XI.

Before he slipped through the doors and out into the growing darkness in the courtyard, Hermione grasped the mental projection of Severus Snape and embraced him tightly. She tried not to cry.

"It is good to see you, Sir."

Severus Snape was very surprised and he brushed a hand across her cheek and her lips before disappearing through the door, a tender smile she could ever imagine crossing his thin, pale lips.

"Go, Miss Granger," she heard him say, and Hermione felt the tears course down her cheeks as Severus Snape flew through the door like a dark phantom.

It took many years for her to mourn Severus Snape. She had always, always, respected him. He had been brilliant, brave, and most of all, the best teacher Hermione had ever had. It took many years for even Neville to accept why Severus Snape had always frightened him, and she knew that in Neville's mental landscape, impressions and influences of their former Potions Professor were everywhere. Neville looked at Severus Snape as the hinge that bent Neville's life toward adulthood—strength, confidence, and hope came from Neville's final estimation of Severus Snape.

For Draco Malfoy, Severus Snape was obviously a safeguard, a mentor. It made sense, given what Hermione knew now after the War was long over. The months of testimony to the Wizengamot had revealed much about Severus Snape's true character.

Hermione hesitated at the door, but then turned, feeling the cloak flutter about her ankles. When she moved, it billowed, much like it had when Severus Snape had worn it all those years ago. It made her chest seize as she thought of this, and she moved with haste from the Entrance Hall toward the stairs leading up.

She was unsure where to go, in truth, but somehow she decided to go up. Maybe it had been Corda's words seemingly an age before, a turret... There had to be hundreds of turrets and towers.

Seemingly moments later, in a narrow tower staircase, Hermione gasped as the castle shook as if hit by a tsunami and she fell to the stairs, her skull bouncing off a wall. Shaking her head to clear it, she hurried up to a small window in the tower and looked out, feeling blood dripping from her left temple. She was facing the mountain, but there was a shadow that seemed to cast mountainside in muted light. Taking the stone steps two at a time, she came to a door and grasped the pull ring. Stepping into a wide corridor, lined with windows, she realized she was in a part of Malfoy Manor with its much larger Georgian glazing.

"Christ," she murmured and moved to another window where she could see down toward the courtyard.

A massive wave of darkness slammed against the castle walls again, thousands, if not millions of hands tearing at the stone, and Hermione was thrown back from the windows, rolling on threadbare green rugs. The cloak twisted with her, and as another crash came, pulled her away as the rib vaulted ceiling began to fall. The cloak, displaying a type of sentience, had protected her.

The castle was falling apart.

Hermione rolled to her bare feet and gasped as the crashing became battering, and far below the Entrance Hall was breached. She began running along the long corridor cum gallery until she realized she was not really getting anywhere. It was like dreams she had sometimes, trying hard to reach something or someone only to be 'spinning her wheels.' It was a common theme in dreams, but Hermione never had so much at stake, never so much that had real world implications.

She stopped running and felt her mouth go dry as the corridor behind her began to collapse, revealing a cloudy and darkening sky above.

Then she noticed the door, very much like the one she had exited from to come into the gallery. As the windows began shattering, in sequence, she lunged toward the pull ring and found herself at the bottom of another stair tower. The climb was harder; the stairs worn and almost smooth like a ramp rather than a stair. It reminded her of medieval stair towers she had climbed in Verona before the accident, her bare feet managing to use small ribs in the flooring to climb.

Higher and higher, Hermione felt the castle begin to fall apart beneath her. She moved as quickly upward as she could in the impossibly high stair tower. Ignoring the fatigue that began to gnaw at the edges of her consciousness, Hermione finally came to a door; different from the ones she had passed through previous. It was a metal door with ornate carving, large…

"No!" she heard the rumbling around her vocalize, and Hermione screamed as the tower began to sway, sending her falling back down the stairs as the bricks and stones began to fall away.

She crouched on the stair, covering her head with her hands, but found the cloak had moved to form a type of barrier around her, stones and glass and tiles bouncing off the enchanted fabric until it began to rip. She whimpered as wind began to whip around her and the cloak was in tatters, falling around her body limply.

The tower was gone except for the stairs she sat on and the chamber beyond the door. The door itself was gone, the roof, the walls, and a gap stretched between the stairs and the exposed room. Another rumble and the floor the room fell away so that all that was left was an impossible pillar of stone holding up a massive throne, floating in the air as darkness swirled around the destroyed tower and turret.

Draco Malfoy sat on the massive silver throne that was version of the chairs at the High Table in the Great Hall of Hogwarts, dressed in simple clothes—black riding trousers, calfskin boots, and a white shirt sleeves. His hair was long and plaited so that it fell over his left shoulder. On his chest was a silver mask, much like the one she had been wearing and was now lost. His temple rested upon his fist as he leaned toward her, his elbow on the throne. It appeared he was napping, and Hermione blinked as she felt the stairs that once lead to the room began to sway.

Hermione dared not stand, frightened of the gulf of air between where she cowered on the stair and Draco. It caused a wave of nausea to crash through her. But far below, some of the castle remained, ruins now as tendrils of blackness wove through the corridors and rooms as if searching—no, Inquisitors searched, and there were sounds of fighting and destruction. This Silver Keep was Draco Malfoy's 'mind palace.'

The wind that moved around her was icy, and far beyond Ardoc, the blackness was complete, and pressing in on the castle while above the silvery sky shone down. Hermione had at least a gap of eight to ten feet between her and the slumbering Draco. She took a deep breath and crawled closer, to the very last step before there was only air. Maybe six feet…of course, time and distance meant nothing in the mental landscape.

"Draco Malfoy!" she shouted as the wind howled around her, drowning out her voice.

The wind rustled Malfoy's clothes and hair, but he did not stir. Instead, the blackness that was Ardoc froze, and as if hearing her shout, began to rise little by little like a flood of black ooze.

"DRACO MALFOY!" she shouted again, hugging the limp cloak around her, the wind threatening to rip it from her body.

Malfoy shifted slowly, but only the pale hand on his lap twitched.

"Christ, please," she murmured and began to work up the courage to stand. "MALFOY!"

The wind began to die down and this time Malfoy's neck strained and his temple slipped from his knuckles.

"Malfoy?"

He began to stir, albeit slowly.

Then she felt the remains of the tower stairs begin to shudder and Hermione gasped, turning her attention to the tendril of black smoke that began to climb up behind her, thousands upon thousands of hands reaching, pulling.

"Mine…you're mine…" she heard a whisper sound below her.

Hermione rose to her feet, fear propelling her.

"Malfoy, please!" she screamed as the smoke moved faster and faster until it had wound its way just within a few steps below her.

Hermione was gasping, and gathering up the cloak that was falling about her feet, she leapt with a scream.

Hermione was crying under her mask, and Neville ground his teeth as he knelt next to the bed to whisper in her ear. It was pointless, he knew, but he could not stand seeing her tears. Her chest rose and fell shakily, and the Malfoy's stood, Narcissa in Lucius's arms, watching intently.

"Damn it, Hermione, just hang on. Find the way out!" he hissed. "Please…please hang on…" he breathed, his breath rustling her hair.

Her cries were soft, sobbing, and her hands twitched. The sudden jerk of her right hand lifting from the bed startled Neville and the Malfoys, but when Draco Malfoy lifted his left hand, reaching out, quickly followed Hermione's and Narcissa swooned.

"What is it?" Lucius hissed and Neville jumped to his feet, going to the parchment.

…ego…Draco…found…

"She's found Draco, but I don't know anything more…" he said as Lucius maneuvered his wife to the chair and sat her down, drawing his wand from his sleeve to Conjure a damp handkerchief and began to wipe Narcissa's clammy face. She came around as both Hermione and Draco Malfoy's arms lowered slowly to the bed again.

Neville checked the telemetry. Hermione was in duress, and Draco Malfoy was beginning to fail. The alarms would sound at any moment and Neville knelt next to the bed again.

"Find him, and bring him back, do you hear me, Hermione? And then bring yourself home!"

For a fleeting moment she felt as though she could fly, that she would be able to grasp the silver throne and haul herself toward Draco Malfoy. Fleeting moment was it ever.

Physics, no physics, the world of Draco Malfoy's mind could not seem to decide what to use, but this time, Hermione began to fall. Her jump was ill gotten; she knew it even before she did it. She would not ever make the height from her position below the throne, and her strength was diminished. Hermione did not count on the swirling blackness of Ardoc to catch her again, but she knew that she would rather die than to fall into the clutches of that part of Draco Malfoy again.

Maybe she would just fall and fall, forever. Or maybe, like the manifestation of Narcissa Malfoy, she would slam into the ground and be torn apart by force and gravity. All the same, it did not really matter anymore.

She had failed. She had come so close only to fail.

The cloak around her body fell away, fluttering on the wind away from her skin, leaving her utterly exposed. A flash of light blinded Hermione as she flew and she closed her eyes and waited for the impact to come.

Except it never did.

He had caught her by the right wrist, timed perfectly so that her feet and body dangled over the void. When she opened her eyes, he was staring down at her, his eyes like silver orbs in his head, unnatural. He did not lift her to safety, but studied her face, pale brow furrowed, his pale lips pressed into a tight line.

"W-what is this?" he said softly, and at the sound of it, the wind, the rumbling of Ardoc, everything went still.

Hermione winced, the pain in her shoulder very real.

"Mal-Malfoy…" she stuttered.

He lifted her slightly, his strength otherworldly, so that he could stare into her face. His eyes only swept over her naked body, and slowly his mouth softened into a grin. "I know you, don't I?" he said.

Hermione groaned softly as she felt the bones in her wrist begin to crack. "Y-yes…" she hissed.

The silver eyes blinked slowly and the pale head cocked to one side, considering.

"I could drop you," he said softly, "and get back to my rest…"

Then Draco Malfoy yawned, lowering Hermione slightly, his free hand going to his mouth and then rubbing over his face.

"No…no, please!" she cried and moved her legs to try and find purchase at the base of the throne and the ruined stone floor.

Draco stood taller, stretching, irritation marring his face. "Stop squirming or I will drop you…you…Granger."

Hermione froze at the sound of her name, and met his eyes. He was smirking.

"I know you…"

At those words, Hermione gasped as she was lifted up, and then fell against Draco Malfoy as he sat down on his throne with her in his lap. He held her with one arm about her shoulder, the other hand grasping her chin to force her to look at him.

"You can help me get out of here, can't you?"

She blinked, feeling his breath hot on her lips.

"It-It's why I came…" she whispered, unable to look into his strange eyes, but looked at the mask on his chest—a mask exactly like Corda's.

When he kissed her softly, Hermione closed her eyes again, her palms against his chest. It was in that kiss, so gentle, so sweet, that she realized that the light that had blinded her when she jumped had been Corda.

Hermione pulled away, eyes wide. "How…? But…" she slurred.

The silver orbs were Corda's, and in Draco Malfoy's kiss she knew that a part of him was back in place. But it wasn't done, it wasn't enough.

"The spell nearly destroyed me when I cast it, you see, splitting my mind into its three parts. I…" he trailed, his arm pulling her tighter against him even as the darkness that was the missing piece rose a like a wall of darkness before them.

Hermione tried to look at the swirling blackness, but Draco forced her to embrace him, burying her face against his shoulder.

"I don't know how to get him back in. Corda, whatever part of me that he was, came back willingly, naturally, the moment he saw you were falling. It woke me, it reminded me…" Draco said softly as the high keening noise Hermione remembered from the dungeons began to sound all around them. "With you here, an interloper or a Healer, means you might know what Ardoc is…"

Hermione pushed back hard and looked at Draco/Corda.

"You shouldn't have cast an untried…" she began, unable to finish, knowing it was pointless to scold Draco Malfoy.

He had no way of knowing what would happen, not really, and she could not entirely fault him for experimenting. The payoff was substantial for a new Charm, or Curse, but…

Hermione sighed even as the darkness crept nearer, causing every tiny hair on her body to stand on end. She had to get out, she had to wake up, and she could only see one way.

"He wants me," she said, shifting in Malfoy's lap. "He is all impulse and desire, darkness and fear. He is you, the base you that came into existence when you were born…"

He seemed to shudder under her palms. "I don't want him," he whispered even as a shape began to materialize in the smoke, floating like a specter before the throne.

"But you need him."

Draco held her tighter, if it were possible and lifted his chin. "He would hurt you, Granger…"

Hermione sniffed and looked back into the silver eyes. "It alone, yes…but if you compromise…"

Draco Malfoy frowned. "What do you…" he trailed and slowly he sneered, reminding Hermione of the boy she knew from years before. "If I want out, if I want to wake up, I have to take him back in… And if you want out, I have to give in to what he wants…"

Hermione nodded, as the keening grew louder.

"He won't go back in willingly…"Draco sighed

"Compromise," she said over the loud keening and suddenly she found herself ripped from Draco's arms as a tendril of smoke wrapped about her neck and pulled.

She had urinated, and Neville quickly Vanished the traces before the Malfoys noticed. Her heart was pounding, but faltered, and Neville Summoned the Muggle hypodermic and phial, catching both in his free hand.

Malfoy was making a strange noise, and his parents knelt at his side across the bed from Neville. He had warned them not to touch him and not to move him, no matter what they believed might be happening. Malfoy had to wake voluntarily.

Hermione, on the other hand, was dying.

He used his teeth to pull the cap from the hypodermic and stuck it into the glass phial. It was a drug like Ritalin used to stimulate waking, experimental, of course, but affective. It would force Hermione out, but Neville was not sure what the consequences would be…

Her heartbeat was irregular; her chest rising and falling in fits and starts. Brain waves were abnormal, and her incontinence meant there was damage being done somewhere. Neville pulled the plunger out on the hypodermic and went to his knees, grasping Hermione's arm, but paused before inserting the thin gauge needle.

If he lost her… There was no one else. He would be alone, rudderless. All the work they had done would mean nothing if she were gone, and he…he would never forgive himself for every allowing her to enter Malfoy's mind only to lose herself.

She couldn't breathe, but she could see.

"No!" Draco Malfoy shouted at Ardoc, standing from the throne, his tone authoritative, like a father scolding a child. He stretched out a hand and as if Summoning it from thin air the silver katana appeared in his pale hand. "You will not…"

Hermione try to grasp at what held her by the neck only to claw at air. She kicked and struggled even as she saw Draco/Corda fly from the silver throne, the force of the movement toppling the remnants of the tower. The nebulous manifestation of Draco Malfoy's id began to fight with the rest of him, and Hermione's vision began to dim.

When she felt her body begin to fall again, she neither knew nor cared if she would die.

Arms caught her in the dark, and she heard the shouting of Draco/Corda and Ardoc distantly. She wished with every bit of her soul it was Neville that caught her and she was just about to wake up…

She had told Draco/Corda to compromise. If Ardoc were allowed to have what he wanted without such a compromise, Draco Malfoy's mind would disappear, along with the impulse and desire to possess her. She would disappear too and Ardoc did not seem to understand—he was all instinct. Reasoning with that side of Draco Malfoy was not impossible, but it would have to be approached in terms the id would understand. Pain or pleasure, life or death.

Then there was the actual fruit of a compromise—her. Ardoc wanted her body, and possibly her soul…

There was an explosion around her, or what she thought to be an explosion, and the arms that caught her, seemed to wrap around her several impossible times—like Devil's Snare.

She thought she screamed but heard nothing, her eyes burning with blinding light, and the twining of fetters or arms, covered her eyes and face. Hermione was engulfed; it was the only word for it, engulfed in darkness and constraints. Something was carrying her, and something was laying her down as gravity reasserted itself. It reminded her of her most vague dreams of dark comfort, softness, warmth, and the press of a living body against hers…and of that place, the forest and bluebells.

"Compromise," a voice said all around her, coming from every conceivable angle about her body. "Means I can have you…and means I can wake up from this nightmare…would you do anything to wake me, Granger?"

The constraints were gone and Hermione found the light begin to rise around her like stage lighting signaling the next act. Her body was clothed in a thin sheath of gold gauze, leaving nothing to the imagination. She was in Draco Malfoy's bedroom, the white one she and Neville had walked into seemingly a lifetime ago. The room was where Draco Malfoy had slept like a version of Sleeping Beauty. The bed she lay upon was soft and warm, and the comfort of it eased her body. Sitting up, she found Draco Malfoy, the Ferret Prince, sitting at the foot of the bed, a golden mask spinning over his palm—her golden mask.

"You can't go anywhere without this, at any rate…" he said softly and Hermione reached out toward it, frowning.

He looked different, she knew, a roughness to his features, his body bigger than she knew it to be in the waking world. His silver mask was perched on the crown of his head the way Corda had worn his mask. But his eyes were different, not silver orbs any longer, but gray with what seemed to be blown pupils, dark and unsettling.

"Give me…" he began, but Hermione moved, flying toward the floating mask.

Draco moved out of the way, one hand pressing against her right shoulder to hold her back.

"Granger…" he growled in warning. Then, gentler: "You…you should know that I've seen it…"

Seen what, she wanted to ask, but somehow she knew when he flicked his wrist and the mask went floating to a spot high above the bed, somewhere in the white canopy over the immense bed, out of reach.

"Your life, your ordeals, and, though I had not meant to, some of your dreams."

Hermione winced as something stung her left leg above the knee, and looking down, found that her leg was gone…again. Draco's unusual eyes moved to the stump and Hermione felt a mixture of sympathy and disgust coming from him.

"How is that possible?" she asked aloud. "HI does not work that way…or it shouldn't."

Draco sighed and shrugged, shifting on the foot of the bed.

"I won't tell…won't tell your Doctor Longbottom how you really feel about him. And I won't tell anyone how you feel about me…"

Hermione opened her mouth to retort, but Draco Malfoy rose on the bed, and slowly began to undo his vest. He was dressed, Hermione recognized, very much like Corda had been, right down to the pleated hakama that was untied and allowed to fall in a puddle of fabric in what she assumed was a floor around the bed.

"Give me what I want," he whispered, moving his plait to his other shoulder. "And I will let you go…"

His body was magnificent, and as Hermione's eyes moved over his features, found it idealized and in no way real. His skin glowed faintly silver, his body defined by musculature that made his form substantial. She would not look further than his navel, and turned her eyes away.

"He could rip free again, Granger, and I don't think I could convince him to return, he's pushing against the insides now…"

He meant Ardoc.

Hermione closed her eyes, slouching on the bed, her hand going to her stump.

"I know you have…" he trailed and Hermione felt him move near, over the bed, so that his breath was on her face. He moved to kneel behind her, and slowly cool hands moved to her hair, Vanishing pins so that it fell about her shoulders heavily. "…you have wondered about me. You have dreamt about me in the past…"

"Naturally, Malfoy, I would have…you are a part of my past, my memories, though our lives diverged long ago," she whispered.

Hands pushed her hair over one shoulder, and lips traced along her neck.

"And now, with what you've seen, what you know…I've piqued your interest?"

Hermione opened her eyes as the light around the bed grew dim and pinpricks of candle flames lit the space. It was oddly melodramatic, but Hermione said nothing, and kept her hands still on her amputated leg.

"You find me abhorrent, at least, part of you," she whispered.

A hand skimmed down her spine and then around to her ribs.

"Not at the moment, Granger," he whispered. "Now let me in…let me…" he whispered, his right hand pinching her chin and turning her head so that he kissed her soundly. It was different than before, it was hot, it was…thrilling.

And it was consensual, she decided. Draco Malfoy had always, even as children, fascinated her. The boy was a mess of conflicting ideologies and bigotry, but as a teenager, after seeing him at Hogwarts that last time, she thought different of him. He was a victim as much as any of them…Harry, Ron…Neville. And when the Malfoys walked away from Voldemort, together… All those years trying to take care of his family, even going as far as risking his own life…

He would not let her leave otherwise, and she was feeling a heat growing in her belly at his kiss. Draco Malfoy was a novelty, that was all.

It isn't real anyway…she thought.

The golden sheath pulled away like glowing yellow cobwebs as Draco ripped own the back of the cloth to move to press kisses along her spine. When he laid her down on the bed, his lips kissed her collarbone, between her breasts and down to her navel. His hands stroked and plucked until it ran down to her thighs.

Hermione whimpered as his lips and breath bypassed her core and went down to her misshapen thigh. She opened her eyes and looked down at her body as he gazed back up at her before planting a kiss just above the puckered scars of her leg.

"I'm sorry this happened to you," he whispered and Hermione shut her eyes.

Draco Malfoy had changed from what she had known about him, and when he rose up to kiss her mouth again, her hands lifted to cradle his face. A part of her loved him in that moment. There was at least one part of Draco Malfoy she had no issue loving, the other was a stranger, and the last frightened her.

Slotting his thighs between hers, Hermione felt his arousal for the first time. It throbbed and scalded her, but when he stroked himself against her, Hermione felt her own arousal wetting her flesh.

"I'm sorry you had to be one to suffer to save me."

Hermione met his eyes as he pushed a curl from her face. She kissed him softly, shifting her hips against him, and he growled into her mouth.

He broke the kiss and peppered her face and neck and chest with small kisses and bites until his mouth latched on to her center, aggressively licking and sucking until Hermione wailed.

Draco Malfoy lapped at her body until she came, her fingers tearing at his hair. It had been so long since anyone had put their mouths against her most tender of flesh. It had been a very long time since a man insinuated themselves between her thighs and pressed a large head of a penis into her body. The stretching and rending was only momentarily uncomfortable, but Hermione felt the delicious fullness she remembered from her dreams. The sensation was so satisfying that by the time Draco thrust into her establishing a very hard, deep rhythm, Hermione was nearly undone.

She could only gasp and look up into his handsome face, the silver mask still in place, while his hair fell free of his braid and spill over his wide shoulders. He did look like a prince, a silver god. His teeth and jaw were clenched as his hands went to her face and kissed her deeply.

Thank you… thank you…

It was a whisper, and then the kiss turned rougher as did his thrusts until Hermione turned her face away and began crying out. She felt as if her insides were molten gold being tempered with every thrust, formed into something like an idol to him in her very soul.

"Hermione…Hermione…" he whispered in her ear, but it was not Draco Malfoy's voice, it was another voice, one she longed for, one she loved. She turned her face to gaze up at the source of the voice only to see the golden mask that had been floating all the while above her, begin to descend over her face. When the metal touched her cheeks, blocking out all sight, her back arched and she sobbed her completion…

…and cried out for Neville.