As the door shut, the three of them ran over to her bed, Hermione tried to sink into the sheets and disappear. "What happened?" was asked of her in several different ways, several times over. Hermione put her head in her hands for a moment, embarrassed at being in bed with her ankle propped up.

"How did you all know I was here?" She asked a question of her own.

"We saw Hagrid carrying you, then he saw us in the hallway after he left and told us you fell and hurt yourself." Draco seemed the most level headed of Harry and Neville to say anything; they were both staring at her ankle.

"It's just a broken ankle!" She said exasperated. Draco scowled at her.

"You have to be more careful, dammit!"

"Language, Mr. Malfoy." Madame Pomfrey suddenly snapped. She had returned with gauze and a stretch of cloth in her hand. She sat at the foot of the bed and gingerly started to wrap Hermione's ankle.

Draco had the decency to look guilty for a moment before he looked back at Hermione expectantly.

"I was running through the forest," she said in a whisper. Madame Pomfrey had already heard her story, but Hermione some how figured that if she whispered to the boy's, they would understand the need for secrecy, without her actually having to tell them.

"Someone had hurt a unicorn, and was standing over it, feeding...something. I don't know what-I didn't see, but I told them to stop. They turned around to look at me, they were wearing a...a death eater mask." Hermione chewed her lip for the varying levels of alarm that crossed their faces. "The...thing that was eating the unicorn ordered the person-a man-to kill me, so I ran. Hagrid found me after I fell."

"What was Lockhart thinking when he assigned you to detention in the Forbidden forest? The bloody idiot!" Harry hissed, and they all noticed that Madame Pomfrey didn't say anything against Harry's word usage. In fact, she didn't say anything. The students exchanged a glance.

"Hagrid had said that he needed someone to go with him into the forest to find the injured unicorn, Professor Lockhart had no idea what was really going on." Hermione defended, simply because she couldn't believe that Lockhart was anything other than an arrogant and incompetent professor. Madame Pomfrey finished wrapping Hermione's ankle. Madam Pomfrey handed Hermione another goblet, this time with water inside and Hermione drank it down quickly, the taste of the other potion was still in her mouth. Hermione offered the cup back to Madam Pomfrey, who took the glass and straightened her supplies onto the tray she had brought over. She then picked up the tray and walked off. The four of them leaned in to continue talking.

"Who do you think it was, in the forest?" Neville asked quielty. Hermione shrugged slightly.

"It would have to a be a teacher, wouldn't it?" Harry wondered aloud. "The forest is part of Hogwarts. No one can get inside, not if Headmaster Dumbledore doesn't want him to."

"As much as I want to believe no one could get into Hogwarts without Headmaster Dumbledore's permission, I don't want to believe it was a teacher. What if it was one of the older students?" Hermione suggested instead, several of the seventeen year old boys were tall enough to fit the profile of the person she saw in the forest. Whatever the...thing was that he had with him... Hermione didn't want to know what it was.

"I'm going to write my parents about this." Harry said quickly, he wrapped his arms around Hermione and whispered, "get better soon, okay?" Hermione acquiesced with a nod of her head. Harry smiled faintly and then left the hospital wing. He had a snowy owl, Hedwig, that his parents had gifted him during his first year at Hogwarts, of course once Rose started school she was allowed to use her as well. Hermione imagined him calling to Hedwig through a Gryffindor tower window instead of going to the owlery-she knew that Harry hated the smell of the owl quarters.

Draco distracted her from her mental image of Harry wrinkling his nose while standing around piles of owl droppings. Hermione giggled faintly, which caused Draco to check her temperature with the back of his hand.

"Hermione? You feeling okay?"

"That'll be the sleeping draught I gave her," Madam Pomfrey announced with an all-knowning smirk. Hermione frowned for a moment, but the yawn that wracked her then was so powerful that it threatened to un-hinge her jaw. Draco understood the inevitable and guided Hermione by the shoulders to lay down. As soon as her head hit the pillow, she let out a very un-Hermione snore.

Madam Pomfrey dismissed the two remaining boys.

With the map unfurled onto his bed, Draco leaned over it, eyeing the blots still moving around. Professor Lockhart was the first person he checked, he had been in his chambers and remained there still. Draco assumed he had turned in early and gone to sleep, after the Dueling Club meeting that Hermione had missed serving her detention. Luckily, she hadn't been scheduled to duel, so she was still in the runnings for Champion, though Draco wouldn't allow for her to win it again this year.

He didn't notice anyone doing anything out of the ordinary.

All the professors were in their rooms, stationary. The Head Boy and Girl had rounds that night (they had already 'investigated' an empty classroom for twenty mintes') and the prefects were wandering the corridors of the fifth, third, and second floor as well as the dungeons. No one was out of the ordinary.

Draco rubbed his eyes and as he glanced back at the map, as he was closing up the many folds. He came across a name that at first he thought it was a prefect, but the prefects in the dungeon had already left. He leaned in closer to examine the walking name banner. It was in one of the dungeon corridors, heading for Snape's private store of potion ingredients. "Barty Crouch Jr.?" Draco murmured under his breath in question. The name was familiar, but he couldn't remember where it had come from.

He had been looking at the map for nigh on four hours. It was well passed midnight. Draco tapped his wand and said the practiced mantra, "Mischief Managed." The ink disappeared from the map and once again appeared to be nothing more than a bit of parchment. Draco still often laughed at the absurdity of it all. He wasn't even close to the Weasley twins, yet those two chose him over their own brother, or Harry Potter. He rolled his eyes as he tucked himself in for the night.

Having to remain in bed was absolute torture for Hermione Granger. She had never gone so long without doing anything. She had a few books to read to pass the time, but the hours still seemed to drag on. Headmaster Dumbledore had dismissed her assignments for the week, so she didn't even have school work to do! She had read her textbooks already, but without having a paper to write, or starts to chart, or a potion recipe to memorize Hermione felt like her brain was slowly unraveling.

Draco came by to see her the most, and when he did she demanded details explanations about what they went over in their classes, especially Ancient Runes. Hermione was already well ahead of the runes they had started working on, so she had only groaned in frustration. She wished, again, that Draco had signed up for Arithmancy like he had said he was going to do this year, so she could ask him about that. She had no way of knowning what was going on in the class during her absense. She was going crazy.

Draco brought her treats from the kitchens as well, and plenty of it, so Hermione never ended up needing to ask Madam Pomfrey for food, because Draco spent all the meals up in the infirmary. Harry came by to see her as well, but only after dinner, because Draco had warned them all that she had only been trying to pick his brains about classes.

The worst part of having to stay in the infirmary, however, was having to stay in bed. Madam Pomfrey had put some sort of binding charm on her so that if she even turned sideways to put her feet on the floor, she snapped down into a prone position and couldn't move until Madam Pomfrey came around and let her up; after a stern lecture, of course.

Five days went by in a repetitive droning way. On the sixth day, Hermione was allowed to start putting pressure onto her ankle, but not get out of bed completely, but at least she didn't get yelled at for sitting up properly. That day, Draco brought up a chess board and they played a few games of wizarding chess. The sixth day was also when she got a very angry note from her parents for not telling them about breaking her ankle.

She felt absolutely ashamed about it! She hadn't even...thought to send them a note. Professor McGonagall had messaged them about the injury and how the school had never intended her injury to happen while she was serving her detention (another thing they didn't know about), and that they were deeply sorry. Because of her injury, Hermione had been excused from the week of classes to heal from the injury (a very clean break of the ankle- a common muggle injury). Professor McGonagall hadn't meant to get Hermione into trouble, the Head of Gryffindor had figured she had sent word home about her injury the first night in bed, but Hermione hadn't. If her parents were magical, Hermione no doubt would have gotten a howler instead of a long and heated letter.

Her parents were disappointed mainly. Of course Hermione knew why; she had gotten into trouble and had 'hidden' that from them, and then she got injured and didn't tell them, because she could have either lied about the reason for the injury, or admitted to getting a detention. Hermione didn't do it for THAT reason.

Of course she neglected to tell them about the detention because she served the punishment the day it was given (in the muggle world a detention was given but generally assigned for the next day.) It had all happened so fast!

Another thing, she had realized while reading the letter, was that she hadn't told her parents about her injury because she didn't want to tell them the whole truth. She didn't want to tell them that the reason why she was running was because something had ordered a very dark wizard to kill her. Her parents wouldn't have taken THAT well.

Finally, she decided the only way to keep her parents out of the complete loop, was to go along with what they supposed. She didn't want them to find out about her detention.

She wrote in reply a three paged essay about the error of her ways and her regret in how she handled the situation. She also really drove home about how having to sit in bed for an entire week without class or even homework to do was absolutely punishment enough.

She re-drafted her essay three times before she sent it back via Keema.

"Professor Lockhart?" Hermione had been given the OK to return to her classes, after spending a week off of her feet, and had been so eager to return to her classes, she wanted to speak to each of her professors to make up the work she missed-even though Headmaster Dumbledore had excused her, and her missed assignments wouldn't affect her grade at all. She had already spoken to the rest of her professors, all of whom had expected her request for her coursework.

Professor Lockhart had been on the way to his classroom, a sweet from the kitchens in his hands, when he was caught by Miss Granger. The man in the lilac robes faltered in his steps at his name but soon composed himself and turned with a beaming smile, to face the fourth year girl. "Yes?" He asked, his voice attempted to be inviting but seemed forced.

"Sorry to bother you, Professor. I have been out of class for the passed week, given my broken ankle-" He interrupted her at that point with a raised hand.

"Yes, we are all very aware of the story of you falling during my detention and breaking your delicate ankle." He snapped, his expression dangerous. Hermione held her hands up immediately, though honestly she didn't know why.

"I'm not accusing you of anything, Professor. I know you had nothing to do with it!" She said it hastily.

"Yes." He blinked, "yes of course. What is it you wanted? An autograph?" The gear he shifted to brought a smile to his face and she tried to reflect it, but her mind was reeling.

"Erm, I was just wishing to get any assignments I missed?" She asked, her hands clasped imploringly.

"If someone were to cast the Imperious Curse, what would be the effect?" He asked with an arched brow.

Without skipping a beat, "they would control your body and could have you do anything they wished. It is one of the three Unforgivable Curses..." She seemed uneasy as she answered these.

"Yes, and what of the other two Unforgivable Curses?" He asked as he folded his arms across his chest. Hermione glanced around them.

"The Cruciatus Curse causes immense pain upon the person cast upon, the level of agony depends on the caster. The Killing Curse does what the name suggests...Professor, those spells are illegal. You didn't perform them in class?" She asked, a weird weight sat upon her chest.

He broke into a very Lockhart-style smile and laughed a little, "Of course not, silly girl. Yet I teach Defense Against the Dark Arts and those three curses are among the most evil spells there are, wouldn't it then make sense for me to inform my students about their existence?" He asked. Hermione nodded faintly. Yes, that made sense. They are evil spells, and he was supposed to teach them how to protect themselves against it. The fact of the matter was that there weren't any defenses with those spells. That was why they were Unforgivable. Hermione knew that, and she knew Lockhart knew it. He smiled again.

"Consider your absence made up, Miss Granger." In a flurry of his lilac cloak, he was off down the corridor.

The aurors were situated around the dining table in the Black family house. Sybil was also present, with a dozing Cissa in her lap. James and Sirius looked most disturbed after the letter from Harry.

Of course Dumbledore had also notified them, as well as the auror office at the Ministry. It seemed the Death Eater activity was back. Everything had been quiet the past two years, with no new arrests made. It seemed as if that absence of activity had led up to this. James removed his glasses to rub his eyes.

"A Death Eater is not only within the grounds at Hogwarts, but is also close enough to the school that a student serving detention came across them?" Kingsley Shackbolt, the senior auror and director of the division (the only person above James in the office) asked as he looked over both letters. Hermione Granger had been a name he had heard from James, as being a very bright girl that was very skilled in dueling, who was an interest as an auror trainee when she came of age...was the one that had broken her ankle while running from the death eater that had been ordered to 'kill it.'

No one was brave enough to say what everyone else was thinking, yet somehow everyone just...knew...that everyone was thinking the same thing.

"Yes Kingsley," Lily murmued, her chin in her hand, "a unicorn had been injured and...it was being..." She didn't want to say it. No one wanted to.

"Unicorn blood saves someone from death, yet curses them in the process," Alice spoke up. Everyone nodded.

"For the murdering of an innocent is the ultimate evil..." Frank continued.

Siruis slapped his hand down on the table in frustration, "Why don't we just say it, then?" He demanded, "Why don't we stop wasting our time with coming up with a lie?" He continued, his voice rising. "It's Voldemort! He's found a way to survive and someone is keeping him alive!" He growled out the last bit. No one moved. No one but Cissa breathed.

"That is...possible." Kingsley finally allowed. He cleared his throat, but the tension was still there, "it is a possibility. You-Know-Who was so involved with the Dark Arts, maybe he found a way to sustain his life after his body was destroyed by Snape's killing curse." He paused as he finally accepted the weight of it all. "Then this means we need to get to Hogwarts Immediately. We need to get to the bottom of this."