Hey, guys! I hope you're enjoying this story. I was going to turn it into a chain, but once again, my mom went on a fanfic rampage and got rid of my notebook, so I lost all the specifics for each one. So you guys get a super long story. This chapter is gonna be kinda long, but that's cause I couldn't find a way to divide this segment into multiple chapters. Anyway, read, review, and enjoy!

I jumped, startled, as Hermione screamed.

"Hermione, it's okay!" shouted Harry. "It's okay!"

"Get him out!" she screamed, looking terrified.

"Hermione, love, it's all right, you're safe!" I tried to reason with her, reaching for her hand, but she jerked away from me when I touched her and clung to Ginny, who had gone around to the other side of the bed.

"What's wrong?" Ginny demanded, hugging Hermione.

"Get him out! Please! Get him out!" Hermione sobbed, shaking like mad.

"Okay, okay, I'm leaving!" I said, stunned. I glanced at Harry. "Come with me for a second?"

He nodded and followed me towards the door.

We got outside, and I rounded on him. "What the hell was that about?" I demanded, running my fingers through my hair.

"I don't know! I didn't do anything to her! I was with you the entire time!"

I felt the blood leave my face. I didn't do anything to her, he'd said.

My father had.

"Oh, God," I whispered. "It was him. Whatever my father did to her is making her react like this!"

"What do you mean?"

"He altered her memory. What if he put a memory in her brain that would cause her to be afraid of me? Something terrifying?"

I began to shake. That was exactly the type of thing that my father would do. "What do I do?" I asked, terrified.

"Go to Dumbledore," he urged. "Ginny and I'll look after her. Go get him, and hurry!"

"I can't, I don't know where his office is. You get him!"

"Okay, what do I tell him?"

"Just tell him to come here immediately! Wait, get Ginny first!"

"For what?!"

"I need to talk to her, and I can't go in without Hermione freaking out again!"

Harry rolled his eyes, then went back into the hospital wing.

After a few seconds, he returned, Ginny on his heels.

"Thanks, Potter. Now please, go get Dumbledore."

Harry nodded once, then took off running.

"What's going on now?" Ginny asked.

"I think my father put a frightening memory of me in Hermione's mind. Potter's gone to get Dumbledore."

"So are you going to wait out here so that you don't upset Hermione?"

I nodded. "Stay with her, and try to calm her down. Don't explain about the memory altering thing, let Dumbledore or Madam Pomfrey do that."

Ginny nodded. "All right. I'll try and keep her calmed down. What do I say if she asks what happened?"

"Tell her that Harry's going to get Dumbledore, and they'll explain everything.

"Okay. Just stay here, got it?"

"Where would I go?"

She rolled her eyes, then went back inside.

I backed up until my back hit the wall, then slid down so that I was sitting on the stone floor. After a minute or so, I let the tears flow again.

How could this happen to her? Why couldn't it have been me? This was all my fault! I should've just stayed in my dormitory the night of the masquerade! Then, I'd never have met up with her, and I would never have fallen in love with her!

Ah, but you would have kept being cruel to her, so you would have been hurting her yourself, said a voice in my head.

"Better a school bully than a Death Eater!" I argued with it.

"Yes, but you would have become a Death Eater anyway," said the voice. "And then you would have been trying to harm her like this."

I squeezed my eyes shut, pressing my fists to my forehead. "This is my fault!" I whispered aloud.

"What exactly is your fault, Mr. Malfoy?" came a voice.

I looked up to see Dumbledore.

"She got hurt because of me," I whispered. "Where's Potter?"

"This I do not know," said Dumbledore. "I received an owl from Madam Pomfrey regarding Miss Granger having been abducted, and I returned at once. I assume that Miss Granger is the 'she' to whom you were referring?"

"Yes," I whispered.

"I'm afraid I don't understand, Mr. Malfoy. Why don't we go up to my office and discuss this."

Just then, Potter rounded the corner, panting. "Couldn't… find… him…" he panted. Then he caught sight of Dumbledore. "Son… of… a… banshee…" he gasped out, clutching his side. "He's…here…already…?!"

"Madam Pomfrey owled him," I said.

"Ahem," said Dumbledore. "What exactly is going on?"

"Let me get Ginny," Potter said, starting to breathe normally again.

A minute later, the three of us were following Dumbledore up toward his office.

"How is she?" I asked Ginny.

"Still freaking out.," Ginny replied gravely.

Before I could respond, Dumbledore stopped in front of a stone gargoyle. "Reese's Pieces."

"Sir… What are Reese's Pieces?" asked Potter as the gargoyle came to life and jumped aside. "His password's always a candy," he added at my puzzled look.

"Reese's Pieces is a Muggle candy. I highly recommend it," Dumbledore said simply before stepping onto the now-visible revolving staircase.

We followed him upstairs. In his office, he took a seat behind his desk, then conjured three purple armchairs for us.

"All right," he said once we'd sat down. "Please explain."

Potter and Ginny looked at me.

"Um… Well, I guess you need to know the backstory. At the Christmas Masquerade, I asked Hermione to dance. I didn't know that it was her, and that allowed me to see her for who she really is, not for what my father taught me to see her as. At midnight, we revealed our identities to each other, and even though we were stunned, we agreed that we wanted to keep seeing each other. We decided it had to be kept secret so that no one would make fun of us.

"Two days ago, my father forced me to join the Death Eaters," I said, rolling up my sleeve and burning with shame. "I didn't want to, I swear. Anyway, I knew it wouldn't be safe for her if we kept seeing each other, so I tried to break it off with her. She wouldn't let me, and she said that it would tear her apart if we weren't together. I couldn't hurt her like that, so I agreed.

"Then, someone dragged her into the Vanishing Cabinet, and my father was at the other end of it, with my Aunt Bellatrix. They tortured her. The portrait of the three wizards playing Exploding Snap outside the Room of Requirement told me what happened. I ran to get Potter, Weasley, Ginny, and Blaise. I told them we'd been seeing each other, and what had happened. Weasley said I was full of it and took off. Potter went to get his Invisibility Cloak, and then we split up to go find her. I went with Ginny, and Potter went with Zabini.

"We found Hermione after about half an hour. Weasley was there, arguing with Bellatrix. She wanted to kill Hermione. Weasley was asking her to let him kidnap her for himself instead. She agreed, but we attacked before he could take her. Blaise and Potter got into it, and then we were all fighting. I knocked out Bellatrix, and Blaise knocked out Weasley.

"But before we could make a run for it, my father cursed Hermione with a memory-altering curse. She was unconscious until about twenty minutes ago. When she woke up and saw me, she started screaming. Then you arrived."

"Wait a moment," said Dumbledore. "Where are Mr. Weasley and Mr. Zabini?"

"I'm not sure," said Ginny. "Zabini was going to drag Ron back; he was unconscious."

"We'll come back to that. Now, as to Miss Granger's predicament… How long ago was she cursed?"

"About six hours."

Dumbledore's eyes slid shut. "I was afraid of that."

"What? What does that mean?" I begged.

"If it's a small memory, such as forgetting what you ate for dinner the previous night, it will only knock the person out for a moment. But this… He altered many of her memories."

My stomach dropped. "Wait… So did he… Did he alter every single memory she had of me?"

"How strong was her reaction?"

"I didn't even recognize her," said Ginny. "I've never seen her so terrified. She kept begging me to have Malfoy kicked out of Hogwarts, or else she'd kill herself."

"I don't want you to put more faith in me than I deserve, so I'll say it this way. I don't expect that I'll be able to fully restore her memory to what it was before she was attacked. But I'm hopeful that I may be able to restore it enough to reason with her."

"Can you convince her that I'm not going to hurt her?" I pleaded. "Or at least give her a calming draught so that I can speak to her?"

Dumbledore sighed. "Very well. I shall try, but please, Mr. Malfoy, try to remember that this will most likely fail."

I nodded. "Please, sir… Just try."

He nodded. "I will do my best."

"Thank you," I breathed. There was hope, after all.