Hermione couldn't stop thinking about what she did. The Eric episode was new for her, as, for once, no one had forced her to torture him or make him kill his lover. Every other time she had done it, it had been because the Dark Lord wanted her to, but this time it was personal. She needed the Order to leave her alone. A few hours prior, she had been told the man had killed himself as soon as he found a wand he could get his hands on.

Her damn brain was torn: the first half, the one that could still manage to think clearly, was telling her she was a monster for what she'd done; the second one, the one already surrendered to Voldemort, thought she'd done the right thing. She felt like bloody and Mr. Hyde. She felt like she was going crazy. The voices in her head were tearing her apart and she felt like two different people in the same body.

A knock on the door made her head stop spinning for a second and she got up almost immediately from the bed. Hermione opened the door and found Draco staring right back at her.

"Bellatrix?" She asked, almost amused.

"You," he merely answered. She was about to ask what that was supposed to mean, but he preceded her and sat on the bed. Yet, she thought she had been absolutely normal at dinner. "Want to talk about it?" Hermione narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. "If that's a no, it's not very convincing."

"I'm fine, really," she said, although it was pretty clear he didn't believe her. She could almost see his thoughts projected in his eyes.

"Granger–"

"I said I'm fine." She tried to sound as convincing as possible but Draco was clearly just giving up, instead of buying it.

He simply nodded and got under the covers, pulling her towards him. None of them said a word, although they were both aware the other was awake, and only the time it took them to fall asleep helped them forget. Almost.

Hermione woke up screaming, for a change, panicked and sweating like every other time. She should have known her mind would give her away. Draco barely managed to calm her down, that night, while Eric was forcing her to kill her parents – she was right, after all, inflicting pain would never be as painful as making someone hurt their loved ones.

She didn't close her eyes again after that. Hermione just stared quietly at the ceiling, afraid to fall asleep again, even when she was so tired her eyes tried to close. The next morning she found that tiredness had indeed taken her down without her even realizing it, and she was woken up by Draco's arm over her. Relief hit her when she realized she hadn't had any more nightmares, at least none she remembered of. She opened her eyes and found his grey ones staring at her.

Hermione was informed – not without an amused smirk on Draco's part – that the Quidditch match he was dragging her to was that very night. Lovely. Hours and hours watching people fly around, trying to avoid having their bones broken by Bludgers and passing each other some weirdly shaped ball. Best part was, she could be forced to have to stay there for days, literally, if a damn Seeker didn't manage to get the Snitch. What could possibly go wrong?

Hermione had to suppress a groan when she saw Draco waiting for her at the front door, with his signature smirk on. After making it past the wards and Disapparating, Hermione was standing before the main entrance of the stadium, annoyed.

A wizard checked their tickets and she found their seats were – unsurprisingly – in the official gallery. Everyone else would be ecstatic at the idea, but for her it was just more stairs to climb. Once they finally arrived, Hermione took her cloak off and unceremoniously let it fall on what looked like quite the expensive seat, while Draco sat at her left.

"Do I really have to be here?" She complained and let her fingers play with his hair.

"Yes, you do," he grinned, "You'll like it, just wait and see."

"This is not my first Quidditch match, I already know I won't."

"Be nice," Draco murmured and laughed, taking her hand.

While the game was about to start Hermione noticed she heard a familiar voice behind her. She didn't have to turn around to know that was Ginny's voice, then Mr.. Weasley and George – or was it Fred? She could bear Ginny, maybe Arthur too, but there was no way she could do the same with the twins. She hated that Arthur Weasley was given official gallery tickets at work, again. Hermione decided she would pretend not seeing them, as she didn't realize she had until that moment.

"You know who else is here?" She whispered in Draco's ear nonchalantly.

"Who?" He whispered back, taking his eyes off the game.

"The Weasleys."

"I don't like sharing my air with them either, but there's nothing we can do about it." He grimaced.

Hermione sighed. "You know that's not what I mean." After a few minutes spent debating, she did something she'd never done before. She tried to flirt. Hell, Daphne seemed to get away with it when Theo didn't give her what she wanted – which was pretty often – so maybe so could she. Getting closer to Draco, she slipped her hand out of his and put it on his thigh, feeling her face redden. "Perhaps I could come back to the Manor and I'll make it up to you once you're back," she muttered, trying to sound seductive. She didn't know whether it was working but she surely couldn't help feeling a bit stupid for trying.

"Tempting," Draco bit his lower lip and smirked. He rested his hand on hers, still on his thigh, and intertwining their fingers. "But no." He kissed her neck subtly and chuckled.

Hermione sighed, annoyed, and turned back to the game. Was she doing it wrong? She could still see his grin from the corner of her eye, so she wasn't sure.

Three long hours later, France's Seeker finally caught the Snitch, after almost falling from his broom and potentially getting himself killed. As she felt her Mark burn, Hermione tried to remain as still as possible and she saw Draco stare at her, her hand still in his. She put her cloak back on and none of them said a word, he just side-Disapparated her behind some stairs near the last row of the highest gallery, waiting for the VIPs to be out of sight

"Do you think he wants to attack tonight?" He asked.

"No, he would have let us know." She looked at the unsurprisingly cloudy sky and sighed. "I think he just wants to send a message."

Draco nodded absently and then pointed his wand at the sky. "Morsmorde! Let's get out of here." As they both watched the Dark Mark rise among the clouds and heard the terror that caused, Draco slipped an arm around her hips and drew her to him. "Are you alright?"

Hermione smiled at that. "I'm just bored to death," she chucked, trying to lighted the mood. He caught her hint and chuckled back at her.

"Come on, it wasn't that bad. I mean, it didn't last as long as I would have liked it to, but you don't let a Snitch slip away just so the game can be longer." With their hands still locked, he guided her down the stairs

"It lasted three hours. It was more than enough," she complained.

While they kept climbing down, more and more people were running towards the nearest exit and pointing at the Dark Mark shining in the sky, panicking. Hermione saw the Weasleys just as they got to the front gate, and had a feeling her night was about to go from bad to even worse. She tried to pretend she hadn't seen them, but Mr. Weasley clearly begged to differ.

"Hermione, it's nice to see you, even if in the wrong company," he said, stopping right in front of her, and she could endure his presence, really, even Ginny's, if she had to, but not the twins. The twins that had kept her alive and laughing even when the O.W.L.s had almost got her to the Medical Wing, studying day and night. The thought of the both of them dead she couldn't endure.

"I believe I'm old enough to choose my own friends, Mr. Weasley, but thanks for the concern," Hermione replied, cold.

"You couldn't be less of a bitch even if you tried, could you?" Ginny snorted, earning himself a glance of warning from her father.

"Why don't you wait for me to do something really horrible, before judging me?" Hermione twisted her head to the side, looking at her and trying to understand how much she knew.

"Like putting the Dark Mark in the sky? Or killing Eric and his girlfriend?" Ginny scoffed in disbelief, a bitter note in her voice.

Hermione found herself pleasantly surprised Zabini had told them what happened. She felt Draco's hand tighten around hers and she almost smiled. "I killed none of them." She said. "Eric choked his girlfriend to death and killed himself as soon as he managed to get his hands on a wand."

"He killed her because of your Imperius."

"Yet, I did not kill her," Hermione repeated. "I don't get my hands dirty if I can make others do that for me, Ginny. Care to tell how you even know about Eric? I didn't tell you, for sure, but I bet he did."

Blaise was quite literally the only chance they would have of knowing what was going on inside the Manor, unless Snape had told them.

"Why haven't you turned him in yet?" Mr. Weasley asked and she smirked.

"Because it suits me."

Ginny shook her head and Disapparated, quickly followed by her father, whose only goodbye to her was a sad grimace.

Draco took a few steps towards the exit and she turned around to follow him, but someone grabbed her arm, pulling both of them to a stop. Fred Weasley was smiling at her, as was his brother. Hermione smiled back, sadly.