A/N: Thank you to everyone for your kudos and reviews and tumblr messages. Lots coming up, and quite soon, too...

Trigger warnings: N/A

Stumbling into the flat, Hermione still refused to release her hold around Narcissa's waist. The Polyjuice had lasted just long enough for the pair of them to cross the threshold, whereupon they promptly collapsed on each other in pained heaps as their bodies stretched and contracted back to their native states.

"Huh," she heard Ron remark as their identities finally revealed themselves, but the boys made no move to interfere with the two witches clearly grappling with a pronounced emotional something which neither of the wizards in the room could understand. And, as Hermione and Narcissa retreated to their bedroom without a word, neither man thought to question it.

Before the door had shut behind them, Narcissa was sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows on her knees, head in her hands, staring frantically at the carpet. Hermione, after securing the door, didn't waste a moment in rushing to kneel on the floor in the empty space Narcissa stared into.

"Hey, look, please…" Hermione reached up and gently placed her hands around Narcissa's own, stroking across the gentle ripples of delicate bone, trying to ease the tension away… "You're alright now, I promise… He is too, you know. He's very good at keeping himself safe—you know he wouldn't have made it this far if he weren't…"

Still, Narcissa did not move and her respiration grew hoarser by the breath. Hermione searched for something, anything to say that might console her, but how could she do that when she couldn't even pinpoint exactly what had so upset the woman in the first place?

"Would you like me to go?" she whispered.

Narcissa inhaled. Exhaled. Again. And again. Though her eyes were directed at Hermione's approximate space, she seemed to be seeing something else entirely.

Hermione stood and turns to the door.

"No! Wait, please…" Turning back to the bed, Hermione watched in alarm and despair as Narcissa gasped for breath and struggled to arrange her thoughts into words. Surely this can't go on, Hermione thought, yet just as she started searching her brain for any sort of soothing potion they may have in their stash, Narcissa whispered, "Please, if… I think if I'm left alone, I'll probably lose my mind. Could you stay? And keep me sane?"

Hermione's heart fractured at the aching hopelessness in the older witch's voice and she nodded without hesitation, though she wasn't entirely sure how to 'keep her sane,' as she had put it.

So, she came back to stand in front of Narcissa's hunched form and searched her head for ways to bring this morose woman out of her bubble of misery. "It'll be alright, you know," she declared, then flinched at how stupid it sounded aloud. "Draco will be okay, I mean. You haven't done anything wrong by asking him to help us, and—look. He's really good at preserving himself, and I slipped him the Felix Felicis, and he's not an idiot, so he'll use it. And I have no doubt that if getting hold of the cup is too dangerous, he won't do it. And then we'll come up with some other way—"

"No!"

"…No?"

Grunting in impatience, Narcissa threw her hands onto her knees; Hermione saw the skin there blanche as her nails dug into flesh. "You don't understand."

"Then help me to!"

"I am his mother!"

"I know!"

"I am supposed to-to protect him, my own child, and instead I have thrown him into the destiny of either a criminal or a martyr! I have ended my son's life, Hermione, because I was too stupid and blind to understand the choices I was making."

Hermione watched as Narcissa crumpled, all quivering lips and ragged breaths and moist eyes, and felt the frothing brim of her frustration finally boil over the rim.

"Oh, would you just stop it?" she hissed. "Honestly! You're not the only one suffering in this bloody war! Be thankful your son is still alive, at least—do you know how many other parents, magical or Muggle, can't say the same? Yes, it's horrible and painful and I'm sorry that Draco is in this position, but we don't have the time to feel sorry for ourselves, Narcissa. And don't for a second try to convince me that you were too young and naïve, or whatever, to understand what you were doing. You were older than I am now, and I can tell you it's not that hard to differentiate between being a decent human being and being a fascistic, genocidal—argh!" Clenching her fists, Hermione struggled to organise herself in the midst of an emotional explosion she hadn't even been aware was brewing. "You're not helping anyone like this, least of all Draco." Narcissa stared at her in mild shock and Hermione couldn't help but relish the little bits of hurt she could inflict with her words. "I haven't forgiven you for those decisions you made before I was born, you know. I probably never will. But I've accepted that they happened and that, right now, it doesn't really matter all that much, since we're all fighting this together, and whatever other meaningless platitudes you please. I care about you now, and if Britain's most obnoxious Mudblood can do that, then it had better be bloody good enough for you, too."

Narcissa remained hunched over on the bed, staring at the ground. Hermione could see the heavy breaths which rattled her ribs and had the oddest sensation that she was talking to herself. Had Narcissa been this harsh with her when Hermione had been curled up on the ground, awash in self-hatred? She couldn't remember; all her memories of the last few months had grown horribly fuzzy. But, hypocrisy or no, she refused to feel guilty for speaking what she believed to be the truth.

Narcissa abruptly sat up and smeared a hand across her face, still avoiding eye contact. "Fine," she grit out between clenched teeth.

Hermione would take it.

"Good. I'll leave you to yourself for a bit, then. And go… debrief the boys on how it all went today."

Neither of them exchanged a word as Hermione quietly removed herself from the bedroom, yet, though the exchange had been almost hostile, Hermione had no doubt that Narcissa would agree with her eventually and be better off for it in the end.

And, with any luck, Draco would not be so rude as to get himself killed and prove her wrong.

Harry and Ron gave her uncomfortable looks as she emerged into the sitting room.

"She'll be alright," she told them before either could figure out exactly how to verbalise the question. "And Draco's agreed to help us. We have to go back, same time next week. If he's got it, he'll give it to us then."

Harry's eyebrows rose above his frames. "Right Well, I suppose that went pretty well?"

Hermione shrugged. "I rather suppose it did."

"Well done, Hermione."

She wanted to point out that it had really been his plan all along, that she'd had unusually little to do with the logistics of the whole operation, and yet she couldn't voice any of it as her mouth pulled itself into a smile she couldn't stop.

The days wore on, though they now carried an intoxicating promise of something brewing in the near distance. Narcissa did her best, it seemed, to pull herself out of her bout of maternal misery, which Hermione greatly appreciated not only for the sake of the woman's own well-being, but the morale of the flat as they passed through the empty days, waiting for news of Draco's success or failure.

Hermione had entered this waiting period still high on the exhilaration with which she strode out of Knockturn Alley.

After two days, she had devolved back into a creature more anxious than Narcissa had been. Her peripheral thoughts became plagued by images of Draco encountering more and more deadly perils in his effort to snatch the cup from the Dark Lord's possession. She had placed him in outrageous danger, and truly his odds of survival let alone success were abysmally low. They couldn't even know for certain that the cup was a Horcrux! And now they had sent Draco into certain death for no reason at all!

"Oi! Hermione!"

She flinched, returning to present reality with a painful start as Ron impatiently questioned her from over a pot of viciously bubbling water. "Is it meant to be boiling like this or should I turn it down?"

With a shake of her head, Hermione stood and went to go help her magical friend learn to cook rice the Muggle way, Draco's thousands of possible deaths dimming behind her eyes to mere shadows, waiting for the opportunity to grow again.

Though Narcissa surely noticed Hermione's sudden return to distress, she did not press the younger witch. Nevertheless, Hermione felt her pale eyes tracking her movements and tracing her sudden shifts of mood.

Hermione woke to find Narcissa on top of her, arms pinning her to the bed at the forearms. Her breaths tore through her lungs and Hermione realised she had just been yanked out of a particularly ferocious nightmare, the thrashing of her limbs still echoing through her muscle fibres.

"What on Earth is the matter?" whispered Narcissa with a kind of baffled fear which somehow did not come off as rude.

Hermione merely stared into those eyes which pierced through the darkness, images of a tortured Draco and the fear of imminent betrayal clogging her gullet. The sensations hung so heavily in her memory, yet Narcissa's weight atop her pressed more insistently, and the distinction between dream and reality quickly began to take shape in Hermione's head.

"It's silly," she whispered.

Narcissa scoffed and gently released her grip on Hermione's arms, instead propping herself up with her hands on either side of Hermione's head. The searching look she gave her was so direct that all Hermione could do was stare back and blink.

"Nothing that makes you react like this could possibly be silly. Tell me," she ran a finger lightly along Hermione's hairline, "and tell me now before it gets so distorted in your head that you forget it isn't real. I know what you're like."

Hermione swallowed, shivered a little as the barely-there strokes of Narcissa's fingertip prickled her skin.

Her eyes closed and the dream-memories resurfaced. "I'm sorry…" she whispered. "He's in so much danger, and you're right, it's probably too much… we shouldn't have done it… I don't know what we'll do if it all goes wrong! It could end everything! Do you know how easy it would be trace it all back to us?"

"Shh," Narcissa dropped a kiss atop Hermione's forehead and Hermione found herself swallowed by a curtain of hair as the older witch rolled onto her side, taking Hermione with her and holding her close against her collarbone. "You were the one who reminded me that my son," she choked a little, "is more than capable of protecting himself and his memories. He is sly and clever. I know this, because I taught him to be this way. I trust him. And I know you do, too."

Hermione nodded against Narcissa's neck. She couldn't quite breathe. She didn't really mind.

"In four days' time, we will know. And then we will be able to act accordingly. For now," her hand tenderly ran through Hermione's cropped hair and continued to trace a lazy line down her back, "can we not enjoy the knowledge that things are advancing in our favour?"

Hermione inhaled the warm air which smelled so heavily of Narcissa and the vaguely fruity scent of the shampoo they all used. Already, sleep swirled about her head and began enveloping her consciousness with its languid tendrils.

"I'm so scared," she whispered.

Narcissa's breathing shifted, her embrace tightened.

"Then let us be scared together."

Hermione did.

The noise hovered at the edge of Hermione's consciousness like an omnipotent buzz. The music, combined with the overlap of so many voices, seemed to envelop her in a cocoon of constant vibration which prevented her from doing much else but sit by the corner and watch the mingling. She wasn't quite sure how this had happened—it had started as just a regular meeting between some Order members and Harry, but then that had become dinner, and then someone had got a bottle of wine, and then a handful of spouses and a hefty dollop of friends showed up and now, here they all were in the tiny flat, eating take-away and laughing while Muggle pop music incessantly made itself known from the sound system by the TV.

Hermione hated it. She thought she'd missed this, all the warmth and love overflowing from under so many embraces, but tonight it merely filled her with nausea.

They were at war! People were dying—people they loved!

Fleur was still missing.

Had they held parties like this while she had been lost, likely dead, withering away to bits in that godforsaken cellar?

Even Narcissa, whom Hermione least expected to be enlivened by a festive gathering such as this, sat on the sofa beside a very maternal-looking Tonks, baby Teddy happily changing shape and colour in her arms. Hermione had forgotten that the two witches were closely related. Though those particular branches of the Black family had been estranged, at least to Herimone's understanding, the two witches now sat, tear-streaked, giggling with one another quite amiably.

Hermione thought of Fleur, of how resilient she'd seemed during the Triwizard Tournament; even the brilliance of her hair had refused to dull. I'm so sorry, wherever you are. Hermione didn't know what else to say—to tell her to hang in there until rescue seemed cruel, not when Hermione didn't really believe they'd be able to save Fleur anytime soon. Not when they didn't have any idea where she was even being held. If she was alive at all. I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I'm so, so sorry…

Arthur Weasley laughed particularly merrily at a comment from Remus and Hermione pressed her lips together to hold back all the rude thoughts which were valiantly trying to fight their way out.

The deep part of her which knew she must be overreacting remained thoroughly submerged in swirling emotion, refusing to trample upon the bitterness quite firmly rooted in every inch of her.

And yet, everyone looked so bloody happy. She hadn't seen Molly Weasley's expression so relaxed in… years, really. Even Harry's eyes bore an added brightness as he listened to Kingsley tell a story that seemed like it must be from his own time at Hogwarts.

Hermione hated herself for hating them, yet couldn't stop it, and hated herself all the more.

And even Harry and Ron, who had been the more hesitant among the four of them about the whole operation with Draco—neither of them seemed to be concerned by the holes in their plan, or the fact that, were everything to go horribly wrong, it would be so easy for it all to be traced back to Hermione and Narcissa, escapees on the run—

"You never really were one for parties, were you, Hermione?"

Hermione jumped as Remus seemed to materialise in front of her out of nowhere, a gentle smile on his face. Still somewhat frazzled by his sudden appearance and (if she were being honest) not terribly interested in conversation, she shrugged.

Much to her dismay, Lupin took this as invitation to seat himself beside her in the corner. Hermione stiffened and kept her eyes squarely ahead, investigating whatever fascinating details lay in the middle distance, all the things she wished she could tell him trapped somewhere between her fourth and fifth ribs.

"Not that this is really a party, per se. Though I must say I'm surprised we didn't have one of these sooner after you came back to us, Hermione. We usually get together every third week or so. Keeps the morale going."

"Did you have them while I was away?" Oh, she hadn't meant to say that! And the way she'd said, it, too—all cold, empty deadpan; an accusation.

But she couldn't help it. Her subterranean prison had never felt closer, the chilled darkness slithering over her skin, quietly lurking in the shadows between her bones, ready to consume her all over again—

Remus waited so long to speak that Hermione began to truly fear that she'd offended him beyond his willingness to talk to her. Part of her hoped she had.

"You mustn't confuse surviving with thriving, Hermione," was all he said to her, quite softly. "This," he gestured to the humble festivities around them, "is not a celebration, not in the least, unless you count celebrating that we haven't died yet."

"Fleur might not be able to say the same."

"That's true. And there was a long time, a terrible time, where we felt the same about you."

"And you still did this? While I was—I was rotting away in—in—?"

"Hermione, you are a brilliant strategist. Merlin knows Harry would not have made it to adulthood without you and your cool-headed logic. But I'm afraid you still have much to understand about the nature of war." Lupin opened his mouth and shut it again, clearly searching for elusive words and Hermione braced herself; his lectures had always been a little too verbose, even to her tastes.

"I'm not sure it can be taught through a textbook—you sort have to live through it to understand, really," he mused quietly after a moment. "Wars such as these are not decided by out-manoeuvring one another on the battlefield, you see, but rather by… who is able to make light in the darkest of times, I suppose. Forgive me for sounding like Dumbledore."

Hermione didn't know what to say; her head swam with images of Arthur and Molly swaying to the music and the love warming the air, then the way the Dark Lord's Death Eaters schemed against each other in increasingly desperate ploys for survival. It made sense, of course it did, and yet it was a logic she had trouble swallowing when her mouth still reeked of fear and death and betrayal.

Her eyes slowly refocused and she saw Narcissa standing before her, one of the warmest smiles on her lips that Hermione had ever seen.

"Good evening,"

Lupin cleared his throat and pressed against his own knees to stand. "We were just discussing the more human elements of war. But if you will excuse me, I need to go find my wife before our son has a dozen new godparents to his name." And he left with a polite bow of his head.

"You look unhappy. What's the matter?" Narcissa asked so directly as she sat that Hermione was momentarily disarmed by her un-Slytherin bluntness.

"I just don't understand how everyone can be so careless right now."

"Careless?"

"As in without care!" Hermione hissed. "You'd hardly think we're at war! Fleur is still missing! And yet looking at them, you'd never know!"

Hermione wished she could just stop talking and get over it, but her frustration wouldn't stop, especially as Narcissa remarked, "You were the one telling me to stop ruminating on how morose our reality is a few days ago. My only child is out there, somewhere, doing Merlin knows what to risk his neck to help us. And yet you wouldn't have me reflect that. What is the difference here?"

Hermione watched Molly Weasley twirl on her husband's arm. "Well, there's a degree, I suppose. I'd never say you have to get up and dance. I'd think you were crazy if you did, actually."

Narcissa took this into deep consideration.

And then she stood, absently brushing down the front of her clothes as she wondered, "Then perhaps that is just what we ought to do."

Hermione spluttered as found herself gently pulled to her feet and toward the open space on the carpet. "What are you doing?"

"I would think that to be rather obvious," quipped Narcissa. She lifted Hermione's left hand to rest on Narcissa's shoulder.

"This is ridiculous," Hermione felt the need to point this out, particularly as the number of eyes on them increased dramatically. Narcissa only wrapped an arm around Hermione's waist, settling her hand on the small of Hermione's back, and laced their other hands together to hover in mid-air.

And then Narcissa began to move, gently swaying them to the tune of the godawful Muggle pop music which could not be any more incongruent with the easy rocking of their quasi-dance. Hermione watched Narcissa's face in gobsmacked awe, her expression so serene and serious that Hermione truly wondered if she could understand the lyrics.

Hermione couldn't help it—Narcissa had stunned her into silence and movement.

She started to laugh.

"Hmm, something amusing you, Miss Granger?"

Hermione grinned and pulled out of Narcissa's hold, trying to guide the elegant witch into a spin. She did it wrong, but Narcissa got the idea well enough and followed through with an extravagant twirl, her fingertips brushing against Hermione's suspended hand.

"Not at all, Madame," Hermione retorted as they returned to their previous swaying embrace.

They nearly bumped into the Fred and George who masterfully dodged them with the most elaborate move imaginable. Hermione laughed and was surprised to hear the sound come out of her own throat.

Though Narcissa said nothing, Hermione felt the arms pull her closer as the song changed.

She thought of the Yule Ball, the glittering bright spot in the months of growing shadows and the torment of that tournament. Fleur had looked so lovely then, as beautiful as she had been ferocious against the dragon.

Give 'em hell, Fleur.

A laugh burst from her throat as Narcissa guided her into a turn.

We'll come for you soon.