A/N - Ha! I updated a day early! It was because of all you wonderful people and your wonderful reviews! Keep it up. No really. Reviews are like crack. I'm addicted now. Anyway, this chapter is the one I'm most nervous about posting. Up until this point, all chapters had been hand-written in a notebook and then typed up later to be posted. This chapter is the first one I actually typed on the computer as I wrote it, and believe me, it was so much harder to write it than all the others, even though I pretty much knew where it was going. It took probably twice as long and the style probably isn't exactly the same. Anyway, I'll stop my rambling now.

Hermione's mind was completely numb as she and Draco ran up the path back to the Manor. She barely even registered the strange looks they received from the straggling guests in the Great Room as Draco pulled her through the maze of tables and chairs on their way to the main hallway of the house. The only things she could feel were a blurred shock and an overwhelming sense of exhaustion as the strain of the last 24 hours caught up to her in a rush.

Her mind had been so clear just moments before, as it whirred into action to try and find a spell that would remove the ring. When nothing had worked, it was as if someone had Confounded her.

Now Draco was pulling her up a long corridor; now they were turning to the left and advancing down a narrow hallway; to the right and up a flight of stairs; and then Draco was stopping abruptly before a large, forbidding door.

He turned the handle. It was locked. He banged on the door.

"Father! Open this door! I know you're in there! Wait a second," he muttered after a moment to himself, drawing his wand from within his robes. "Alohamora," he murmured. Hermione heard the lock click.

Draco pushed the door open harshly. The room was unoccupied, and Draco growled in frustration. He released Hermione's hand for the first time since they had left the garden, and she registered a pang of anguish in her heart as his warmth left her. Her mind was still foggy, but at this sudden loss of contact, she seemed to regain a bit of her self.

"Why," she began, struggling to remain upright as her head continued to spin dangerously, "why would you need to see your father?"

Draco glanced up at her from behind his father's desk, where he had been rummaging through papers for something. His eyes widened a bit when he saw her swaying on the spot.

"You should really sit down," he said, but Hermione shook her head stubbornly.

"I'll be fine, I just need to…" but she couldn't finish because her stomach had just given a great jolt and she felt like she might be sick if she didn't keep her mouth firmly shut. She shut her eyes, but immediately realized this was a mistake because she felt herself toppling forward into blackness with no way to catch herself.

Then she was being supported by strong arms and half-led, half-carried to a chair and placed upon it. Hermione opened her eyes a fraction of an inch.

"I told you to sit down, didn't I?" Draco said, his hand still on her shoulder as he leaned down to look into her face. His hair was disheveled, and his expression was a cross between worried and annoyed. "Are you all right?"

"I'm just…so tired," she said around a yawn. Draco seemed to be satisfied that she was all right, and turned back to the desk. Hermione's eyes drifted shut. Then, a moment or an hour later, she wasn't sure which, she was jolted back awake by someone shouting just outside the door.

"…mean by this, Father? Giving her a cursed ring! It had better not hurt her, or I'll—"

"What does it matter to you? You were only using her to get out of your sacred duty to the name of your ancestors!"

"It does matter to me! She matters to me," Draco added, and his voice dropped suddenly as if he were surprised by his own words. Lucius chuckled.

"Oh this is rich! You love her, don't you, Draco? Do you actually wish to muddy the water of your pristine heritage with her dirty blood?"

"I don't love her," Draco pronounced firmly. "And you seem to have forgotten that her blood isn't the issue anymore. Yet you still are prejudiced against her. Why?"

"Why? Why?! Because she stands for everything you were raised to hate, Draco! Have you forgotten that she stood against us in the war? That she was willing to send me away to Azkaban? I haven't forgotten what's important, Draco. You have."

A silence so thick you could have cut it with a knife hung in the air. Hermione strained her ears to listen.

"Is the ring going to hurt her?" Draco said finally, his voice soft and dangerous.

"That ring," Lucius replied, "has a special enchantment on it. Oh, it won't hurt her physically," he added, his voice filled with malice. "Let's just say that you are bound to each other."

"Bound? What are you saying?"

"Only that a promise made must be a promise kept," Lucius said enigmatically. The next minute Draco was back in the study and Hermione surmised that Lucius must have gone. She stood to her feet, suddenly wide awake.

"This ring is cursed?" she said, holding up her hand. Draco looked surprised to see her there, as if he'd forgotten she was anywhere nearby. He nodded slightly, looking extremely care-worn in the early light of day that was streaming through the window of the study.

"A promise made must be a promise kept…" she trailed off, searching Draco's face. Her fears were reflected in his eyes. "It's a curse that binds us together…but aren't all curses breakable? Can't we do something about this? We must be able to do something…perhaps there's a book about cursed rings…"

Hermione was pacing the room now; her mind had come back to life with a vengeance and had begun working at a furious pace. Draco slumped into the chair she had occupied.

"—I'll just go today to look and then…" she stopped pacing suddenly and looked round at him. "Why are you just sitting there? Can't you see we've got to do something?"

Draco lifted his head from his hands and surveyed her. He seemed to want to say something, but wasn't sure how to put it. Finally he spoke.

"What do you want me to do, Hermione? Haven't I done enough?"

"What are you talking about?" she asked warily. Draco chuckled in a bitter sort of way.

"I've dragged you into this thing. You didn't want to help me…but I wouldn't take no for an answer. Now we're in this mess, and you wouldn't be here at all if it wasn't for me."

Hermione stared at him. This couldn't be Draco Malfoy, this figure sitting here before her with rumpled hair and downcast eyes, vulnerable and actually admitting fault for something he'd done. Was she still asleep and dreaming?

"Are you kidding me?" she asked incredulously. "You didn't force me to help you. We made a deal. We're partners in this; we got ourselves into this, and we'll get ourselves out. All we have to do is find a countercurse, and—"

"And what makes you so certain there is a countercurse?" Draco said suddenly, standing up. "You don't know my family, Hermione, there might not even be one. And then what are we supposed to do?"

"We don't give up hope," she answered. Draco glared at her in disbelief.

"Ever the Gryffindor," he muttered. Hermione drew herself up to her fullest height.

"Yes, and we could do with a bit of your Slytherin cunning right about now," she retorted. Draco managed a half-smile.

"Right now I think what we could do with is a bit of sleep."

Hermione had Apparated back to her flat and immediately fallen into her bed and fast asleep. She didn't wake up until one o'clock that afternoon. When she woke up, she found Harry and Ron in her living room.

"Have fun last night?" Harry asked. Hermione couldn't tell if he was angry or amused. He was holding the Friday edition of the Daily Prophet in his hands.

"Not that again," she said irritably, rolling her eyes and flopping down next to Ron on the couch. "What have they said this time?"

"Well," Harry began, and Hermione was relieved to see that he was, indeed, amused, "for starters, how you spent the night at Malfoy Manor the night before last."

"Oh," she replied, rolling her neck to one side to stretch the muscle. "That."

"'Oh, that?' Is that all you have to say for yourself?" Ron asked sullenly. Apparently he wasn't as amused as Harry. Hermione sighed.

"Narcissa wouldn't let me go home," she answered. Harry raised his eyebrows.

"Narcissa, is it?"

"Well yes, considering I'm engaged to her son," she answered dully, holding up her left hand. Her headache was beginning to come back, and she rubbed the bridge of her nose with her right hand. Ron's eyes looked like they were going to fall out of his head as he grabbed her hand to gape at the ring, and Harry's mood changed immediately.

"What?! You weren't supposed to actually get engaged to him, Hermione! What were you thinking? Don't you remember what his family was like during the war? Whatever happened to 'constant vigilance?'"

"I know, I know, it's not like I'm in love with him or anything, Harry. I don't know how it happened…we were at the party, and then there was this ceremony or something…"

"A ceremony?! Was it magically binding?"

"No," Hermione answered heavily, holding up her hand again. "But this ring is cursed."

It was like an explosion had been set off in the room. Both Ron and Harry shot to their feet and starting yelling at once.

"What kind of curse?!"

"Is it going to hurt you? I swear to God, if that slimy git gets you hurt—"

"Hermione, have you forgotten that Dumbledore lost his life because of a cursed ring?!"

"Don't worry, it's not going to hurt me," Hermione said quickly. "Sit down, Ron, pummeling Malfoy isn't going to solve anything…Harry, please," she pleaded.

Both boys looked murderous for a moment more, then reluctantly sat back down on the couch facing Hermione.

"Draco's father said that it binds us together somehow…that a promise made must be a promise kept," she explained, watching as Harry's face lost all color and Ron's turned a blotchy red.

"Does that mean you actually have to marry him?" Ron whispered. Hermione shook her head.

"Of course not. It just means that we have to find a countercurse so that I can take this thing off," and she pulled at the ring as if to prove her point. It didn't budge.

"You mean it won't come off?" Harry asked, leaning forward to grab her hand and examine the ring. "Let me try," he added, making a move to remove it. Hermione jerked her hand away, remembering the white-hot fire that had shot through her hand the last time someone had tried to force the ring off. Harry and Ron both looked at her, confusion evident on their faces.

"It burns when you try to force it off," she explained. Harry's expression changed from worried to resolute almost immediately.

"Well, that does it," he said, standing up. "Let's go."

"Wait, what?" Ron asked, standing up, too.

"We're going to find the countercurse," he explained, as if this were Hogwarts all over again and they were simply doing research on a particularly difficult charm for Professor Flitwick's class. Ron nodded firmly, as if that settled everything. Hermione started at the two of them incredulously for a moment, then burst into laughter. She laughed and laughed until her sides ached and she felt all the weight of the past few days being washed away as she giggled and chuckled and rolled on the couch. Harry and Ron just stared at her.

"Is she all right?" Ron asked, peering down at Hermione suspiciously, which only made her laugh harder. "It looks like she's been hit with a Tickling Charm or something."

"I'm not sure," Harry replied, examining her closely. "D'you think she's finally cracked from all the pressure?" Hermione roared with laughter at this, and Harry and Ron began to laugh too. When they had finally calmed down enough to speak, Hermione looked around at her two best friends.

"I needed that," she said earnestly. "It's good to know I've got you on my side, no matter what…and even if we can't find a countercurse—"

"We'll find one," Ron said staunchly, and Harry nodded. Hermione smiled at them, fervently hoping they were right.

A/N2 - Okay, I thought it might be fun to do some shameless promotion here. I recently wrote a DM/HG oneshot called The World Can Wait. Please pretty please go read it! (By the way, some of you already have, thank you again!) Oh and don't forget to REVIEW. It might even make me update this story sooner if I get lots of reveiws... It's my first oneshot and I'm rather nervous about it, so go read and tell me what you think!

Now. It's that time again! I'm going to do things a lettle bit differently today, since I don't have an especially juicy preview, and I hate chapter previews that aren't about something juicy. But here's something for you: Look out for some curses to fly next chapter...although maybe not between who you'd expect.