Waiting to see Zabini again was probably one of the hardest things she'd had to do in a long time. Now that she had something to tell him, something to say, something useful, she was stuck waiting for him for what felt like eons. It didn't help one goddamn bit either that she thought she might be starting to go a little mad. Well, more mad than she already was.

The darkness and the confined area had finally started to get to her. She was seeing things, and hearing things, and sometimes even feeling things that logically she knew were not there. Could not be there.

"Hermione."

"What," she whimpered. She was curled up in a corner of the room, away from the vent between her cell and Draco's, with her knees tucked up and her face pressed into them.

"Hermione."

"Go away," she said. "You're not real. You're dead. Go away."

"Hermione," Ron's voice whispered to her out of the dark. "Hermione, I forgive you."

"I didn't kill you, you bastard," she hissed. "Though God knows, you almost deserved it. But I didn't kill you."

"Hermione . . . you don't know that."

"Yes I do."

"You don't remember."

"I don't have to remember!"

There was silence as her voice echoed in the small cell. Somewhere the Mother Crier started to scream. Somewhere, Draco was cursing her and asking what the fuck was going on, Granger.

"I don't have to remember," she repeated. "I know I wouldn't, I couldn't, I . . ."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because I know myself, and I'm not a murderer."

"Some might disagree with you. Some might say you've murdered a lot of people."

"Like who?" She was crying now, the tears running silently down her cheeks and wetting the knees of her trousers. "Who?"

"Lucius Malfoy."

She stopped crying and glared at the dark outline of the figure that was speaking. "I'd kill him again if I had half a fucking chance," she rasped. "That wasn't murder, that was justice."

"You tortured him."

"I enjoyed it."

"Yes, you did."

She was shaking so violently that she had to twist her fingers in the loose fabric of her trousers to make them be still.

She remembered that night, nine years ago, when she caught Lucius Malfoy with a small group of Death Eaters, sneaking into their camp. She killed the others quickly, but not him, no. He sneered at her and called her mudblood in that disgustingly cultured voice, and she looked directly into his pretty grey eyes and whispered Crucio! then stood there almost impassively and watched him writhe and scream.

She wouldn't have stopped either, except that Ron and Moody, alerted by Lucius screams, had insisted that she stop. She had, not because of the sick and angry look on Ron's freckled face, but because of the strange look on Moody's. He had looked disappointed and almost sad.

"We'll take him back," Ron said. "He can go to Azkaban for what he's done, Hermione. There has to be justice. We can't be like them, we have to be merciful."

Moody's twisted lips had twitched with amusement at that, and looking back, she is almost certain that he knew before she said the word, exactly what she was going to do.

"You can be merciful, Ron," she said. She looked back at Lucius, who was on his knees and panting.

He lifted his head and glared at her. "Do it, girl, if you think you can," he said. She smiled, her wand still pointed at him, and said simply, "Avada Kedavra."

That was the same night Arthur Weasley was killed, but they didn't learn that until later. Ron called her a monster. He slapped her. He shook her. And she let him. He walked away from her then because he said that if he didn't he might hurt her. He never tried to touch her again.

"You had no right," Ron said now. The dead Ron. The Ron who wasn't there.

"Leave me alone," she said.

"You had no right."

"I had every right. We were at war."

"That excuses nothing."

"No, but I'm not a murderer."

"Don't lie to yourself, Hermione. It may have been war, but that doesn't make it any less murder."

"He killed our friends," she hissed. "How can you defend him?"

"We killed his friends."

She said nothing. She wished he would go away. Leave her alone. "I'm not a murderer," she said again.

"Bellatrix Lestrange."

She squeezed her eyes tightly closed and pressed her face hard into her knees.

"Fenrir Greyback."

She laughed softly.

"Severus Snape."

"I didn't kill Snape," she whispered in a rough, parched voice. "Harry killed Snape. You were there, you saw, it wasn't me, it was—"

"If you had not interfered, he would not be dead."

"But Harry would be."

"Possibly."

"Then that was self defense, not murder," she said.

"You are responsible."

"Leave me alone!"

"Granger!" Draco screamed at her, finally breaking through her daze to be heard.

She looked around for the silhouette, but the dead Ron was gone. She whimpered and gratefully rested her head back on her knees.

"Granger, you fucking loon, what the hell are you doing in there? Who are you talking to?"

"Nobody, Malfoy."

"Nobody my ass, Granger. I heard you. Are you cracking up in there?"

She laughed.

"Granger, goddamn it, answer me."

She giggled. It was just too funny.

"Granger, don't lose it, alright. Please. I need you. You're no good to me if you go bat-shit."

Bat-shit. She snorted.

"Granger, I swear to Christ if you don't pull it together—"

"You'll do what? Kill me?" She laughed again. "That might be rather counterproductive for you, don't you think?"

"Shit," he said. "You are losing it, aren't you? Granger, come on, keep it together. Just a little longer."

"I don't know if I can," she said in very small voice. "The dead . . ."

"What?" he said. "What about the dead. Come on, Granger, talk to me. What about them?"

"They won't leave me alone."

Draco felt a bolt of sheer panic at these words. Not so much the words themselves, but the sweet, almost childlike way she said them. "Granger, don't you cave on me. Are you hearing dead people?"

"Yes."

"Who?"

"Dumbledore . . ."

"Bastard," he muttered under his breath. "Who else?"

"Ron."

"Oh please, Granger, you're tougher than that. Kick that weasel's ghostly ass for him and he'll leave you alone."

"Can't."

"Why not?"

"He's not really there."

"Well at least that's something," Draco said. "If you know he's not really there, then you're not all the way crazy, Granger."

For some reason she didn't find this very comforting. "I'm a murderer."

"No you're not."

"I am. I killed people."

"You're not a murderer."

"Lots of people."

"Were they trying to kill you?"

She thought about it for a minute. "Yes."

"Then you're not a murderer."

"They're still dead."

He sighed in frustration and swiped a hand through his long dirty hair. "Granger, what happened to the kick ass, I'm not gonna take that shit, Dumbledore can shove his lemon drops up his asshole, woman I know and love. Snap out of it."

It was the sharp, almost angry tone of his voice more than the words themselves that made her focus. "Malfoy?"

"Granger? Are you alright?"

She laughed. She was probably the farthest thing from 'alright' that she had ever been in her life. "I'm fine."

He let out a breath. "Good. That's good."

She crawled across the floor and used the wall to pull herself upright. She put her hand through the bars of the vent and felt her fingertips brush his face. He grabbed her hand and laced his fingers through hers almost desperately. He pressed the back of her hand to his mouth, and she thought he was going to kiss it, but instead, he pressed his teeth into the knuckles.

She didn't try to pull away. It wasn't painful, and it was the human contact that she needed. When she felt his tongue slide over the ball of her thumb, she gasped and jerked her hand involuntarily.

"What are you doing?"

"What does it feel like I'm doing, Granger?" he whispered. He brushed his teeth along her wrist, then down each of her fingers.

She shivered and the sensation shot straight to her belly. "Jesus . . . Malfoy, I think I . . . need my hand . . . back now."

She had never considered the erotic possibility of hands before. It was interesting, and sort of nice, but they had a thick stone wall between them, and goddamn it, crazy or not, what he was doing was making her hot as hell.

"Malfoy, stop it," she said, her breath thick in her throat.

"Mmm. Sorry Granger," he said. He took his mouth away from her hand and just held it. "Couldn't help myself."

She was shaking, but not from fear anymore. From something else completely. The fact that he was no longer licking her fingers didn't even seem to help.

"You alright, Granger?" He sounded almost smug.

"You son of a bitch," she said with a breathless laugh.

He laughed. "Just trying to give you a reason to stay in the present, Granger."

"Yeah," she said. She was all achy and sensitive, and she was on the other side of a foot thick impenetrable wall from the one thing that could fix it. It was damn frustrating. "Yeah, well, it worked."

"Really?"

"Don't sound so proud, you fucking prat. It hasn't gotten you anything, has it?"

"Got your attention, didn't it?"

She didn't say anything to that. He already knew the answer.

"Besides, now I know what pretty little hands you have, Granger. This will help my fantasies a lot, I can tell you."

She laughed. The achy feeling in her lower belly did not abate. "I am going to get you for this, Malfoy."

"I look forward to it, Granger," he said.