A/N: Hello beautiful souls! A thousand apologies for not having finished this chapter sooner – trust me, I tried. But while you're berating me, I should let you know that I have a big exam tomorrow and numerous papers due that I ignored (and will probably perish for later) in order to finish this chapter. This is a bit of a heavy one because it mainly deals with Hermione coping with her parents' death, and there is a disappointing (but understandable! Come on guys, her parents just died!) lack of D/Hr interaction. But! Next chapter should make up for it! So read on!

Chapter 10

"There's a problem I have with you and your friends, Blackwell, and it's that as big of fans you are of justice, you lot are the biggest group of sniveling hypocrites I've ever seen."

She jerked away from his iron grasp, ramming her spine against the wall. Her eyes were still on the door behind him, Draco's words still echoing in her ears, scrambling her thoughts. Her pulse pounded erratically in her ears.

"What did he mean when he said he made a vow to my parents?" she breathed, finally shifting her eyes to Snape, who was looking at her with his typical revulsion.

"Think very hard, Head Girl," Snape snapped at her. "What do you think it means?"

She shook her head, shutting her eyes tight. The ground tilted under her feet and she anchored herself against the wall. "But he—"

She couldn't find the words. She thought of the cruel things he'd said and done and the unmistakable hate that simmered in his eyes every time he'd looked at her. A whole year and then some of treating her as if she were lower than nothing, of deliberately filling her life with misery. How could that be true? How could he possibly be telling the truth? How could have it all felt so agonizingly real – if it was all just pretend?

Her knees felt weak.

"While everyone else finds your naivety endearing, Blackwell, I've lost patience for it. Do us all a favor and release us from the obligation of having to explain everything to you by promptly growing up." He narrowed his beetle-black eyes at her. "We all have parts to play, some easier than others. Your poor Draco was handed the short straw. You understand that little Muggle saying, don't you?"

She stared at him. Her chest felt full of hot air, almost to the point of pain. Answers and questions and even more questions whirled inside her brain, desperate to find a point of connection, futilely scurrying to make sense. A flash of her parents' bodies in the Great Hall flickered in her mind. Her knees buckled.

She caught herself in time and turned away, violently retching, bracing herself against the wall. It was painful – she barely had anything in her stomach, and what little came up burned her throat. She shut her eyes tight, wiping her mouth on her arm and feeling the wetness on her cheeks, trying to find a point of balance. "It's the shock," she explained weakly, before magically cleaning it up.

"Be appreciative. Run back to your little friends and tell them to conjure up some sense," he drawled snidely.

She glared at him through blurry eyes. "And I'm supposed to believe you?" she scoffed.

"For fuck's sake." He roughly grabbed her by the arm. "Come with me."

He took her into his office, deep inside the dungeons. He let her go just as he had closed and locked his door, before raising one pale hand above his cramped bookcase and inaudibly whispering a spell. Slowly, the bookcase parted down the middle, exposing shelves of large glowing bottles. There must've been over two dozen of them, neatly lined up. As she stood there, taking this in, she knew exactly what they were. Pensieves. And she had never seen so many in her life.

He picked a nameless one from the upper left corner, twisting it open and using his wand to pick out a single silvery, shimmering strand.

"His pensieve, that night he fainted," she said, quietly, the realization dawning on her. "You were the one who came and took it."

He barely glanced up at her from the pensieve. "His memories are more valuable than yours and Potter's combined," he said. "They require protection."

He summoned her and she hesitantly stepped forward, keeping her suspicious gaze on him. "Your proof, Miss Blackwell," he murmured, as he pressed the tip of his wand against her temple. Taking a steadying breath, her eyes fluttered closed.

ooo

Cormac McLaggen was summoned to Dumbledore's office for questioning. It took less than three minutes and just one threat of Veritaserum before he finally confessed.

"All right, it was me, okay?" he said, beads of sweat dripping down his wide forehead. "It was me who drugged her. I slipped the potion into her glass of punch before I gave it to her."

"Why did you do it?" Hermione hissed.

"Because I wanted revenge on you for turning me down to be your date for the ball. You humiliated me. I wanted compensation. I had planned for the effects of the potion to kick in while we were dancing. That way, I could offer to take you up to your room and we could have a bit of fun."

He licked his lips nervously.

They all stared at him. Ron lunged at him. Dumbledore was slow to reprimand and Harry was even slower to pull Ron off of him.

"You big sack of scum!" Ron raged. He had gotten a good chunk of his collar. McLaggen looked close to fainting.

"I'd say you're a disgrace to the McLaggens but we both know that isn't true," McGonagall said dryly. "Expect an expulsion, McLaggen. A suspension if you're lucky, and if your parents are infuriated enough to process an appeal. Either way, you won't be seeing these halls again for a very long time."

"What about her parents?" Ron demanded.

McLaggen paled instantly, shooting up from his seat. "Now wait a minute! I had nothing to do with that freakshow! I helped with the decorations, that's it! I had nothing to do with…" His face turned an unnatural shade of green. "Oh, Merlin. I think I'm going to puke."

While McLaggen was taken away by his Head of House to be properly dealt with, they all sat around Dumbledore's office. Ron, red-faced from rage, was still cursing under his breath.

"There's no way he could've done it," Hermione said. Had she any energy, she would have marveled at the way her own voice sounded so empty. So detached. Every part of her felt drained, yet despite Madam Pomfrey's advice about getting some sleep, she refused. She was afraid of what she would see in her dreams.

"As twisted as he is, and as absent his morals are," she continued, "he faints at the sight of blood."

"It doesn't mean he didn't help string them up," Ron snapped.

Hermione tried to meet Harry's eyes for backup, but he was avoiding her gaze. Ever since she had come in telling them about Draco's unbreakable vow to her parents, he had maintained his distance. It bewildered her why Harry wanted Draco to be at fault so much for something so terrible. Was their rivalry so intense it had come to this? That he wanted Draco imprisoned for something he didn't do? Or worse: that he had actually wanted him to be the one to have done it?

Suddenly, Harry stood up, coldly informing them that he was going back to the boy's dormitory to get some rest. Ron apologetically followed suit.

"Try and get some sleep, Hermione," Ron gently said to her, gingerly patting her on the shoulder, before they were both gone.

She sat there and stared at the ground until she felt hot tears pricking the back of her eyes, suddenly feeling angry with Harry. She avoided thinking about the insurmountable grief that threatened to incapacitate her, both physically and emotionally, for a very long time, but in the silence it proved difficult. Whenever she closed her eyes, all she could see were her parents. She continued to feel waves of nausea and shock despite having run out of contents to throw up. She was so tired even her bones ached.

In the corner, Fawkes let out a quiet croon, preening his feathers.

She looked up at Dumbledore, who was silently watching her. "You knew about Draco. Why didn't you say anything?" she said, her voice edged with anger. "When Harry was on his tirade about how he'd done it, about how he'd confessed – why didn't you say anything?"

"Because you were the one who had to do it, Miss Blackwell," Dumbledore said quietly, in that infuriatingly sage way he always did. She hated his composure. Her parents had just been killed. Even though she was irritated with Harry, at least he'd had the decency to express the desire to inflict bodily harm on whoever it was that'd murdered her parents and put them on display in the great hall. Though Dumbledore's demeanor was obviously grim, she wanted more from her Headmaster who had demanded so much of her within this past month.

"You had to be the one to find out for yourself. And you had to be the one to tell Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley, as well as the rest of the Order."

In times of great distress and exhaustion, she found the irrational and impulsive side of her difficult to ignore. Her throat was tight with emotion. Her eyes burned, and from behind them she could feel the throbbing emptiness. She had cried plenty. Or perhaps not enough.

"But why?" she asked, frustrated. She wanted to ask how Dumbledore could claim to love his students and sit so calmly in his office while people died. Sirius and members of the Order and, now, her parents. Did he feel nothing? Were the deceased just collateral damage? Was he really so used to death?

"Because you would have always wondered," he answered. "And you would have never really known." He looked at her through his half-moon spectacles. "He doesn't need me on his side, Miss Blackwell. Why else would he have done all of this?"

She was staring at something beyond him. Beyond the castle walls, beyond the demanding constraints of her own dark and churning present reality. Suddenly she was back by the glistening lake of Blackwell Manor, having just found out about her true birth, looking at Draco, who, even in his quickly fading innocence, was smiling back.

Even now, even in her immense anger and bitterness at him, all that had transpired, and was still, she felt a lonely sense of nostalgia, and the desire to go back to that moment. She would stay there. Happily and ignorantly, she would stay there.

"This is about you," Dumbledore was saying, his voice weaving through her thoughts. "He needs you."

ooo

Hermione stared at the miniscule pile of possessions the Medimorts had found on her parents. After thoroughly making sure they had not been cursed with Dark magic, they had given them to her, neatly obscured in a black leather pouch, along with a bottle of Dreamless Sleep potion, courtesy of Madam Pomfrey. Somewhere along the night she'd forgotten she must not have been the first to be terrified of sleep because of trauma, yet the fact that many others have had to see their loved ones' murdered bodies didn't dull the agony she felt pounding against the back of her skull.

They had asked her to come by to confirm that the murdered bodies had, in fact, been Mr. and Mrs. Blackwell. Madam Pomfrey and her Head of House had accompanied her. She tried everything she could to mentally prepare herself for a closer look of her dead parents, and as she stood by their lifeless bodies, colored by bruises and internal bleeding, she managed to let the Medimorts know that they were her parents. She shocked herself at how toneless she'd answered – so unlike the screaming she could hear within the confines of her own brain.

"We found a few possessions on their bodies," one of the workers let her know. "Their wands, some jewelry, and a piece of parchment." He handed her the black bag. "They've all been tested negative for curses or Dark magic."

She took it from him, feeling the solid weight of it in her hand. "What were their last spells?"

The Medimort looked up at her, shocked. "Excuse me?"

"What were their last spells?" she repeated, monotonously. "I know it's part of your job to check. So what were they?"

Did they fight back? Did they see it coming?

"I'm afraid that's confidential," he said. But she saw his pity flicker in his eyes, and with hesitation, he subtly checked over his shoulder before bowing his head and lowering his voice. She could tell he was new at this, unused to death and having to deal with the grieving. She watched the other, more experienced Medimorts in the room – their faces blank, their eyes hard and unflinching, acting with purpose and nothing else.

"From both wands, there was an abundance of spells fired within the last 24 hours," he whispered to her. "Many were of a defensive nature."

She closed her eyes, and she felt him step away. "Thank you," she said softly, not knowing whether he heard her. When she'd opened her eyes, he was gone.

When Hermione went back to her room, she had set the pouch on her desk and sat down on her bed for some time, just staring at it. Finally, she got up and gently emptied it out: her mother's necklace, her father's antique family ring, their wands, and a folded piece of parchment. Hard to believe this was all she had of them now. She traced her finger against their wands, still trying to keep up the barrier from breaching emotional collapse. She could imagine her parents firing off spell after spell, trying to fend off whoever had come to murder them. She wondered if they had been together. She wondered how long they had fought before they were captured. She didn't let herself wonder past that.

She could feel her body shaking, her passageways tightening, cutting off her air. Her fingers trembled as they picked up the parchment, and her stray tears slid over her knuckles, soaking the torn edges. When she finally unfolded it, she recognized the handwriting to be in her mother's handwriting.

Our beloved Hermione,

You are our single most precious gift in this world. Nothing in the world could change how much we love you. Never doubt this. You are our daughter. You have made us the luckiest parents in both realms.

Always,
Mum and Dad.

Hermione sunk to her knees on the carpet. She cried until her fatigue finally overtook her and she had no choice but to sink into the darkness, again an orphan, aching and helpless.

ooo

She would never get used to the feeling of being in somebody else's memories. There was an unshakeable feeling of extreme unease – she felt like an intruder and that at any moment they would see through her, despite her supposed invisibility. But it never happened.

She was transported into a dark, dusty place, crouched behind something that smelled like rotten wood. She squinted, trying to adjust her eyes to the darkness. After a few moments, she could finally make out three cloaked figures in the room, just a small distance away. They were speaking in hushed tones.

"You can imagine our surprise when we received your message." She recognized that deep and distinct voice anywhere. Now, knowing that she would never hear it again, it made her heart ache. It was her father. "But…"

"Obviously you've shown your devotion to wanting to protect Hermione," a female voice whispered, obviously serious yet perplexed. She focused her eyes on the hooded figure to the right: her mother. "And we are grateful beyond words…" Her voice trailed off hesitantly.

"You must know how this puts you in great danger," her father spoke. "We would never ask it of you or anyone else. Venitia and I – we knew from the very beginning about the risk we were taking. This is why we must ask you if you are undoubtedly sure you want to do this."

"You don't have to," her mother said. "We brought her into our lives knowing we would have to do it alone."

"I wouldn't have called you here if I wasn't sure," said the third voice. Hermione felt the hair on the nape of her neck stand rigid. She peered through the murky darkness. Suddenly, a stray beam of moonlight filtered through a small foggy window, allowing her to confirm her suspicions. Nevertheless, she still felt her breath catch. It was Draco.

Her parents nodded, understanding. She remembered how even they had known the darkness of his life. Over the years, it had become easy to guess. And yet… they trusted him.

She caught herself then. How easy it was to forget, sometimes, that she would have trusted him with her own life, too, not so long ago.

"If you're sure," said her father.

Draco said nothing, instead raising his arm. Under the faint light of the moon, Hermione watched as he rolled up his sleeve. Her mother, seeing this, did the same. They clasped hands, their arms pressed against one another, and her father enacted the spell, the interweaving bond glowing and lighting up the room.

"Do you, Draco Lucius Malfoy, vow to protect Hermione, under any and all costs, for as long as you live?"

His voice was hard, full of something she was afraid to wonder about. She clenched her fingers against the hard ground.

"I vow it," he said.

"Then it is done," her father announced. The bond faded to a dim shimmer and flickered out, pulling them back into the shadows. Hermione heard her pulse racing in her ears, taking in what had just happened. "The Unbreakable Vow. It is done."

She only had a second more to catch a glimpse of Draco's stoic face underneath his hood before she was suddenly and violently pulled out from his memory, the white noise of the time tunnel drowning out her father's voice, the scene before her falling away, back into nothing.

Please review! You know how I so love hearing from you. Does this clear anything up? Does it dig up even more questions? Let me know!

P.S. I couldn't find a reference for whether JKR already had an "occupational name" for the wizards/witches who come to collect dead bodies, so I made up Medimort. It's lame but that's because I'm not JKR.