Thank you to my beta, RESimon - you're the best.

CHAPTER THREE

By the time they made it to the Hospital Wing, tears had begun to pour from Hermione's eyes, blurring her vision as she hovered around Ron's bed, watching Madam Pomfrey work. When the woman had suggested that she return to Gryffindor Tower, she'd snapped at her until she'd given up, leaving her alone with Ron's slumbering form after even Harry had been coaxed into going up to bed.

It was now early morning, but she still sat beside the bed, holding his hand as he breathed softly, his breaths still too shallow for her liking. Although the room was nearly still, her mind was reeling. Earlier, she'd fallen into a brief, fitful sleep, haunted by the look on Malfoy's face as he'd asked her to retrieve the mead, followed by flashes of Ron's convulsing body until she'd awoken, heaving ragged breaths. She'd barely made it to the nearest rubbish bin before she was heaving into it, emptying the meager contents of her stomach.

Harry had been right. He had been right the entire time, and she'd brushed it off, boiling it down to Harry's own paranoia as she convinced herself that while Malfoy was a bully, yes, he was no murderer. And now...now the evidence of all that Harry had feared lay in front of her, it's harsh truth laid bare by the soft rays of morning sunlight that illuminated Ron's now-ghostly pallor. She choked out a sob, burying her face into Ron's shoulder as she began crying again, reeling under the gravity of her actions. How could she face him now, knowing that she was now inextricably entangled with the man that had nearly caused his death?

She reached up to smooth a hand over Ron's cheek, pulling back when she heard him groan, shifting awkwardly in the bed. She pulled back and stood, making to leave before he could spot her when she heard him call her name.

"'Mione?" his voice was weak and raspy, and she hurriedly tipped the glass of water by his bed to his mouth, letting him drink.

"What happened?" he asked, looking around the hospital wing. "I can't remember…" he said, furrowing his brow.

"You were poisoned," she said, searching his blue eyes. "Twice, actually."

"Wha-how?" he asked.

"You ate chocolates that were laced with a love potion," she explained. "Courtesy of Romilda Vane," she added bitterly.

Even in his state, he grinned slightly at her expression. "And...the second?" he asked nervously, still watching her.

She turned away, unable to look into his eyes. "When Harry took you to Slughorn for an antidote, you ended up drinking some poisoned mead," she explained quietly.

"Don't be sad, 'Mione," he said, sitting up straighter. "It wasn't your fault." She shivered at the comforting hand he placed on her back, wanting to shy away from his touch.

Oh, but how it was. "I know," she whispered instead. "Still...I was scared," she said, her voice breaking.

"Oh," he said, tugging on her sleeve until he pulled her down into a hug.

She sobbed quietly into his shoulder for a few moments before pulling away. "I'm supposed to be here comforting you," she said, giving him a watery smile.

He waved a weak hand dismissively. "It's alright," he said. "I like any excuse to hug you," he added sheepishly, looking into his lap.

There was a time only a few short months ago when such a response from him would have had her blushing profusely. Now, though, it made her blood run cold as she was reminded of their precarious situation.

"Ron-" she started, unsure of what to say. Before she could say anything, however, he continued speaking.

"I'm sorry about Lavender, really," he said, taking her hand and tracing gentle patterns on it. "I-I was just upset, I'd thought that after we-, well after we, you know- that you'd want to start something up, and when you didn't, and I found out about Krum-"

Hermione pulled away guiltily, recalling the night they'd spent together during patrols that now felt so long ago that she could scarcely recall it, although it had only been months prior. "You have nothing to be sorry for," she said. "We- it just wasn't our time, is all."

He scooted closer to where she sat on the edge of his bed. "It could be, though," he said, wrapping an arm around her waist. "I can break up with Lavender-"

"No," she said, springing up. "She likes you. You're happy with her."

Ron scoffed, snatching her back down beside him before she could depart. "No, I'm not," he said, looking at her accusingly. "And you know that - she drives me insane!"

Truthfully, she did know that, but she pressed forward regardless. "You should try with her, she has good intentions, you deserve her-"

"Is it McLaggen, then?" Ron's voice was toneless.

"What-no!" she said. "I promise you, no," she said, shivering. No, it's much so much worse, she wanted to say but kept her mouth firmly closed as Ron's eyes roved over her expression.

"Then who is it?" he asked softly, his voice tinged with sadness.

"It's no one," she lied. "It's just not our time-"

As if on cue, the double doors to the hospital wing burst open, admitting none other than Lavender. She glared at where Hermione and Ron had automatically sprung apart but said nothing.

"Oh, my Ronniekins!" she cried, draping herself dramatically across Ron's lap. "How could this have happened to you?"

On a normal day, Hermione would have melted into the background, rolling her eyes at Lavender's antics. Instead, she swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat as she recalled the reason Ron was there in the first place and turned to leave. At the door, she breezed past where Dumbledore and Snape stood, both of whom had paused to appraise her. One sweep past both of their eyes told her that somehow, they both knew exactly what had transpired and who had caused the chaos. It made a swell of anger rise within her as she realized that there would likely be no punishment for Malfoy, the reasons for which she could not begin to understand. She stormed past them without a word, determined to make it to her four-poster before she dissolved into tears once again.

X

She did not see Malfoy until Arithmancy class later that day. She spent most of the lesson glaring daggers into his back, knowing that he'd deliberately ignored her accusatory stare when he'd breezed in moments before class had begun. She took in the tense stance of his broad back as she alternated between wanting to hex him to tears and wanting to cry for herself. Occasionally, Pansy Parkinson would lean over to whisper in his ear, and even traced a fingernail along his thigh, looking up at him through her eyelashes. It made Hermione sick. How could she sit there, flirting innocently with a murderer?

The man was the embodiment of damnation, and Hermione had damned herself to hell with him.

Her anger flared, and she slipped her wand under the table, tapping it against her ring as she sent a message to him over and over again. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. She pressed her wand into her ring until she had the satisfaction of seeing him grip his table in pain, shooing away Pansy's concerned questions. She continued until he slid it off and dropped it into his bag surreptitiously, a quick glint of silver the only indication there had been anything on his finger at all.

When she spied the finger where his ring had lain, it was a dark, angry red.

X

It was getting late, but Hermione was still in the library, tucked into a dark corner as she searched through the pile of tomes she'd amassed, looking for anything that plausibly sounded like the word Horcrux. She stood, stretching as she finished her latest pile, levitating the books behind her as she prepared to return them to their respective spots. She'd barely made it a few steps down the first darkened aisle she'd turned down when she spotted Malfoy in front of her, perusing a the tomes in front of him.

Before she could stop to register her actions, she had him pinned to the shelf with a flick of her wand, her pile of books abandoned on the ground behind them.

"You almost killed him," she seethed, stepping forward with a snap of her wand that had his head smacking back against the sprawling shelf.

"Put me down," he growled, glaring at her.

"What were you doing with it?" she said, flicking her wand again so his head smacked against the shelf with another satisfying crack. "Answer me!"

"Fuck you," he snapped, which she answered with another flick.

"Answer. Me," she growled.

"I was trying to destroy it!"

"I don't believe you!"

Malfoy remained silent, continuing to glare at her.

"Give me a good reason not to hex you right now," she snapped, keeping her voice low in order not to attract any attention. "He. Could. Have. Died!"

"But he didn't, did he?" Malfoy retorted.

"Is that all you can say?" she said as she stumbled back, horrified. "You almost killed someone...and that is all you can say?"

He took her momentary hesitation as a chance to release her hold on him, lowering himself to the ground and quickly descending upon her. It wasn't until he was nearly upon her that she realized how tall he'd grown, towering over her small frame. "I told you that I was trying to destroy it. I asked you to retrieve it, did I not?"

She shoved him backward. "Do not dare turn this on me," she snapped. "You did this, and you cursed that necklace too, didn't you?" she asked.

When his response was silence, she couldn't help but gasp, clapping a hand over her mouth.

"What else have you done?" she whispered. "Who else have you killed?"

"I killed no one," he said, his voice little more than a low growl.

"I don't believe you," she said, searching his grey eyes for a hint of humanity. She found none. "You deliberately tried to murder two innocent people in cold blood-"

"You don't know anything of what I've done, Granger," he snapped.

"I do!" she shot back. "I was there — both times!"

"You bloody pathetic Gryffindor know-it-all, thinking you know everything-"

"I defended you!" she said. "I defended you, and all this time you were doing it, and Harry was right-"

"Potter knows nothing."

"He knew enough to see plainly what you were doing, even when we denied it and tried to defend you!"

"I never asked for anyone to defend me, Granger," he said. She didn't know when she had let him descend upon her again, but she now had her back to a shelf and was trapped in the cage his arms made around her as he glared down at her.

"You've never deserved it," she shot back. "You are a monster-"

"And you've married me," he smirked suddenly, his eyes dancing with cruel humor. "I wonder, hmm, how that makes you feel. Following Potter around like a lost dog, lapping at his feet while he carries on without a clue as to what you've done-"

"Screw you, Malfoy," she breathed.

"But you have, haven't you?" he said, smirking wider. "What would you do if Potter found out that you let me fuck you-"

She raised a hand to slap him, but he caught her by the wrist before she could complete the action. "Never try to strike me again, Granger," his voice was dark, devoid of emotion. He slammed her arm back against the shelf, causing her to stifle a cry at the pain the bloomed at the force of his action. "You will regret it." She felt a tickle of something in her mind and wrenched her eyes away from his as she realized that he'd taken the opportunity to probe against her still-underdeveloped Occlumency shields.

Rage boiled in her stomach as she was faced with the harsh reality of what she'd been tasked with and the man she'd been bound to. She purposefully met his hard, darkened eyes once more before she reared back and spat in his face.

She had the satisfaction of seeing him blink in confusion for a second before he flushed an angry red and snatched her up by the shoulders, tightly enough that she knew it would leave marks in her skin. A hex was tumbling off of her tongue when the sound of footsteps moving toward them caused them both to freeze. The steps drew closer, and they sprang apart, both still shaking with rage.

"Draco?" Pansy Parkinson stepped around the corner, blinking in confusion as she recognized Hermione. Before she could utter a word, Hermione shoved past her, flicking her wand at the pile of books she'd abandoned on the floor earlier and sending them flying toward Malfoy, hoping that at least some of them would hit their target.

X

Hermione sat with Ron and Harry in the common room, watching them play a game of wizard's chess. They'd slowly sunken into a normal routine once again in the weeks since Ron had recovered, and she'd allowed herself to start pretending that things were normal with them once more. She laughed along with their jokes, ignoring the hollow, empty feeling the echoed in her chest as she joined in on their playful banter. She prayed for their happy attitudes to infect her the way it did their other classmates, but she could not help feeling anything but hollow emptiness as it passed over her in waves, dragging her under for short periods before floating away, leaving her as cold and empty as before.

In her bag lay three books on ancient marriage bonding ceremonies that she'd yet to pick up, fearful at the idea of what else she might find about the bonding magic that inextricably linked her to Draco Malfoy. She looked up at where Harry and Ron exchanged casual banter, wondering what their reactions would be if they found out what she'd done. Harry, she knew, would cut her off immediately, unable to look at her with anything but abject disgust as the depths of her betrayal sunk in. And Ron…

It would break his heart. Truthfully, she knew that she'd been slowly breaking it herself the more she denied his advances but knew that something as monumental as this would shatter him completely. She'd once pictured a future with Ron, knowing that it would have been easy and uncomplicated. He would have treated her well, and they could have been happy together.

"...Malfoy," Harry was saying. At the mention of her husband's name her head snapped up, and she zeroed in on their conversation.

"What did you just say, Harry?" she asked.

"I've asked Dobby and Kreacher to start following him," he explained. "He keeps disappearing off the map, but if anyone will be able to figure out where to, it'll be them."

She nodded, feeling her heartbeat begin to race as she took in the new information. It had been several weeks since their row, and they'd studiously avoided each other whenever they crossed paths. Still, she could not help but feel torn, knowing that she would need to inform Malfoy if he tried to summon her to meet him at any point, lest their secret be revealed. A larger, more vocal part of her wanted the elves to find him and catch him in the act of doing something nefarious, enough so that Dumbledore would not be able to let it pass the way he had Ron's poisoning. If the elves reported something serious to him, Harry would not rest until it was known by all who would listen that Malfoy was a near-murderer.

A near murderer. She'd bound herself to a near murderer, who had only not yet earned the full title due to his attempts having been foiled. If he were to be exposed as a murderer, then he'd surely be sent to Azkaban, wouldn't he? She would die when he died, yes, but it wasn't unheard of for prisoners to live on for years - decades, even - while imprisoned there. But if he were to be sentenced to the Kiss…

If he was sentenced to the Kiss, she knew that she could not guarantee that her own soul would be sucked out of her body, too, leaving her a lifeless presence, alive but not living. She worried at her lip as she looked up at Harry and Ron's smiling faces once again, realizing how fractured their friendship had truly become in the face of her decision. She had to warn him, even if it meant undermining her friends.

"Excuse me," she whispered, knowing they'd barely register her taking her leave. Even when she was in their presence these days she felt like an outsider, hovering in their midst without substance.

She sat up in her four-poster for hours, turning her ring over and over in her fingers as she pondered her options. It was unlikely, after all, that he'd even put it back on after her assault in Arithmancy the week before. Eventually, though, she tapped it and activated the charm, sending a simple note: You're being followed.

As expected, there was no response.

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