"Malfoy!" Hermione exclaimed, aghast. "You're a Death Eater!"

"Keep it down, will you!" he hissed. "There's no need to tell the whole world!"

Hermione raised an eyebrow.

"Oh...Damn..." Malfoy scowled. "I mean... I am not a Death Eater. You're crazy."

"I'm not crazy, Malfoy." Hermione said, raising herself up to her full height. Which was, admittedly, not very impressive, but she tried. "I know you're working for Voldemort. There's no use pretending."

Malfoy flinched.

"Oh, please!" scoffed Hermione, throwing her hands up in the air in exasperation. "You're working for the man; you should be able to say his name."

"Hey, he's damn creepy!" shot back Malfoy. "Er...that is...I am not working for him!"

"You're so believable," the bushy haired girl said sarcastically, and rolled her eyes. "Look. I'm top of my year for a reason. You're not fooling me."

"Please!" the blond boy said scathingly, screwing up his face in condescension. "You don't really want me to tell you about what I've been doing for You-Know-Who. You couldn't handle it."

Hermione gasped, outraged. "I could so! You have no idea what I've had to deal with!"

"So you tagged along with Potter for a while. Big fucking deal." Malfoy crossed his arms, and looked at her with scorn in his eyes, spitting his words out with venemous hate. "What did you do, really? Tagged along in his quest for the Sorcerer's Stone. Got yourself turned into a statue by a snake. Sat sniveling on the ground while Potter got rid of your dementors for you. Watched as your friend made it through the Triwizard Tournament. Followed him along on his mad quest to the Ministry-"

"I helped him there!"

"No, you didn't! You got hit with a curse early on and were out for the count for months afterward. You can't handle anything. You think you're some battle-hardened woman, but no way. You're just some little mudblood girl who's admittedly fairly clever. But you're not as ready for the real world as you think you are. You haven't seen anything yet."

Hermione clenched her teeth and went white, then pink with fury. "Stop saying those things!" she snapped. "They're not true, and you know it! You don't know the half of what I've done!"

"No, I don't." drawled Malfoy. "I know the important half, but I don't really care about the rest, so please don't tell me."

"Tell me what Voldemort's got you doing." Hermione said in a low voice, stepping closer to the blonde Slytherin. "You didn't sound too enthusiastic earlier, when you were talking about your 'task'. Tell me."

Malfoy swallowed, suddenly serious. "No. Need I remind you that only five minutes ago you were in here, crying about your farce of a love life? You couldn't deal."

Hermione broke eye contact and looked down and away to the side, saying in annoyance, "I'd only just forgotten..."

Then she stood up straighter and looked into his eyes again. "Need I remind you that only five minutes ago, you were in here, crying about the exact same thing? Difference is, I can run circles around you as far as spellcasting goes. And working for Voldemort is serious business. Whatever he's up to, it's not good. Whatever you know could save countless lives. I'm prepared to do whatever I have to to keep the students safe."

"Let me guess." Malfoy said snidely. "It's your duty as a prefect."

"It's my duty," Hermione replied, "As a witch."

"Stop being so noble." Malfoy told her wearily. "There's no need. I'll spill."

He closed his eyes for a brief moment, composing himself, then turned away from Hermione and walked over to the blank stone wall next to the door, sliding down its surface until he sat on the grimy bathroom floor, legs stretched out in front of him. Hermione hesitated, then followed.

"Really? You'll talk?"

He looked at her, and Hermione was surprised to find his gray eyes dull and emotionless, barren of the hate and revulsion she had become accustomed to seeing there. "Why do you sound so surprised?" he asked. "I thought this was what you wanted."

"It is, it is!" Hermione said hurriedly. "It's just...I never really expected...never mind. Talk."

Malfoy sighed. "I shouldn't be telling you this." he mumbled. "Father would kill me." He leaned his head back, and it connected with the stone wall with a muffled thump. "But I have to tell somebody, somebody who's not a useless fawning Slytherin. And...Well...You may not be much, but you are smart. You were right about that."

He turned to her. "But you have to promise me something. You have to promise not to tell anyone. Not Potter, not Weasley. Not anyone. And - "

"I can't do that." Hermione interrupted.

"What?" Malfoy queried, stunned. "I thought-"

"If anybody's life is in danger, anybody at all," Hermione began, "I have to tell. I can't stand by while people die. I won't tell Harry. I won't tell Ron. But can I tell Dumbledore? Or, failing that, Mad Eye Moody?"

"I-" Malfoy paused. "I guess so. But-but-only those two people, okay? Not even McGonagall."

"Why not Professor McGonagall?"

"She doesn't like me. And I don't like her. We clear?" Malfoy looked hard at Hermione, and she nodded. "Good. I need you to promise something else, too."

"What?" Hermione asked.

"I need you to promise to help me. You know. If I need it."

Hermione rolled her eyes and leaned against the wall. "Oh, please, Malfoy." She turned her head to the right and looked at the side of his face. "Why do you think I asked?"

"Um..." he said slowly, "You were just curious? Mostly, I thought it was to help your friends...You know, see what you could find out for Potter..."

Hermione huffed in exasperation. "Yeah, I want to know so I can help people. You're a person. Therefore, I'll help you. Now start talking. I don't have all day, and I keep forgetting that I don't actually like you. But I don't. And this bathroom is getting dirt on my skirt. And probably my socks, too."

"Glad to see you've got your priorities straight, Granger," Malfoy snarked, but he had a slight smile on his face. That smile slid off his countenance as he began to speak.

"After my father was...disgraced last spring, because of that fiasco at the MInistry of Magic, You-Know-Who wanted...Oh, who knows what he wanted. Control over the Malfoy family? A new Death Eater to replace my father, now that he was in jail? Just to mess with us? Doesn't really matter. What happened was, I got off the train last June, my mother apparated me home, and when I got there...the Death Eaters. I had suspected it was coming for a while, ever since we'd learned he was back, and...I don't want to be a Death Eater, I don't want this life. I had a plan. I was going to graduate Hogwarts, and then run away to France with Mum. I just hadn't been expecting the induction to come so soon. I should have, but I didn't. And they took me to this...cave...and they...Well, I don't want to talk about it."

Hermione looked into his face. "Is it.." she began hoarsely. "Is it true you have to kill someone to become a Death Eater?"

He looked at her, anguish in his eyes, and nodded. "Yes. It's true."

He bent his head over, resting his forehead on his palms, and heaved a sigh. "I didn't kill her," he said, in a small, weak, exhausted voice. "You have to believe me. I didn't want to kill her and I didn't want her to die. But... When I wouldn't, Avery took her and... Well.

"She was just this little girl!" His voice cracked from regret and horror. "Just this little muggle girl, and I...I should have protected her, I should have grabbed her and ran away, but I was scared and now, because of me, she's dead. And I never knew her name.

"And it was just this little muggle girl, and I shouldn't care this much, Father always said that Muggles weren't humans like we were. He always said they were like animals, living in the filth, and he said they didn't have souls like we did, and he said that it was okay if we killed them because they weren't even important enough for an afterlife, they were just...insects..." The truth came pouring out of him like a river with the dam suddenly broken, the words tumbling over each other in their urgency to be heard. He didn't even pause to breathe, just unleashed his words upon the world and waited for them to make an impact. He went on.

"But I don't believe that anymore. Because every time I close my eyes, I see her face, her little scared face, and then I see her dead body, like a little doll, like a little broken doll lying on that stone floor, and in my dreams I can hear her screams, and in my dreams I can smell her blood, and the only thing that makes it seem even a little better is that I know, I know that she's gone on to a better place, because if she hasn't? If, for that little girl, if there was just six or so too-short years of happy life followed by one night of pain and then an eternity of nothing...

"I just don't think I could live with myself."

Malfoy lifted his head up and looked at Hermione, and she could see tears glistening, unshed, in his eyes. He lifted an arm and swiped at them, and then croaked,

"I don't know why I'm talking to you. I don't even like you, not really. But...I had to get it off my chest. Because I know the guilt and the nightmares will still keep me awake, but maybe now the secrecy won't. And Granger?"

"Yes?"

"I could do with some sleep."