A.N. This chapters a little complicated, generally just giving you a lottt of information really. Hope you enjoy… Please review.

Chapter 8

Hermione became nervous on the way to Dumbledore's office, she suddenly felt very naked. Draco sensed this and pulled her a little closer to him, helping to reassure her, in this simple way he communicated to her that he was there, and she could lean on him, he wasn't going anywhere. They made there way up the spiral stair and sat in the seats Dumbledore indicated.

He looked at them; in that probing way that made both of them feel they were being X-rayed. He looked slightly disconcerted, and motioned for them to begin, drawing his hands under his chin.

Draco looked at Hermione; she seemed to not want to say anything so he began. "Sir, what do you want to know?" He asked, simply not knowing where to begin.

"Mr. Malfoy, you seem to underestimate me, for which I will forgive you…" he chuckled "…I wish to know how long you have been linked to Miss Granger, and how you plan to proceed from here." He smiled at the look of relief on Draco's face; at least there was somewhere to begin here.

"We want to stay connected." He blurted out.

"Well, your underestimation of me clearly ended there…" Both of them looked confused at this point and Dumbledore slowly chuckled to himself. "I could not possibly attempt to 'unlink' you. I know not the nature of the link, how far it has progressed, or the reason, though I have my suspicions from what I witnessed at the lake. I wish to know how you plan to proceed about your mother, and although this…" He motioned between them "…is fascinating and a wonderful maturing of both your abilities, I believe that is most important."

"Sir, you know? How? Wait that's not important, we have to get her out" He began. His words were rushing over each other in his hurry; he stood up although he was unaware of it.

"I am going back as soon as I can…." He turned considering Hermione; "as soon as it's possible for me to leave" He sat, still perching on the end of his seat, looking over at her.

"Yes… we do have to 'rescue' your mother Draco, but I do believe that you will need help in this matter, and Miss Granger also needs your help right now."

Up until this point Hermione had remained silent, feeling as if her throat might betray her and not allow her to voice her thoughts. "Headmaster, if you will I think I should go with Draco, he needs me there, and I can… I can help." She added feeling stupider by the minute.

"Why Miss Granger, you will of course be needed in this matter, however, I am afraid that I will need both of you to take some extra hands with you in this matter. And neither of you are to actually leave the castle." He added his eyes twinkling.

"What?" They both asked at the same time. Draco was standing again

At this point Dumbledore explained his plan, which of course involved the Polyjuice Potion and Draco and Hermione remaining safe in the castle. He gave them his reasons, all of which were justified, and for the best. Draco point blank refused; making the point his mother would no it was not him.

At this point Dumbledore looked very grave, and told Draco that his mother would not know it was not him because she was in fact no longer regularly conscious and knew nothing of her surroundings. Draco went pale at this news and reached out unconsciously for Hermione, she responded to his touch and was grateful for it. She looked down at their intertwined hands and contemplated the word need. Although they had been threw so much that day, her being the main bearer of pain Draco had had some bad news that day and he had reached out for her, in that moment she realised he needed her as much as she needed him. She smiled at there hands and grasped him tighter.

Dumbledore contemplated them both; he was altogether overjoyed about this new revelation. Not for some inter-house unity crap, although it would be nice, very few people could claim that they had the amount of magical power these two shared between them and very few people could say they had found their soul mate, if that was in fact the case here, which he was almost certain was true. They didn't know what they had or why and he was damn sure he wasn't going to watch them lose it.

Dumbledore began again, "I know this is difficult for the both of you, Draco in particular, but I need you both to explain what's been going on from the beginning, and how you plan to take this from here." He added a little more seeing the look of confusion on their parts, "Miss Granger, have you not looked in to the reasons for this in the library? If not, although I am surprised I can tell you that I think you should, it may be possible you share more than just feelings, you could be linked, as I suspect you are more powerfully that either of you have yet realised."

At this they looked at each other, quite confused and both if truth be told a little scared, neither of them wanted to be part of something that was too big for them, they were both looking for comfort in the other, not to be leaned and by anyone else that the one they needed.

"Do not worry yourselves with going to your classes, Miss Granger has clearly been threw a great deal today, and being that it occurred in front of the rest of the school this will be buzzing for days, I will have your work and your homework sent to your quarters so you don't get behind, as I know both f you would detest that" He said smiling knowingly at Hermione.

"Now, for the difficulties, that is to say, I know that both of you have changed, you have become linked, a think which can only happen when there is need, reason, and purpose involved. That is to say that your minds needed to be connected, neither could cope on its own, this often happens in times of emotional turmoil, which you will forgive me for saying Draco's is obvious here, however, Hermione, I must tell you my door is always open, after what I witnessed today I would be a fool if I did not recognise that this has been going on for some time and I have to apologise for not knowing it sooner. I wish that you would come to me if you need help on any level, I am always here" He said looking at her like a favourite niece.

"Sir, you said that there had to be reason and purpose also" said Draco feeling the need to draw attention away from Hermione, allowing her to bring it back to tell Dumbledore anything, if she wanted.

"Yes Mr. Malfoy, there had to be a pre-determined reason, which means that this is not an accident, it simply means that this would have happened regardless of the situation you are currently in, at some point in time. This kind of connection only occurs when it is brought about by something that has happened, but it is not because something has happened. You would always have been drawn to each other, you were already linked, my fate if you will, this is just the way it has been brought to light so your minds now know it." He smiled, his eyes twinkling at them brightly.

"And the reason?" Said Hermione quietly having finally decided her voice wouldn't cut out when she tried to use it.

"Ahh, now the reason is not known to me, it seems you have something's to go threw, it maybe that you two are to achieve something no other can, and you are o do it together in a way neither of you could do it alone. It may of course be nothing of the sort." He added with a chuckle, "I'm am only a man after all, and have been known to get things wrong"

After a short period of silence Hermione moved.

"Sir, is that all you wanted, only I'm quite tired now, and I was wondering I we could go?" She blushed slightly as she said it.

"Why of course, I advise you go straight to your rooms though, unless you want interrogating by the rest of the school. I will have your dinner sent up to you, which I must insist on both of you eating. I will check. Also, before you go, if I could have a strand of hair please?" He looked slightly concerned as Draco looked like he may refuse.

"Headmaster, I must insist on coming, I can't let anyone go in to that house without warnings, and I know my way around its safer for me…" He looked at Hermione "…us to go. No honestly Sir, I can protect myself, and Hermione can hold her own too, we will have the house elves help us, we got in and out the last time fine."

"Yes you did Draco, oh I knew you left, the fires in Hogwarts are watched you know, and I allowed it. I as impressed at your leaving and arriving safely, but you were not removing a prisoner then, and believe me its difficult to remove someone from that house" He surveyed Hermione carefully.

"I know what its like to be held in that house, and I'm the only one here who knows, and I think we should go, not alone, but I think we need to be there, Draco is right, he knows his way around, and I know what spells he's put on those rooms, and I can remove them."

"Hermione, how do you mean? We got in fine last time, we didn't need to remove spells" Draco looked at her confused.

"He will have put spells on her so that she can't leave Draco, he did it to me, and if you don't know how to counteract them then it hurts you so much to put one toe out side of the room there is no need for locks. I…" Her voice seemed to break slightly at this point "…I know, it's difficult, but I can do it, I've done it before" She shuddered.

Draco was confused, if she had taken the spells down then why was she so upset about it, what happened, he looked to Dumbledore to answer his questions.

"When we found Hermione she was in the dungeons, the doors were not locked and we had met no resistance on the way in to get her, we were very confused, two order members went in to get her, and bring her out, she was overcome by fear and she was beaten very badly, she was barley conscious and seemed to be rambling, she kept telling them no, trying with all her might to stay inside the caged room, of course they were very confused by this and dragged her slightly to the entrance, when they pulled her out she was clearly in a huge amount of pain, she could no longer breathe, it seemed that her pain completely overcame her, she could no longer struggle against them, and being that they did not know about the spells they kept her out of the cage thinking she was in a fit because of the fear or something to that end. Eventually one of the order members present having been under the and unforgivable curse recognised she was not fitting because of fear, it was indeed because of pain and he realised she didn't want to leave the cage, he picked her up and put her in, she stopped fitting, but she was spent, completely exhausted, she could tells us to put her back in the cage, or anything once she was out, but she had tried to tell us before, but no one had listened." He looked so full of regret and sorrow in that moment it was painful to look in to his blue eyes.

"How long?" was all Draco could think to say, he felt sick, he couldn't imagine it your held by the enemy and then when help comes they destroy the strength you have left.

"In total Hermione was out of the cage for a full 20 minutes." Dumbledore looked sorry for there mistake at least.

Hermione had sat there in silence threw this story, wishing that Draco didn't have to know, but knowing there really was no other way. Draco looked at her, she felt him, and he wanted to hug her. She looked in to his eyes, and told him they should go, she didn't want him to know the next part of this story.

Dumbledore continued on regardless, seemingly unaware of Hermione not wanting people to know.

"Unfortunately, because Hermione passed out almost seconds after she was back in the cage, we did not know the spells, and with the window of opportunity for us to be undetected closing the team leader made a choice, to save the rest of the team and re-group for another effort. But with no way to tell Hermione this, she was still unconscious, and they dare not leave a note."

"YOU LEFT HER THERE?" Draco was stood up, seemingly incensed at this news.

"You went to save her, ended up nearly killing her and then just left her there to rot?" He couldn't believe it that was so wrong.

"Mr. Malfoy, it was difficult for the members that were there to leave her, but they had no choice, they returned a week later to get her and succeeded, but Miss Granger was the one to bring down the charms, seemingly by herself, that is all I can tell you on this matter, I know nothing else myself as Miss Granger will not share anything that was not already known about her time in captivity, and nothing of relevance to our cause was learnt. Dumbledore seemed lightly hurt that he was not trusted with this information.

Hermione stood up and walked to the door of the office, she reached for the handle, everything was in slow motion, she was screaming inside, how many people had Dumbledore told? She didn't mind Draco knowing but that wasn't the point, he hadn't asked, she hated the idea of everyone knowing what happened to her, she felt weak because of it and it just made her skin crawl them thinking what they had done to her, not that they would probably come close to really knowing what happened but that wasn't the point really, it was so humiliating. She pulled the door open and walked out, quietly closing the door behind her; she was on her way out of the statue at the bottom when she heard her name, for the first time, although it wasn't the first time it had been called. Dumbledore had indeed called her before she left, and Draco had called her also. She didn't hear them; her own voice inside her head was too loud.

"Hermione, wait… don't walk away from me." Draco was calling from the top of the stairs on his decent.

She stopped, saying nothing, thinking nothing, simply standing before him. He walked over to her and embraced her; she looked so lost, like she was drifting. He reached down for her hand. 'lets go back to the rooms' he thought to her, and she agreed, they walked on in silence, knowing nothing said would change the past, heal that hurt or make anything better. But knowing that they were finding comfort in each other, which was the only thing that could be done right now.

A.N. Ok so please review and tell me if you like it, I hope you do, getting a little unsure tho, just let me know where you think it should go, or if you like where it is going please? Lol -x-