A/N: I sincerely apologize for being late with these chapters, dearest readers! I happened to get extremely sick this past week, so I haven't been doing much of anything. Plus this turned into a monster chapter, and I ended up having to split it up into two...so please, forgive me! Enjoy this next installment, and please feel free to R&R. :) ~sneakyslytherin

"Sirius!" Hermione felt joy surge through her as she looked at the tall, proud figure standing just behind the veil in the Department of Mysteries. "You're here! Just come to me!" She beckoned furiously. "Harry needs you, he's breaking down – just walk through the veil, come towards me!"

Unfazed, Sirius shook his head, his dark eyes staring at Hermione, unblinking. He appeared to be trying to speak, but no sound travelled across into the realm of the living.

Rather than be joined by another ghostly figure, however, Sirius walked out of the doorway and another person came out to take his place. "…Draco?" Hermione whispered, not believing her eyes. "But, you're alive!"

The blonde shook his head, his grey eyes looking deep into her brown ones. His lips moved, but Hermione couldn't hear anything. Walking closer to the veil, Hermione stood a hair's breath away from the thin divide. "Draco, please don't be dead," she whispered, raising her hand up, millimeters from the veil. "You can't leave me."

On the other side of the doorway, Draco walked towards the veil. He came so close that Hermione could have sworn that she could touch him, yet she didn't. Draco said his phrase slowly, and Hermione realized that she could read his lips.

"Save me," he said silently, his eyes pleading. "Save me Hermione. Please."

"How?" she breathed, her hand still hovering in the air.

Rather than reply, Draco reached his hand out, his fingertips touching the barrier. Hermione held her breath, watching Draco's movements in rapt silence. As soon as he tried to push his fingers past the barrier, however, the blonde collapsed, his face contorted in agony, his mouth open in a soundless scream. "Draco!" Hermione cried, just stopping herself from leaping down to him. "Draco, no!"

But he continued to thrash, his pain almost tangible through the barrier. As Hermione watched, Draco's fingertips slowly became transparent and faded away. This non-existence passed all the way down his arms, and onto his chest, and –

"No!" Hermione shrieked, finding herself upright in bed.

A shuffling noise was heard, and the glowing orb of Luna's wandlight illuminated the room. "Hermione?" she whispered, concerned. "Are you ok?"

Her pulse hammering in her ears, Hermione nodded, breathing hard. "…yeah. Thanks Luna. Go back to bed."

Looking unconvinced, the blonde girl settled back down under the covers. "Sleep, 'Mione," she mumbled, turning to face the wall. "It's still ridiculously early."

Hermione cast a quick tempus and almost snorted. Pah, five thirty? That's not early Luna, what are you talking about?

Throwing her robe over her shoulders and sliding into her slippers, Hermione slinked out of the room silently and went to her traditional morning chair by the windowed wall. However, something felt off; there was a nagging feeling at the back of her brain, something that was haunting her about this particular nightmare. I've never dreamt about someone alive being behind the veil before, she thought, puzzled. Unless….no, he's not dead. He can't be.

Her heart rate shooting up once more, Hermione felt herself creep towards Draco's very black, very shut, very locked door. Granger Granger DANGER! STOP! NOOOOOOO! her brain shouted, blinking red lights and sounding sirens. Hermione's hand, however, ignored these warnings and reached for Draco's doorknob.

The door will be locked, and then you can just go back to bed, Hermione thought, her fingertips ghosting over the cold metal. Just check. When she applied light pressure to the gold doorknob, her heart stopped when it actually turned.

….damn.

But you need to check on him! A strange voice echoed through Hermione's head.

No, Hermione's logic replied. I'm sure he's positively fine.

But how do you know?

I just know!

….really?

….damn you, you stupid inner voice.

You know you love me.

Grimacing, Hermione turned the doorknob and froze once she'd completed the rotation. She took a deep breath and pushed the door open just a hair, pressing her eye up against the crack. Draco's room was the pitch black, and it took Hermione a moment to adjust to the total darkness. What she saw made her sigh happily and flush at her stupid behavior; Draco was sleeping perfectly peacefully in his bed.

Stupid Granger, see? He's alright! Dreams are merely dreams. Now go back to bed, you ninny.

Just as she was about to close the door, Draco started thrashing.

Hermione paled. Oh Merlin no. Not the thrashing.

As the witch watched, Draco flung all of his bed covers onto the ground and started mumbling. The words weren't very clear, however, so Hermione pushed the door open a sliver more in order to better hear the distressed boy's delirious comments.

"No!" Draco mumbled, his hand going over his chest and fisting the pillow. "Not her, please, not her…." With a loud smack, his hand pressed itself to his bare chest. "Stop, make it stop, please…."

Hermione was at a terrible impasse; go into the room, and potentially scare the bejesus out of Draco, or walk away and leave him to his nightmare. Shuddering at the thought of her own terrible dreams, Hermione took a deep breath and pushed the door open all the way. She walked slowly over to the bed, approaching the moaning boy cautiously. "Draco," she whispered, still several feet away from the bed. "Draco, wake up."

The blonde didn't break from his obviously painful nightmare. "No, please!" he said loudly, his nails digging into his shirt and the skin around his heart. "Aunty Bella, not her…"

Hermione froze. Aunty Bella? Her brain started whirling, putting her on the dirty floor of an old, decrepit mansion where something warm and sticky was flowing down her arm, over her palm and onto her fingertips. A mad laugh filled her mind, and Hermione winced as she was brought crashing back into reality. Draco was still dreaming.

More determined than ever to free her friend from his imaginary prison, Hermione crouched down next to the bed and placed her hand lightly on Draco's shoulder. "Draco?" she said, louder. "Draco, wake up."

The blonde still didn't wake, his hand clawing at his throat. The red nail marks on his neck looked deep, and in some of them small drops of blood were rising to the surface. Grimacing, Hermione placed her free hand on Draco's opposite shoulder and shook him with a decent amount of force. "Malfoy!" she said sharply, "Wake up!"

Before she knew it, Hermione was pinned to the ground, a wand shoved into the soft flesh of her throat, a sweaty and terrifying Draco Malfoy straddling her stomach. For a moment his eyes were strange and cold, with no recognition in them. Hermione felt her pulse hammering against the hard tip of the wand, her breath coming shallow and fast. This was definitely not a good idea, she thought, unable to move her hand and grab the wand in her robe pocket.

A flicker of something passed across Draco's face, and his eyes softened. For a moment they seemed elated, then confused, then finally transitioning into shock as Draco leapt off of Hermione. "Oh Merlin, Hermione, I'm so sorry!" Draco said quickly, shoving his wand into the waist of his sweatpants. "I didn't know it was you, and I must have terrified you, and -"

"It's ok Draco," Hermione interrupted, lightly rubbing her throat as she stood up. "I startled you by waking you up."

Draco paused for a moment, his head tilted, brow furrowed. "Could….could you hear me through the wall?" he asked quietly, unable to meet Hermione's gaze.

"Only a bit," she lied, looking off towards Draco's door. "I was awake already – no one who was asleep would have heard you."

The blonde looked relieved as he sank down onto the edge of his bed. Running a hand through his mussed hair, Draco sighed happily. "That's a relief. I mean, I've always been able to place a silencing charm on my rooms before, but this stupid peace tower" – Draco flung his pillow at the stone wall opposite him – "won't let me do that."

"It's ok," Hermione reassured him, taking a step closer to Draco. "It's not a big deal."

"Yes is it," Draco said, barely audible, placing his head in his hands. "I don't…I don't want people to know."

Hermione's heart lurched at Draco's honest comment, and she felt a strange connection fill the air. This time it wasn't the electricity that she so often felt when the Slytherin was in the room. Instead, it was almost a void, like the air between them needed to be filled.

"It's ok, you know," Hermione said softly, hesitantly sinking down on the bed beside him. "I have nightmares too."

Draco's head shot up, and he looked at Hermione with a masked expression. "Are they…are they about your time at…with Bellatrix?"

Nodding slowly and pushing the memories back, Hermione pulled her robe closer around herself. "Sometimes," she said softly, feeling the heat radiating off of Draco beside her. "Usually it's either that dream or one involving the dead. They try to talk to me from beyond."

Glancing up quickly to see Draco's reaction, Hermione was relieved to see only curiosity and compassion in the young man's face – no scorn, no ridicule, and no anger. "What do they say?" Draco asked quietly, his eyes soft.

Taking a deep breath, Hermione closed her eyes. "They tell me that I belong with them," she whispered. "That I shouldn't be living while so many good people died."

Hermione felt the wet warmth of tears pooling behind her eyelids, and she tried very hard to keep them back. Her breath hitched in her throat when she felt Draco's strong, solid arm around her waist and his breath by her ear. "Don't listen to them," he said quietly, his hand placed lightly on her hip. "They're not real – you fought to be here, you fought hard to live. You shouldn't be held back by the dead."

Resting her cheek on Draco's shoulder, Hermione took a deep breath. Only a single tear had managed to escape her eye, and she stopped it with her finger before it could reach Draco's shirt. Heaving a ragged sigh, Hermione said, "And you, Draco? What do you dream about?"

The boy beside her was silent, but Hermione waited patiently. She didn't move out of his firm grasp, and she didn't lift up her cheek; she just waited, holding her breath, hoping that the delicate balance hadn't been shattered. "I dream of lots of things," he said quietly, his warm breath passing over Hermione's head. "Usually it's the final battle, if it isn't that then it's the meetings with the Dark Lord. Everything that happened at Malfoy Manor. Blood. Unseeing eyes."

Hermione reached for Draco's free hand and squeezed it reassuringly. "They're only dreams, right?" she said, her voice lacking conviction. "They can't hurt either of us."

Nodding, but not really agreeing, Draco pulled Hermione in a little bit closer. Neither of them moved until the first real rays of sunlight passed through the slightly-open door, illuminating the room and banishing the horror-filled night.

HGDM HGDM HGDM HGDM HGDM HGDM HGDM HGDM HGDM HGDM HGDM HGDM

At breakfast in the Great Hall, neither Hermione nor Draco gave any exterior indication that anything had happened that night. They sat beside each other, as usual, and Draco's eyes never looked up from his plate. "So, Hermione, did you bring the lesson plan?" he asked, grabbing a piece of toast.

"Yes," she said, ruffling through the bag at her side to double-check. "I brought the page with Slughorn's notes as well as our blank one."

Taking a big bit of toast, Draco nodded. "His comments weren't really that useful," he mumbled, holding a hand over his full mouth. "I mean, it's only a Personality Potion, it's not like it's advanced arithmancy. Even the twelve-year-olds should get it."

Hermione nodded, completely agreeing with Draco's assessment. When the two students had arrived at Slughorn's office the previous evening, the ageing professor had seemed far more focused on his bottle of mead than the students in front of him. As a result, the lesson plan that the TAs had come up with had virtually no input from their teacher. It'd better be a good lesson, Hermione thought worriedly.

"Oi, 'Mione, have you seen Dean?" Hermione turned around to see Seamus standing behind her, looking worried.

"No Seamus, I haven't – is something wrong?" Swiveling her chair so that she could better see the Irish boy, Hermione tilted her head slightly.

Seamus ran a hand through his hair and sighed, his shoulders slumping. "He didn't meet up with Binns last night to plan his lesson, and no one has any clue where he is now."

Checking her watch, Hermione asked "Does his class start in ten minutes, like ours?"

Seamus nodded his head. "If he doesn't show up…well, I don't know what McGonagall will do, but I doubt Dean will get to stay here."

"He'll show up Seamus, don't worry." Neville had been listening to the conversation as he got up to leave the table. "Dean may have a temper, but he's always been logical in the end."

Neville's leaving seemed to be a cue for the other students, as everyone got up and headed off to their very first TA lessons. Draco and Hermione were the first to leave the main group of students, as the dungeons were a very isolated area of the castle. As they walked through the increasingly damp and dark corridors, a silence stretched between them. Torchlight flickered off of Draco's face as he worried his bottom lip with his teeth, eyes downcast. "Hermione," he blurted, "you won't -"

"Of course not," Hermione supplied, saving him from having to finish his phrase. "I promise."

Draco smiled, his teeth looking eerily white in the different light. "Ready for the lesson?" he asked, sending the conversation off on an entirely different topic and mood.

Shrugging, Hermione shook her head. "Well, if we're not ready now, then I guess we're going to have to give a half-ass lesson, right?" Ever practical, the witch proceeded to remind Draco of the lesson plan. "So, these are second year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs – there'll be very little house animosity, which is good, but they are young, and Ravenclaws do tend to get a bit big-headed, so -"

"I do remember all this from last night, you know," Draco drawled, smirking. "I don't have quite that bad of a memory."

Hermione met Draco's gaze, her brow furrowed. "I know you remember, I just don't like things that don't fit the mould of the plans exactly. You know I'm a perfectionist."

Draco nodded somberly to show Hermione that he understood her, but then broke into a half-smile. "It's a wonder that you survived with Potter and Weasley all those years," he said, already laughing at his own joke. "I don't think a single one of their plans ever went according to plan."

Hermione smacked Draco lightly on the arm with her potions textbook. "Harry," she said dramatically. "Not "Potter", Harry."

Rolling his eyes, Draco arched his eyebrow at the delightfully pesky witch beside him. "Of course," he corrected himself, "Harry's hair-brained schemes. You have to admit that most of them were pretty thin."

Hermione nodded reluctantly. "I always told them that," she protested, pushing open the door to the still-empty potions classroom. "They just don't like listening to me."

For the next few minutes Draco and Hermione set up the required materials for their class, the companionable silence only broken by the occasional question about an ingredient's location. At 8:59, Draco and Hermione went up to stand at the front of the class. Hermione had her hands clasped nervously in front of her, and was biting her lip furiously. Placing a soothing hand on-top of her jittery forearms, Draco drew in Hermione's gaze. Grey eyes met brown in a splendorous clash of colour. "It'll be fine Hermione," Draco said firmly but kindly, now holding Hermione's hands in his. "You're the bloody brightest witch of your age, you can deal with a few twelve year olds."

Smiling half-heartedly, Hermione nodded and took a deep breath. She could do this.