After what she could now confidently tell had been hours, Hermione managed to coax Draco out of the bathroom and get her textbooks back from him. She fell into bed at 2am, wondering if her skin would ever unprune from the hours spent in the bath ignoring the real world.
The next few days were busy with the death throes of Ron and Lavender's relationship, Apparition tests, and Harry's successful extraction of Professor Slughorn's hidden memory. Hermione was enjoying spending time with a Lavender-less Ron and teasing Harry about a newly-single Ginny, when Katie surprised them all by arriving back at school.
"Are you okay?" Hermione asked her, though she looked very healthy.
"I'm really well," Katie replied, to Hermione's immense relief. Harry interrupted with thoughts about quidditch and the necklace that had cursed her, bringing Hermione back to earth with a jolt.
"Can you remember who gave it to you now?" Harry asked.
"No," Katie replied, and Hermione tried to hide her relief. "Everyone's been asking me, but I haven't got a clue. The last thing I remember was walking into the ladies' in the Three Broomsticks."
"You definitely went into the bathroom, then?" Hermione asked her.
"Well, I know I pushed open the door," Katie said. "Whoever Imperiused me was standing behind it. After that, my memory's a blank until about two weeks ago in St. Mungo's."
Two weeks ago. Katie had lost months to that curse – she almost died. The relief Hermione felt mere moments ago felt very at sea. Draco's stunt with this necklace was so dangerous and ineffective.
"It must have been a girl or a woman who gave Katie the necklace, to be in the ladies' bathroom," Hermione half-heartedly suggested to Harry.
"Or someone who looked like a girl or a woman. Don't forget, there was a cauldron full of Polyjuice Potion in Slughorn's first class…we know some of it got stolen."
"Oh, yeah," Hermione said, though she didn't really believe anything Katie or her said would dissuade Harry from the unfortunate truth. She tried to stop him from Felixing his way into the Room of Requirement that Draco was using, and left for class.
Hermione picked from her strongest liquor when heading to the Room that evening, not knowing what to expect. She was slightly surprised to see a first year holding a large potion bottle at the seventh floor, and made a detour to the nearby empty Charms classroom, unlocking it and sending a message to Draco on her bangle.
Know you're busy but I have soju. Want a nightcap?
She tapped her wand on the desk impatiently, waiting for his reply. The inside of the bangle glowed in the dark. I didn't know it lit up, Hermione thought.
How do you know I'm busy?
Because I came by the Room and one of your friends is guarding it, she replied. Katie's back, by the way, she followed up.
Is that why you want to meet? I don't want to talk about it.
Hermione felt very alone sitting in the dark classroom with a rejection. Was this the first time he's said no?
Just letting you know, she sent back, trying to be measured in her response. I'll be drinking in Flitwick's classroom if you change your mind.
It would almost count as Charms practice if she worked on trying to change the liquor flavour, Hermione decided, pouring out shots of soju and trying to perfect different flavour changes. Or maybe practice for being a fancy bartender.
Her bangle lit up again.
Go to bed, Granger.
"Wow, fuck you," she said out loud to herself, and ignored him to continue perfecting pineapple and lime flavor changes, imagining a non-Voldemort future where she wasted her magic on making fancy cocktails for tourists on a beach somewhere.
No thanks! she eventually replied, moving onto raspberry flavour. It was getting a lot harder to successfully do the charm several shots deep.
The door opened several minutes later and Draco walked in.
"Oh, hi!" she greeted him. "Look, I can do flavour ch-"
"I said go to bed," Draco interrupted, taking her soju and screwing the cap back on.
"Why are you mad?" Hermione asked. "I can drink if I want."
"Ok, well, do it somewhere you won't trigger security," he said.
"This is a Charms class. I'm doing flavour changing spells, look."
"Don't be obnoxious," Draco sighed, sweeping her shot glasses into her bag. "I'm busy."
"You're the one who showed up all pissy!" Hermione said, too drunk and annoyed to care that her voice was loud. "Why do I have to do what you want when you won't return the favour? I asked for one drink."
Draco sighed bitterly and sat down next to her, and she took her bag back from him to retrieve her shot glasses. But he ruined the temporary feeling of elation as suddenly as he had created it.
"You and Pansy could exchange notes on whining," he said sullenly.
"Oh, Pansy!" Hermione said brightly, feeling her patience completely snap. "Yes, let's talk about Pansy." She poured the alcohol into the glass until it spilled, soju covering the desk. "You know I think you might be the only person I've ever seen her be nice to."
Draco didn't say anything as she struggled to screw the bottle cap back on.
"She still sucking you off on a regular basis? Maybe we could trade tips on that too?"
"I have only had time for one mental girlfriend," Draco replied listlessly.
"Too bad!" Hermione said loudly, trying and failing to charm pineapple into the soju shot. "Well, I won't keep you. Just check this out, I can do flavour changing charms now." She focused intently on the glass and was fairly certain the charm worked. "Should be pineapple? But I'm pretty deep."
He took the glass and downed it. "Kind of a lime mix," he said, coughing.
"Oh, sorry about that!" Hermione said, taking back the shot glass and shoving it in her bag. "Guess there's nothing I'm good for then, is there? Well, I'll get going."
She grabbed the bottle and slung her bag over her shoulder, grabbing onto the table as she stood up and lurched towards the exit. She felt Draco hit her with some sort of obscuring charm as she twisted the door handle, and it pushed her off balance - she fell out of the classroom.
At least the soju is alright, Hermione thought as she picked herself and her stuff up. Draco grabbed the bottle and her arm, yanking her along the hallway.
"Hey!" she protested, trying to shake him off. "What is your problem? Look, if you don't want to hang out, then fucking don't! Why come over just to be a dick and talk about some other girl you're fucking, christ."
"You can't just do whatever you want," Draco hissed at her. "Especially just to get attention! Fucking hell Granger."
"I asked you for one drink!" Hermione said, shoving him. "And when you said no I said fine! In what world is that attention seeking, holy shit."
Draco groaned and let her go. "Wait there," he said, and Hermione focused on grabbing her soju back off him while he stomped around muttering about something. He shoved her into another room.
Hermione blinked – they were in an enormous warehouse, filled with random, broken things. "Come on," Draco said, grabbing her hand. "It's easy to get lost in here."
"Where are we?" Hermione asked.
"The Room of Hidden Things," he said, dragging her past a tower of textbooks on arithmancy from the sixties.
Curiosity overtook her anger. "Is this where you're spending your time?" Hermione asked, looking at an enormous pyramid of broken desks.
"Yes," he replied. "I'm working on a few leads in here."
"Why this room, in particular?" Hermione asked. "Is it harder to break into than other Rooms or some…thing…"
The question died in her mouth as Draco let go of her hand and stopped in front of a familiar, ugly black wardrobe.
"Ah," Hermione said, memories of eavesdropping and an ill-fated visit to Borgin and Burkes falling into place. "I've seen this before."
Draco looked surprised. "You have?"
"Yes, and so have Harry and Ron. We saw you threatening Borgin before the school year started."
His expression became carefully blank, but Hermione could tell he was furious. "Would that be the source of that anonymous tip the Weasley bureaucrat cited when searching my parent's home?" he asked, tone dry as a desert.
"I…don't think Harry told me anything about that," Hermione said, gaze sliding out of focus as she tried to recall. She wondered if Harry was keeping anything else from her about his quest to uncover Malfoy. "But that sounds likely."
Draco looked away, clearly thinking hard and totally furious.
"Sorry," she said quietly, feeling like a failure, again. "I should have mentioned it –"
"Yes," he said.
"We heard most of the conversation, too," she added, trying to get as much of the unpleasant truth out of the way as fast as possible. "Borgin's security is shit."
"Evidently," Draco said, breathing out through his gritted teeth.
"Harry didn't see the Mark, though," Hermione said, wanting to mention at least one silver lining from this unpleasant revelation. "But he is convinced you've taken it, and nothing I've said has persuaded him otherwise."
Draco stared at the cabinet, not saying anything, and Hermione fidgeted with the half-broken soju bottle cap, feeling distinctly terrible.
"Well," Hermione said, unable to take the silence anymore, "I'll get go–"
"He followed me because of what happened in the robe fitter's shop," Draco interrupted. "Right?"
"Oh," Hermione said. "Um, I don't know –"
"We insulted you," he said flatly. "Potter threatened my mother. And she said he'd be dead soon enough."
He looked up, breaking out of his reverie to look at her. "And someone had given you a black eye. Who was that?"
"That was an accident," Hermione answered. "I picked up an item with a hex on it."
He looked back at the cabinet. "I was new to threatening people," Draco said. "Should have just ignored you." She watched the present fall away from his grey eyes again as he entered a psychological loop of self-defeat. "It was stupid to get his attention. If I were him I'd have done the same thing."
His miserable, trudging regret warmed something in her heart, and a terrifying question she had been suppressing all year burst free, falling from her lips before she could stop it.
"I have to ask. Did you actually change your mind on thinking muggleborns are scum? Or did you just decide it wasn't worth dying for."
Draco's gaze slid from the cabinet to her and she stared at him, rigid with fear at what the answer might be.
"Both," he eventually said, turning towards her.
"When you attacked me earlier this year, I wondered how you were so good at dueling. How if you were that good, why didn't your name come up more in the report on the Department of Mysteries. I went back and found all the references to attacks that were unattributed, or didn't make sense."
Hermione felt physically rooted to the ground as surprise overtook her fear. She didn't know what she had been expecting, but it hadn't been this.
"Crabbe Senior would have been better off dead than what happened to him, yet no one mentioned the name of the person that had stunned him through that heinous aging curse," Draco said, counting points off on his fingers. "That had you written all over it. And Dolohov said Potter cast both the Silencing Spell on him and a body bind on Jugson, while you and Longbottom just stood there doing nothing. But instead of attacking Potter, he focused on attacking you with that Russian fire hex he has. Made no sense. And then his curse didn't even hurt you that much, you were walking around like nothing had happened after only a week."
"Madame Pomfrey said it might have been fatal, but it was weaker because I had silenced him," Hermione said, the deep compulsion to help someone with a question kicking in.
"Makes sense you cast the more strategic spell of the two," Draco replied, a smile flickering across his face. "And then I read the section I was interviewed for, when we were all in Umbridge's office. I told them how you tricked her into leaving with you and Potter, and managed to incapacitate her without wands by leading her to the centaurs. I thought it was a smart idea to use her own weakness against her, and to manage to beat her when she was armed and you weren't. But whoever wrote the report added in stuff about how of course a mudblood had to lie and get someone else to fight their battles for them, they were too weak to fight themselves. I'm not sure what the author thought you should have done given you had no wand. They didn't elaborate."
Draco rubbed his forehead like he had a headache. "So the gap between the report and the truth was significant. And I realised the same was probably true of every book in our library, and every anecdote or story I had heard from others growing up. It spiraled from there. Especially when we started spending time together, and I could see your magic up close." He lifted his fingers from his temples and looked at her. "And then…you can't believe in something when you're wondering how much of it is a lie," he finished, folding his arms and leaning against the cabinet.
Hermione couldn't bear to look at him, and stared intently into her alcohol, like there might be some assistance to be found in the soju. "Well…you were raised in a cult, Draco," she eventually replied. "Most of the magical world doesn't understand muggles or muggleborns, and you lived in a world even further removed from the truth then that."
He made a weird, disparaging tch noise. "Plenty of others figured it out, though," he said. "Like my estranged aunt. Potter's godfather." He paused for a moment before asking a question himself. "How thick am I to have swallowed this shit for sixteen years?"
"Oh, no Draco," Hermione said, her head jerking up at last to dissuade him of another weight he intended to carry on his already broken self-esteem. "You can't think like that. Propaganda is very effective."
His gaze was very firm. "Is any of it true?" Draco asked her.
Hermione tilted her head to the side, wondering how much to say. "Well…I think it's more like, there are kernels of truth that have been twisted and exploited for other ends," she explained. "Muggles are portrayed as both stupid and dangerous in the magical world, right - both can't be true."
Draco nodded. "Do you know where that idea might have come from?" he asked.
"I think the idea of muggles being stupid comes from a few things," Hermione said, mirroring him by counting points on her fingers. "They're different. The magical and non-magical worlds are so segregated that it's easy for magical people to not know anything about them; lies can easily fill in the gaps. And wizards having hidden themselves from the muggle world while knowing about its existence – the information asymmetry puts muggles at a distinct disadvantage."
"Are they dangerous?" Draco asked, continuing to watch her intently.
"Well, not at a higher rate than magical people, I think," Hermione said, rubbing her neck uncomfortably. "In some ways, wizards are more dangerous because they have magic, and they know more about muggles than muggles do about wizards. But muggle knowledge and progress develops much faster than in the magical world, and that can be very dangerous. I think in many areas it has significantly surpassed magical ability."
She looked at Draco, heart leaping into her suddenly dry throat. The chance to ask a question she had dreamed of since plotting to make a deal with him at Christmas had finally arrived. "What has Voldemort said about muggle science and technology?"
Draco looked completely nonplussed, and Hermione wondered if he even knew what the words meant. "Has he talked about guns?" she continued, throwing out key words to see if he recognized any of them. "Nuclear weapons? Chemical warfare?"
"No," Draco said, his forehead crinkling as he recalled something. "I think I've heard of guns. Didn't the Prophet say the muggles had been told Sirius Black was armed with one when he escaped Azkaban? As a proxy for a wand?"
A surprising swell of pity overcame Hermione at seeing how completely blind Draco was to most of the world, but she persisted with her questions. "Does he have any spies in the muggle government?" she continued. "Any muggle military knowledge?"
"I doubt it," Draco replied. "At least, I've never heard it come up. He's focused political efforts on the Ministry of Magic. Father once said when the Dark Lord was young, there was a muggle war going on. He might know something about that."
"When was that?" Hermione asked.
"In the forties," Draco replied. Hermione couldn't help it and she laughed nervously.
"Christ," she said, turning away from him to try and regain her composure. It really wasn't funny that Voldemort was planning to launch head-first into a war against a much bigger and advanced target – the whole magical world could be obliterated if the muggle war machine turned its gaze to it. She turned back to look at Draco, and felt bad as she saw the vaguely horrified expression on his face. Like he had never seen her clearly before now.
"I'm sorry, Draco," she said, putting her soju bottle down on a table he had cleared by the cabinet. "It's really not funny. Voldemort is very powerful – maybe he could subjugate the magical world. But if his attacks veer towards the muggle world, or get their attention…" Hermione trailed off, staring into nothingness as she tried to think of a way to explain the vast difference in power. "Like a first year attacking the giant squid. Or a rat biting a basilisk. It's not just that some muggle weapons and tools are beyond magic…the muggle world responds with systematic, overwhelming force to violent power challenges. It's exponentially bigger and is more unified than the magical world is. If they had an excuse, I wouldn't be surprised if they dismantled the entire magical world if it was perceived as a threat. The oppression would be on the other foot, that's for sure…"
Hermione turned back to him, suddenly suspicious. "Please don't lie – is he really that out of touch with the muggle world? It's important for me to know. It's a little hard to believe he would be this unprepared." She thought back to things Harry had told her about his lessons with Professor Dumbledore; how despite his incredible power, Voldemort had significant biases and gaps in his knowledge which made him vulnerable. Maybe this is one of the things Professor Dumbledore meant, Hermione realised. The entirety of muggle civilisation since World War Two.
"You're telling the truth, aren't you?" Draco asked, looking at her with that same uneasy fear and bringing her attention back to earth. Hermione felt guilty that she had yanked the last comforts of his cult upbringing away from him so suddenly, and walked over to hold his hand.
"Sorry," she said quietly, putting her fingers through his. "I know this is a lot for you. I've been trying to let you know…over time, you know. But I know it's not easy to hear."
"I think I'm meant to be the one apologizing," he whispered. "I always thought you seemed strangely uncaring when I called you a mudblood. But you must have always known I was full of shit to think wizards were superior."
Hermione looked away awkwardly, unsure what to say. "I didn't even know what you meant when you said it the first time," she sidestepped, not wanting to hurt him further by confirming she had never felt that threatened by him. "It's not a term used in any magical books I've found in Diagon Alley or the library."
"Well," Draco said, squeezing her hand tightly. "I'm glad I utterly failed to make an impression on you. But I am sorry nonetheless."
Hermione looked up at him and the ugly black cabinet behind him, and sighed. "You're making it up to me," she replied, and let his hand go, stepping past him to examine the cabinet. "Is this a twin to the cabinet in Borgin's shop?"
"Yes," Draco replied, moving away from the cabinet to give her space to examine it. "But it's broken."
"I think I can guess what the plan is," Hermione said sadly, running a finger down the edge of the door. "Seems very risky."
"A few Death Eaters in exchange for an attack on the largest magical school in the country," Draco replied flatly. "I'm sure Dumbledore or his people will kill us all. I doubt any of us will manage to kill Dumbledore, but hopefully the Dark Lord will spare my mother if we kill enough students."
Hermione blinked and turned back towards him, quite sure she had misheard. Draco looked very far away. "I have until the end of the school year," he continued.
"Draco, that's next month!" she felt herself say, the part of her brain focused on exams running her mouth on autopilot. He nodded.
"Yup," he said sullenly, putting his hands in his pockets.
A moment of silence stretched out between them as her brain tried to process what he had just said.
"You can't kill a bunch of school children," Hermione said, trying not to dissociate. "What? What the fuck are you talking about? You couldn't even kill Katie!"
"I think you might be right, Hermione," he replied, an eerie calmness to his tone as he shifted his weight slightly to stand up straight. "But I have to try, or my parents' lives will be forfeit."
She stared at him, trying to understand, but the look in his eyes was cold and concrete. "I don't know why you thought making an Unbreakable Vow with me was a good idea," he said quietly, and Hermione could feel all the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and the power in the conversation slide away from her. Tilting like gravity, unable to be stopped.
"I couldn't believe my luck when you came back from Christmas and that was your grand plan. Like a miracle from heaven. But promise you did. And its time to collect." He nodded towards the cabinet behind her. "You cannot stop me fixing this cabinet, or you will die. And there is only one way I will change my mind. You have to break my parents out, and you have to do it in the next five weeks."
She felt numb, throughout her body, from her heart to her finger tips. His hideous words made no sense – she was the one who came out on top of the Vow – wasn't she? Had he been planning to spring this on her from the start? Was his hesitancy in her first pine forest all an act?
"But - but you could help me get them out!" she eventually said, trying to persuade him away from this ghastly suicide mission. "Are you – am I missing something? Why plan to kill a bunch of eleven year olds when we could just work together on breaking into Azkaban and your house?"
"I'm not giving up an option for free," Draco said coldly. "Especially one that seems more likely to succeed than your proposal, which you haven't been working on as hard as your cocktail plans." He shot a withering glance at her soju, and Hermione shook her head hard, trying to wake up. This was a horrible alcohol nap nightmare. This wasn't real.
"You're right that you are talented," he continued. "But no one has managed to break into and out of Malfoy manor, nor Azkaban since the Dark Lord took it over. There are a lot of prisoners at both places who have spent the past several months trying…" He trailed off, clearly thinking about some horrible memories from home.
Hermione started shaking. "What is wrong with you?" she asked. "I thought you loved me," she said, feeling stupider than she ever had that she had believed him. "Why are you threatening me with the deaths of children?"
"I do love you," Draco replied, his tone sounding surprised and hurt, making Hermione feel even more confused. "I love you, my mother, and my father," he continued, raising three fingers as he outlined how few the people were that he cared about. "But I'm not risking two of those lives for one person's peace of mind."
If a few days ago they had felt their souls were entwined, Hermione had never felt further from understanding a person than she did right now. Peace of mind. He was proposing to murder a bunch of kids or die trying unless she did what he wanted on his timeline.
"But - but I need your help to break into Malfoy manor," Hermione said blankly, her chest tightening as she felt a horrible truth circle around her, like water draining down a sink. "Are you really saying I have to figure it out by myself while you plan to kill some students?"
Draco sighed and crossed his arms. "No," he said, sounding exhausted and relenting. "Whenever you want my help with planning and breaking into the manor and Azkaban, you have it. But otherwise, I'll be here. Working on alternatives."
His tired compromise was what finally made her believe him. Hermione picked up the soju bottle and hit him with it as hard as she could, leaving him covered in alcohol and broken glass as she ran out.