McGonagall stared at the young, fiercely stubborn, girl in front of her. She had an aura of determination and pride, things McGonagall knew were dangerous things to have but if used in the right way, could mean the difference between failure and success.

"Miss Granger," McGonagall begun, hating the words that were about to fall from her mouth. She wanted to see this young witch grow up and be so much more than a soul in Azkaban. "It's the third day, already. If you don't ask for Mister Malfoy's help soon, I'm going to have to take it upon myself."

She saw the hesitation in Hermione's eyes, and she understood why. Draco Malfoy wasn't an easy person to strike a deal with. Making him head boy, McGonagall wished to see him have a chance that he would never have gotten had he not been head boy. His life was heading downhill very fast, and he needed the position more than many others. Though, it wasn't solely based on pity. He had potential. Dumbledore had seen it, as had she.

"I know this isn't easy, Miss Granger, I'm just trying to do the best I can. Okay?" McGonagall's pleads fell onto deaf ears. "I expect you to show up at the meeting I'm going to set up for tomorrow, after class, with you and Mister Malfoy."

Hermione made her stance clear. She was not asking for any help. As her teacher, and stand-in mother, McGonagall had taken the responsibility upon herself to do so on behalf of her.

"Why was I called in here? I turned in my assignment early, I've been making patrol, I haven't done anything bad!" At least not recently.

Draco stood in McGonagall's office, pleading innocence to her. He needed this chance at school. It was pretty much all he had left.

"You're not in trouble, Mister Malfoy," She replied, right as Hermione stepped into the office, a look of dread on her face. She looked like she normally did, like she just woke up and something with wings was nesting in her hair.

"Then why am I here?" Draco asked, raising a blonde eyebrow in question.

"I thought I said I didn't want his help," Hermione practically spat, losing her calm demeanour.

"It's been almost a week, Miss Granger. You need it." With McGonagall's words, Hermione slumped onto one of the chairs. "Now, would you like to explain, or should I?"

"I'll do it." Hermione said begrudgingly, though didn't seem to continue to explain.

"Well, Granger?" Draco said to her, still extremely confused. "Why am I here?"

"You've got to help me bring back my parent's memories of me."

"So, your parents have no idea of who you are anymore, and you decide to come to me for help, why?" Draco pestered her on their way back to the common room. "Why the fuck don't you ask Saint Potter or Weaselby?" Hermione remained stoic, despite the insults he had thrown at her friends.

"Because they don't know this kind of magic like you do, apparently. And I'd rather keep them out of this." Hermione's pace hastened.

"What kind of magic do you mean?" Dark magic? Legilimency? Occlumency?

"I used a version of a confundus charm and obliviate to convince them that they didn't have a daughter, that I was a stranger, and that their life dreams were to move to Australia, which they did a week later." Hermione explained. "I have no idea how to get their memories back. The Ministry, as you know, called me in for using magic on muggles. I have another twenty-three days until I get a short sentence in Azkaban for using magic on them, if I don't reverse the spell."

Draco scoffed as they reached their common room, letting Hermione put in her password for the door. "Wow. Who'd have thought that the great Hermione Granger would be capable of disobeying the laws."

"Actually, I've broken quite a few school rules and laws." Hermione said nonchalantly as the door to their common room opened.

"So why should I help you?" Draco said to Hermione, reclining on their couch.

"Because McGonagall said to." She replied, pushing his feet off the couch and sitting down next to him.

"But you don't want me to."

"No. I think I am capable of doing it by myself." Hermione was firm in her belief. She didn't need anyone's help, and certainly not Draco Malfoy's.

Draco scoffed at her thinking. "You need my help. Trust me." A smirk grew over his face.

"Why is that?" Hermione asked him.

"Because the spell that you used is unique and you can't find it in any book. You have to talk to witches and wizards who've done the same things themselves. Also, I became very skilled in Legilimency when my family worked with Vol-"

"Please don't say his name." Hermione stiffened. She saw Draco seem almost sorrowful at her reaction to the word.

"Okay." Draco said. "I'll help you on one condition."

Hermione sighed. She knew this was coming. He was a Slytherin after all. What more could she expect?

"What?"

"You have to forget everything you know about me, because half the things we have to do, you'll never have seen before and will hopefully never see again."

This time, Draco forgot to do his patrol. He fell asleep trying to think of ways to help Hermione. Waking up groggily, he looked around him at the books. The library wasn't the best place to sleep.

Stupid Granger, Draco thought. Why am I even helping her?

But Draco knew exactly why he was helping her. It was his family that was part of the reason she had to obliviate her parent's memories of her. Anything he could do to reverse the damage, he was all ears to.

It didn't hurt that it was just her this year at school. Draco quite liked a Harry-Potter-Free environment. That boy was too disruptive for his own good. Just his name caused a great deal of trouble once upon a time.

Draco brushed off his memories of Harry from the war. Especially the ones of him being dead. He didn't have time for mourning over what he did, however much he regretted it.

He quickly put the books away, briskly making his way back to the common room. Hermione wasn't waiting for him when he got back. She had gone off without him. Her room door was open, and the bathroom and common room was empty.

Well, she owed him one anyways.

She didn't seem to have seen the article in The Daily Prophet about his father breaking loose from Azkaban. He didn't want her to see it. She would think otherwise about him helping her (more than she already did) and would hand him straight into the ministry, no doubt.

Something else was stopping him from telling her willingly, or wanting her to see the paper. Something in his heart. He didn't want her to think he was a bad person, because of all the things his father had done and was no doubt going to continue to do.

A few people had begun to be pushier with him at school, clearly having read it before, but that was nothing he couldn't handle. He had done it to them before. It was his turn. The thing he couldn't bear was that she lived with him, and if she hated him any more than she already did, she might combust. (Or she might kill him. Either or.)

Draco collapsed on the couch in front of the fire, wordlessly shooting a spell to start it as he did. Hermione was going to finish patrolling soon, and would be back.

He had been brainstorming about the different things that they would need to do. First thing was to figure out exactly what had been done to her parents, because for them to be able to reverse it, they would have to know what it was.

He came up with a list of things that they needed to ask themselves to figure out what it was.

1. Can they remember anything about her at all? Hair colour? Name? Age? That she was their daughter? Something magical even?

2. If not, do they remember anything from their old life with Hermione?

3. And if none of the above, she had probably obliviated them more than she had confounded them.

And from there, he would be able to figure out what to do.

Memory charms were tricky. Especially when you were learning from your mother in the basement over the summer holidays, and were trying to conceal secrets from the Dark Lord.

"Now, Draco. I need you to think of something. And I want you to try block me out. Am I clear?" Narcissa Malfoy was not clear at all, though Draco nodded his head. She was the best in the family at occlumency.

Draco thought of Hogwarts. Was he going to go back?

"You chose Hogwarts?" Draco nodded. "That's too easy. I didn't even have to use legilimency on you for it to work. Think of something different."

At first, Draco had no idea on what to think about. He couldn't think about Hogwarts, Quidditch, Pansy Parkinson, Goyle, Blaise or Crabbe. They were all too obvious. So instead he thought about Hermine Granger. About her bushy, honey coloured hair. About her mundane brown eyes, that even as children held an intensity to them. About her perfume, and how his amortentia in 6th year smelt like it.

His mother would never guess. He never wanted her to know that the thing that came to mind was a mudblood. A filthy, good-for-nothing mudblood.

Hermione strolled into the room carelessly. Her shift on duty had been relatively easy, despite Draco being absent. When she entered, Draco was still on the couch, seemingly lost in thought. He was sitting normally on it, for once, and clutched in his hands so hard it wrinkled slightly was a piece of parchment.

It still irritated her that McGonagall told him about her parents. Though, she knew it was for the better anyways.

He had up and left during their last conversation, right after he had said very vaguely to her "You have to forget everything you know about me, because half the things we have to do, you'll never have seen before and will hopefully never see again."

"Granger." Draco's smirk widened on his face (if it were even possible). "I need to ask a few questions regarding your little predicament."

Hermione felt the weight of her tiredness fall onto her shoulders all at once. The last thing she needed was even more of a reminder.

"What?" She snapped.

"I've figured a few things out to narrow down what you've done to your poor parents, so that we can figure out how to un-do it." Draco was being surprisingly helpful, though Hermione thought he would have his own motives to be.

"What have you figured out? Cut to it! I want to go to sleep!" Hermione said, sitting next to him on the couch and looking at the parchment.

She read over his notes.

"I think they still have Crookshanks," Hermione said.

"What's that?" Draco asked.

"My cat. I didn't bring him with me when we went Horcrux hunting. I left him with my parents." Hermione replied. Her heart ached. Did they still have him?

"Well, we have to find out if they have him and work from there." Draco stretched his long limbs out, finding a click here and there in them. "I'll think of some names of people we can ask about these charms. I don't have all the knowledge in the world. I'll get back to you in the morning."

Dear Merlin, Draco knew about the bloody cat.

Weasel-King never shut up about it during their third year. Not that he was listening, of course. Well, maybe a little. But what Weasel-King would have hated more than the fact that Hermione's cat hated him, was the fact that when it was roaming the castle by itself, it had stumbled upon Draco, and took a liking to him.

Not that Draco particularly cared about it. Or her. No. Definitely not her.

Every time Draco saw the cat, it would stroll right up next to him as though they were best buds and as though Draco were it's owner, even though the pretty Gryffindor was sitting on the other side of the dining hall. He was just glad that she was too busy talking to Saint Potter and Weasel to see her cat snagging tuna off Draco's plate.

He had noticed their absence this year, as he did the last. They didn't have to go to school to redeem their families' names. If anything, it meant that their reputation was going up. Everyone seemed to hate Hogwarts now for the lack of protection it had offered the students after Dumbledore's death.

No. You are not going to think about that again, Draco. It is not your fault. You didn't kill him.

Draco leaned back in his bead, his light hair hitting the pillow, casting a silvery shadow around his head. Sleep needed to come and take him away before his thoughts did.

He crawled into the sheets like a toddler retreating into their mother's arms. Sleep came like a charm.