A/N: Thank you for the alerts, favorites and reviews - way more than I expected! I'm trying to kind of weave this story in with canon and keep it as close to the real story as I can, so if anyone notices any discrepancies that should be fixed or any suggestions, please let me know. Oh and the story title will be explained later. Thanks for reading! :D

Harry and Hermione hurried back inside the castle and walked as quickly as they could towards the Gryffindor common room. Not a word was spoken during this time, save for a few defensive spells Harry shot at Peeves, who was following them most of the way and lobbing bits of rubbish at their faces. Harry glanced at his friend every few moments, who wasn't fighting tears anymore but looked angry and apprehensive, and the whole time Harry was at a complete loss as to what this all could be about. Draco being a prat was nothing new, but why did Hermione let his words get to her to the point where she got up and slapped him? After punching him in the third year, she had turned remarkably stoic in the face of Draco's bigoted verbal spewage and it seemed inexplicable for her to suddenly let it bother her again now. But even weirder than that was the fact that Draco cursed Goyle for shooting a curse of his own at Hermione after her assault on Draco's face. Harry would have expected Draco to laugh obnoxiously and then run off before anyone could have retaliated, but then again, Draco hadn't been himself all year.

Harry barely registered climbing through the portrait hole and was only jolted back to the present when Hermione cast a silencing charm around the deserted common room and sank into a fluffy armchair, eyes on the empty fireplace. Harry took the chair opposite hers and sat.

"Hermione, what's going on?"

Now he could see the tears stinging her brown eyes yet again. "Harry, I was too scared to tell anyone, I knew how you would react... you have to promise me that you will listen to the whole story and not get angry or do anything stupid once you know."

Harry's eyes narrowed and he was starting to get nervous. This couldn't be good. He had an idea of what could explain all of this, but it was beyond mad. "Hermione-"

"Promise me," she insisted.

"Fine, I promise, but-"

"Okay," she breathed, closing her eyes, apparently steeling herself in preparation for the story she was about to tell. "I've been using the Room of Requirement for homework."

Harry stared blankly at her.

"You know how I study and how I like to be a bit overprepared, and, well, I found out that I could turn the Room of Requirement into my dream library. Books that aren't in the library here, books even I have never heard of-"

"Okay, but what's that got to do with any of this?"

Hermione sighed impatiently and said, "Would you just listen! Anyway, I learned how to cast a Disillusionment charm so I could sneak there past curfew and study."

Harry almost stupidly said "But you're a prefect", but he quickly remembered it wouldn't have been her job to patrol the floor on which the Room of Requirement was found. "Alright."

"I was on my way there one night about two months ago and you can imagine my surprise when I get there and see Draco Malfoy standing outside the Room with his eyes closed about to go in."

And Hermione told the beginning of the story she thought she'd never tell another living soul.

Two months earlier

Curiosity got the better of her - after all, Harry had been going on all year with his suspicions of Malfoy being a Death Eater, Malfoy being behind every nefarious plot known to man, Malfoy disappearing off the Marauder's Map. This would at least explain Harry's third mysterious point, since it made sense for this Room not to show up on the map. But even Hermione had to admit, though she did believe Harry was being paranoid, Malfoy had been acting strangely all year and this seemed to confirm that he was up to something - but what?

So, Hermione stood directly behind Draco, breathing silently, and watched the door to the Room of Requirement appear. Draco stepped inside and she did as well, surprised that she was able to and realizing he must have forgotten to require his presence being the only one allowed while the room was his.

The Room was enormous and full of what looked like treasures and junk alike, and Hermione couldn't imagine why Draco would require this sort of room. She followed him silently as he passed through a few rows of junk and was careful to not accidentally hit anything and give herself away. They had just passed a table full of busts wearing dusty wigs and tarnished jewelry when Draco stopped short and she nearly crashed right into him. She looked up and watched him staring at a large, old-looking black cabinet, and she was watching him grasp a handle to open it when something from one of the large, unstable piles of unknown things loudly crashed behind them and she unthinkingly let out a painfully loud squeak, Draco's startled eyes falling right where she stood.

"Who's there?" he called, eyes glinting a bit madly, pointing his wand right at Hermione who quickly raised her own and Disarmed him as soon as she heard the beginning of an incantation coming from his mouth.

Draco looked stunned as his wand flew out of his hand and was caught by an invisible hand, and even though the squeak and the following cry of "Expelliarmus!" had been distinctly female, Draco thought of Harry's cloak and stupidly said, "Potter?"

Hermione rolled her eyes and turned her wand on herself, making herself visible. "There are other ways to avoid being seen besides an Invisibility Cloak, you know."

Draco's face turned angry. "Granger! How did you get in here? Give me my wand back, now!"

"I'll give it back when you tell me what's in the cabinet," Hermione retorted.

"But how did you get in here?"

"Never mind how I got in here!" Hermione half-yelled. "What's in the cabinet?"

"None of your business!"

"Then it's none of your business how I got in here, either!"

Draco's face grew angrier and he advanced towards Hermione, trying his best to be intimidating as he growled, "Give me back my wand, mudblood!"

Hermione took a few steps back. "Maybe if you asked me nicely and left out the name calling, or did your mummy never teach you manners?"

Draco's face was turning a brilliant shade of furious red as he continued to try to close in on her. "Give - it - back - now!"

He dived at her and she shot a non-verbal curse at him but it missed by centimeters, and they crashed into a pile of something that was very hard and very sharp, and they both let out yelps of pain.

Hermione felt Draco roll away and she looked behind them and saw that they had crashed into what appeared to be a pile of sharp hooks that looked like props for a pirate movie, but they were no fakes – she felt what she was sure were small puncture wounds all over her back. Then she looked down and saw Draco grasping his left arm, which was bleeding a bit but by the way he was acting, she would have assumed the whole of his arm had been sliced off. She shoved both wands in her back pocket and moved towards him.

"Oh get a grip, will you, you're fine," She grumbled, kneeling beside him and grasping his sleeve to tear it so she could have access to the wound to heal it when he suddenly grasped her hand and screamed at her, "Don't touch me!"

The desperate tone of his shriek had startled Hermione but so had his grip on her hand. When he had first touched her she felt what seemed like a small, strange volt of electricity but now all she felt was pain - it seemed he was trying to crush her hand. "Stop fighting me, I'm just going to heal the wound!"

He shrieked "No!" one more time just as she managed to tear the fabric of his sleeve, and several things happened at once. Hermione caught a glance of black ink on the pale skin of his forearm, taking the shape of a snake slithering out from a skull, and just as the shock and horror of what this meant began to dawn in her mind, she was flat on her back and Draco was wrestling with her, trying to retrieve his wand.

But even in the midst of her shock, Hermione was still far better skilled than he was and with a kick to the groin he fell away and she grabbed her wand and turned it on him, ropes snaking around his body and restraining him to the floor.

He was cursing, struggling, bleeding, and even seemed to be crying by now, and Hermione got to her feet and stood over him, wand still pointed at him but her face was soft. When she spoke, it came out a whisper. "You're one of them?"

"Yes, I'm bloody one of them," Draco spat, his voice a miserable groan.

Hermione just stared at him, her face frozen in shock, her blood running cold. Harry had been right all along.