Disclaimer: Harry Potter and Co. (esp Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger) are alas! not the product of my creative imagination, which I will have to solemnly credit Ms Rowling for making them such wonderful characters - although I would take credit for the pairing ;)

A/N: This chapter is more of a stepping stone - doesn't really have much direct Dramione interaction, but I assure the next one will have plenty of it, and my new character Corrinne will be back in the mix again! For now, it's just more insight to Draco in particular, especially answering the question marks I left at the end of the previous chapter (:

Harry slipped his Invisibility Cloak over himself as he made his way out of the boys' dormitory, and the Gryffindor common room. Holding the Marauder's Map in his left hand, and his wand in his right hand to illuminate the map, he stealthily crept round to the corridor that led down to most of the Professors' offices. His heart thumping crazily, he tiptoed towards the door that had the bronzed plate carved with the words "SEVERUS SNAPE, DEFENCE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS PROFESSOR" on it.

It had been weird enough when Hermione had come to the common room after her patrol to report that Draco Malfoy had not turned up for patrol. A check with Professor McGonagall had returned a rather stern look and a curt 'he is not feeling well', but neither Hermione nor Harry had believed her. Now he was cosying up to Severus Snape in the middle of the night? Harry frowned heavily.

Hesitating, he pulled out from his robes pocket a string of Extendable Ears which Fred and George Weasley had hurriedly stuffed into his hands before he had boarded the Hogwarts Express. Apparently they had cast some charm on it to prevent it from being noticed by Argus Filch when entering the Hogwarts grounds. Harry wondered when he would ever get to the stage of being able to create the vast array of ingenious charms and hexes the Weasley twins had up their sleeves.

It seemed rather immoral to be such an eavesdropper, but Harry was feeling very jittery of late about the fact that Draco Malfoy was to become a Death Eater (or had he already?), and that if he and Snape were meeting so late at night, it didn't really spell much good either. Especially when Harry's scar had been burning at night.

I can't believe Professor Dumbledore trusts this slimy git so much.

Harry gingerly placed one end of the Extendable Ears on the door while holding the other end to his ear.

"... you're not prepared enough, Draco, you know that!"

"Then what am I supposed to do? You know what the Dark Lord wants. Do you think it's so easy to be accomplished the way he wants it to be? Who are we dealing with here?"

"Draco, calm down! That bullish temper of yours is not going to get you anywhere if you're – if you're a Death Eater!"

"How about I already am, so let's quit that nice teacher talk?"

Harry flinched. So Draco Malfoy had already become a Death Eater!

"Draco! I promised your mother..."

"Yeah, you made an Unbreakable Vow to her... bloody hell I KNOW! But the Dark Lord wants me to accomplish this on MY OWN!"

"Draco Malfoy, do you think that if you kill..."

Who Draco Malfoy was supposed to kill, Harry couldn't listen any longer, because the Invisible Cloak was suddenly whipped out of his hands, and the Extendable Ears whisked away, making him gasp and turn around to see who did that.

He was staring at the amused, kindly face of Professor Dumbledore.

"Professor!" whispered Harry, eyes wide. "How did you..."

"Hello Harry," said Professor Dumbledore, with a smile. "Next time if you want to eavesdrop, make sure the Ears don't peek out that much."

Harry felt himself flush furiously.

"Then again..." Dumbledore continued, his expression suddenly turning a little stern. "I believe that if you're out wandering about at night, it does warrant taking off some points from Gryffindor and a little detention, doesn't it?"

"But Professor..." protested Harry.

"And that you are using a rather illegal device as well?" Professor Dumbledore extended a finger towards the Ears that he had confiscated.

Harry mumbled something and stared at his shoes.

"To my office, Mr Potter." He turned around, but not before Harry caught a glimpse of a twinkle in his eye. "I'd like to have a word with you. Put on that cloak first, please."

Frustrated at being rid of the opportunity to listen to what Draco Malfoy's mission was, afraid of what Dumbledore was going to do, and yet slightly pleasantly excited to see the Professor paying some attention to him finally, Harry swung the Invisible Cloak over himself and trudged after Professor Dumbledore.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Well, well, well, look who we have here. The son of Lucius Malfoy. You will serve me well, won't you Draco? No repeat of the mistakes your father made, or you know the consequences.

Your first mission, Draco. It is no mean feat, thus the long time period allowed, but you know I expect a good job, and you will be duly rewarded.

There was silence. Draco shook his head, and the images of before melded away into the face of Severus Snape before him.

"Is he gone?" asked Draco, finally, bitterly glaring at Professor Snape, who had a frown on his face before he turned back his gaze onto Draco. "Yes, gone."

"Okay, so quit that bullshit we were on," snapped Draco. "You haven't answered me."

"Why are you doing this?" demanded Snape, leaning forward, his eyes narrowing. "It is obvious enough that you had to skip your patrol duty with Miss Granger for your meeting with the Dark Lord, now you're alerting Mr Potter to your shifty little ways? Making him suspect?"

"What, being a Death Eater? In case you haven't realised, it's not really up to me you know," said Draco, with a sneer.

Snape leant back in his chair, his lip curling. "Don't be funny with me, Draco. I'm asking you why you have to make it so obvious when you're just calling attention to yourself. The Dark Lord wants you to do things on the sly, not to announce to the whole world that it's Draco Malfoy who did all these things!"

"Everybody knows that I'm a Death Eater, or going to be one." Draco clenched his teeth. "They think Dumbledore's going to protect them. If I make it obvious I'm planning something, they'll turn to him, and then it'll leave them helpless if I kill Dumbledore, isn't that what the Dark Lord wants?"

There was a deafening silence, except for the heavy breathing of both parties.

Snape turned his piercing glare on a glowering Draco. "You're just being highly immature! Do you really think you can kill Albus Dumbledore with the strength that you have now? This is not a mission the Dark Lord expected you to complete within a year in school, it's an eventual target for you by the end of your school term!"

"Immature?" scoffed Draco. "Look, I only have two school years left, really, if I don't use this," and he pointed to his head mockingly, "I don't think I'm going to live beyond my two school years, you know. So can we stop talking about maturity because I'm going to work through this with my head and not so much with my wand?"

"What are you going to do?" demanded Snape. "I told you already, the green light is given. Even though..." His voice faltered a little. "Are you sure you are going to..."

"I'll settle that myself," growled Draco, not looking at Snape. "I know what to do." He could see his father's face floating in his mind again, the dreams, the ghastly face of Voldemort, even the wise face of Albus Dumbledore... Draco's face twitched a little.

Snape looked as if he was about to burst out at Draco. "And you asked for my help. What makes you think I'd help?"

"You know, what we talked about earlier on wasn't crap, was it?" Draco sneered. "Killing somebody in school... and the Unbreakable Vow?" Snape's eyes narrowed. "I believe you still have some kind of obligation to my mother, no?"

Snape snarled a little. Draco merely glared at him.

Finally, Snape got out of his chair and rounded on Draco, his menacing gaze penetrating into Draco's defiant eyes. "Your father was a fool for letting you know. The reason why I made that Vow was because your mother wanted me to make sure you were okay. But if you're plunging into this, you are not going to be okay. At all. You are going to make me break my Vow if you ask me more."

"So you clearly know what this means?" Draco held up the piece of parchment, gripping it tightly in his fist. "Well, the Vow wasn't explicitly about making sure I was okay. It was to help me. If I couldn't do it, then you could. And I'm not going to be able to figure out what this is about, if no other Death-Eater tells me."

Snape closed his eyes, and breathed hard.

"Your first mission is to kill Albus Dumbledore. I have no bloody idea how you're going to settle that yourself when the Dark Lord himself is finding it hard to do it. You're going to get killed yourself, Draco."

"I'm so excited." Draco's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Tell me something I don't already know, Professor."

"That's your life you're talking about!"

Draco's eyes were glittering and harsh; Snape's were equally unrelenting.

"It's not that I don't want to tell you, Draco, I don't know enough myself," muttered Snape, his dark eyes flashing. "All I know is that the Dark Lord entrusts four of his most loyal followers with a secret they must take to the grave. He announced it before, long before you joined us. So all the Death Eaters but you know that there is some form of secret, so we try to gain his trust in order to obtain that secret. It is his way of providing an incentive, for us to perform the most dangerous tasks ever."

"But nobody really knows who he truly trusts. None of the four followers must ever reveal that they are the ones with the secret. Your father was often guessed to be one of the four, but nobody dares to speculate much beyond that. Thus, I am guessing that what he left you is likely to be a clue to the secret that the Dark Lord entrusted to him."

Draco's eyes gleamed. "Was I supposed to know about this?"

"Eventually you would come to know of it. We all knew of it by word of mouth," replied Snape, and his cloak swung behind him with a flourish as he walked back to his seat. "It is no secret any longer, especially when Maldash Wentervale gave an unprecedented interview to the Daily Prophet about the going-ons of Death Eaters. It is from his words that sparked off the latest research on the Death Eaters. That man is just asking to be killed."

"Maldash Wentervale?" Light dawned upon Draco. "The exiled Death Eater?"

"The one and only." Snape nodded, sitting down. "Requested to retire because of his affliction with the Newtzer's Disease, a degenerative disease which causes his motor skills to gradually wear away. The Dark Lord could not afford for him to carry on with missions in case he slipped up due to the disease, nor could he kill Wentervale because this man was his benefactor."

"Benefactor?" asked Draco, incredulously.

"Wentervale is a very accomplished Healer, with very unorthodox methods. He never went through St. Mungo, and is probably what the wizarding world would refer to as a Prodigous Being."

Draco whistled. Snape ignored him and continued,

"When the Dark Lord was severely wounded after possessing Harry Potter the year before," Snape's lip had curled heavily at the words 'Harry Potter'. "It was Wentervale who had Healed him perfectly. Which is why the Dark Lord has been eager to demonstrate his recovered prowess, summoning even the weather, which has resulted in the unusual snowfall in summer. Unfortunately, the Newtzer's Disease is incurable, and even Wentervale could not do anything about it, and had to retire."

"But because the foolish man had created such a commotion with his words, the Dark Lord was furious. At first, he contemplated not killing Wentervale, because his secrets could be used as an incentive for the rest of the Death Eaters, as what I have mentioned. But it is now believed that Wentervale was one of the earliest four that the Dark Lord had entrusted secrets to, and if he made any other move, his presence could no longer be tolerated, benefactor or not."

"He is dead, then?" asked Draco.

"No," Snape pursed up his lips. "Far from it."

"But how can...?" Draco was in utter disbelief.

"The Dark Lord refused to kill Wentervale himself, so he sent your father," replied Snape, coolly, drawing a shocked look from Draco. "So your father went. But strangely after creating some elaborate plan to capture Wentervale, your father let him go. I have absolutely no idea why he did that, he was committing suicide that way."

Draco flinched a little, but Snape paid no attention.

"And he let him off not once, but twice. It gave the Dark Lord reason to suspect that Lucius was now in the know of the secret that Wentervale had given him. And if the other Death Eaters' speculation is correct, that Lucius was also one of the four trusted followers, then he was now in possession of half the secrets that the Dark Lord had given out, and that made him too dangerous to the Dark Lord."

Draco's face suddenly blanched. The thought of his father made his heart ache, somehow.

"Wentervale is very eccentric and yet very brilliant. Nobody knows how he has managed to be so elusive all this while. The last we heard he was in one of the former Soviet Union states before he disappeared once again. That is all that the Death Eaters know," said Snape, his piercing gaze fixed on Draco. "That is all I know."

Draco shifted his gaze to the ground, not saying a word.

"Draco," Snape continued, less harshly. "Whatever it is, you must remember, it is now your goal to become that one out of four trusted followers."

Suddenly, Draco's knees felt weak and began to wobble. The Dark Mark on his forearm burned. He gritted his teeth.

Two, two, and three strides.

"You may be young, but you have great potential. I harbour no such hope, because I am too close to Albus Dumbledore to be given too much credit for."

Cuts across him, a magic that divides.

"You may be a threat because you are potentially harbouring revenge for your father, but if you prove yourself well, you will have a chance..."

A labyrinth of secrets, a ring of truth.

"...because everyone knows that you were filial to Lucius no matter how harsh he was on you."

Keeps his power, keeps him aloof.

"And there is the Unbreakable Vow I made to your mother, Draco. Always remember that." There was a hint of bitterness in Snape's voice. "Even if...it does come to that, if you need help, I will...be there."

All that I know I pen with fear.

"This is your chance, Draco Malfoy, to become one of the most powerful Death Eaters ever."

For soon he will make me disappear.

Draco took a deep breath to steady himself just then, but that very night, he could not stop the onslaught of nightmares from returning to haunt him once again.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Professor, I really didn't mean to..."

Harry stopped short as he followed Professor Dumbledore up the steps to his office, only to see a tired-looking Hermione sitting in the armchair there, tapping her foot impatiently. She jumped up upon seeing Harry, whose jaw dropped, and flung her arms around him. "Oh, am I glad that you're here too!"

Harry removed her arms from around his neck and stared at Hermione's relieved eyes in bewilderment. "What are you doing here so late at night?"

"Well, really," Hermione eyed Professor Dumbledore, who was now comfortably seated at his desk and throwing them an expectant look. "I caught sight of Professor Dumbledore just after my patrol ended and I ran after him. He said to meet him now. As you know, I had a lot of questions on my mind that I really needed some answers to..."

"So do I!" Harry frowned a bit and then walked right in front of Professor Dumbledore's desk before Hermione could pull him back. "I believe we do need some answers, Professor. Let's just start with, where did Malfoy go just now?"

"Mr Potter, I believe I brought you here to question you about detention?" Professor Dumbledore raised his eyebrows in amusement.

Harry was not amused at all; he merely stifled a snort. Clearly the Headmaster should know better than to talk about detention when they were discussing a potential murderer.

"I believe Minerva enlightened you?" Professor Dumbledore turned to feed his pet phoenix, Fawkes, from a cup.

"I don't believe that!" Harry shot back, in disgust. "Right, if you don't want to answer that, then why are you allowing Draco Malfoy to remain in Hogwarts when he's a Death Eater?"

"He's already one?" broke in Hermione, stunned.

Professor Dumbledore looked straight at Harry. "Harry, this is just the same as somebody asking me – why did I put Harry Potter into Hogwarts when he is the one Voldemort wants to kill? Won't Voldemort start to kill off his friends one by one before reaching him?"

Harry was struck dumb for that instant.

"That's not the same!" retorted Hermione, hotly. "Harry wouldn't hurt..."

"And if Mr Malfoy is in the grounds of Hogwarts, will he try to harm anyone with me around?" asked Dumbledore, placidly.

"You're not always around!" accused Harry, finally finding his tongue. "Where were you that night when you sent us to find Professor McGonagall? So she's supposed to stop Malfoy from doing anything if you're not around?"

Professor Dumbledore looked solemn. "I had things to attend to, Harry, I assure you that Minerva..."

"What about Snape?" challenged Harry. Hermione's eyes widened in confusion at Harry's mention of the Potions professor. "Professor McGonagall versus Professor Snape. I hardly can imagine what the outcome would be. You're the only one Snape listens to..."

"Professor Snape, Harry," corrected Professor Dumbledore. "And what must I do to convince you that Professor Snape is one of us, considering he is in the Order?"

"Then how do you explain what I heard just now?" hissed Harry, pointing to the Extendable Ears that Professor Dumbledore had neatly placed on his desk. "He and Malfoy were plotting to kill someone! Or at least Malfoy was going to, then I don't know what the hell is an Unbreakable Vow, but Snape took it..."

Hermione gave a soft gasp. "The Unbreakable Vow?"

Harry turned upon her. "What is that?"

"Well... as the name suggests... it's Unbreakable..." mumbled Hermione. "If Professor Snape took it, then it means that he can never renege on the vow he made."

"And he made it to Narcissa Malfoy," finished Harry, glaring at Professor Dumbledore. "You still want to tell me he's all good and angelic?"

But Professor Dumbledore was not looking at Harry, he was now looking at Hermione, whose eyebrows had creased together as she was deep in thought.

"Miss Granger?"

Hermione was startled, and looked back at Professor Dumbledore. "Y-yes?"

"You said Harry wouldn't hurt anyone. Do you truly believe Draco has the ability to do so?"

Hermione was really surprised at that question. "Professor..."

"I want you to think carefully. You are doing patrol duty with him now, and if you feel at the least threatened, I may work something out for the two of you."

"No, no," said Hermione, hastily glancing at Harry. "That'll be okay."

"Really?"

"Y-yeah." She was certain that there should be no barriers between her and Malfoy if she were to 'make friends with him', but then again, something about Dumbledore's question was gnawing at her. Did she think Malfoy was capable of hurting anyone? Her mind wandered back to the day when she saw him face off with Corrinne. Would he have struck?

He was volatile, certainly. The way his fists were always clenched and shaking, the way he glared at her, oscillating between death glares and stony looks. Sometimes he was furious and his expression would turn dark and deathly, sometimes he was back to his arrogant, spiteful and mocking self. A walking time bomb would strike, all right. Yet, Hermione couldn't help feeling that he wouldn't really have done it... the way he had pulled Corrinne off her, the expressionless look he shot her...

"...when answers to your questions will come. I've had Minerva answer the basic for you earlier on. I am sorry that I was unable to answer them personally, I really had an important task to complete."

"What...?"

Hermione snapped back to reality upon hearing Dumbledore and Harry speak. But before Harry could continue, Professor Dumbledore had waved his wand, and the two of them were now standing outside his office, where the gargoyle guarding the staircase stood rock-still.

"Damn it, he never really answers our questions, does he?" growled Harry.

"What's this about Snape and Malfoy?" asked Hermione, quickly grabbing Harry by the elbow as they made their way down the corridor.

"I overheard their conversation, because I saw Malfoy go into Snape's office thanks to the Marauders' Map," explained Harry, scowling. "Apparently, Malfoy is about to kill someone, and Snape's gonna help him because of that Unbreakable Vow..."

"Kill someone?" Hermione drew in a sharp breath. "How can Professor Dumbledore let that happen? This is just - preposterous!"

Harry shrugged his shoulders. "As he said, he's going to protect us. I'm not so sure I know to what extent Draco Malfoy's powers are. I find him really dangerous ever since his father got murdered. Nobody knows which side he is on, and I'm pretty certain after this, he's not on our side!"

Hermione bit her lip, her mind working fast. "I don't think Malfoy will skip patrol twice in a row, that'll be too conspicuous. Anyway tomorrow I'm having Arithmancy class with the Slytherins, it's the first one of the term. I'll keep an eye on him. There's just something – really wrong with him. I'll give it a try, Harry, don't get too worked up for the time being, or you'll be the conspicuous one."

"Thanks, Hermione." Harry sighed, as they approached the common-room. "Though you must be really really careful, as I said, Malfoy is really pretty dangerous at this point in time."

"Okay," murmured Hermione, and as they climbed through the portrait hole, she couldn't help thinking back on the different expressions that had appeared on Draco Malfoy's face ever since she had seen him from the start of the term.

There was really something wrong with him.