A/N: Sorry about the delayed update. The first few days after exams are always a bit wacky, and I didn't realize I'd missed Monday until Thursday morning!

Anti-Litigation Charm: I do not own.

Please review.

It was with great trepidation that Draco arrived at Professor Granger's office on Monday evening. He had too many things on his mind at the moment to truly care about the possible apprenticeship Granger was preparing him for. He especially did not want to deal with her now, fearing that they might end up practicing Occlumency just as his aunt had with him over the summer, and he suspected that she would not take kindly to him knowing her secret. Nor did he want her to know that he had snuck into the library after curfew—and brought her son along, though he didn't know what it was really for—to check the old library records.

What he found was that she had been telling the truth. She had taught for nearly five years before leaving abruptly—twelve years ago, to have Selenius, Draco's mind chanted, running away with the discovered connection—and Professor Faulkner had taught two years before that. She had started teaching at the same time his Head of House had, which meant they surely knew each other. Another avenue of information he might be able to mine. Do I risk asking Professor Snape about that…?

The mystery had plagued him for most of his waking day. How could Selenius be so stubbornly against pureblood supremacy, yet have a clearly amiable relationship with a mother who called the Dark Lord by his title? How would such a witch ever have anything to do with someone like Sirius Black, to the point where she would have a member of the Order of the Phoenix be his godfather? It was a tangled mess, and Draco had given himself a minor headache trying to unravel it.

He considered sending a letter to his mother, or perhaps asking Professor Snape, but he thought better of it. At least for now. It was clear that Selenius had spoken to him in trust, and Malfoy didn't exactly want him to go around revealing his secrets to others, either. It was the equivalent of two people holding each other at wand-point—mutually assured destruction. Draco had no interest in this. Quite the opposite. In fact, for the first time in years, Draco felt as though he actually had a friend—not a goon to follow him, but someone that he could rely on to watch his back and support him.

There was also something about Professor Granger that always bothered him, kept him on edge. At first, it was her surname, timed with the disappearance of Potter's best friend, but Draco had quickly dismissed the similarities, if only because the two were nothing alike. Professor Granger was dangerous, in the same way Draco had always recognized Albus Dumbledore to be dangerous. In some ways, Professor Granger frightened him even more than the thought of the Headmaster—Dumbledore had more mercy in him than he suspected Professor Granger possessed. Potter's mudblood friend probably would have broken down in tears if she had stuck around long enough to have Professor Granger as a teacher. There was no comparison.

He knocked quietly on the classroom door, and when there was no answer, pulled out his wand and slipped inside. A bolt of red light hit just above him, where it would have struck him if his head had not already been ducked, and he slammed the door shut behind him, pointing his wand directly at the Defense teacher.

Professor Granger was giving him a cold, satisfied sort of smile as she lowered her wand. "It's good to see you're not complacent. Come, then—I've got something to show you."

Draco wasn't sure whether to be angry at her or impressed with his own precaution, and shoved both feelings aside as Professor Granger pulled out an odd, swirling black orb and placed it on one of the desks.

"We're going to start off simple," she said conversationally. "I want you to identify and try to break the curse I've placed on this."

Draco rolled up his sleeve, staring down at the black smoke that curled within the glass crystal ball. "You're not going to hex me while I do this, are you?"

"I'm not trying to turn you into Mad-Eye moody," Granger said by way of response.

"Yeah, well, you're doing a pretty good job of it," Draco muttered unintelligibly under his breath.

Professor Granger just smiled.

"Well, go on then," she said, taking a seat in one of the nearby chairs and folding her hands in her lap. The ugly old ring on her hand flashed in the torchlight. "Let's see what you've got."

Draco tried. Less than five minutes later, he let out a squeal of pain and tripped over the chair behind him, falling flat on his back as the cursed orb hit him with a Bat-Boogey Hex. He waved his arms frantically, trying to beat the flying bat-shaped boogers away from his face long enough to retrieve his wand and cancel the spell. He had identified the curse that the orb was under, or at least he thought he had, and when he'd tried to use the counter-curse on it, it had lashed out at him.

Granger watched him struggle, her face calm.

"I suppose I should have warned you to be careful?" she asked, in a tone of mild inquiry.

Draco said nothing, as he finally banished the remnants of the hex on his person and sat up, utterly humiliated.

"Once bitten, twice shy. Now try again."

~o~O~o~

The weeks passed slowly. January melted into February, and aside from the Apparition Lessons offered by the Ministry, the private lessons continued uninterrupted. Draco had begun to excuse himself from Quidditch practices, missing several important meetings, to the point where the reserve Seeker, Harper, was regularly showing up in his stead. He had no choice; he could not afford to give even the slightest suggestion to Professor Granger that he wasn't willing to make sacrifices for a greater goal. The arranged lesson on the 9th of January had been unexpectedly canceled, but aside from that, Draco made sure he arrived for every lesson.

He had no lesson with her on Valentine 's Day, as that fell on a Friday, but the freshly-picked rose that she usually kept in a vase on her desk was instead worn in her hair. Every student saw it. She dueled them in class just as well with it.

That aside, working with Professor Granger was grueling work. From learning how to recognize books that required certain conditions from the reader to be read without incurring harm to puzzling out the predicted effects of unknown curses, Draco had never worked harder in his life. There was no getting around it. He oftentimes found himself wondering if he was cut out for it—if working under a mere Professor was this difficult, how would he fare in the company of a wizard he intended to apprentice under, and who even Granger seemed to hold in unusually high esteem? Draco imagined he must be terrifying, though he comforted himself with the notion that there was no one quite so terrifying as the Dark Lord himself.

His mother wrote to him frequently, with excessive worry that bled through the pages of her letters, though her word usage was as reserved and careful as ever. She wanted to know how he was doing in his studies—more to the point, she wanted to know precisely how he was faring under Professor Granger's private tutelage. She was fretting over how prepared he really was, and how prepared he would be when all was said and done.

Draco was less worried about that and more concerned with how he was going to survive to graduation at the rate Granger was working him.

He began to observe her more closely as the weeks passed, not only because she was something of a measure of Selenius, but because he was still trying to figure out who she was as a person. Because of the frequency that they met, in addition to the extra homework he had to turn in for his private lessons, he began to notice quite a few things about her. She always had a fresh rose on the desk in her classroom—everyone knew this—but once or twice, he had caught her gazing at it thoughtfully. She wore an extremely old, heavyset ring with an ugly stone that had odd scratches carved into it and a fissure that cut across it, and he suspected she was not wearing it out of vanity. She wore a locket that was normally kept hidden, and he would sometimes catch a glimpse of the chain around her neck. When her eyes flashed, it was as sure a sign of imminent doom as the Headmaster's twinkling gaze was a deceptive display of amusement. When she smiled, the vertical scar on her left cheek— a small souvenir from her fight with the dragon—stood out alarmingly. And she always, always referred to the Dark Lord by his title.

He continued to play chess with Selenius when the first-year was not busy challenging other houses or badgering the other Slytherins, though he kept tight-lipped about the lessons with Professor Granger. Draco had stopped keeping his Head of House up-to-date on his progress, as it seemed that Snape always knew about his lessons before Draco had the chance to inform him himself.

Potter was as obnoxious as ever, and Draco never lost an opportunity to goad him.

"Missing your Mudblood pet, Potter?" he jeered, ramming his elbow into Potter's side as he passed him on the way to Potions. The Chosen One's bag slipped off his arm, spilling onto the floor, and he cursed and bent down to quickly collect his things. Draco made sure to kick an ink bottle aside, as he stepped into the classroom, protected from any retaliation by the timely arrival of his godfather.

"Ten points from Gryffindor, for not being prepared," he drawled, holding the door open as the other students filed inside.

Potter's teeth made an audible grinding sound as he collected the cracked ink bottle and repaired it with a tap of his wand, but made no retort. Weasley was glaring at Snape with a look of utmost revulsion.

Footsteps echoed through the hall, quick-paced, and both Gryffindors wheeled around, half-way through the door as they were, only to be literally shoved aside by the no-nonsense demeanor of an agitated Professor Granger. Snape merely raised an eyebrow at her, questioning her intrusion.

"There's been an incident," she said tightly.

Draco was very nearly surprised that Snape did not protest. Normally, a sneering remark would have been made, perhaps a subtle jibe, but none was forthcoming. He turned to look at Draco. Black eyes met grey, and a cold smile curled on his godfather's lips.

"All of you will turn to page three-hundred and ninety-four of your copies of Advanced Potion-Making. I expect to have six inches of parchment on the use—and inherent dangers—of Felix Felicis…" He flicked his wand at the board, and the instructions silently copied themselves down, in case anyone had not heard him correctly. "To be collected at the end of class by Mr. Malfoy."

He did not need to warn any of them to behave. The inherent threat was implied.

He swept out of the room a moment later, and Draco resisted the urge to rub his hands together with glee as he considered the non-Slytherins in the room.

All of the color had drained out of Weasley's face. Potter simply looked furious.

~o~O~o~

"It's not a student, is it?" Severus murmured, as they ascended the stairs from the dungeons.

"No, not quite," Hermione said, blinking owlishly as the bright afternoon sunlight filtered into the Entrance Hall. She led him out into the courtyard, and he matched her stride-for-stride as they headed off into the direction of Hagrid's hut. "A student's involved, yes, but he's alright. It's about Charlie."

"Who?"

"Charlie? The dragon Hagrid's adopted?"

"I'd forgotten he'd given the beast a name."

"At least it's not 'Fluffy' this time," Hermione said grimly, as they approached the cabin. The dragon was lying outside, still chained as always, but looking depressed and ill rather than lazily content as he normally did. Snape recognized the boy immediately. Selenius was sitting on the stoop of Hagrid's hut, looking down apprehensively at a cup of tea that Hagrid had clearly offered him while the half-giant was kneeling down beside the ailing beast.

"I can hardly forget Fluffy," Snape sniped as they drew closer. "The quintessential example of Hagrid's talent for misnomers. The beast took a chunk out of my leg."

"I haven't forgotten, dear," Hermione murmured.

"What happened?" Severus demanded of Hagrid, as he took in the ill-looking dragon.

"It wasn' his fault," Hagrid said, sitting up from where he was examining Charlie. The dragon let out a pathetic little snort of sparks. "He came down here ter visit Charlie, and fed 'im summat from his feed bucket—"

"You let the students hand-feed him?" Snape asked in disbelief.

"You're a bit behind the times, dear," Hermione said with a sigh.

"But someone poisoned th' meat," Hagrid continued, as though he had not heard. "I checked meself, after Charlie started lookin' bad. It wasn' Selenius's fault."

The boy did not look up at him, but was staring down determinedly at his tea. If Snape didn't know better, he would have suggested his son was close to tears.

"Who'd want to poison your pet?" Snape asked, toeing the wooden bucket by the stairs that was filled with slabs of red meat. "Never mind that—show me your hands," he snapped, and Selenius nearly dropped his tea as he turned over his palms for his father to inspect.

"I already had him wash 'em," Hagrid said helpfully, much to Hermione's relief. "He hasn' eaten anythin', either."

A moment later and Snape determined that Selenius was fine, before scooping up the handle of the bucket.

"I suppose you want me to brew him an antidote?"

Charlie let out a piteous, gutteral moan.

"If yeh'd hurry, tha' would be much appreciated," Hagrid said, looking anxious.

Without another word, Snape strode off back in the direction of the castle, looking mutinous at being pulled out of class for this. Hermione waited until he was gone, and then bent low over Charlie, examining him.

"Why would someone want to poison him, Hagrid?"

"I don' know," Hagrid said, as Selenius came over to have a look, pale-faced. "He hasn' been botherin' any o' the students, so I don' think it's cos o' that."

"I don't think it's that, either," Hermione said, as the dragon's eyes rolled back into his head. She flicked her wand, transfiguring a nearby stone into an oblong, stone tonfa. She hesitated, and then pried the dragon's mouth open and stuck it inside. Charlie made an awful gagging sound, and after a few moments of wince-inducing probing, regurgitated what looked like half-cooked, half-digested meat onto the grass.

"Charlie's significantly related to the attack on the Hogwarts Express," Hermione said, diving in again, careful to keep her hand out of the way to avoid being burned by the shower of sparks that were emitted from the dragon's mouth. The beast crunched down on the bat, nearly cracking it in half, and then vomited again. "I suspect that's the reason. There's something the Dark Lord doesn't want us to find."

Something glittered on the ground, amidst the digestive juices and upchucked meat. Hermione hesitated, setting down her makeshift gag-inducer, and prodded at it with her wand. It was a smooth, ivory white stone with silver veins swirling out from the center. It glowed faintly in the afternoon sun.

"Hagrid, has he eaten anything he shouldn't have?" Hermione asked, as she passed her wand over it.

"No," Hagrid said, bending down for a better look. "Not aside from th' poison. What's that yeh've got there?"

"I haven't a clue," Hermione said, levitating the stone up to the light for a better look.

Severus returned nearly twenty minutes later with a dried, dusty-looking bezoar, and Hagrid had the privilege of shoving it down the dragon's protesting throat.

"That will hold him until the antidote's ready," Severus said tightly.

Hermione frowned, thinking carefully as the dragon let out a hacking cough, but otherwise seemed to be recovering wind.

"Hagrid, do you ever feed that meat to anything else?"

Hagrid scratched his wiry tangle of a beard, deep in thought. "Ter th' thestrals, but not from tha' bucket."

Hermione stood up.

"Let's check your stores," she suggested.

~o~O~o~

Hagrid's stores were clean, leading Hermione to conclude that the meat had been poisoned while left out, as Hagrid kept it by the side of his hut. It begged the question of why, and Hermione did not think it was because of a disgruntled student. The students were largely ambivalent about Charlie's presence, and the dragon had grown surprisingly tame over the months in Hagrid's care—not to mention frequent exposure to Harry and a few of the other Gryffindors who had actually grown a bit fond of the miniature Hebridean Black.

Hermione's suspicions were raised again. Voldemort hadn't been expecting the Ministry to capture or contain Charlie—aside from their sufficient control of the dragon, enough to convince it to attack the train, Charlie was important both as a unique specimen and as a weapon. A dragon that could be controlled, tamed even, was unspeakably valuable—after all, their resistance to magic made them impervious to the Imperius Curse or even the strength of a Killing Curse cast by a single wizard. It was why whoever tried to kill him had chosen to use poison.

They knew why Voldemort had sent Charlie to attack the train, but now they were presented with a new mystery—why kill him?

The stone that Charlie had coughed up seemed to be the answer.

Hermione spent weeks testing the stone's properties. In-between class, she would have it out on her desk, prodding it with her wand or perusing a book or two from the Restricted Section of the library, desperately trying to make a match and identification. The Stone's current properties were quickly distinguished, with results that were very nearly off the charts—if ingested, it absorbed and stored the host's magical energy until it reached its capacity limit. After that, Hermione had no idea what would happen, but she suspected it would undergo a what, however, she did not know. It very closely resembled a Philosopher's Stone, yet it was not one.

The amount of magical energy it had already stored was enormous. What reason Voldemort wanted it for was not precisely clear to her, but Hermione had the slightest gist of it—Voldemort wasn't getting his dragon back, and decided to send someone to fetch the white stone from Charlie, even if it meant killing the dragon. He likely had a plan in mind for using the stone, but as he was not getting it back, Hermione hoped his schemes would come to naught.

And she now had a solid reason for why Bellatrix Lestrange had tried to infiltrate the castle.

She had presented the stone to Professor Dumbledore after first finding it, but the Headmaster told her he was not certain as to what it was. He had a very shrewd idea, he claimed, but it would have to wait until he had done his own private research. He refused to tell her more. Hermione was infuriated.

The weeks passed, and she finally exhausted all of the resources in the school library. It was worse than the time she had tried to find a solution to the Second Task with Harry, back in fourth year. The reservoir of knowledge had failed her. She spent several days Flooing to and from Spinner's End to check their collection there. It was then that she started going through the books in the Headmaster's study.

Scrimgeour had given her a badly-disguised, thin-lipped look of exasperation when she had walked in on his meeting with Dumbledore. She had ignored them both, heading straight to the bookcase and comparing one of the titles to the packet of notes she had brought with her.

"Do you let all of your teachers do this?" he asked, turning to Dumbledore.

"Just Professor Granger, I'm afraid."

"Does she even realize we're here?"

"Likely not," the Headmaster said gravely. "Lemon drop?"

It wasn't noticeable at first, but in the weeks that followed, the entire school grew alarmed when it became clear that Charlie was going through a growth spurt. Hermione immediately understood that the white stone must have retarded Charlie's physical growth—and perhaps mental growth, which would explain the ease with which he was tamed—but that did nothing to help the fact that by the time April rolled around, he had reached twenty feet in length. The ground he covered had become rocky and barren from his increasingly pyrotic experiments, the kind that were common among young adult dragons.

"What on earth are we going to do?" she asked the Headmaster exasperatedly. They were watching Hagrid's sixth-year Care of Magical Creatures lesson from a distance, which essentially meant watching Harry trying to clean the dragon's scales with great difficulty. It didn't help that although Charlie was still surprisingly tame, he was growing increasingly mischievous and playful, which meant that Harry had to watch out in case the dragon decided to snatch him up by the back of his robes as a prank. And more than once, had made a grab for Hagrid's beard, which explained why the ends were extremely charred and sooty. "He's going to be thirty feet by the time school lets out!"

Dumbledore stroked his beard thoughtfully. "We may have to arrange for Charlie Weasley to take him," he said. "Even if his temperament remains manageable…"

"That's another thing, Headmaster," Hermione said flatly. "His temperament is not manageable."

As if to prove her point, Harry suddenly left out a yelp as the dragon caught him from behind, flipping him into the air. He landed on his back on top of Charlie's head, scrambling quickly for a handhold. The dragon shook his head slightly, causing Harry to slide off and thump to the ground.

"I mean, at least he hasn't turned Harry into The Chosen Flambé, but this is not my definition of 'manageable'!"

Understandably, the students were also asking questions, but Hermione put them off with the blithe excuse that she knew no more than they did. Severus was also extremely curious about the stone, but he actively avoided having a look himself, as he was having enough difficulty convincing the Dark Lord that he had not seen it while the dragon was upchucking. Voldemort had already found out about Charlie's unexpected increase in size and so very obviously knew that it must have been found.

Hagrid's house had also been broken into, a few weeks after the white stone had been found, and it was clear that whoever had searched it had not found what they were looking for. They had clearly left in a rage, for Hagrid's place had been so obviously ransacked, and Fang had to be dragged out from underneath Hagrid's bed when the half-giant had returned to find the state his home was in.

"It's madness isn't it," Hermione murmured to her husband one evening. She had coaxed him into lying back on the bed and relaxing, enough for her to straddle him and kiss a trail down from his neck to his chest, all while she reasoned with herself out loud. "And I still have no idea what we're going to do with Charlie—he's probably too tame for Romanian wilderness now. Too used to people. He'll be a nuisance to the local population…"

"I'd rather not discuss that right now," the man beneath her muttered, running the one calloused hand through her hair and tracing the scar on her cheek with the other. He twined a lock around one finger, and gave it a slight tug. "Can't I ever get a moment with you where your mind isn't scattered a thousand miles in each direction?"

"Yes," Hermione whispered, nuzzling his nose with hers.

"Prove it."

And to his delight, she did.

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-Anubis