When Hermione Granger curled up on a cushion on the floor of the vanished room and fell asleep with Draco Malfoy's arm around her waist and his face in her hair, she had complete confidence that he would not fall asleep himself. He did as well. He meant to enjoy being near her, letting her rest until just before curfew, when he'd nuzzle her awake and send her to her dorm. But as he lay against her in the dark, the sound of her steady breath, the slow rhythm of its rise and fall against his chest, was like a spell, sending sleep like an enchantment out of her and into him.
It was her who woke up first, checking her watch by the light of her wand, clucking her tongue once she saw that curfew was long past.
"Malfoy," she muttered. There was no point in getting angry about it. And perhaps it would yield something nice for her after all.
Draco was sleeping obliviously next to her. Unconscious like this, maybe he'd mistaken her for Ronald, and that was why he'd turned his back to her.
This was not to be borne.
In the small space between Draco's back and the castle's stone wall, Hermione rolled off her back and onto her side. She pillowed her head with her own bent arm and pressed her cheek into the hollow between his shoulder blades. His breathing grew momentarily louder at her touch, but he slept on.
His body was much larger and longer than hers. She knew it from standing next to him but the effect was different as she lay beside him. With slow care, she dropped her arm over his, reaching up and across his back and shoulder, her wrist coming to rest at his elbow. The experiment seemed to demand that she make the same measurement with her leg. She wasn't sure where her shoes had gone, but she didn't fret over it as she extended her sock-foot over his hip and down the length of his leg as far as she could reach. Sure enough, her ankle came to rest at his knee.
Their proportions were mismatched, but perfectly so. She grinned into his back, nestling closer. Her hand on his arm trailed up over his elbow, onto his bicep, over the dome of his shoulder and back down, tracing the contours and definition of the lean muscle beneath his cotton shirt.
In his sixteenth year, he was well beyond boyish gawkiness, taking on a more mature bulk. The realization made her foot itch to track up and down his leg, feeling the contours there too. But her rational mind spoke back to her impulses, telling her this was too much of a liberty to take with a sleeping person, even one she'd been snogging for months.
In a strange mix of satisfaction at having explored him a bit, and a complete lack of satisfaction at not exploring more, she sighed into his spine, resigning herself to dealing with the bad situation they were in, out past curfew with her separated from her dormitory by the alarm Umbridge had set on the entrance to Gryffindor Tower.
She would wake him gently, withdrawing her hand from his arm and stroking the well-groomed hairline at the nape of his neck. He shivered at the touch but settled back into sleep again.
"Constant vigilance," she mouthed against the back of his neck.
He twitched, moaning softly.
She propped herself on her elbow, bending to blow lightly against the curve of his ear.
He swiped at his ear with the back of his hand before letting it fall back, limp against his cheek.
Finally, she called him out of sleep in a sweet voice, chastising him, but with the trace of a laugh. "Malfoy, you didn't stay awake."
His steady breathing crashed into a gasp. "Granger?" he said, looking over his shoulder into the dark.
"Yes, I'm still here."
He swore. "Curfew?"
"Missed. By at least a couple of hours."
He swore again, rubbing at his eyes now. "Sorry."
Hermione hooked an arm around his shoulders, pulling him backward, trying to roll his face toward herself. He didn't let her turn him, pulling his knees into his chest. "Wait a bit," he said.
"Wait? What's wrong?" In the moonlit room, she frowned over his shoulder.
He gave a low laugh. "Nothing. It's just that I'm very, very pleased to wake up with you. But I'm also a gentleman."
"Gentleman - oh." Her eyes widened with understanding. After a moment of silence, she laughed back at him. "Fine, Malfoy. Say no more," she said, sinking her chin into his shoulder. "Sorry."
He reached a hand behind himself in a blind attempt to pat her knee that was more of a thigh grab that didn't help matters at all. "Don't be sorry, Granger. It's not your fault. It's not mine either, frankly. Involuntary, really - "
"I said, say no more."
"Right," he laughed. "Not one more word to the prim perfect princess."
She punched lightly at his shoulder. "I never said it was anything inappropriate," she said. "It's just nature, science, biological science. Not all that big a deal really - "
"Well it is between me and you," Draco interrupted. What he wanted to do was acknowledge that what was building between the two of them, while they were still so young, was risky and real and needed to be approached carefully, respectfully. What he said was, "Gentlemanly - that's how I was raised, mad and hypocritical as my family may be. Looks like when it comes to being a gentleman, my father intends for me to do as he says, and not as he does."
She bowed her forehead against his arm. "Try not to judge him too harshly for Ronald's paternity until you hear him out properly. It's not fair to him, or Mrs. Weasley."
"Or her husband or my mum," Draco finished. He was moving to face her, talk of his father's complicated family life driving all lust away for a moment. He blew his breath out, ruffling her hair and pulling her close. "I'm not sure hearing dad out is something I'll be able to do for a long time. Especially not with the Lestranges and who knows what else in the house."
At the mention of his return to his now very dangerous home, Hermione murmured a tiny protest and rubbed her nose against his neck.
"What I do want you to know," he said, lifting her chin, "is that, no matter what kind of a creep my father may be, I'm not after luring you into dark corners to sleep with you."
Her eyebrows lifted. "You mean, even though that's what we just did?"
He sputtered. "You know that - that's not - "
She kissed him quiet. And she felt safe enough, and still curious enough to push him a little further. She slid an arm under his, her hand gripped around his shoulder from behind, before she leaned back, tilting both of them in her direction. She wasn't strong enough to force Draco, nor would she want to, but she hoped to signal to him that she no longer wanted to lie side by side as they kissed. She wanted to be on her back, with Draco above her, covering all of her. She had measured his arms and legs against hers, and now she wanted to measure his weight, his gravity pushing her down.
He misread it, assuming she was falling over, and he over-corrected, pulling her hard in his direction. She used the momentum to boost herself on top of him, her ankle clamped around his leg to pull her on top without parting her legs too widely and offending the gentlemanly ways he'd only just professed.
It was still too much. A grunt sounded in his throat and he broke away from her kiss. "By the stars, Granger." His hands were on her hips, holding her body still.
Her tone was concerned. "Am I heavy? Am I hurting you?"
He gave a low laugh. "No and no."
"Don't you like me up here?"
He scoffed. "Yes, very much."
"Really?"
"Yes, of course, Granger," he said, frustrated. "There's no need for us to argue about that. I mean, I could prove it but - "
"But you're not your father," she finished, sounding like a skilled barrister who'd just got her witness to make the admission she was waiting for. "You are your dear, noble self. You're in command of your desires. Even in a situation like this, you're not taking advantage of my," she wriggled slightly against him, "my innocence. You're lovely."
He was laughing again, bracing his hands on her to keep her motionless. "I'm also only human. And it's time we got you safely home."
There was no way to get Hermione back into her dormitory but to trip Umbridge's alarm. When she first installed it, the aim was to catch people sneaking out more than alerting her that someone had sneaked in. Protecting Gryffindor from other houses was not Professor Umbridge's concern.
"It's going to make a terrible racket though," Hermione whispered to Draco as they crept along the halls, cloaked in disillusionment spells. "Umbridge herself might appear to investigate."
Draco snorted. "At this hour? No, she'll probably send Montague. But by the time he gets up here, you'll be in bed, like an innocent."
She huffed. "I am an innocent. You've seen to that. I do worry what my roommates may say, seeing as my bed would have been empty when they turned in."
"They'll just assume you were downstairs, sleeping cheek-to-cheek on the sofa with Ronald again," Draco said, his tone slightly bitter.
Hermione pursed her lips. He was right. And if she told such a story, Ronald would corroborate it to protect them.
They parted at the top of the stairs, Hermione making her way to the portrait hole slowly to give Draco time to make it back to the unalarmed dungeon dormitory door before Montague started storming through the corridors hunting for loose Gryffindors. The fat lady snoozed in her frame, feigning sleep even as Hermione spoke the password. Keeping her eyes closed was her way of avoiding being questioned if anyone came demanding to know who had been coming and going through her portrait after hours.
As the door closed behind Hermione, and she dashed up the stairs to the girls' dormitory, the alarm began to wail. She barely managed to dive beneath her covers before Lavender and Parvati were tossing in their beds, annoyed, and calling out for someone to shut it off. Hermione shimmied out of her uniform under her covers. That was the last time she'd let Draco Malfoy promise to wake her up for anything.
All of Gryffindor house was tired and cranky in the morning, everyone complaining about the alarm in the night. They were slow in arriving in the Great Hall for breakfast in the morning, causing a bit of a jam at the entrance. Ronald and Hermione were waiting, hand in hand, to get inside when Professor McGonagall called Hermione out of the queue.
"In my office, Miss Granger, if you please."
It had to be about the alarm. Would Umbridge be waiting there too, the way she had been when Harry got banned from quidditch? Hermione looked back pleadingly at Harry and Ronald as she followed McGonagall across the hall.
From behind her desk, Professor McGonagall stirred a drop of honey into her tea and cleared her throat. "Anyone who has ever served as head of a house at Hogwarts knows that breaches in curfew occur so frequently that strict discipline of them could occupy our time completely."
Hermione's eyes still roved the room, watching for Umbridge to spring out. "Yes, Professor. Terribly bothersome, I'm sure."
McGonagall hummed. "What you may not know is that, though we do not investigate every infraction, the dormitory is nonetheless charmed to report students being absent after curfew. Professor Umbridge's alarm on the door is redundant, useless, and shows her ignorance of the Hogwarts castle and its ways. Every head of house knows when curfew has been broken and uses his or her personal judgment to decide what constitutes a breach egregious enough to be bothered with. And you, Miss Granger, have committed just such a breach."
She sipped her tea and set in down without so much as a clinking of porcelaine.
Hermione bowed her head. "I'm sorry, Professor, it was completely my own fault - "
"You are very lucky the Slytherin prefects Professor Umbridge sent to search the corridors found no trace of you or of Draco Malfoy - "
"Draco Malfoy?"
"Yes, Miss Granger, both Professor Snape and myself noted two students reporting back to their houses roughly three and a half hours too late. I'm not one to boast my own brilliance but you may be sure Professor Snape is clever enough to have put together what happened. You were out late last night in the company of Mr. Malfoy - not the Malfoy you hold hands with in my class, but the other one."
It sounded so awful to hear McGonagall's voice saying it that way. Hermione couldn't possibly explain herself. She tried anyway. "Ronald knows about it. He's pretending he's dating me to hide me and Draco from his parents. If they knew, they might send Draco to Durmstrang."
"I can't say I don't see the wisdom in that," McGonagall said. She might have shuddered as she considered Hermione and Draco together. She quickly composed herself, saying, "However, your social life is not nearly as much of a concern of mine as is your safety. Flouting the orders of Professor Umbridge could bring great peril to yourself, Hermione. This is not what anyone at Hogwarts wants for our star student in her OWL year. That you weren't discovered and subjected to some outlandishly inappropriate punishment was a stroke of luck we dare not count on in the future."
Hermione had been nodding fiercely, "Yes, Professor. It will not happen again."
McGonagall seemed satisfied and was dismissing her. Hermione was standing to leave as it hit her. "Professor Snape," she blurted. "He knows about this too?"
"Of course he does," McGonagall said, taking up her tea. "He will deal with it as he sees fit. Which, since it's Draco, should not be too harsh. Off you go, Miss Granger."
At the end of classes that day, nearly all of Gryffindor house was slumping back to the tower for a nap. Harry Potter was the exception, trudging toward Snape's dungeon office instead, unprepared for another lesson in Occlumency.
It was utterly inconceivable that lessons with Snape could get any worse. That was what Harry was thinking up to the moment he opened the door to find Draco Malfoy already sitting in a chair in front of Snape's desk.
Malfoy looked a little shaken, like he'd just had a fright. Hermione had warned him that Snape already knew they'd been late for curfew together the night before. He would have been more upset about it if he hadn't realized a secret like that was bound to be revealed eventually while Snape challenged him with Legilimency in their lessons.
"Don't fret too much, Granger. He was probably going to have it rooted out of my memory by this afternoon anyway," Draco had said as they stood together behind a tapestry earlier.
"So does this mean Bulgaria for you?" she had whispered to him.
Draco had sighed. "I don't think so. I think Professor Snape has something he wants to gain by having me go home as a spy. He needs me for something he can't do himself. I don't think he'll tell my parents. But he will be cross."
Cross he was, raving over his desk at Draco about one more secret they had to keep the Dark Lord from finding out when they met in a few short weeks. "Not only will you be hiding your sympathies for the Order, but your infatuation with a Muggle-born girl."
He didn't even know about the secret of Ronald's paternity. Draco kept quiet as the reprimand went on.
"Of all the careless, reckless - "
This is what Snape had been saying just as Harry knocked at the door. It meant he was even less happy to see him than usual.
"Close the door, Potter," he snapped.
Harry glared at Malfoy as he came in, feeling sicker the longer Malfoy stayed in his seat, looking like he did not expect to be dismissed.
"Sit down," Snape said, summoning a chair so its legs scraped across the floor with a sound that made both boys wince. It came to a stop when it collided with Draco's chair.
Harry shrank away from it as if it was cursed. "What's he still doing here?"
Snape's head snapped up. "You will call me - "
"Sir," Harry hurried. "What's Malfoy doing here, sir?"
Snape stood up, swooping from behind his desk. "Somehow, Potter, the prospect of having your mind infiltrated by myself is not - motivating enough for you. Accordingly, I have recruited Mr. Malfoy as a supplementary Occlumency partner for you."
Harry sneered. "Malfoy doesn't know Occlumency."
Snape let his hand drop to Draco's shoulder. "True. He does not. But he will. And he will master it before you - unless," he stepped away from Draco, "unless, Potter, you finally find the resolve to keep him out. Now sit."
Harry fell angrily into the chair at Draco's side, skidding sideways hard enough to separate them by almost a ruler's length.
"Review for Mr. Malfoy the theory portion of our lessons, Potter. Tell him what the mind is not."
Harry sighed noisily but said. "The mind is not a book. It is not text to be easily flipped through and read."
This was exactly what Snape had taught Harry, but he looked faintly disgusted at the answer all the same. "What is a better comparison then?"
"I dunno, Sir."
"Try, Potter. Reflect on your experiences. And look around this room, at the magical instruments here. There is one that is very like the form of memory in a mind." Snape was bent over at the waist, his eyes level with where Harry's would be if he could bear to look at him.
As Harry fumed and tried to force himself to think of an answer, Draco began to speak. "Sir, I see you have a Pensieve there," he said. "It's related to memory. Is it like memory as well?"
Snape stood upright, giving up on Harry. "Yes, Draco. Excellent. In a mind, memory is something like a Pensieve. It moves with currents, tides, floods, and ebbs. When we occlude our minds, we do not work to keep them closed, like some Muggle's book. We seek to move the mind's currents with purposeful, masterful dexterity against the invader. When an intruder comes, like a riptide through the mind, we calm the storm, divert the flow, or raise a storm of our own, one of such ferocity nothing can be seen or heard."
Harry snorted. "Might've been nice if you'd told me the same before we started," he muttered.
"Pay attention, Potter," Snape said. "And get up."
Both of the boys' chairs flew backward, leaving them scrambling to find their feet. If they hadn't been magically trained quidditch seekers, certainly they both would have fallen.
"Now," Snape said, nudging them to opposite sides of the room. "Potter, as you are more practiced in this art, you will attempt to storm into Draco's mind. Draco, you will call upon the substantial gifts of your ancestors and resist - "
Harry scoffed. "My family is gifted as well. Especially my Muggle-born mother. Or hadn't you heard, Sir?"
"Which is precisely why your abject failure to learn Occlumency is so very shameful," Snape finished.
Draco was stunned. He had seen Potter sassing Snape in class but this was beyond anything he'd witnessed between them. Whatever they'd been doing down here during these lessons, it had brought them out in full, unconcealed hatred for each other.
Snape was stepping out of the way, clearing a path between his students. "You may begin when ready, Potter, with the incantation "Legilimens." Draco, there will be no need for you to speak. You may use your wand to deflect, not to destroy. Begin."
It was like the dueling club from second year all over again. Harry scowled through the open space at Draco. His eyes were narrowed behind his glasses, just as they had been years ago. But Malfoy's wand was held in front of himself instead of behind his head, as he used to hold it.
"Given up Daddy's fighting stance?" Harry sneered at him.
"Quit stalling Potter. What's wrong? Can't perform without an audience to show off for, just like your own Daddy? Not that you'd know firsthand."
Harry bared his teeth and shouted. "Legilimens."
The impact was indeed like a wave, but not a wave of water - more like light, or the electricity that ran through the Grangers' walls. It was powered by rage, pain, and Draco felt tugging at the moorings of his memories. They were spilling out. Up came Snape, scolding him in the office before Harry arrived. And then there was Hermione, on top of him in the vanished room. It was an image not only of what she looked like, shadowy and hovering over him, but the way she made him feel.
Draco's own rage responded to the invasion of what was sacred to him. It came as a wave of his own, massive and roaring through his mind, capsizing Harry's invasion like a tiny rowboat. Or so it felt. The truth was that Harry was withdrawing on his own, out of respect for Hermione's privacy.
Their senses returned at the same time, each of the boys shocked to find themselves back in Snape's office, still on their feet, sweating and panting, still on opposite sides of the room, their wands unused.
"You can't show him that!" Harry growled at Draco.
"He already knows!" he snarled back.
Harry snickered. "Of course he does, you weakling. Substantial gifts of your ancestors, my arse. You're rubbish!"
Draco gripped his wand, holding it in front of himself like a knife, about to slash. "Shut up and come again!"
The wave rose over Draco once more. He was less startled this time, able to stay afloat, to divert it, using his will to let something harmless bob up, flowing over Potter's invading craft. It was an early memory. In it, Draco was standing on the lawn of Malfoy manor, watching the sky.
Potter dived into the current, looking for pain or grief in the memory. He found it. In the sky above, just returned from the chaos of visit to the Weasleys was Ronald, six years old and flying a broom even though Narcissa had told them they couldn't have lessons for another year. He was brilliant at it. Draco felt worthless, stupid, ashamed. And Lucius was not angry at Ronald for flying, but cheering as the little ginger cherub swept by overhead.
As Potter watched, Draco sensed his enjoyment of it, the hungry angry attack loosening into malicious mirth. He took the chance to send a current crashing into Potter's weakness, and he was gone.
"Excellent," Snape was saying as the boys came to themselves. "What did you see, Potter?"
He wiped his forehead against his sleeve. "A bunch of stupid jealous baby nonsense about brooms."
Snape gave a sharp nod. "Very good, Draco. Diversion is an advanced technique," he said, not offering Harry any praise at all. "Now, switch positions."
Harry was sneering again. "What, now that I'm exhausted I have to keep him out?"
"He is also fatigued, Potter. It's hardly unfair. And even if it was, you would be a fool to imagine the Dark Lord plays fair."
Harry shrugged. "He demanded that I pick up my wand before attacking me in the graveyard last year. You might be surprised."
"I would not be," Snape hissed. "Switch positions. As Potter already knows, Draco, eye contact can be vital."
They stared at each other for a moment, but the eye contact felt like another diversion - like they were hanging in the air over a quidditch pitch considering fooling each other with a feint. There was a strange eagerness in Harry's look, as if he had a plan, perhaps a trap.
Draco struck anyway. "Legilimens."
Draco's magic washed over Harry. For a moment Harry flailed in it, as if drowning, as he did every time he attempted Occlumency. But Draco was not Snape. He was strong, maybe talented, but not skilled. Through Draco's aggression, Harry was able to see something afar off. Perhaps it was because he'd just taunted Snape with it, but the memory of the graveyard where Voldemort took on human form was near enough for him to send it rushing over Draco's invading presence.
It was a devastating memory and it sunk Draco low. Harry did nothing to interfere as Draco heard the command and saw Cedric die. He saw Wormtail sacrifice his own hand. He saw the Dark Lord rise. Harry knew what was coming next, and instead of fighting to storm Draco out, he plunged him deeper into the current.
As if with his own eyes, as if he was there, Draco beheld the scene in sharp detail, as Voldemort stood over Cedric Diggory's body, summoned the Death Eaters, and unmasked Lucius Malfoy.