Author's Note: Well, this is the longest chapter yet, capping in at 6,459! I was planning on posting last night, but with this huge storm, a power outage, and the belief that I could squeeze in just one more scene, changing the plotline of this chapter immeasurably, I just didn't quite finish in time.

But you know what they say. One witch's wart is worth two galleons in gold.

And two galleons in gold is worth one review, I'm told! ;-)

GRIFFINS AND SLYTHERINS

Neville Francis Longbottom wasn't good at many things.

He wasn't the best in any of his classes, he wasn't the brightest in their year, and he wasn't the favorite of their teachers. He hadn't been picked to be Gryffindor prefect, like his dad. He hadn't even tried out for Quidditch captain, like his mum. He hadn't bothered to put his vote in for captain of the Gobstones Team, like his gran. And he decided that running for president of the Chocolate Frog Card Collectors—like his Great-Uncle Algie had done at his age—wasn't something to achieve for.

He was plain. Simple. Ordinary.

Until he joined the D.A.

When Neville joined the D.A. in his fifth year, something remarkable happened. Neville felt wanted. Needed. Like he deserved the wand he held in his hand. Being part of the D.A. last year was the best thing that had ever happened to Neville.

At first, he just couldn't get anything down. He needed tons of help, and Harry didn't have time to give him one-on-one. But when Bellatrix and the Lestrange brothers escaped, a fire within him that he didn't even know he'd had, had been ignited. His parents' lives had been ruined, thanks to them. His Gran's life had been ruined. His life had been ruined. And so he had made a vow to do more than his best. To work harder than everyone else so that when the time came, he would be able to defend himself.

Because of his fervor and determination, he skyrocketed in classes. He was third to do a nonverbal spell, after Ron. He was the second to accomplish defensive spells, after Hermione. And he was the best caster of the Patronus Charm in their school—barring Harry Potter, of course. And Luna Lovegood, oddly enough.

When he first tried to get this spell down, it had taken him weeks of practicing. That first lesson that Harry taught about Patronus Charms—the one during which Umbridge had found them out—Neville couldn't get it at all. All summer, he practiced. He tried happy memories: visiting his parents in the hospital, winning the Gryffindors the House Cup in first year, seeing that he hadn't killed Harry during the second task after all...but none of it worked. Until he tried the feeling he got while he was in the D.A.

And that is how the silver badger became his guardian.

"Expecto Patronum!"

"Very good, Neville!" said Harry, walking over to the other Gryffindor. It was Sunday morning, and the DA was practicing hard. The badger Patronus frolicked about Neville as he stood beaming. "Now listen. I need you to teach Alexandra Rosier how to cast the spell. She came in late and missed the demonstration—"

Neville turned white at the thought of teaching someone. "I don't think—"

"You're ready, Nev. I know you are." Harry lowered his voice so as not to be overheard. "Don't think I haven't noticed all the progress you've been making...especially since what happened in June. You were one of our best assets there, if not the best. And now it's time for you to teach others what you know. You're ready."

It took a great amount of courage as Neville squared his shoulders before walking over to the fifth-year Alexandra Rosier and corrected the way she held her wand.

Not as much as it takes to fire curses at Death Eaters, of course, Harry watched him with pride. But he's gaining confidence. If there's any good that came out of the Department of Mysteries, that's it.

He looked around the Great Hall at the students practicing, whisps of Patronuses around them. Hermione was helping a fourth-year Slytherin in the corner, her own flourescent otter curled about her shoulders. By the dais, Ron was trying to show Lavender, who hadn't quite got it down last year. Her shrill giggles reached Harry's ears across the room. The rest of Dumbledore's Army was scattered abroad, watching out for anyone in need of help or correction.

If anything were to happen to any of them, Harry could at least take solace in the fact that they knew how to cast the Patronus Charm.

Now, here's hoping they don't ever have to.

With aching muscles, Hermione collapsed on her maroon-covered canopied bed, too exhausted to take off her clothes and slip into some night things.

The D.A. lesson that day had been grueling, and she was just now feeling it. After the Patronus Charm had been demonstrated, Harry asked her to help a newcomer with their reductor curse and, needless to say, they didn't need help anymore. It only took Blaise Zabini one try before he blasted her back beyond the scattered cushions and twelve more feet into the wall. She now had bruises on top of her bruises...though he looked properly contrite.

Not only that, but Hermione had just come back from midnight patrol with Ron, and it was nothing short of torture. Ron wouldn't look at her, he wouldn't talk to her, he wouldn't even walk next to her, he just stormed ahead of her in stony silence.

Several times she apologized to him, pleaded with him to look at her, but it was like asking a healthy jobberknoll to speak.

His silence and his glares cut right through her and Hermione wondered forlornly if their friendship was truly over this time. She simply couldn't live with herself if it was.

Sighing, she kicked off her ankle boots and tucked her tight-covered toes into bed, shimming out of her outer cloak, tie, and vest, and undoing the top buttons in her school shirt for comfort.

But worry about Ron meant sleep evaded her, even as tired as she was, and well after midnight Hermione finally had to give up. She sat up in her bed, pulling the nearest book closest to her and setting her wand on minimum light.

It was Harry's mum's diary. Harry had given it to her at the end of classes, eyes never leaving hers as he discussed its importance.

"Listen, Hermione. I just got this back from Snape. He looked like he was sucking on a lemon, but he gave it to me just the same. I was going to sit down and just start reading it, but...look, I...I want you to…to...that is, would you mind terribly..."

"You want me to read it first and make sure there are no portions that are too revealing or too personal, or that might be hard for you to read?" Hermione finished for him, smiling warmly. "I'm on it, Harry."

He wouldn't stop staring at her, relieved that she understood him. But trying to wrench that book out of his hands was worse than wrestling The Monster Book of Monsters.

Hermione fingered the gold embossed letters on the cover before turning it open, breathing in the familiar, welcoming scent of the pages. She truly loved starting a book for the first time.

Settled, curled in bed, snug in her covers, Hermione read on into the night.

Until she came across something that completely shocked her.

The fire roared in the Gryffindor common room as Harry and Ron lay, half-thrown, on the couches, slouching against the cushions, their limbs flung about haphazardly.

It was evening. Dinner had just ended, and as much as the two boys hated their homework, they both had three feet due the next day on the dangers of transfiguring body limbs and why it was outlawed.

Harry dipped his quill into his inkpot and chewed the feather end absent-mindedly as he thought about what next to say.

A familiar-looking book slammed down in front of his eyes.

Startled, Harry looked up to see Hermione's grave face, mouth drawn in a line, arms crossed.

"Wha…"

"Hestia Jones is not who she says she is!" Hermione said dangerously.

Harry's jaw dropped. His feet, which had been resting on the coffee table beside his scrolls, clunked to the floor. He felt like Hermione had just poured iec water down his back.

"What do you mean, 'she's not who she says she is'?" he demanded.

Beside him, Ron had been practically upside-down on the couch, his legs draped over the back of it, and his books scattered around them on the floor. In his haste to right himself, he knocked over his own inkpot all over his Transfiguration book.

"What the hell, Hermione?" Ron roared, trying to clean up the sopping black mess, but just making it worse.

"Oh, please, like that's my fault," she retorted, already gearing up for a fight in her foul mood. "Ron, if you didn't do your homework like an upside-down sloth, you wouldn't be bumbling around making messes with your oafish feet. Harry, she has been lying to us this entire time!"

"Like hell she has!" Harry snapped, sitting up and capping his own inkpot before Ron could spill it too. "Jones has been here for us this entire time! There's no way she's working for—"

"How would you know? You've only known her for a month!" said Hermione. "Oh for goodness sake, Ron—"

She whipped out her wand and cleaned the mess up for Ron, before he made the carpet stains in the rug worse.

Then her attention turned back to Harry, and he regrettably wished it hadn't.

"Look, see, this section here?" Hermione turned to a page and shoved it under Harry's nose. "Read it."

Harry did, scouring the page for any wrongdoings. He couldn't find any, however. All Jones was saying was that she wanted to come to Godric's Hollow and visit Lily, but it was her mother's birthday and Jones would have to wait till the next weekend.

"Er…"

His curiosity getting the better of him, Ron read the passage over Harry's shoulder. "What are you on about?" he said when he was done. "So what if she was going to go visit Harry's mum?"

"That's not the point! The point is, Hestia's mother was dead by this point. Who in the world throws a party for their dead mother?"

Her words, although innocent in their own wording, struck Harry.

"If I could throw a party for my dead mother, I would," he said lowly, anger building up in his core at Hermione.

"That's not what I mean, Harry. In here she is acting like her mother is alive, but we both know her mum died before she left for Hogwarts. And that's not the only inconsistency, look—"

"How d'you know she's not talking about Lily's mum," Ron asked hotly. "This wording could have been about either of their mums. It doesn't mean Jones is false."

"But there are a dozen other instances! Look here, January 27, 1980, 'I can totally tell what you mean when you found out you were having a boy! It was quite the surprise to find out I was a witch, I know it isn't quite the same thing, but life certainly is full of surprises—'" Hermione broke off reading, looking at them all triumphantly. "See, this proves it! She was pureblood, wasn't she, so why would it have been a surprise that she was a witch? There's something she's not telling us. She lies constantly throughout this whole book, and—"

"I didn't give you this book so you could analyze it and use the people I am close to against me!" Harry finally snapped, snatching the book from her hands. "So what if she was surprised? Her parents could have been Squibs, for all you know! Or maybe she didn't have any wild magic when she was little. Or maybe they wanted to send her to Durmstrang instead of Hogwarts. That doesn't mean she is evil!"

Their voices were getting louder, and it wasn't too long before they were the only ones in the common room, as arguments always tended to make others scarce.

"Oh please, Harry, you just don't want to admit that she could be because she talks to you about your mother," Hermione said scathingly. "You told me yourself at the start-of-term on our way to the castle that you didn't trust her! Perhaps it was your instincts, or your scar even, you know how it twitches when Voldemort is close—"

Ron laughed in ridicule. "What, you think she's hiding You-Know-Who under that leather hat of hers?"

"You won't be making fun when you think she's taking us on a Hogsmeade outing when she's actually leading us straight to Voldemort," said Hermione, furious at him.

"Just because every other Defense professor we've had has been dark, Hermione, doesn't mean she is too," said Harry, rolling his eyes. "There's no need to get hysterical just because she doesn't share with you her every little secret."

"Hysterical?" Hermione snapped. "So just because I'm worried for your safety against yet another professor that Dumbledore has hired who is actually trying to kill you, you think I'm behaving just like...like a useless, stupid girl?"

Alarmed, Harry put his hands up in self-defense. "Now, don't go putting words in my mouth, Hermione. You know I'd never call you that."

"Well, I think if the broom fits, then ride it," Ron muttered under his breath with a sneer.

It was the wrong thing to say.

"Ron! That was completely uncalled for!" Hermione said, tears spilling out of her eyes. Harry was too annoyed at her to currently care. She whirled on Harry. "I don't know why I tried to warn you of her intentions, I should have known neither of you would listen to me! You never do!"

Furious, Hermione shoved against Harry as she tried to go around him and the couch. She forgot her strength, however, because Harry lost his balance and fell against the coffee table. As if time had slowed down, he saw his inkpot tip over. The lid he hadn't screwed on very tight just popped right off, and black ink poured furiously out of it.

Right onto the open pages of his mother's diary.

Horrified, the three teenagers watched as the ink completely ruined every single page of the book, then rolling off the book and seeping into Harry's nearly-completed essay as well.

Ron's jaw dropped open. Hermione gasped, her hands flying up to her mouth in shock.

And Harry...Harry, who'd lost his mother when he was only one...who was told by his aunt his whole life how horrible she was...who had nothing of his mother except his own eyes and one scrapbook to her name…

Just stared as the one thing he had been given that was truly hers was completely and heartbrokingly destroyed.

Before he ever even had a chance to read it.

The horror on Hermione's face was evident. But it did not match the horror, or the loathing, on his own.

"Harry, I—"

"Get. Out."

"But I—"

"GET OUT!" Harry roared.

He didn't know if she obeyed. He didn't care.

He collapsed on the sofa, head in his hands, and couldn't stop staring at the black, inky ruined book before him. His mother's handwriting had long since disappeared beneath the irreparable darkness.

Now he would never get to read what she'd written. Never be able to know what she was like, what dreams she dreamed, what wishes she wished, what goals she had. Now he would never know what she thought of his dad, what jokes he may have told her, whether he hugged her every morning, or kissed her before bed.

And now he would never know what it felt like to hear his mother writing about him, know when she first knew that she was pregnant with him, felt him kick inside of her for the first time, know what she was feeling when she gave birth to him. Or when she saw him for the first time...

And Harry knew….he would never, ever forgive Hermione for this.

A week passed.

A week since Hermione ruined Harry's last chance at getting to know his parents. A week since Harry last spoke to Hermione, last looked at Hermione, last cared about Hermione. Both Ron and Harry completely ignored her, even with her many administrations of apologies.

What she had done to Harry...to Ron...was unequivocally unforgivable.

As September came to a close, Ron followed Harry and the rest of the sixth-years to the entrance hall for their next Care of Magical Creatures class, Harry taking great care to avoid Hermione.

Ron wasn't so kind.

It was with a furiously pounding heart that Ron shoved past Hermione as his long strides took him down the stairs. He knew he unbalanced her—maybe that was the plan—but he didn't care. She just made him so mad, and she invaded his every thought as it was. Ron didn't think he had ever been this enraged with her before. The fact that she'd ruin his chances like that—that she'd even blame it on him—that it was HER bloody boyfriend that screwed Ron over—that Hermione thought so little of Ron that he couldn't fight his own battles...and that didn't even count what she had done to Harry.

He just...he couldn't think of her anymore.

Hagrid met them at the oak front doors. Their indoor quizzes were done, and they were all rather excited to be getting a normal lesson again. But instead of leading the sixth-year N.E.W.T. students to the paddock right outside his hut, he led them to a long building behind the three greenhouses.

"We're havin' a special lesson today," Hagrid explained in his rough brogue. He was beaming from ear to ear. "In the Menagerie. Ain't none of you kids been here before. On account of the creatures in here, on'y teachers an' you N.E.W.T. levels are allowed."

None of the students had been in this building before, as it was strictly forbidden and the doors were always kept locked. As they entered, Ron could see dozens of cages on either side of them, housing auguries, ashwinders, crups, doxies, diricawls, mooncalves, mackled malaclaws—

Seamus grinned and reached into the cage of one of these, but gave a yelp as the big red claws snapped at his finger.

"This is where most of the creatures are kept that I show ter yeh kids," said Hagrid, taking them down another row of cages. "Can' very well keep 'em all in the Fores', can we?"

These ones were much bigger than the last, holding a phoenix, a bicorn, even a dozing occamy; while other paddocks were guarded by heavily locked doors. Ron swore he saw fire coming out of one.

And at the end of the very last row was a griffin.

The class breathed in awe and excitement when they saw the large creature sitting peacefully on its haunches in the corner of its stall. Harry was staring at it transfixed and even Ron, who had grown up knowing of their existence and even seen one before at the Magical Zoo in London, couldn't help but notice how shiny the long brown feathers gleamed in the dull light; how the eagle eyes, perched above the long six-inch beak, stared shrewdly at them; how the lion's paws curled cat-like under the enormous folded wings.

Hagrid began talking, telling them about where griffins usually lived, but for once Ron wasn't paying attention. He already knew everything there was to know about griffins. For years they'd always been a secret favorite of his. Those odd-looking hippogriffs in third year didn't even cut it close.

When he was eight, Dad bought him a book on griffins and for endless nights, Ron poured over it, reading by candlelight under the sheets when he was supposed to be asleep. It was the first big book his parents had ever seen him read and they praised him for it—something the twins didn't forget for a while.

But although he had seen them before, although he had read about them before, this…this was ten times better. He'd never been this close to one. And he'd definitely never had one stare at him like this, either…

The griffin slowly unfurled its wings and stood up. Now in the light, its feathers appeared golden, mixing in perfectly with the fur on the hind legs and rump. At its full height, the griffin's beak only came to Ron's chest, but the way it held its head up, the way it looked down its long beak at them all, proved just how majestic it was.

"Now!" finished Hagrid, rubbing his hands together. "Who wants ter pet Goldeneye firs'?"

Ron was underneath the rail and inside the paddock without even knowing he'd moved.

"Excellent!" boomed Hagrid.

"Ron!" hissed Hermione behind him. "What are you doing?"

He ignored her.

"That griffin's been staring at Ron since we came in here," Harry muttered to Neville.

"Oh, joy," said Nott. "Now we get to watch the bloody griffin eat the weasel!"

There were some titters, but Ron heard none of this. He slowly stepped towards the great griffin, his blue eyes fixed on the sharp predator's own amber ones.

"Now, remember with griffins, the trick is ter kneel in front o' them, not bow. Hippogriffs and griffins both like ter feel high an' mighty, but make sure yeh keep eye contact when yeh drop ter yer knee," said Hagrid.

The room grew very silent when Ron took his last step towards Goldeneye. For one long moment, boy and half-bird stared at each other without moving a muscle. Ron was so close he could feel the breath coming out of the creature's two nostril slits.

And then Ron lowered himself into a kneel, his left knee dropping onto the bone-strewn floor.

In that second, Ron knew why knights and kings in the olden days wore griffins on their shields and why they were forbidden to hunt the large creatures. It was said that one couldn't tell a lie in front of a griffin; their feathers today were the main ingredient in truth potions, in fact.

But it was more than that, Ron realized. It was like…like looking into their eyes, you could tell that they just knew. What it was that they knew, Ron had no clue, or even how they came to know it. But whatever it was, had to be so powerful that one could tell simply by looking into a griffin's eyes just how wise they really were.

How long he knelt there, Ron didn't know. Goldeneye glared down at him for several minutes, not moving. Then he cocked his head and broke the eye contact as he swiveled his head around to dig into his wing feathers as if scratching an itch.

As soon as the griffin's eyes left his, Ron blinked, dazed. He felt rather like he was coming out of a spell. Or like he drank one too many sips of his dad's Firewhisky.

Goldeneye's head came back around again, but in his beak he held a large, golden feather, and Ron knew it was for him. He reached out and took it, tentatively rubbing the griffin's beak as he did.

"You and I are best mates now, aren't we, Goldy?" Ron murmured, low enough that no one else could hear him. Ron's fingers explored the crown of Goldeneye's head, finding the nerve that made the griffin trill low in his beak, eyes closed in pleasure.

Now to tell Harry I'm replacing him…

All through Ron's free break, he couldn't stop thinking about his newfound friend. Even Nott, Wilkes, and the other Slytherins making kissing noises and rude comments about Ron and the griffin didn't perturb him. Malfoy, oddly enough, wasn't even with the other Slytherins...nor did he make fun. But Ron scowled at him anyway as he watched him slink away.

And as they worked on the homework assigned (two feet on how griffins have been driven almost to extinction), Ron took to it with a fervor he never directed at their classwork.

For the first time, Care of Magical Creatures had become the class that everyone looked forward to. After that lesson, Hagrid stuck to griffins for the next few weeks.

On the first Friday of October, he led Goldeneye out into the paddock beside his cottage where he had kept Buckbeak back in third year. The girls squealed in anticipation when he told them they could all ride him, and Ron alone spent twenty minutes in the sky with him before they came back to earth.

"We'll be doin' runespoor nex'," said Hagrid loudly as the class ended. "But nearin' November I've got a real surprise for yeh! Eh, eh, not tellin' yeh now, Patil, so yeh'll jus' have ter wait. But I'm gonna say this—yer gonna be all fired up once yeh see it!"

He chuckled at his joke as Ron and Harry hung back to talk to him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ron saw Hermione hesitate as the rest of the class headed back up the rocky hill.

He knew she wanted to listen in to the conversation, and he knew she wanted to talk to Hagrid as much as he and Harry did. But he also did not want to care.

Maybe now she's learning her lesson on what being a good friend is like.

For a split second he saw her vulnerability as she bit her lip and watched him apprehensively. And in that second, he saw in her eyes just how much she missed him.

Ron allowed himself to feel concern for her in that one second.

But Harry was not so obliged. She was to blame for everything that was wrong. And it was with this that Harry sent Hermione a look so poisonously construed that it could have stopped Nagini herself and turned her into stone.

Hermione's face crumpled, and she turned around and trekked up the long, winding, boulder-strewn path by herself.

Ron shoved the guilt away faster than it came, and turned back to Harry and Hagrid's conversation.

"So," he interrupted, forcing a grin from ear to ear. "Fired up, eh? Does Dumbledore know you'll be showing us a dragon, then?"

Hagrid hastily shushed him. "Don't go sayin' it aloud! Yeh'll ruin the surprise! And how'd yeh know abou' tha' anyway?"

"We guessed," said Harry simply. "So it's true then?"

"Yeh three are smarter'n yer own good," Hagrid grumbled. "Speakin' of, where's Hermione?"

"Er..." Harry glanced at Ron.

"Oh, don' tell me yer arguin' with her again. Some silly squabble abou' pets innit?" said Hagrid sternly.

"No!" said Ron and Harry, affronted. They interrupted each other in their haste to list her offenses.

"She hexed McLaggen because she thought I was going to lose—"

"—she completely ruined my mother's diary! I never even got the chance to read it—"

"—she nearly kicked me off the team—"

"—not to mention she keeps accusing Jones of stuff—"

"—she never keeps her stuck-up nose in her own business—"

"—three feet of essay in Transfiguration that I'll never get back—"

"—she always thinks she's so bloody right all the time—"

"—three feet—"

"—and she's just so bloody infuriating—!"

"ALL RIGH'!" Hagrid shouted over the din. "Merlin, forget I asked. Yeh both're actin' like a pair of scorned Veelas…"

"Well, why don't you try putting up with her…" Ron muttered. "She'd prolly lose you your job just like she lost me me spot on the Quidditch team. I almost didn't get it back!"

"Ah, I heard abou' tha'," said Hagrid. "If I were you, I'd be grateful. She cares enough abou' her friends to get in trouble like tha' for 'em. Yer lucky to have her, is what."

"But she hexed McLaggen—"

"An' almost got expelled for it, I heard. Tha's friendship for yeh, riskin' expulsion to protect one she loves."

It was Harry's turn to accuse.

"But she ruined my mother's book—"

Hagrid wasn't one to be without advice. "Aye, truly I am sorry abou' that. I reckon she is too. People make mistakes. Forgive an' forget, tha's wha' I always say..."

"But she thinks—"

"Wha' she thinks shouldn' matter, should it? If yeh two hadn't noticed, we're in the middle of a war! This ain't no time to be fightin' over who hurt who an' who did wha'. With them bloody dementors let loose, and You-Know-Who's army buildin' up, I'd think friendship's more impor'ant than all tha'. After all, yeh never know if summat migh' happen," Hagrid grumbled. "Did yeh two forget already abou' tha' Death Eater chasin' yeh and cursin' her?"

"No….but…."

"No need teh argue with me! I've said my piece. Now yeh two need to be gettin' to yer nex' class, I'll not be holdin' yeh up. Jus' remember what I said. She's a keeper, tha' one. You'd best not be lettin' her get away," said Hagrid, signaling the end of the discussion.

Hermione wiped her eye angrily as she made her way up the steep, rocky path that led from Hagrid's cabin to the castle. She had hung back after class, wanting to talk to Hagrid with the boys as well, but Harry shot her one withering glare stating that she wasn't wanted.

She knew she made a mistake—she knew she hurt his feelings—she understood why he was feeling this way… but she just couldn't handle him and Ron being livid with her any more. Every look Harry sent her cut her to the bone. Every time Ron spoke was like a knife in the heart.

Have I always felt this way? Or is it just since…

The image of Ron waiting on her, almost hand and foot, when she was in the hospital wing after the attack on the Hogwarts Express when she woke up with bloody eyes was melted permanently into her mind. He'd been so kind and sweet and thoughtful then. She wanted that Ron. Not this one that was...almost another being. This one just thought she was the scum of the earth, the most horrible person on the planet…

The Mudblood Queen of the wizarding world.

More tears stung her cheeks but she didn't bother wiping them away, the revolting feel of that word still echoing in her mind.

Their voices grew farther away as she trudged up the steep, boulder-ridden hill. The rest of her classmates were long gone, having run back up to the castle because of the coming rain. Above her, the sky was darkening, threatening to spill at any second.

It looks like we'll be getting yet another downpour….

She had just rounded the last boulder on the top of the hill when she stopped, tense—

Someone grabbed her hair and yanked her back, hard—

All at once, her back was slammed into the boulder. Hermione opened her mouth to scream, but another hand clamped over it.

"Make one move, Mudblood..." whispered a voice menacingly into her ear, "And I will stick this wand so far inside of you that you will beg for death."

She struggled, but the boy was too strong and held her fast. She tried to hit him, but he just held her arms against the rock with one arm. She tried to kick him, but he was pressed so close to her body that she couldn't move. Her bag fell to the ground amidst her efforts and rolled down the path she had just climbed, her books tumbling out as it went.

Panic. Panic and fear, panic and fear...

"Get her wand—!"

It wasn't until she heard this last that it occurred to Hermione Granger, brightest witch of her age, that she even had a wand. She dropped it before a blond sixth-year called Wilkes could wrestle it from her. It rolled away from them and down the path, following her books.

Better left behind as a bread crumb than in the hands of that slimy snake.

There was another voice in front of her, and she realized with dread that she and her captor weren't alone.

The guy holding her gripped her body, dragging her around so she could see around the boulder, his one hand covering her mouth and his other arm wrapped tight around her waist, pinning her arms there.

Then she saw Theodore Nott was moving towards her, a smile growing on his pallid face.

"Hello, Granger," he said, tossing his wand up into the air and catching it before pointing it at her. "Just the witch we wanted to see."

Hermione couldn't think. As if from a murky substance, she saw words that seemed to be her thoughts.

She silently muttered a string of curses in her head that Ron would have been proud of.

Not good. Not good, not good, not good. I'm alone with the Slytherins. I don't have a wand. Ron and Harry aren't here. I'm missing my Ancient Runes class, and now I'm going to flunk it, and I'm going to be expelled, and I wanna go home.

Her panicking ended in a whine, and she would have thought it funny if it weren't for the wand trained at her.

"You don't act so high and mighty now that you're wandless and bookless, do you?" sneered the one holding her. "You're the Perfect Prefect no longer. You deserve to be taken down a peg or two. No teachers to impress now, just us nasty Slytherins..."

He was right. Not only did she see Theodore Nott, but to his right was Earl Wilkes, one of the boys Ron said attacked him on the train. To his left, of course, she could see none other than the white-blond hair of Draco Malfoy. He was standing with his back to them, however, leaning against another boulder sullenly.

And pressed against her, still holding his disgusting hand to her mouth, was—

"Urquehart, let her speak," Nott commanded, and looked thoroughly pleased when his fellow Slytherin did as he told.

The minute his grimy fingers left her mouth, Hermione opened it to scream again, but Urquehart's hand moved into a chokehold.

"Don't even think about it," hissed Wilkes, coming closer. "But then again...why don't you? That would only make them come faster, and that's what we really want after all. You're only the bait."

It didn't take a genius to figure out he was talking about Harry and Ron, and this knowledge quickly wiped any fear out of her mind, replacing it with anger.

"This is your ingenious plan to get them to come to you?" she asked in derision, trying to keep her voice from wavering. "What, did they run out of brains at St. Mungo's when you were born? They aren't going to come for me. Haven't you heard the gossip spreading around the school? I pissed them both off. They couldn't give a pureblood's arse about me."

Not smart...not smart, not smart...why are you baiting them? And where are these curse words coming from?

Nott gave a little growl.

Great, that was real witty of you, insulting the one who's got his wand trained on you. I have an idea...why don't we just ignore them? That will solve everything. Ignore them, don't talk, and Harry and Ron will come and save you once they're done talking with Hagrid, so...just ignore them.

Ignore them, ignore them, ignore them...

Hermione wondered briefly if she sounded this annoying to the boys every time she kept up her mantra in the past when the Slytherins insulted them.

"He's the one with the score to settle," Nott said, jerking his head back at Malfoy, who still didn't move. "I'm just the...instigator, if you will."

His last sentence would have made him sound more mature if he hadn't been smirking when he said it, she noted. But she disdained to converse with him—she knew who the real instigator was.

"What's the matter, Malfoy? Not your usual crowd, is it? Why'd you replace your two henchmen?" she asked, her voice getting stronger, and her words sounding rather similar to Ron's.

Similar to Ron? Of all people, you're following his example in arguments? Quit baiting them, and take your own advice for once!

Baiting them seemed to be working, however, for after her remark Malfoy finally turned around. "Shut up, Granger! You don't know what you're talking about."

He walked over to them. But instead of heading towards Hermione, he stopped beside Nott. Malfoy's face turned away from Hermione, but she still heard every word he said.

"Don't screw this up, Nott," Malfoy hissed. "The Dark Lord wants Granger and Weasley!"

Hermione's heart froze in fear.