I had just sat down with a cup of tea when I heard a knock at the door. I was in my hotel room, hiding out from as many people as I possibly could. Who even knew I was here, besides Neville and Luna? I stood up slowly, reluctant to move after the long day I had had.

When I finally opened it I saw a man I've never seen before.

"Hermione Granger?" he asked me.

Hesitantly, I respond yes. The back of my neck felt tingly, like my intuition was at attention. I looked at the table next to my bed for my wand, wishing it was in my hand. When I turned back around the man's face was contorting. His light brown curls faded white and flattened out, the freckles on his skin vanished, and his features were morphing.

I retreated deeper into my bedroom, fear threatening to consume me. Draco Malfoy was standing in front of me, slowly matching my footsteps until he was in my room and shutting the door behind him. Reflexively I lurched for my wand and began sending hexes towards him.

"How dare you show your face here, you vile creature?" My arm couldn't stop moving. I had never been proficient at nonverbal spells but they poured out of me like liquid. Despite this, Malfoy blocked every attack until he finally disarmed me.

"Give my wand back to me this instant!" I growled at him. He threw both of our wands on the bed and raised his hands in the air.

"I just want to talk to you."

I was taken aback. "Me?" My eyebrows perked up. "You want to talk to me? What on Earth could you possibly want to talk to me about, Malfoy?" I took a step towards him. "How about how you tried to kill every muggleborn witch and wizard not two months ago? Or how about how you tried to kill me? Or that-"

"I just need to explain, Hermione," he said calmly. Steadily.

"Oh, it's Hermione now, huh? Am I no longer a mudblood in your eyes?" I laughed at his audacity. A small part of me considered that this could be a dream, but the blood coursing through my veins were pulsing with reality. This was real. And yet, my brain still couldn't wrap itself around the fact that Draco Malfoy was here, in my room, as if a war hadn't just been fought. As if blood hadn't been spilled.

"Malfoy, you are the epitome of evil. You are the reason they walked into our school, tortured our classmates, killed my friends. Do you not remember what happened? Are you that daft?" Tears were collecting in my eyes and threatening to fall. Anger surged through me like a lightning bolt. I wanted to hurt him.

I wiped at my eyes aggressively and scoffed. "I told myself I would never cry in front of you. How dare you corner me and request my-what? Forgiveness? Did you think I would want to have tea and a conversation? Perhaps if I weren't such a pathetic mudblood I would kill you like your Death Eaters tried to kill me."

He glanced down in shame. "Please don't ever be like them."

"GET OUT!" I yelled at him, snapping back into anger. I grabbed his wand and pushed it into his hand. "Get out and never come back!"

"Hermione, please," he begged, his hands wrapping around my shoulders to stop me. And then he did something that shocked me to my core: he dropped to his knees. "I am begging, please. I need you-"

"Need me? For what?"

He was silent for a moment. "My trial is in four days and you're my only hope. You must believe I wouldn't be here begging if I didn't truly think you were my only hope."

"And how in bloody hell would I be able to help you?"

"Because I didn't rat you out in the manor-"

"You didn't stop your aunt from carving into my skin, either." He flinched.

"-and because you're the most brilliant witch of our age. A war heroine. People trust your opinion. They trust that you'll always do the right thing."

"The right thing would be to curse you. I would have to be batshit crazy to ever testify for you, Malfoy. You've spent years breaking me down, destroying any ounce of confidence I ever possessed. I don't have a family anymore because I had to protect them from you. This is over. Please, just get out of here." I grabbed his arm to pull him up and I pushed him towards the door.

"If you rot in Azkaban, know you deserve every sodding moment of it." We locked eyes, and for a moment I felt remorse for being so cruel. I've always been a reasonable person. I thought it silly to hold grudges, and I disliked the way Ron and Harry were so impulsive with their emotions; I much preferred logic. And yet, here I was. Logic had left the building. My emotions were raw.

Malfoy walked slowly to my door and rested his hand on the door knob. I felt his eyes graze my arm, the one with "mudblood" carved into it. "You may never understand how sorry I am for what I've done to you," he said. "Please just look at these. Please." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue velvet bag the size of his hand. "Please," he repeated. He held the bag out for me and I snatched it out of his hands as I reached around him and pulled the door to my room open.

When I knew he was down the hall and far away from me I collapsed beside my door. It wasn't fair for him to show up and it wasn't fair for him to ask me to testify. I threw the bag across the room and screamed in anger. There goes my goddamn relaxing night at home.

Later that night after an incredibly long shower, I sat down on my bed and replayed the events from earlier for the thousandth time.

I looked over at the blue velvet bag sitting inches from the baseboard of my wall. Should I throw it away? Look at it? What could possibly be in there?

I came down for breakfast and spotted Luna reading a copy of The Daily Prophet. I sat down in front of her and poured myself a glass of pumpkin juice. "Good morning, Luna," I said to her before taking a sip.

"Oh, hello, Hermione." I watched her flip the newspaper upside down. "The trial is in three days. There's a lot of fear in the air." Her dreamy voice somehow made anything sound like a feather floating in the air. Even when she was talking about Death Eaters.

Draco flashed into my mind, but I pushed the thought away. "Yeah, well. Hopefully a just decision is made."

"I wonder about the fate of the people who were coerced into being a Death Eater. I can't imagine their sentences would be as severe. Wouldn't you hate that?"

I scoffed. "No one was coerced, Luna. The Death Eaters have blood on their hands, no matter what the reason."

"That's an awfully black-and-white way of looking at it,"said Neville, as he slid onto the bench next to Luna. I looked up at him as he pressed his lips against Luna's forehead and began preparing his breakfast. "Normally you're more open to reason."

"Normally I'm not going to back-to-back funerals of my friends and colleagues." Why was everyone so determined to create excuses for Death Eaters? "You get punished when you murder someone, Neville. That's not black-and-white. That's fact."

"Okay, sure. You do something wrong and you accept the consequences. But humor me a moment, eh?" I rolled my eyes. "Let's say your mother and father are two of the most influential witches and wizards in all of London. And let's say they happen to be Death Eaters. And let's say out of family obligation you were forced to side with them, to commit murders and torture people? Would you feel the same way?"

"Yes, I would! Because I wouldn't have gone through with it! I would have gone off on my own, refused to partake in such activities. It's simple, Neville."

"No, Hermione. That's naive. How can you trivialize a decision like that? You really think you would have been able to just walk away? That no one would kill you in response? You'd would be denying a legacy, Hermione."

"Why are you getting so angry about this, Neville? These people tried to kill us. They murdered your family! Why are you taking their side?"

He slammed his fist on the table. "I'm not taking anyone's side! I'm just suggesting that your thinking is too cut and dry. Not everyone deserves a lifetime in Azkaban. And you're much more daft than I realized if you think every single Death Eater chose their fate. It's real lovely that you think yourself so high and mighty that you would just walk out on your family because you didn't like their agenda, but not everyone is you, Hermione."

I was completely taken aback. Where did he get off talking down to me this way? And why in Merlin's name was he actually defending these people?

"Not everyone in Slytherin is evil. They may not be the best people, but they aren't evil. Haven't you thought about Draco Malfoy at all? How he didn't give any of us up, or how he never had the guts to do a damn thing? He was spineless. He talked himself up and put on a facade in front of his friends, but we both know he was pure chickenshit."

"Do we know that, Neville? Please explain to me how you know exactly what goes on in the mind of Sir Draco Malfoy."

"He let me see his thoughts."

"He-what?"

Neville leaned in closer. "He came to me about a week ago and asked-no, begged-if I could pour his thoughts into a pensieve. He asked me to testify and I told him I would."

I had no words. My mouth felt heavy, like it was impossible to open it. How many people had Draco Malfoy gone to? And if Neville of all people was willing to testify in favor of Draco, shouldn't I at least take a look inside the bag too?

At my silence, Neville turned back towards Luna and picked up a conversation they had been having earlier in the day. I couldn't move but I didn't want to sit here with all these people around us. The guilt I had felt earlier towards being cruel to Malfoy was sitting heavy in my stomach. Who had the war turned me into?

Once I worked up the courage to move, it was like urgency was pushing through my veins. Curiosity had finally overtaken me and I ran up the stairs back to my bedroom. I spotted the blue velvet bag and when I opened it, my suspicions were correct-thirteen small vials filled with a shimmery, silver liquid.

I reached into my beaded clutch and felt around for my pensieve. I felt the tiny rubies and pulled my arm out of the bag. I had bought the pensieve well before we went on the search for horcruxes. I knew there was a possibility that we would want to store our information and sift through our memories for more clues. I never told the boys about it and I had never attempted using it, but I bought it nonetheless.

Finally, I had a use for it. I locked the door to my room and set the pensieve on my dresser. I picked up a vial and slowly poured it into the stone basin, watching the silvery liquid swirl and form an image of Draco sitting on a bed. I looked at myself in the mirror, searching my face for answers. Once I step into his memories, nothing will be the same. I will officially be involved. I nodded softly to myself and lowered my head in until I was enveloped, like the memories were pulling me in deeper. For a split second I worried that this was a trap.

The first thing I saw was Malfoy sitting on a bed in a lavishly decorated room. Dark. Modern. Empty. There weren't many decorations or colors but there were tiny details of artistry on the headboard, the wall sconces and the wall trimming. The more I looked the more details I found. It was clear that this was Malfoy's room: it felt like a direct expression of himself. Cold and uninviting, but the more you looked the more you saw a human touch.

I looked over at him sitting atop his covers reading a book with full concentration.

There was a loud pop at the door behind me and I spun around so quickly I had to rub at my neck. Behind me was a house elf quivering. She was clearly afraid.

"Morree? What's wrong?"

"M-Master Malfoy requests your p-p-presence downstairs." The elf visibly gulped after barely getting her words out.

Malfoy closed his book. "What could Father possibly need from me right now?"

Morree reached her hand out to comfort Malfoy but let it fall and rest at her side. "Master did not tell me, b-but-"

Malfoy held his hand up to quiet her. "It's quite alright, Morree. Thank you for telling me." He stood up and tossed his book on his bed. There was a sense of annoyance on his face but I watched him step outside his bedroom and steadfastly down the stairs through the manor until he stood outside a thick, black door. It was ornate and regal with tiny gold carvings in it. He took a breath, knocked, and entered the room. I slipped in behind him before the door could close.

Inside was an angry Lucius with his hair tied back and the ring engraved with the Malfoy crest gleaming from across what I assumed was his study. "Draco," he said with a lull, his voice dripping with annoyance. Lucius opened a drawer and pulled out a folder filled with papers. He slapped them on the desk so they made a dramatic slap against the wood of his desk. He spoke menacingly. "Open it."

Malfoy moved slowly forward, reaching out for the folder. His face fell when he opened it. What was in there? I walked closer to Draco so I could see but he shut it.

"When in bloody hell were you planning to share your… future with us?" Lucius sneered and set his jaw. Fury covered his face and his voice grew louder. Malfoy looked down at his feet. "Answer me, boy!"

Somehow Malfoy found his voice. "I was just looking. Snape gave them to me a few weeks ago.." His voice drifted and his eyes locked with his father's. He tilted his head. "But where did you even find these?

"Never you mind where I found them. You know what your plans are after Hogwarts. I would rather die than know that my only son turned his back on the Dark Lord."

I reflexively took a step back from the scene unfolding before my eyes until I felt the support of the wall behind me. Was Neville right? Were there Death Eaters who didn't want to be Death Eaters? Was Malfoy looking for a way out?

"Quite frankly, I would rather you just die."

Lucius stood abruptly from his desk and turned his wand at his son. Suddenly Draco was grabbing at his throat and his face turned red. His mouth hung open, searching for air, but the grip on his throat was tightening every second.

"You know your duties to your family. And we both know you wouldn't give up your inheritance, would you, Draco?" Lucius chuckled darkly, seemingly proud of himself. He released whatever hex he had put on his son and Malfoy collapsed desperately to the floor, choking and gasping for air.

I felt the memory releasing me and pushing me back up to the surface. Somehow I felt just as desperate for air as Draco had been. I felt overwhelmed with questions. I needed to see more and yet, I was scared to see more. Why was Malfoy willingly letting people sift through his memories? Doesn't he know the hazards of using a pensieve? But of course he knew, Hermione. I mentally slapped myself. He's desperate. The pros outweighed the cons.

I went to the mini-kitchen in my room and brewed a cup of tea. I sat on my bed and picked up another vial of liquid.