"What is this, revenge?" Draco was leaning on a wall.

"I don't give a damn about what this is supposed to be, she can't lock me up in my own room!" Hermione almost screamed, annoyed. Daphne thought Draco and herself needed to talk so she did what she'd done to her and Theo. She locked them up.

Draco waved at the room with one hand, almost affirming that yes, she could and she had. "You did the exact same thing to her, I'm the only victim here."

"That's beyond the point," she snorted.

She wanted and at the same time didn't want to talk about what had happened. She knew it would end up bad, ruining what they had, that friendship that had fought its way into their life through insults, sleepless nights in her bedroom at the Manor and classes. She would not let it all disappear because of a kiss in the night, blinded by the nightmares. She refused to lose him over it.

"We don't have to talk about it," she sighed and sat on the bed.

"We do." She just hated Daphne had forced her to do it. "So?"

She took a deep breath. "So, you kissed me by mistake and that's it," she forced herself to say.

Draco Malfoy looked at her like she was crazy. "I did not kiss you by mistake. You don't just slip and fall on someone's lips out of luck. Granger, you're supposed to be the brightest witch of our age." He paused and looked away.

"It's just…" Hermione didn't really know how to voice her concerns in a way that made sense. "This is dangerous territory."

He moved and stood in front of her. For a moment, a brief moment, Hermione was scared. If he touched her, she would give in. Sometimes she wished she could afford acting out of impulse, not giving a damn about the consequences, but she couldn't. "The Dark Lord," he just said, and Hermione simply nodded and closed her eyes. "Do you want this – us – to be something else?" He asked, and she didn't know what to say. She did feel different about him, but, in the situation they both were at that moment, there was too much on the line.

"I think so. But still, this is dangerous, Draco. We can't just walk around and play couple," she sighed.

He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. After a few minutes of silence on both sides, he looked at her again and took her left hand into his. "He doesn't have to know. To the outer eye, we'll be just friends."

"Just friends?" She repeated, a little skeptical.

"Just friends," he promised. And his lips were on hers once again. Definitely, you can't kiss someone by mistake. It was slow, and deep, like they had all the time in the world. Just like their first should have been.

It didn't go much further than that. They talked for hours, in bed, decided they would go watch a Quidditch game during Christmas break – Hermione had objected, but he didn't give her much of a choice. He affirmed that, since she had stopped him from skipping any of the classes they had in common, she had to get as bored as he had been. Plus, she wouldn't visit her parents. As hard as it was, she knew she had to stay as far as possible from them. She couldn't just go home and have a random Death Eater Apparate in her living room for this or that reason. They even played Magical Chess and Hermione was glad she finally had an adversary that could beat her if she wasn't careful.

They did everything Daphne thought they weren't supposed to do, and she was quite surprised, the next morning, to find them dressed up – or at least Hermione, since Draco slept in his attire. Without waking them up, Daphne undid her spell on the door and put their wands on the night-table before leaving the room horrified.

Draco and Hermione, on the other hand, woke up unusually late. Maybe she would manage to sneak into the kitchens and ask the Elves for some food, since it was way too late for breakfast, but she didn't even feel like opening her eyes. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd slept in.

Draco's breathing had changed, a sign he was awake as well. Not that any of them wanted to get up and do something productive, for once.

"You heard Daphne coming in earlier?" His morning voice asked.

Daphne had come in? She shook her head and closed her eyes again.

"I think she's even said something but I couldn't make out what it was," he chuckled.

"We should get up," Hermione murmured a few minutes later.

"Yeah," he yawned half-word.

Eventually, the common sense took over. Hermione's common sense, of course, as if she was to listen to Draco, they would stay in bed all day. The got up and showered and, she had to admit, it was both odd and cute that he smelled of her vanilla-scented shower gel.

In the common room, an over-hyped Daphne was talking her boyfriend into oblivion. When Hermione approached them, Daphne didn't even say hi, just turned the other way.

"What's got your panties in a twist, Daph?" Draco asked, and she abandoned almost immediately her intent of – apparently – ignoring them.

"How could you play chess?" She accused them, like it was the most horrible of things.

"How do you know we did?" Hermione chuckled.

"That is beyond the point! You were supposed to talk and sort things out," she almost whined.

"We did," Hermione explained with the same tone a parent would use while talking to a four-year-old. Daphne did have a slight tendency to act like one, sometimes.

Before Daphne could say anything else, Theo clarified her point, trying to put an end to that conversation, "I think she's referring to the fact that we talked, sorted things out and then had sex in your bed."

Hermione took a deep breath and elbowed Draco as soon as he started laughing. "There was no need to remind me."

A few minutes later, Theo decided he needed a break from Daphne and Draco had been way too happy to join him.

"So this is your brilliant plan, friends with benefits? It's not going to work." Daphne looked skeptical, at best.

"We are not friends with benefits!" Hermione felt insulted she would even think that.

"Come on, whose idea was it?" She pulled her hair to the side and started braiding them.

Hermione hesitated. "His, but it was my fault."

"You mind elaborating?"

Hermione wiped the cold sweat from her forehead and sighed. "I don't want him to have another name to add to the list of people I care about he can kill. This way, we will look like some sleazy friends with benefits, like you said, and perhaps he'd be safe."

"Why won't you let me copy Transfiguration?" Draco was complaining, all while eating his pudding nonchalantly, like it was perfectly normal not to do a thing all day and then ask her to let him copy her homework.

"If McGonagall notices we made the same essay again, she will give us detention and I have no intention of wasting my time like that," she tried to make him reason.

Draco just shrugged. "What do you care? We can skip, Snape won't mind."

She rolled her eyes. "I do care. I said no, ask someone else."

"Why?" He stole the apple she was eating and bit it.

"Stealing my food isn't going to help you." She took it back and continued reviewing her Arithmancy notes.

"Trouble in paradise?" Theo appeared from nowhere behind them, then sat next to her.

"You're back."

"Yeah, it was a much-needed break. Thanks, by the way, Daphne's calmed down. Whatever you did or said, I think she approves," he sighed.

"Right. Can we talk about something else?" Draco sighed and finished his pumpkin juice.

"Sure," Theo shrugged, then pointed his eyes on him. "Why aren't you talking to Blaise anymore?"

Draco lowered his eyes to his pudding. "I don't agree with his life choices," he almost groaned.

Theo almost laughed. "You don't agree with anyone's life choices. Hermione?"

She made a face. She'd like to say it, honestly, but they didn't need someone else on the list of people who knew about Blaise's betrayal. If the Dark Lord found out they all knew, it would not be pretty. "Sorry, Theo. It's not my secret to tell."

"Let me sit next to her! I need to talk to her."

Blaise Zabini and Draco Malfoy were fighting, big surprise. This time, though, they were fighting about who should sit next to her – which wasn't good news.

"No way."

"What are you two, twelve?" She hissed. The whole class was staring at them and Hermione, outraged, went to sit next to Daphne in the second row. Right when Professor Flitwick arrived, the boys were still hissing and scowling at each other and they ended up having to sit together, since there were no free spots left.

"What was that about about?" Daphne whispered.

"No idea," Hermione whispered back, shrugging.

Blaise kept ranting and whispering he needed to talk to her, during the first minutes of class and Draco hadn't hesitated to show his annoyance every time his desk-mate opened his mouth. Only at the end of the class, when everyone had left, she turned to him.

"D.A. tonight. You in?" He asked, hopeful.

Hermione narrowed her eyes. "What, you took me as honorary member? Absolutely not, Zabini."

"But-"

"No. Stay away from me, I won't say it again." She took her bag and left, following Draco and Daphne out of the class.

Muggles were indeed right when they said a bad day could only get worse. Blaise didn't leave her alone for the rest of the day, until she finally let him speak. Apparently, he, along with the rest of the D.A. didn't think she had really "Gone bad," as he said, and they wanted her back with them. Hermione couldn't have that. She couldn't do her job with them messing around and talking to her all the time. It would raise suspicions.

And so the much awaited holidays came. All the way on the train she thought about her plan, how to make it happen and how to make it as efficient as possible. It wouldn't be that hard, since she was staying at Malfoy Manor.

Hermione smiled when she felt Draco take her hand and she rested her head on the window glass, closing her eyes. She was absently listening to the low chatting around her and she found that even Theo's jokes were having a calming effect on her. Maybe it was the awareness that she had to convince someone of her loyalty again, maybe it was just the Dark Lord's presence that would fulfil her life for some good two weeks. She just had a bad feeling.

Even Blaise, she noticed, was way more silent than usual – and he wasn't the chatty one even on his best days. Actually, he wasn't talking at all and she refused to believe it had something to do with her or her promise for answers.

Hermione didn't have a choice, she needed the Order to leave her alone. If Blaise wanted proof, that was exactly what she would give him. Malfoy Manor didn't lack prisoners, that was for sure.

Hours later, in the Drawing Room, Hermione was already regretting not staying at Hogwarts – as if she actually had a choice. Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy weren't waiting for them at Binary 9¾ and so Hermione and Draco Apparated to the Manor alone, escaping the usual awkward silence. Only later they understood why they hadn't come.

It was maybe the hundredth scream of the afternoon and Hermione heard it echo in her head. "Bellatrix, we've been here for hours and you didn't even get his name out of him. I have better things to do than watching you fail," she complained. Over time, the fear she had of Bellatrix dissipated, mostly because she knew she couldn't do anything to her. Silence fell over the room. She felt like everyone was looking at her as the Dark Lord had made them all stay there and assist to the interrogation.

"You filthy prat, how dare you?" Bellatrix moved her wand from the prisoner's face to hers as she stood up. "What are you doing? The Dark Lord clearly said to-"

"The Dark Lord wants answers and it's exactly what I am going to give him. Step aside." Hermione was having none of it. She was sick of the little show Bellatrix had put up. Plus, Blaise was there. It was about time she put her plan in motion.

"I have no intention of doing that," Bellatrix spat.

"You will," Severus Snape intervened, much to her great surprise, "I don't have all day."

Fully aware that Blaise was watching – he had taken the Dark Lord's invite to attend the "meeting," not that he had much choice – she let the part of her she most hated run free, the one she got to know when she'd become a Death Eater.

Hermione stood in front of the prisoner and pulled out her wand. "I suppose you don't want to tell me everything you know out of your own free will, do you?"

The man looked at her like she was crazy and then muttered a low, "Over my dead body."

"We'll see about that. I don't believe in causing pain in order to obtain answers and you're clearly trained to handle it well. Nonetheless, hurting someone you love can prove itself to be unbearable, more than Bellatrix on her best day."

She heard a loud scoff behind her but ignored her. They all knew what was about to happen. She wasn't happy about it, but it was the only way to get the Order to leave her alone.

"Bring me the girl."

She saw his eyes widen and hit him with a Silencing charm, then turned to Greyback, visibly eager to see the show. Hermione barely managed to repress a disgusted grunt at the sight. Taking the girl's arm and pulling her to her side, she looked at what seemed to be her boyfriend and held her wand to his temple.

"Imperio!"

And she repeated the order in his head until she learned it by heart.

Until she started to believe it herself.

Until she saw his mental barriers collapse.

Then he stood up, his constraints Vanished. His lover was shaking. She didn't know what was happening, she only looked at him, pleading.

"Eric, please, whatever it is, don't do it," she kept repeating. If you weren't trained to fight it, you just had no way to resist the Imperius Curse and not everyone had a mind as strong as Harry's, powerful enough to step out of it and get away.

Hermione stepped aside and sat in the very chair he had been sitting in, looking at Blaise just for the sake of it, who, she found, was staring right back at her. She turned towards Draco, absently watching the scene before them. She could see his shield was up as well.

"Eric… Er… don't… please… fight it…" the words flowed confused out of her lips, her voice trembling because of the man's hands around her throat. He smiled that macabre smile she had seen way too many times, similar to Greyback's smirk when the Dark Lord gave him a prisoner to have fun with.

It wasn't the most pleasing show but no one could help but watch, some amused, others indifferent. Only Blaise was still only looking at her.

A few seconds later, she choked on own blood, some escaping her mouth, and fell to the ground, followed by Eric, who, as soon as the spell had vanished, realized what he'd done. He took her head in his hands and his sobs echoed in the large room.

"What was it, Eric?" She asked. "Over your dead body? I'm pretty sure we have your little sister as well." Hermione didn't want to hurt the child, directly or indirectly, but he didn't need to know that. She only hoped the man wouldn't put her in the position to.

With a last, exhausted breath, Eric looked at her. "What do you want to know?"

She smirked, a habit she blamed Draco for, and got up. "And merely ten minutes later, Bellatrix, my work here is done. Have fun."

Leaving the room, Hermione nodded at Blaise to follow her.

"What the hell was that?" He hissed when they were far enough.

"He was lucky, most of them go mad," she muttered, inexpressively.

"What is wrong with you?" Blaise grabbed her arm and turned her around.

"A lot of things," she laughed an unamused laugh. "You need to leave me alone, Blaise," Hermione added, more serious now. They had to. They had to leave her do her job and they had to let her deal with her own problems. There was no way she could get out if they kept being in her way and interfering.

"This isn't you," he insisted.

Hermione glared at his hand on her and he seemed to get the message, letting her go.

"I think it's time for you to leave, Zabini," Draco almost growled, appearing right behind them.

"Right."

The last thing she heard before Draco's arms were around her was the smacking of the front door.