Draco groggily opens his eyes to the sound of loud knocking on his door. Glancing at the clock on the wall, he realises it's six in the afternoon, and he'd been asleep for a few hours. Stretching, he pulls himself out of his bed, realising he's still dressed in his ripped up clothing from earlier. As the memories of the day return to him, he sighs in defeat. Quickly changing his clothes, he fully expects to open the door to the Dark Lord himself, so is mildly surprised to find the face of Severus Snape glaring at him.

'What the bloody hell are you doing here?' Draco asks, eyeing his professor. 'Shouldn't you be at Hogwarts?'

'You mother sent me a Patronus. She's worried about you.'

'What else is new?' Draco asks, a scowl on his face.

Snape's expression remains unchanged. 'She told me you helped the Potter and his friends. Is this true?'

'No.'

'Then why did you interrupt your aunt?'

Draco pauses. 'I- I don't know.' He criticises himself for his lack of a better response. Suddenly he feels someone in his mind. He instantly puts up his mental shields and a small smile crosses Snape's lips.

'At least you're powerful at Occlumency. You'll need it if the Dark Lord has any suspicions against you.'

Draco's jaw clenches. 'I have nothing to hide, Severus. If poking around my mind was all you came for, I'm going back to sleep.'

Before Draco can close the door, Snape enters the room and Draco holds back the huff that tries to escape. How dare someone enter his room uninvited? It would be different if it was a sexy little witch paying him a surprise visit. Draco shudders as the thought of Snape in lingerie crosses his mind.

'Where do your loyalties lie, Draco?' asks Snape, turning to face him in the middle of the room, having wordlessly put up silencing spells and wards against trespassers.

'To the Dark Lord,' Draco responds without pausing. Honestly this interrogation was already boring him.

'Then why did you protect Miss Granger?'

'I already told you I don't know, god damn it!' Draco growls, his anger getting the better of his usual calm façade. 'It was an instinct!'

'Well it is an instinct you had best suppress in the future, if you plan to survive this war,' warns Snape, turning the full force of his glare on the younger wizard. Draco doesn't answer, refusing to dignify Snape with a response. Without another word, the Professor turns on his heel and stalks out of the room, leaving Draco angry. He'll deal with the Dark Lord when he returns. Like he said, he has nothing to hide. He hopes.

..

'Her vault?' repeats Ron, still confused.

'Yes, Ronald, her vault,' replies Hermione, exasperated. 'She kept asking me how I got into her vault.'

'But why her vault?'

'If I knew that I would bloody-well tell you, wouldn't I!' snaps Hermione. It felt like they had been having the same conversation for hours. After the group had eaten their fair share of food, the conversation had turned to what had occurred at the Manor. Hermione felt awkward describing how Malfoy had stopped his aunt. Nobody could come up with a decent motive, so the conversation had moved on to what Bellatrix had wanted from Hermione.

'Sorry, 'Mione,' Ron says sheepishly. Harry was yet to enter himself into the conversation, clearly deep in thought.

'Well, it's obvious, isn't it?' asks Luna in her tinkling voice. Everyone turns her way, no one in the mood to put up with her babbling. 'She's hiding something there.'

Hermione rolls her eyes, and Harry politely says, 'we can guess that, Luna.'

'So, you just have to ask yourself, what would be worth hiding?'

'Luna that's-'

'-brilliant!' exclaims Harry, looking excitedly at Hermione and Ron. 'Please excuse us,' he says to the other occupants of the room. With that, he quickly exits, waiting outside the door for Hermione and Ron to join them. With a quick look at each other, the two push themselves off of the sofa and join Harry, following him down the corridor to his own room.

'Care to explain, mate?' asks Ron whilst Hermione casts a silencing charm on the room.

'I think Bellatrix has a Horcrux in her vault,' Harry states simply.

'That's great, Harry, but even if she does, we have no way of getting in there. It would be a lot better for us if there wasn't one in there,' informs Hermione, taking a seat on his bed.

'We can't just ignore it! If there's a Horcrux there, we have to destroy it,' says Harry determinedly. 'Besides, if we can convince Griphook to help us, we might stand a chance.'

Hermione sighs. 'Even if we could somehow convince Griphook to risk his life getting us into Gringotts, he's not about to do it for free, Harry; that's not how goblins work.'

Harry takes a seat next to Hermione on the bed, seeing her point.

'Come on guys, we've come this far. We're not going to let a grumpy goblin get in the way, are we?' asks Ron. 'We have to do this.'

..

Terror is an emotion that does not come often to Draco Malfoy. But standing in front of the Dark Lord brings out a deep fear in the Slytherin, one that takes all of his well-rehearsed control to hide.

'Draco, my dear boy, what a pleasure to see you again.' Voldemort's snakelike voice slithers over Draco's skin, making him shudder. 'But I admit that I find myself confused. Can you guess why?'

Draco doesn't respond.

'It's rude to ignore your guest, Draco. I asked if you could guess why I am confused.' The wizard's calm façade doesn't trick Draco, who can see the anger buried just beneath the surface.

'I don't know, my Lord.'

'Then let me elucidate here. I return from my travels to find out that none other than Harry Potter has been in the very Manor that my most loyal Death Eaters inhabit, and yet I return to find him gone. Not only that, but also that my most promising follower interrupted the torture of Potter's Mudblood friend, apparently without a reason. Do you now know why I am confused?' Voldemort's eyes roam the boy in front of him, taking in his motionless state. 'But of course, I knew that you must have an explanation, mustn't you?'

'It was just a mistake,' Draco replies in an emotionless voice.

'Ah, a mistake. I suppose those do happen. You are free to go.' Draco turns to leave, reaching the door before hearing Voldemort address him again. 'But, Draco? Do be careful, my boy. Mistakes can be… deadly, sometimes.' The unsaid threat hangs heavily in the air, and Draco takes a moment to compose himself before leaving the company of the Dark Lord.

As he walks down the halls of the Manor, intent on reaching the kitchen for a snack, a certain bushy-haired witch plagues his thoughts. Why did he help her? Despite all of his best efforts to ignore it, the question kept popping up in his mind. Because there was only one answer. Clearly he'd finally lost his mind. Why else would he help the muggle-born he'd been raised to hate? The muggle-born he did hate.

Except that's not really true, Draco realises with a jolt. Yes, it was infuriating how she always bested him in school. Yes, her quick wit in arguments often left him speechless, a state that Draco is not comfortable in. Yes, she hangs out with the dunderhead duo. And yes, she is on the opposite side of the upcoming war. But no, he does not hate her. And that realisation cripples Draco. Because if he doesn't hate her, then what does he feel for her?

Draco shakes his head, attempting to derail his train of thoughts. If the Dark Lord entered his mind now, it would be grounds for a death sentence. Stupid Granger and her stupid friends.

Taking a turn into the kitchen, Draco is immediately mobbed by a swarm of house elves, and a chorus of 'what can we do for Master?'

Sighing, Draco heads towards one of the cupboards, where he is intercepted by Blinky, looking up with her wide golf-ball eyes. 'Blinky can help Master Draco, Master Draco should take a seat, he might still be tired.'

'I'm always tired, Blinky, but I just want to help myself to a snack.'

'Blinky can get Master Draco a snack, yes she can.' With that, the small creature ushers Draco into a seat by the small kitchen table, immediately returning to the cupboards, where she quickly makes a variety of sandwiches, as well as a selection of different crisps.

Draco sighs again. 'This is unnecessary, Blinky, I could have just made myself a sandwich.'

'Blinky is here to serves Master Draco. Blinky likes serving Master Draco.' Draco can't supress the small smile that graces his lips. What is happening to him? First he tries to protect a muggle-born and now he's smiling at house elves. What next? Helping Looney Lovegood find some Nargles? Maybe Draco really is losing his mind.

..

'This is bloody mental.'

After days of planning and re-planning and scrapping the plans, only to return to the original plans, Hermione now stands looking at the confused face of Bellatrix Lestrange greeting her in the mirror. It was purely luck that a strand of the witch's black locks had caught itself on Hermione's button whilst she had been carving into her skin. And after a disgusting dose of polyjuice potion, Hermione is ready to attempt to enter Bellatrix's vault. She finds herself agreeing with Ron's sentiment. This really is bloody mental.

Turning to face her friend, Hermione raises her eyes to Ron. 'Ron, do you want to transfigure yourself, or do you want me to do it?'

Ron looks around sheepishly. 'Maybe you should do it, 'Mione, it'll probably last longer.'

Hermione nods, awkwardly stepping closer to Ron, raising her wand. Muttering the incantation, she watches as his signature red hair darkens to a dull brown, his blue eyes shifting to match, and a large amount of facial hair growing to cover the rest of his features. Hermione absently notes that Ron suits a beard.

Things have been awkward between the two friends for a while. Unresolved sexual tension has resulted in more than a few spiteful arguments and more awkwardness than either can handle. Hermione has been trying to push her crush on Ron to the side, focussing on the war efforts, but spending so much time in confined spaces with him has been taking a toll on her.

'Do you have your invisibility cloak, Harry?' Hermione asks, turning away from Ron to hide her blush.

Harry nods, lifting his right arm where the cloak is draped across. After eventually convincing Griphook to assist them breaking into Gringotts, the trio were feeling a little bit more confident with their plan. But only slightly.

The three knew that this could possibly be a suicide run. If they are caught, there's no way they could escape the Dark Lord a second time.

Hermione had been trying not to think about her time at the Manor, but it haunted her nightmares endlessly, and she often woke up covered in sweat, her duvet twisted between her thrashing legs. A couple of times she had awoken to Ron comforting her, but it did little to keep the terror at bay. She was grateful for his attempts, nonetheless.

Ron seemed to be getting better by the day. After months of hiding in tents, desperate to hear from his family, he took a lot of reassurance in Bill's information that everyone was safe.

Harry, on the other hand, spent most of his time alone, planning. Hermione often heard him scream in the night too, and didn't want to know what sort of horrors could turn such a brave man to a shrieking mess. The war really was taking a toll on everyone, and it had only just begun.

Sighing at her melancholy thoughts, Hermione took one final scan of herself in the mirror, trying to bulk up her courage. She could do this. She would do this. She wasn't the brightest witch of her age of nothing. Smiling slightly, finding the action odd on the face of Bellatrix, as if the muscles were unused, she turned back to her friends. 'Let's do this.'

Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who has followed and favourited this story so far! I'm glad that some of you like what I'm writing. :) Sorry for any spelling or grammar mistakes. I have proof-read it, but I often miss errors, so if you see any, just let me know and I'll edit it. Thank you!