See, I told you I'd continue. Fact is, I had this almost finished, but then got struck down by a killer case of the flu (that is a cute word actually, flu! Sounds like a fluffy little animal with cuddly fur ------ "Aw, look at that cute little flu." – "Just check out its little red running nose." – "Did you hear it cough? Isn't that sweet? And did you see its cute fever?" – "Awwww…") Ahem … thoughts like these occur to people who are sick, so don't give me those looks.

Anyway, no need to tell you how great you are, but I'll do it anyway:

Serenity Raye: Whoever said I wasn't cruel ;) Thanks for the review.

Altagracia: Thanks heaps!

SaintlySmile: Er … that three-halves-thing was actually supposed to be funny. It was supposed to illustrate how confused Hermione is … sorry if I didn't get it across that way. Apart from that, I'd say, yay the reviewers!

Redundant Goddess: Thanks, you keep flattering me [good for my ego, this;) ]

Elyse: Yep, Dumbledore's one of my favourites to write, cause he can be anything from inhumanely wise to incredibly ridiculous. Thanks for the lovely review, I was worried the last chapter might be too confusing.

Arwen undomiel: *blushes* why, thank you! The idea hit me when I watched Tabula Rasa for the second time while reading GoF for the fourth. Figures, eh?

Tiani: I like cliffies, that's why they're everywhere in my stories – I'm mean, I know. But thanks for the review; I love to be called an evil genius … muahahaha.

HunnySnowBunny: So sorry for the delay. Hope you don't send me Howlers en masse, they always piss off the neighbours. Thank you for all of your reviews.

Patatita: Wow, it's such a compliment when people actually laugh about it. That's the sole purpose I'm writing it, and I'm glad I succeeded ;) Thanks!!

DragonFly: It's not over, here's more (I'm mean, but even I wouldn't leave it like that). Thanks!

Smile7499: More is here. About the trollop – you're probably right there. But I couldn't resist using that line. Thanks for the review.

This is the last chapter, actually. But there will be an epilogue, so be sure to check back for it.

Enjoy!

***********

In The Twilight State

"Can we go to the kitchens before we head back?" Crabbe whispered pleadingly.

I didn't answer. A while ago, I had decided to change my strategy of survival, and my new plan involved ignoring my companions unless they had something valuable to contribute … So it actually involved ignoring them completely.

Therefore, I just pressed my ears to the doors and tried to make out the sounds from the hallway. I was beside myself by now, because things were going so utterly wrong that I wondered whether maybe I had been hit with a Bad Luck Curse. Maybe I shouldn't have pushed that Ravenclaw Seeker off her broom during last week's Quidditch practise after all … they certainly knew their curses, Ravenclaws …

"Draco, what do I look like?" Goyle asked behind me. Since I was really determined to go with the new ignoring-plan, I didn't even bother to turn around. Even though I was dying to hit Goyle with various large objects for asking a question as pointless as this one. I mean, every mirror in the building gave nothing but dejected sounds when either one of my companions bothered to look into one.

Fact was, we had successfully reversed the memory-curse, but were now stuck in the Great Hall as the former victims of said curse gathered in front of it. I couldn't make out what was being said, but was able to distinguish McGonagall's voice. We had not made it out of the hall before the enchanted knights had chased them far enough, and now they were back.

"Won't you tell me what I look like?" Goyle went on.

I turned around angrily, wand raised to his face, ready to fire a salve of hexes … only his face wasn't where it was supposed to be.

"Goyle? Where the hell are you?"

"Here. What do I look like?"
"Oh, shut up about your looks! Where are you?"

And suddenly, Goyle's head was floating in front of me, and I stumbled backwards and landed unceremoniously on the hard floor. So did Crabbe, but he landed softer (due to the fact that he chose to collapse on me).

"What the …"

"Doesn't it look cool?"

Due to my very unique multi-tasking skills, I managed to disentangle myself from Crabbe, scramble away from the floating head, muffle Crabbe's scream and stifle my own. All in the heart-beat it took the rest of Goyle to join his head. He held out a freshly-obtained arm and pushed a silvery cloak in my face.

I had seen this before; McGonagall had held it up earlier. It had reminded me of my father's death-eat- … er, deadly chic robes. Anyway, she must have discarded it when the knights had begun to charge.

Getting up, I advanced on the now fully limb-equipped Goyle.

"Where did you find it?"

"It was just lying on that chair. I put it on. Why did you back off? Didn't you think it suited me?"

I felt my trademark-evil-grin spread on my face as the realization of what this cloak was dawned on me. The super villain was in charge again.

"I think I just found us a way out of this," I informed them, feeling really villainous.

See, told you I was an evil mastermind. And next week, I'm going to push that Ravenclaw Seeker off her broom twice.

~*~

"Never mind", I mumbled weakly, while every single drop of blood in my body chose to rush to my cheeks.

He was not deterred by that, and I hadn't really expected him to be. There's this wicked half-grin he wears when he is enjoying someone else's misery. Usually he reserved this for Neville, Harry and Ron (in this order), but right now it was directed at me.

"No, please feel free to elaborate, Miss Granger," he replied, as if I had been reciting the twelve uses of dragon blood instead of voicing my excitement about kissing him.

"Well, there's no harm done, right? We should be meeting the others, as you've said." I started walking past him, but before I reached the door, he grabbed my arm, forcing me to look at him.

I remember dinner with my parents one day when I was about seven years old. We'd had chicken, and I had almost choked on a little bone. For one terrible moment, I had been stiff with terror, my throat jammed with the piece of bone, my breath cut off so swiftly and completely between inhale and exhale that I could not even gasp. I had been paralysed until my dad had held me upside down and the chunk in my throat had somehow lodged and the air had rushed into my lungs again.

It was a bit like that, now.

Except for the air-rushing-in-my-lungs-part.

Because the instant our eyes met, I was caught again between inhale and exhale, unable to move or make a sound.

He was not saying anything either, but glued me to the spot with his gaze. I could not really interpret his expression, but that might have been due to the fact that the neurons in my brain were successively shutting down. They shot me some incoherent thoughts like "… really … most intriguing eyes" and "… I know, it's a bad idea to kiss him again … but can't remember why…"

I was strangely aware of his hand on my arm. Now that I knew who we were, this touch seemed more intimate than all the kissing before.

And I knew no one was going to hold me upside down this time, to get me back to my senses and make my brain lodge back into place.

~*~

"We need to save her, Harry!" Ron Weasley exclaimed. Harry Potter nodded, looking shaken. And while I understood their agitation, I understood the workings of the headmaster's mind as well. So I was not in the least surprised to hear Albus object.

"Mr Weasley, I believe Miss Granger has found herself in graver situations before. I think we should not embarrass the two of them further and trust them settle this on their own."

The boys seemed furious, and failed to notice the amused twinkle in Albus' eyes. I felt obliged to intervene, "Albus, do you think this is wise?"

"Would you like a lemon drop?"

"I mean, what in Merlin's name has given them the idea …?"

"They are really pleasantly refreshing."

"We should at least find out whether they have gotten their memories back as well."

 "A bit sour at first, but they get sweeter as you suck on."

"Albus, will you please stop talking about lemon drops now?"

He looked at me as if he was seeing me for the first time. "Excuse me, Minerva, but did you just say something? Anyway, we should consider our actions concerning this whole matter." With that he turned to the two young Gryffindors, who were still fuming, and left me wondering whether he – once again – knew more than everyone else combined.

Because he couldn't really be as mad as he acted, now could he?

~*~

I'm too good a person, really. It runs in the family, too. Malfoys have a history of getting into trouble because of acting kindly. Just take my father for example. Dedicated to preserving knowledge and skills for generations to come, never asking for anything in return – and all he ever gets is bad attitude from people accusing him of storing dark artefacts and books.

Or take me. I really should have left Crabbe and Goyle to scramble out of this on their own, taken the Invisibility Cloak we'd found and made a run for it. The only reason why I didn't do exactly this was because I was too nice.

And, well, because if they were caught, everyone would be able to guess who was really behind this. I mean, the whole thing more or less had "evil piece of brilliance" written all over it, and that was a major Malfoy giveaway.

Never mind it had failed.

But wait, actually it hadn't failed. It was still in the process of failing.

Anyway, I had not left the two morons behind. So now I was struggling for air, cramped under the cloak with these stupid oversized creatures, not able to steer our progress and navigate us away from our former curse targets. It was actually a miracle that we had made it out of the hall unseen, what with Dumbledore, McGonagall and Potter and Weasley in front of it.

It was no miracle whatsoever that we didn't get past them.

Seeing the headmaster, Crabbe began to panic. I really had tried to make him grasp the concept of invisibility, but his brain was apparently unable to accept the fact that he could not be seen by those he encountered. Now as he was backing away, I was trying to pull him on, and Goyle stood transfixed to the spot, not knowing what to do. And that blasted coat was too small to contain a Crabbe-and-Goyle-sized struggle. I tried to point my wand at Crabbe, but lost my delicately-preserved balance. When I reached for Crabbe's collar for support, things happened very fast.

Frightened, Crabbe jerked backwards as I got hold of him, pulling me towards him. With Goyle acting as an axis, we went into a lop-sized semi-circle, spinning around until we were catapulted right into Potter and Weasley.

~*~

"Ouch!"

"What the … aarrgh!"

"Get off me, Malfoy."

"Can't … ouch!"

"Ron?"

"I'm down here! … Er, help?"

"Where's my wand?"

"Dunno. Wait, here's mine."

"That's not yours, Weasel."

"Oh, shut up, Malfoy. Just wait until I can move my arm enough to point it at you."

"Right, get lost, Malfoy. And get off my leg."

"Can't, Potter. Crabbe, will you just move?"

"But Draco, Goyle's too heavy."

"Goyle! Get off!"

"I can't, Draco," he whimpered, "I don't have legs anymore."

Entertaining as it was, I decided to put the Gryffindors out of their Sytherin-induced misery and removed the shiny piece of fabric from Mr Goyle's legs. A few flicks of wand later, they were all upright again, and already dying to jump at each other's throats.

Since young Malfoy and his minions had so abruptly decided to materialise out of thin air and fall onto Mr Potter and Mr Weasley, I had a sudden inspiration about the source of tonight's confusion.

"I believe the culprits have revealed themselves, Minerva." I held up the cloak. "And I believe they were trying to escape by means of this."

Minerva's mouth became the straightest line I have ever seen, and this is counting the time when I gave Severus a pair of red-and-gold socks for Christmas.

"Explain yourselves," she demanded of the Slytherins.

"We've done nothing wrong," Draco Malfoy began, and I was amused by this doomed attempt at feigning innocence, even though the matter was too serious to be taken lightly. For if I guessed correctly, the trio had tampered with a memory curse known as "Confutatis", which was designed to deprive the target of personal memories. Invented by one of Voldemort's followers in order to create an improved version of Deatheaters, the curse was considered unethical and its use prohibited, even if it did not rank with the Unforgiveables. The curse was plainly dangerous, and even Lucius should have known better than teach his brat potent dark magic such as this.

"You think we believe this crap?" Ron Weasley cut in, and I felt obliged to raise a hand and intone "Language, Mr Weasley!" in a benign-headmaster sort of voice.

Malfoy looked ashen by now, but he dared another try. "We just wanted to … get something … from the kitchens. Sorry about breaking the curfew, it won't happen again."

To his very great distress, his friends tried to help. "Yes, that's right, we didn't cast the memory curse," Crabbe added. "Ouch! What did you do this for, Draco?"

"I believe this settles it. You have been using dark magic at Hogwarts, willingly endangering others, breaking more rules than I can even count right now. You are in more trouble than you can even begin to imagine at the moment. This calls for severe punishment." I had hardly ever seen Minerva this agitated. She looked exactly like she had on that day three years ago when we had stunned Crouch after the Triwizard Tournament. Or like the time when she got stuck in her Animagus form and had to put up with Sirius, in his Animagus form, chasing her around the grounds.

Malfoy seemed to anticipate his imminent expulsion from Hogwarts, and went even paler. The Gryffindors were putting heroic efforts into hiding their malicious smirks from me, and I did them the favour and pretended not to notice.

Instead, I contemplated a thought that had just crossed my mind. Severe punishment.

"Minerva," I said, "I think I know just the person to deal with this."

~*~

When we entered the antechamber where we had left Hermione and the evil slimy bastard, two things became obvious at once.

First, contrary to common believes, Draco Malfoy has feelings like any other human being. He expressed them by gagging, retching and collapsing in the floor.

The reason he did this was: Second, neither Hermione nor the e.s.b. had gotten their memories back yet. They were still kissing.

"Ourgh!" was all Malfoy said, before he decided to slump down on the carpet. There he sat, staring emptily into space, trying to avoid reality. Crabbe and Goyle, not as gifted when it came to reactions, settled for staring emptily at their head of house kissing one of my best friends.

I looked at Ron, and saw the repulsion I felt mirrored in his face.

"They still don't know who they are," he said anxiously. "Maybe we should get them to the hospital wing."

"That's not a bad idea, you know. We can have a huge supply of disinfectants and some calming charms ready, for when Hermione gets her memories back."

"Thanks a lot, Harry, but I doubt this will be necessary," Hermione replied, breaking the kiss to glare at us. "I know perfectly well who I am, and what I am doing."

Ron's eyes went as big as saucers. "You…"

I felt my mouth open, but no coherent words came out, "But…"

We must have looked like idiots. Professor Snape raised an eyebrow at us, looking expectant and somewhat smug. Hermione looked a bit ruffled, and I didn't dare imagining the reasons for this. The way she was clinging to Snape's arm was telling volumes.

Professor Dumbledore's voice broke the shocked silence. "Severus, sorry as I am to disturb you, I believe I have a few students for you to deal with. It appears some members of your house saw fit to subject us to the Confutatis Curse." Glancing in the headmaster's direction, I got the impression that the twinkle in his eyes was more amused than ever. Could he really be enjoying all this to some extent?

Professor Snape's expression was unreadable, but he was meeting Dumbledore's eyes.

"I will take care of this," Snape said slowly, gesturing to the three dumb-founded Slytherins.

"Fabulous. This is settled, then. Now, I believe it is time for us to put the rest of the night to good use," Dumbledore turned to Ron and me. "Back to the dormitories, and try to get some sleep." He looked positively delighted by the way things had turned out. Wasn't he going to sack Snape, or at least rescue Hermione?

But on second glance, Hermione didn't give the impression of someone who wanted to be saved, did she? She and Snape were gazing at each other, and the look in their eyes was making me sick. But Ron and I were pushed out of the room by Dumbledore, who even managed to get a protesting Professor McGonagall to come with us, while the Slytherins where left with Snape and … Hermione?

"We have to wait for Hermione, Professor!" I admonished as we began heading back.

Dumbledore beamed at me. "Would you like a lemon drop, Harry?"

"No, thank you," I said irritably, "I would like to wait for my friend to come with us."

"They are very tasty, and they take your mind from things you shouldn't worry about." He gave me a meaningful glance. I opened my mouth to protest, but he raised his hand. "No, Mr Potter, no more debates tonight. Bed. Now. Both of you."

I turned to Ron, who had a greenish tinge to his face. He shrugged at me. I had nothing to say, either. So we just followed Dumbledore and McGonagall to the Gryffindor tower, dumb-struck.

When McGonagall leaned closer to the headmaster, I strained to make out was being said. "You really think this is a good idea, don't you?" I heard her say.

"I have no reason to mistrust Severus," he answered. Well, I could have given him a hundred good ones on the spot, most of them beginning with former and ending with deatheater. Plus the man was a biased, slimy bastard!

McGonagall was not deterred. "And you think we should just turn a blind eye?"

"Oh, I actually intend to throw an eye on them, from time to time," he smiled, "but I firmly believe they will work out just fine."

"Albus, much as I respect you opinion, I have to say that this matter-"

"Why don't you have a lemon drop, Minerva?"

~*~

Once we were left with the Sytherins, I began to feel a bit self-conscious. After all, those were Malfoy and his minions.

I needn't have worried. Severus was verbally turning them into mincemeat.

"Astonishing as it is that half-wits such as you managed a curse like the Confutatis, the fact remains that you violated the minds of others," he growled. "You will be serving detentions until graduation for this offence."

I saw a smile creep into Malfoy's face. He must have been relieved not to be expelled. Severus had noticed, too.

"Don't get your hopes too high, Mr Malfoy. Before long, you will find yourselves wishing I had expelled you. I believe Mr Filch has some rather nasty business in the Forbidden Forest to be dealt with, and I'll be happy to hand him some assistants."

At the mention of this, Malfoy's face fell and he began to tremble. I savoured the moment, urging my inner eye to take a snapshot and file picture away for future reference. Something to warm me on a cold winter's night. Meanwhile Severus (when had I started to think of him as Severus? Just some hours ago he was "the black bat-like scare-crow". Marvel at the capacities of the human mind!) gestured to the door.

"Out!" he ordered, "Now! You have wasted enough of my time."

The trio made a dash for the door, almost falling over themselves to get out.

When the door clanked shut, we were alone again.

Insufferable know-it-all that I am, first thing I did was ask him a question. "Why didn't you expel them?"

He looked down at me. Softly, but with a deadly smile, he said, "Never go for the kill when you can go for the pain."

"Ah," I said, very unsure of what to make of this. "I guess I'll have to work on the Slytherin mind in the foreseeable future."

If possible, the deadly smile became more lethal. "Why don't you start working on the Slytherin body?"