A few days later at breakfast, it was clear that Hermione was not the only one who had not been able to get Malfoy and the Room of Requirement out of their head. Despite the resigned look Harry had given her the other night, he had come to breakfast with a plan. "Look, Hermione, you said yourself if I could find proof you would believe me, how else am I going to get proof?"

Cursing herself for her choice of words Hermione shook her head. She looked up at him skeptically, "And you can't manage to find a way to get proof without risking expulsion?"

"Awe, Hermione, it's not that bad." Ron, of course, had quickly latched onto the half-cocked plan of Harry's "You know that Harry would never be kicked out. And neither would we for that matter." He lowered his voice conspiratorially to a half-whisper even though no one else was around "We are basically part of the Order for Merlin's sake - what are they going to do, send us back to headquarters?"

Although she hated to admit it, he had a point. Harry was untouchable and, as his friends, they pretty much were too. But that didn't mean they could just go around breaking rules whenever they felt like it! She turned to her friends about to say as much when Harry - clearly knowing what she was going to say - interrupted her.

"Hermione. You know we are going to do it. And we know you won't rat us out. But you don't have to come if you don't want to."

It was a horrible, horrible plan. And she hated Harry for manipulating her like this - he could be such a Slytherin sometimes. But there was no way she would let them do this on their own. He knew she wouldn't, and so she just shook her head and adopted her most annoyed look.

The grin Harry and Ron shared was almost enough to make her scream. When they looked back at her they seemed to realize this, and both of them hastily began eating the food in front of them, determinedly not looking up. Hermione just sat nibbling on her bacon, trying not to worry too much.

At the beginning of the year feast, Dumbledore had told the students how much extra protection there would be around the castle. Some of it they knew, like members of the order patrolling the corridors, but, she was sure there was more to it than that. And Harry wanted to go out - after curfew - and just stand around in front of the Room of Requirement waiting for Malfoy to show up. Harry was sure they wouldn't be caught, as Malfoy never seemed to be. But, walking into a room where he was effectively hidden for hours was a lot different than the three of them standing in the corridors for hours out in the open. Even with the cloak they still made sounds, and they were still solid. Not to mention the fact that, with how much bigger they were now, standing in such a way that they would all be covered completely for so long would be terribly uncomfortable. One wrong move and, well, Ron was right, they probably wouldn't be expelled, but she didn't exactly relish the idea of a week of detentions.

But she had to go. Harry and Ron were much too hot headed on their own. Besides, who knew what else was protecting the castle, the possibilities were endless and frankly, she was the best at spells, even if this wasn't exactly how she preferred to use them. And, although they would probably deserve it, she didn't want her two best friends in trouble.

The three of them waiting anxiously in the common room that night. They had snuck out before many times before, but not quite so soon after curfew, and they knew it was not going to be empty in time. So, right on schedule, Harry let out a loud yawn, shooting a look at Ron. "Well Hermione, I think we will be off to bed now."

"Ya," Ron added his own overly large yawn. "I'm beat."

Hermione shook her head at their poor acting, but didn't think anybody would notice, or really care for that matter. As they trumped up the stairs, making much more noise than they normally would have done, Hermione slowly started putting her books away. Dropping them off in her dorm she quickly went back to the common room with the pretense of relaxing by the fireplace.

Her pulse was fast, and she was nervous. No matter how many times she did it, breaking the rules made her unaccountably anxious. She was, at her core, someone who liked order. Flouting that by sneaking out was not something that came naturally for her. Crossing her legs in the comfy arm chair she bounced one leg up and down quickly as she waited.

Hermione almost jumped at the feeling of a hand on her shoulder only a few moments later. She looked to her side, but of course, couldn't see anything. Harry and Ron were under the cloak, and she was to be the one to walk calmly out the portrait hole, visible to all, breaking curfew.

Oh, why had she agreed to this?

She swallowed and tried to walk as naturally as she could across the room. They had reasoned that she would be the least likely to be asked any questions, she was a prefect after all. Although that did not make her immune to curfew, it did make it less suspicious. Or, so Harry and Ron had decided over dinner.

"Hermione, it's pretty late to be leaving, doing something fun?" Ginny looked at her with a teasing smile. Shit. Hermione hadn't noticed her sitting in the corner with her friends, but she had effectively drawn everyone's attention to Hermione's attempt to leave unnoticed. Cursing herself for the millionth time for agreeing to this plan she quickly tried to think about what they had said before. Why was she the one exposed like this? Oh, oh right.

"P -prefect business." She damn near squeaked, feeling a small blush working its way onto her face. Apparently, she didn't quite have the upper hand on the whole acting thing.

Clearing her throat she said more clearly "I just have some prefect business, nothing important."

Ginny probably knew she was lying, but she also knew better than to ask what was really going on in front of the whole common room, and merely shrugged and turned back to her friends after raising an eyebrow at her. Thank Merlin Ginny knew how to be discrete, that had certainly come from growing up with Fred and George. But Hermione knew there would likely be questioning once there was not an audience.

Oh well. Now was not the time to think about that. Turning she bent down, crawling through the portrait hole - holding it open longer than was actually necessary, and Harry and Ron scrambled through behind her.

"Hermione, you are a terrible liar, you know that right?" Even though she couldn't see him, Hermione knew from Ron's tone he was fighting not to laugh. He always seemed to get too much enjoyment out of it when she did something poorly.

"Oh, and like you are any better?" She shot back, knowing she shouldn't, but not wanting to let it stand. "Who knows what people think you and Harry went up to the dorms to do, but I promise, no one bought the fake yawns and stomping on the stairs." She said this with a smirk, not knowing if they would get the innuendo (they often didn't) but enjoying it none the less.

"Hey!" The embarrassment in his voice made it clear that Ron actually had caught on that time, but Harry interrupted before he could go any further.

"Shut up, both of you, and get under the cloak Hermione, we don't want to miss him." He was right, she certainly didn't want all of this to be for nothing. "I should have just been under the cloak from the beginning" She was still a touch embarrassed at her poor reaction in the common room and couldn't quite let it go.

"Yes, Hermione, and then you could have tried to explain why the portrait hole was opening of its own accord." The sarcasm was clear, but Ron's statement effectively shut her up. Of course she knew she couldn't actually have started out in the cloak, she had meant to imply that one of them should have been the one to have to openly break curfew, but, she was under the cloak now, and Harry's tense glance at her as she was about to say just that reminded her that they were now actually breaking the curfew, and should probably be a little quieter.

She gave Harry a small nod. Tonight was just not her night. She hoped this little stumble would not be indicative of how the rest of their hair-brained scheme would turn out. Harry pulled out the map and paused, staring at it intently. "Ok, I can't find him, he must be in the room already, let's go."

There were a few close calls on the way to the third floor but, since they had the map, they managed to avoid any members of the Order or professors patrolling the halls quite effectively. It seemed almost too easy as they stood in front of the Room of Requirement. They had made it in record time considering they had to walk almost on top of each other and crouched in half in order to remain covered.

"Now we wait." Hermione's voice was barely a whisper, but she knew they heard it.

Hermione had been right. Not that this was an uncommon occurrence, but in this case, she wished she hadn't been. All three of them standing under the cloak was not just uncomfortable, it was beginning to be unbearable. They had only been here for thirty minutes and Hermione's back, legs, and neck were aching horribly. She could tell by Harry and Ron's pained expressions that they were experiencing the same thing, maybe even worse as they were both taller than her.

Her eyes met Harry's and he sighed, "Look, we have the map, we can tell if anyone is coming, I'm getting out."

Before she could protest he straightened, and stepped out of the cloak rolling his shoulders. Caution told her how stupid it was to take the risk, but her discomfort won out and she too took a step forward to straighten, lifting her hands over her head to stretch. Man, that felt good. Ron, clearly not wanting to seem like he was hogging the protection of the cloak for himself took it off and slung it over his arm, twisting to get the kinks out of his own back. They all looked at each other, smiling slightly at their shared decision, and leaned back against the wall. Much more comfortably. And really, they did have the map, they would be fine. The three of them settled in for the long wait.

About an hour later, just when Hermione was wishing she had brought a book to read, Harry jumped up, yanking the cloak from the ground where Ron had put it and tried to fling it over all three of them at the same time. Seeing Harry's movement Hermione had jumped towards him as fast as she could. Unfortunately, Ron had the same idea, and Harry had been moving to get closer to them. This ended in a rather painful jumble of heads, elbows, and shoulders being hit and bumped together, not to mention feet being stepped on. Somehow they managed not to cry out. Hermione waited with bated breath to see what Harry had been alerted to on the map.

They all froze while Flitwick strolled past humming quietly to himself. Waiting until he turned the corner, Harry carefully pulled out the map while trying to remain under the cloak. There was no one near anymore, and Hermione let out the breath she had been holding at the same time as the other two.

Despite the near miss, or maybe because of it, she was having a hard time not laughing at the way they had all run into each other in their rush. One look at Ron told her he was fighting a similar battle. Harry snorted, looking at both of them with wide eyes, as though shocked at his own sound, and she just couldn't do it anymore. She was shaking with laughter, tears welling up in her eyes trying to hold it in. Ron's face looked rather like he was going to burst, quickly turning an interesting shade of tomato red. Not daring to even look at Harry, Hermione covered her face with her hands, but it didn't last, she couldn't help it, she started laughing out loud. The fact that she broke her composure seemed to be the last straw as Harry and Ron both burst out laughing too. They all looked at each other and laughed even harder, none of them could seem to stop.

Suddenly, Hermione saw a shadow move out of the corner of her eye. Stopping mid laugh - and causing Harry and Ron to do the same, she slowly turned her head to where she thought she had seen something.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. How could they have been so stupid?

First taking off the cloak, then laughing like that. She was sure half the castle had heard them. Stupid stupid stupid. Trying to find what had caused the movement Hermione squinted into the shadowy corridor, but it was Harry that found it, and he pointed silently. Where there had been a smooth stone wall there was now the faint pattern of a door quickly forming. Malfoy was about to leave the room.

Slowly sneaking as close as they could all three of them held their breath for the second time that night. They were supposed to wait for him to exit, and then just catch the door as he walked away. It should work. That's how Umbridge had been able to get the list of DA members. They just had to be quick. And silent. The last thing she wanted was to be found by Malfoy before they found out what he was doing.

Malfoy seemed to be taking a long time to open the door, but perhaps he had heard them laughing. Stupid. Eventually, the door opened slowly, and she could see Malfoy peaking his head out. It was odd seeing Malfoy be cautious. Usually, he was so bold and arrogant in his movements. Finally, he took a few steps into the corridor. He hadn't opened the door very far, just enough to slide out. They wouldn't make it in time.

Harry seemed to realize this as well. Jumping to the door, he left the safety of the cloak as he went. Harry wasn't just trying to hold the door, it was clear he was actually going to go inside the room in order to hide. Hermione was secretly impressed with his forethought. Unfortunately, Ron did not see that Harry was going to hide again and so he tried to hurry forward to cover Harry with the cloak he and Hermione were still wearing.

Damn it, Ron.

Hermione barely had time to think the thought as Ron, in his haste pulled Hermione down.

"Umph!" She landed with a loud thump on all fours.

Malfoy spun on his heel and without hesitation shot a curse directly at her. Harry sent up a shield and quickly shot a curse of his own at Malfoy. Hermione scrambled to her feet angry at being caught in such a position, and thankful for Harry's quick thinking. Drawing her own wand she saw Ron appear from under the cloak with his wand drawn as well. Malfoy's eyes narrowed, as though calculating his odds. Suddenly flicking his wand he conjured a thick screen of smoke in the hallway and turned to run the other direction. Hermione could not blame him. Three on one was hardly a challenge she would want to take. But before he could make it more than a couple steps a hard clear voice behind them yell "Freeze." and the smoke quickly dissipated.

The voice did not bear being ignored. Neither did the Witch it had come from. Professor McGonagall.

Shit.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

McGonagall stood still, slowly taking in the scene.

"Four students out of bed," The anger was clear in her voice. "and three of them from my own house."

Dread was settling in Hermione's stomach.

"Dueling by the looks of it."

Hermione shot a quick look around. It did indeed look bad. Ron still had his wand up at chest height, he had turned to face McGonagall though, so now it almost looked like he was about to curse her. Hermione tried to get his attention, but he seemed frozen in place. Harry hadn't lowered his wand either - though it at least was still pointed a Malfoy. If that was any better.

She slowly turned back to McGonagall, keeping her eyes on the floor.

"Follow me." The professor's voice was clipped, and not one of them even considered disobeying.