be getting a lot of sleep this year, then," Hermione heard Malfoy say, barely loud enough to hear. She heard his door slam as she settled into her Secretary desk, organising her textbooks and her writing utensils. She spent nearly an hour tapping a quill to her lower lip before she decided to get into bed.

This is going to be a long year...