"What do you think you're doing?" Draco muttered, still half asleep, feeling Hermione trying to leave the bed.

"Getting a shower, it's almost nine," she answered, sitting back down and passing a hand through his hair.

Draco smirked, but kept his eyes closed. "I like our morning showers."

"Alone," Hermione said and pulled back her hand.

"Why?" He almost whined, but she was already gone. As greenish light invaded the room – Hermione must have opened the curtains – Draco groaned and put a pillow over his head.

He guessed a good twenty minutes had passed when Granger finally emerged from the bathroom, only dressed in his deep green robe. He caught himself thinking she was gorgeous, with her hair wet and wearing something that was his.

"I need to Floo to the Manor later so I can grab some books to work on," she simply said and sat back on the bed.

"Today is meant to relax and do nothing, you know that, right?" He asked, just to be sure he wouldn't have to tie her to the bed or something.

"Yes, I remember." She rolled her eyes and started brushing her hair with her fingers. "I'll start my research late tonight or tomorrow."

"You don't need to work yourself out for this, we can figure it out piece by piece," he said, but he knew she wouldn't be convinced that easily.

"We don't have time to take it slow, Draco."

"Says who? It's not like he left us any instructions," he scoffed, and rolled on his back.

"He did, actually, even if it doesn't make sense."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Killing someone that's already dead isn't an instruction, it's just something a madman would say."

"What if he's not dead?" She asked softly, like she didn't really want to know the answer. He didn't, either.

Harry Potter being dead was easy. Harry Potter being alive, on the other hand, meant constant fighting and Hermione possibly being taken away from him. Although sometimes he thought she was far too deep into the Death Eater play, he knew perfectly well she had changed in an irreversible way.

"You really think so?"

"I honestly don't know what to think," she sighed.

"Well, the bad news is," he sighed dramatically, "We missed breakfast," he finished, trying to lighten the mood, and it seemed to have worked, since Hermione laughed at his statement.

"I'll go get something from the kitchens," she offered and started to get up, but, once again, he stopped her.

"Not dressed like that." He eyed at her outfit meaningfully and grinned, pulling her to him for a kiss. "Good morning."

"Good morning," she whispered back, smiling on his lips.

"They can't do this, can they?" Ginny asked, for the hundredth time.

"They can. A student has been attacked, what do you expect?" Blaise replied, annoyed. Gryffindors truly knew nothing of strategy, or even subtleness. It was embarrassing. "You should have let Potter do it, at least he's supposed to be dead. You, on the other hand, are pretty much alive."

"Can't you just erase the evidence from your wand?" Neville asked.

Erase the evidence, honestly. Not that he didn't like the idea, erasing the evidence was a nice loophole and all, but they should have thought about the consequences before casting a bloody Dark Mark over Hogwarts.

"You don't just erase a Morsmorde from your wand's record, Longbottom," he scoffed. "It was cast with Hestia's wand, which was possibly the only smart move you people could think of. Still, it doesn't matter what wand you used, the damn thing leaves a track on the wizard that casts the Mark."

"So it's on me forever?" Ginny almost screamed, panicking.

"Unless someone with a Dark Mark takes it off you, yes."

"What do you mean? How does that work?"

Blaise sighed.

"You can move the track the Morsmorde left behind on someone else. The Dark Lord thought it might be useful in case someone with no Mark had to cast one and they were working, say, undercover, so their cover wouldn't blow up. The track of a Morsmorde wouldn't be as suspicious on a Death Eater as it would be on someone else. In this case you: Ginny Weasley, Gryffindor."

"Well, then we can force Hermione to do it. We can blackmail her with something, and it's done."

He sighed again, shaking his head. Did these people believe dark magic was just that easy? Why would it be frowned upon and sometimes illegal if it were nice and easy?

"Nice try. Both parties have to be willing for the spell to work. This way no one can take advantage of it, like you are trying to do."

"I'm screwed, that's what you're saying." She was clearly starting to panic.

"Pretty much."

"I can't ask Hermione to take the damn thing off me, obviously, and, even if I did, it would be nothing but an admission of guilt."

"Precisely." Blaise was just annoyed. He couldn't believe someone had that much lack of subtleness. Honestly, she could have got Potter to do it and they wouldn't be in that mess. He was supposed to be dead, no one would scan his wand or look for traces of the Dark Mark. But, of course, Gryffindors just had to be impulsive.

Apparently, Hestia had seen Potter and Ginny talk by the Black Lake, just like that, in plain sight – although Ginny said they were hiding behind some rocks and dead tree. Hestia had cast a curse on him immediately, he cast a Protego and the spell backfired on her. Then Ginny, as bright as she was, decided to take advantage of the situation and cast the bloody Dark Mark on Hestia's body to make it look like the Death Eaters were responsible for hurting one of their own. Which was bullshit, since the only Death Eaters in the school were Hermione, Draco and Snape. With Snape as Headmaster and Hermione in charge, it would be hard to prove they attacked Hestia even if they actually did it. That, and Ginny thought a dark spell like the Morsmorde wouldn't leave some kind of trace.

Bloody Gryffindors.

"So now what?" Asked Harry, in a whisper, from the furthest corner of the room.

"Now we wait," he sighed and leaned on a wall. There was really nothing else for them to do.

The next day, Draco couldn't help but let Hermione go back to her frenetic schedule. It was Monday, classes started again and his forced timeout on her life ended Sunday night.

On Sunday night, she Flooed back to the Manor to grab some books she claimed she needed. He understood that. The dark section in the Hogwarts library was in no way as dark as she needed it to be to find what she was looking for.

He couldn't manage to get her to have lunch as was the school schedule, though, before she rushed to her afternoon classes. Hermione went straight to the library with some of the books she had taken from the Manor, while he went to the kitchens to get at least a few sandwiches for them to eat. Draco could bet his life, if he let her alone in there, she would not come out any better than she was when she came in.

"We're not sleeping tonight, are we?" Draco sighed and he knew, as he watched her, that it was a rhetorical question.

"Nope," she smiled at him apologetically and leaned in to kiss him.

Great.

Well, at least they would both get a break in a hour or so.

When their lunch break was almost over, Hermione seemed to have found something, by the way her eyes glitched.

"Look at this!" She almost screamed.

"What?"

"This is a reversed Patronus, look." She turned the book for him to see as well and he read the spell and its indications. "The original formula is Expecto patronum, as in waiting for help. This one is Praecido patronum. The verb itself in Latin means to cut off something, to deny it or break it. How have I not came upon this sooner?"

Hermione looked genuinely intrigued, perhaps even happy about her discovery.

"So this is the exact opposite of a regular Patronus?"

"I think so. The way this works is, you think of your most terrible memory to conjure a Patronus that you can send to attack someone, perhaps even kill them. It seems similar to what would be conjuring a Dementor, pure dark energy that will literally suck the life out of you."

Draco narrowed his eyes. "Why aren't people using it already, if it's that powerful?"

"This is really dark magic. Normally, you would think of your most happy memory to conjure a Patronus, which is positive energy meant to help you. This one, on the other hand, will temporarily take away a piece of your soul to transform into the Patronus you're conjuring so it has the power to be an offensive charm this serious. It needs your magic to work, that's why it requires a piece of you."

Well, if that wasn't the answer to his problems. Was it too good to be true? And why was he happy about it? Oh, right. Voldemort broke his family and requested they give up their home so he could use it as headquarters. Delightful, truly.

"About that, we should perhaps make sure the part regarding the temporarily lost soul is actually temporary. You know, to avoid any Horcrux kind of incident," Draco sighed and grabbed his wand. "I think we should try."

"What? I mean, it's interesting, for sure, but it can't help us." She looked like she couldn't understand what was wrong with the situation.

"Just… think about it, okay?" He sighed and leaned back into his chair.

She denied, confused.

"What should I think about? Who do you want to use this against? The Dark Lord?"

"Hermione, why are you doing this?" He just asked.

"Doing what?"

"This," he gestured at the books all over the place. "Why do you want him to come back?"

Hermione looked perplexed. "We're Death Eaters. He left me in charge, it's our duty."

Why? She was supposed to be the one person to hate the Dark Lord enough to do everything in her power not to help him come back, or recover.

"What are you talking about? You're supposed to hate him, look what he did to you!"

Voldemort had turned her into a murderer. Not that he was judging, or anything, they were all murderers, torturers and awfully bad people. But she was different. She was supposed to be different. She was a Gryffindor, noble, brave and whatever other bullshit they sold.

"What are you talking about? Why this outburst, why now?"

"You have the chance to end him, why don't you?"

"You're not on his side, are you?" Hermione narrowed her eyes at him and lightly shook her head.

Draco said nothing. He had never put it like that before, but he guessed that was kind of the reality. He wasn't really on his side. How could he be? The Dark Lord had almost destroyed his family one to many times, and family was everything. He hated his father for brainwashing him as a child and through all his teenage years. He loved his mother for always taking care of him, no matter what. Regardless, family was everything for Malfoys.

Perhaps it was time to do something reckless, and daring, and oh-so-brave. Something a Gryffindor would do. He hated the idea. Loathed it. But – he recognized with a sigh – desperate times called for desperate measures.

"I'm on whatever side suits me best."

Draco could not believe what he was doing. He could honestly hex himself for it. At the very end of his Herbology class, he was thinking about how to get bloody Ginny Weasley to part from Longbottom.

After professor Sprout finally let them go, he made his move. He stared at her until she met his gaze. Then, he looked at the nearby empty greenhouse and then moved his eyes on her again, nodding ever-so-slightly. He couldn't risk anyone noticing the interaction between them.

He was one of the last to leave the greenhouse, taking a ridiculous amount of time to put everything back in his bag. When the class was now almost empty, he made his way out and walked into the empty greenhouse he had indicated to the she-Weasel, making sure no one was following him.

As soon as he was inside, she was staring at him, her wand drawn and ready to aim at him. He couldn't say he was surprised.

"What do you want?" She asked before he could even open his mouth.

Before answering, he cast a muffling spell so people couldn't hear them, just in case.

"As weird as it sounds, I want your help." The words felt like sand in his mouth.

"My help." Ginny raised an eyebrow at him and crossed her arms.

"It's about Hermione," he just said, not wanting to give too much away in case she wouldn't accept.

"I don't see why I would help any of you," she scoffed.

"Because," Draco smirked, "I believe you have a Dark Mark you need to get rid of."

He wasn't sure she did it, at first. He knew almost for certain that one of them did, just didn't know which one. And, by the look on her face, it was her.

Honestly, these people needed to step up their game if they expected to live in a world ruled by their enemies.

"I don't know what you're talking about," was her only response.

"Of course you don't," he replied, "If you did, you would admit of being guilty of attacking Hestia."

"You have no proof."

"Oh, I believe I have." Before she could react, he disarmed her and grabbed her forearm, making sure his Mark touched her skin.

The contact only lasted for a second, before she backed off in shock, but it was more than enough to prove his point. Draco glanced at her exposed skin and smirked again. A faint, grey Dark Mark was glowing on her forearm. That was the trace the spell left on a wizard.

Ginny looked at her arm as well and put her hand on her mouth, trembling.

"What did you do to me?" She panted.

"Now, I believe I am the only thing standing between you and Azkaban," he said, as a matter of fact. If they caught her, that was the only possible option, apart from execution.

Tears were collecting in her eyes. "What do you want?" She just said.

"As I said, I need your help. I believe you and your little friends are hiding on the seventh floor, these days, aren't you?"

She merely nodded.

"Then I'll see you at ten o'clock. Alone, this time." He gave her her wand back, then turned around. "Longbottom, try putting some effort in that Disillusionment spell," he said, walking out of the greenhouse.

Ten o'clock came quickly.

Hermione was still deep into her research, so she didn't even notice he was missing.

"Well, what do you want, Malfoy?" The Weaselette asked as soon as he stepped into the Room, which looked like what he assumed was the Gryffindor common room.

"As I said, I need your help. A bird told me you were hunting down and destroying Horcruxes before The-Boy-Who-Wouldn't-Die finally died. I want you to resume the research."

Ginny raised an eyebrow at him, skeptical.

"If that was true, you would also know I didn't have anything to do with the mission."

"Nonetheless, you seem to be in charge around here."

"Even if we wanted to resume the research, Harry was the only one who could feel Horcruxes. We wouldn't know how to find them."

"Perhaps I can help with that."

Maybe all that time researching with Hermione wouldn't go to waste.

"How? And why would you help us? You're the enemy here." She crossed her arms and stared at him intently.

"I know you don't trust nor like me. The feeling is mutual. But you need the Mark trace gone and I need Granger not to bring back the Dark Lord. It's a win-win."

"Why?"

"My reasons don't concern you. I can tell you what all the Horcruxes are and where you can find them, plus a little discovery of Hermione's on how you can kill him. Even though, with Potter dead, that would be quite wasted, wouldn't it?"

"What does Harry have to do with this?"

"Well, that's the prophecy, isn't it? Only he can kill him."

"Perhaps we could find a way around it," she said, looking away. Sketchy, if you asked him.

"I doubt that."

Draco sighed dramatically and saw a curtain move from the corner of his eye. He glared at Ginny and raised an eyebrow at her. "You really suck at following instructions, you know? Come out."

Ginny looked away again and shook her head lightly. Blaise Zabini emerged from behind the curtains and took off the Disillusionment spell. Draco couldn't help but wonder why he was there, among all.

"You didn't expect I trusted you with my life, did you?" She asked, raising a brow.

Draco considered it for a second. "Not really, no," he decided.

"Start talking, then."

He rolled his eyes, but complied. "There's a total of six Horcruxes: Slytherin's locket, Hufflepuff's cup, Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem, the diary you had in second year, a cursed ring and Nagini."

She visibly grimaced at the thought of the diary. "We're only missing Nagini and the cup."

"Well, I don't know where Nagini currently is, as she seems to have left with her master, but the cup is in the Lestrange family vault at Gringotts."

"I hope you're joking," she said, looking at him dead serious. He couldn't blame her. That would be one hard steal. She looked quite shell-shocked, to be honest.

"Well, how do we know you're not just trying to trap us there and kill us?" Zabini intervened.

Draco almost scoffed. "Yeah 'cause you're going to part of a break-in at Gringotts. Here's the thing, Weasley," he said and sat down in a red armchair – not ideal, but still. "You can either do this and hope for the best, or let Granger continue her obsessive research and possibly find a way to revive the Dark Lord and make him come back stronger than before. It's your choice, really. I'll be fine either way."

The Weaselette stopped for a moment. "You said you knew how to kill him," she asked, in a very passive aggressive manner. Gryffindors.

"Hermione recently discovered a form of reversed Patronus. It's very dark magic, but a sacrifice is needed once in a while, isn't it?"

"How would it work?"

She didn't seem to even care about the fact that it was dark. Was that Gryffindor bravery or Gryffindor dumbness?

"Like a regular Patronus, only instead of conjuring good energy to help someone that's in danger, you do the opposite. You would temporarily cut away a piece of your soul and the Patronus you conjure would attack or potentially even kill your target."

"And you think it would work?"

Draco sighed and picked up a white feather he found on a coffee table nearby his armchair and started playing with it.

"In normal circumstances? Not likely. Right now? It's worth a chance. If Hermione's right and he's weakened by the loss of most of his Horcruxes, he must be weak enough that this could work."

"Can you show me the book?"

"Hermione has it. I will make a copy of the spell. So do we have a deal?"

"That's it? All you want us to do is destroy them and try to kill him?"

"Precisely."

She shrugged. "Then we have a deal."

Draco let go of the feather he was holding and stood up from his place.

Then he saw Blaise do something he had never done before: he scratched the back of his head in an oddly familiar way.

He heard Ginny's voice in his head saying they will find a way around Potter's prophecy. He remembered the two Blaises Hermione kept seeing, which, at that point, was probably just Polyjuice.

Draco smirked. He had the upper hand. He finally knew their secret.

"Well, well, well. Looks like The-Boy-Who-Wouldn't-Die really won't die."

Both Blaise-Potter and the Weaselette stared at him in shock, but he was quicker. He drew his wand and cast a protective shield in front of him.

"Now, before any of you does something stupid, people know where I am and what I am doing. If I don't come back in one piece, they will know whom to come after."

"Harry, don't," Weasley murmured when Potter looked like he was about to do something incredibly stupid. "Like it or not, he's my get-out-of-jail card."

"I believe I am."

"Get the Mark off her, then," Potter almost spat and lowered his wand.

Draco grabbed Weasley's arm with a smirk and pressed his wand on her skin.

The spell was similar to Morsmorde in its nature, but effectively different. The way it worked was that of using an already conjured Mark – in that case, hers – and casting it on someone else – him.

As he murmured the words again and again, the Mark on her skin dissolved like smoke and he felt it moving on his own forearm instead.

"Did it work?" Potter asked when he finally let go of Ginny's arm.

Draco uncovered his own Mark, that was now moving the way it did when he would cast one in the sky. "It worked."

He was about to leave, when Potter called his name.

"What?"

"Hermione wants to get him back because he's her way out," he just said.

Well, that made sense. Her captor was indeed the only one who could set her free.

"And maybe she could accomplish that. Death, on the other hand, is much more final and a much better way out."