A/N: Thank you to everyone reading and commenting. I appreciate your support so much. Also, a special thank you to my alpha reader: LaDeeDaa and my beta reader: astrangefan.

There is conversation about abortion (not involving any of the characters) in this chapter if that is a trigger. I wrote this chapter weeks ago and it just happened to coincide with the terrible news Stateside.

Hogwarts

Hermione got much less sleep than she'd wanted to before her trip to Hogwarts. Theo's words repeated themselves in her head over and over. She tried to analyse in her mind every interaction with Draco since he'd arrived at her parents' house . When had things changed? Had things changed? Was Theo reading too much into their detente?

But even as she wanted to deny it, she'd noticed things too. If nothing else, Draco felt an unnecessary amount of responsibility for her and guilt that she wished he'd let go of.

After giving them a pipe to smoke to help them sleep and alleviate some pain, they'd gone right to bed leaving her with her thoughts. Somewhere in the wee hours she finally fell asleep. The seven o'clock alarm pulled her from the comforts of dreamless sleep, and she begrudgingly began her day.

After about half a pot of coffee, a shower, and a bit of buttered toast, Hermione went to her parents' fireplace and floo'd directly into the Headmistress' office. Professor McGonagall wasn't there when she stepped out. Harry nor Ron were there either - though she had expected that. She'd been early, as she usually was.

"Oh, Miss Granger, how lovely to see you, my dear." Hermione's skin prickled at the familiar sound of Albus Dumbledore's voice. She turned to see him smiling genially from his portrait behind the headmistress's large, oak desk.

"Hello, Headmaster," she greeted with a tight smile. Hermione had never fully forgiven Dumbledore for his management of the War - and particularly his seemingly arbitrary definitions of 'need to know' - especially when it came to Harry.

A man who knew he was going to die should have given Harry every bit of information at his disposal - the link to Voldemort be damned. He also never should have subjected Harry to the Dursleys. Lily Potter's protection spell was all well and good, but the Dursleys could have just as easily created an Obscurus with their anti-magical bigotry and then what would have happened to them all? Dumbledore should have known this risk more acutely than nearly anyone else in their world.

But still, she was sure there were things he'd have done differently if he had them to do all over again, and she did believe he meant well. It had been hard coming to terms with the fact that her childhood heroes were deeply flawed.

Just as it had been difficult for her to grapple with the fact that the man in the portrait next to Dumbldore, despite the years of torment and insecurities he thrust upon her - either by cover or because of her proximity to Harry - was a true, earnest hero. Professor Snape's backstory had shocked her for many weeks as she tried to unite the person she knew to the person who had risked everything because he loved Harry's mum. In the end, she concluded she'd never be able to make those two men fit into the same person, and decided that Snape was a person too complicated for even her to solve.

"Minerva mentioned you'd be coming in today. The whole trio, in fact," Dumbledore continued. Snape rolled his eyes in silence.

"Yes, I'm sure she's mentioned the Dark Energy at the edge of the Forest," Hermione supplied.

"Of course," the Professor said, gravely.

"It's Voldemort," Hermione said, figuring the cat was to be out of the bag soon anyway. "Or, rather, it's his magical signature…"

But she was interrupted by Minerva entering the office. She'd have to explain what she knew to the headmistress anyway, and Dumbledore could eaves-drop.

After Hermione finished explaining what she knew about the Dark Energy, about the escape of the three brothers from The States, and that Harry and Ron would be working on the case as well, Minerva looked as if she might need something stronger than her morning tea.

"How could this have happened?" she asked, but the question was obviously rhetorical.

"We will find out," Hermione promised. "Depending on how things develop, though, it might be necessary to send the children home. We aren't at that point yet, but if my theory is correct and this energy is trying to draw power from The Dark Mark, we have no way of knowing how much success the Energy might have there."

Hermione still wasn't willing to call the Dark Energy 'Voldemort'. Until he was actually there, it was just a mass of his left-over Energy.

Voldemort is still dead.

"Very well, Miss Granger," Minerva said, sighing heavily. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." Hermione nodded in agreement. She hadn't even seen the affected area yet. She checked the clock over the heads of Dumbledore and Snape. Harry and Ron were running late.

"Would you like tea while we wait on Messrs. Potter and Weasley?" McGonagall asked, her lips twitching into a little smile at the corners.

"Yes, thank you," Hermione said, sitting down in front of the headmistress' desk.

Minerva busied herself making a cup for Hermione before sitting next to her. "Every year I tell myself it's time to retire," she admitted.

Hermione chuckled. "I can't imagine the school without you, Professor."

"Please call me Minerva," the older woman insisted. Hermione nodded in agreement but doubted she'd ever be able to do that without choking on her favourite professor's first name.

"As much as things change, they stay the same," Dumbledore said mildly from his portrait. Snape snorted but said nothing.

"It's true," McGonagall nodded. "Here we are with Potter, Weasley, and Miss Granger back to fight off Dark Magic. Only, I feel a bit less guilty about it as you three are no longer children."

"And not flying completely blind," Hermione said, before she could censor herself.

"Too right," Dumbledore replied quietly. It was as close to an apology as she was likely to get.

Harry and Ron floo'd in a few moments later and after a cup of tea and a short 'catching up', Minerva led them outside to the edge of the forest where the Dark Energy was ebbing and flowing behind strong wards.

Hermione could understand why Neville was the first to notice it. It was on the southern edge of the Forest - not far from the extra Herbology gardens. The wards extended to the gardens and about twenty feet past them into the Forbidden Forest for good measure.

"Students are not utilising these gardens or the pumpkin patch, correct?" Harry asked, his voice taking on the official tone it did when he was deep in Auror business.

"That's correct," McGonagall nodded. "We've restricted all outdoor activities to the western part of campus near the Quidditch Pitch. Neville gathers ingredients himself and has been teaching in the western greenhouse."

"That's good," Ron said, distracted as he raised his wand to test the wards. Hermione took a moment to walk around the entirety of the warded area. She knew the Energy was smaller than the perimeter, but she was shocked at how large a space had been warded. It wasn't the size she'd envisioned.

She tested the wards with her hand. Immediately her hand burned, and she felt the sensation that she had forgotten something of dire importance at home. Had she not been prepared for it, she might have tried to Apparate on the spot.

"Professor - Minerva," she corrected awkwardly. 'I think we have it from here. But could you please send Neville out here at his first chance?'

"Of course. He has a free period now. I'll send him at once," the headmistress said. Then, she turned around and walked back to the castle.

Hermione walked back over to her two friends and noted Ron was still analysing the wards while Harry looked at the space before him with a look of confusion.

"I had expected to feel a draw," he admitted when she asked him what he was thinking. "All those years, anything connected to Voldemort, and I could feel it - or at least feel something out of place. I feel nothing."

"Harry, he killed the Horcrux inside you," Hermione explained. "You wouldn't feel him now. Any Parseltongue you remember is just an effect of having known it for seventeen years of your life."

Harry still didn't look totally convinced. "Harry, no matter what this Energy is, no matter what it represents, you no longer share anything with Voldemort. That part of him is dead."

She placed a calming hand on her best friend's shoulder and waited until the words sunk in. "I can't believe we are doing this again," he finally said.

"I know," Ron added, finally comfortable with the security of the wards. "Will this be our lives every five years? The same fight against the same mad, dead wizard until we are old as Aunt Muriel?"

"What we have to do is find out how any of him was left behind. This isn't a Horcrux. It has a similar feeling but it's not the same," Hermione said. "Once we figure that out, we can make sure this never happens again."

"Easy," Harry said with a humourless chuckle.

"So, we will take care of security," Ron said. "Well have the wards constantly monitored. We'll make sure this thing cannot get out."

"What we need to know," Harry continued, "Is what you need from us and what we can help you with."

"For now, security is the most important thing. I have to inspect the grounds thoroughly. There could be trace energy not being perceived, and I need to know if it originated here. This isn't the place where you killed Voldemort, so why is it here?" Hermione had wondered that since she'd been handed the case.

"Oi! Neville!" Ron shouted and waved toward the castle. Hermione placed her hand over her brow to see better in the sun and saw Neville ambling down the hill toward where they stood.

"Let's find out everything Neville knows," Hermione continued. "I'll search as much of this side of the castle as I can today. I don't want to leave Nott and Malfoy alone too long."

Harry and Ron nodded in agreement, and they went to meet Neville.

Neville had just finished explaining what he'd noticed about the dead vegetation at the edge of the Forbidden Forest near the energy when Hermione felt a vibration against her leg.

The Notebook!

She dropped her bag to the ground and knelt down beside it, rummaging around until she found it.

"One second," she said, pulling it out and opening it at once.

"Nott's pain is up to an eight. He's sweating and I believe he has a fever. Should I give him a pipe to smoke?"

Hermione pursed her lips. If Nott was experiencing pain, there was a chance Draco was too. She pulled the pen from the spiral and began to write back.

"It's Draco," she said absently to the three men looking at her expectantly. "Nott's in a bit of pain. You go on and continue talking, I'll be there in a moment."

"Draco?" she heard Neville ask, but she'd leave that for Harry and Ron to dodge at the moment. They already knew her work with The Mark was a 'need to know' issue and Neville didn't 'need to know'.

"And your pain?" She asked.

"Seven."

"Then you both may smoke. I really need to work on a potion tonight. I'd prefer to distil the medicinal purposes of the drug rather than this method. Update me immediately if there is any change, good or bad."

"Granger, I don't know where you keep it."

Oh. Obviously.

"It's in my bedroom, down the hall. I keep it in the top drawer of the bureau - there by the door, under my socks."

She thanked Merlin that she hadn't chosen her underwear drawer. When he didn't write back she stuffed the notebook back in her bag and joined the men still talking at length by the Forest.

She walked up directly to the wards and placed her wand just outside of where the wards would start to push her back. It was hard to get a strong feel for the Energy behind them but she felt a pulsating. It hadn't been there before. Her hypothesis was that Draco and Theo's Marks were hurting because the Energy was trying to draw from them. This was another observation in favour of that hypothesis.

"Neville, when you felt the Energy surge, can you explain what happened and what it felt like?" Hermione asked.

"I was never worried the wards wouldn't hold but it was as if the Energy sent out a shockwave beyond it. I don't know if that makes sense," he said with a shrug.

"Did you feel magic? Darkness? Cold? Be as specific as possible," Hermione urged.

"I felt power. It was as if for a split second, that Energy fed off something, tasted power and then shrunk back down again," Neville explained. "It was a magical feeling. There was nothing tactile about it. It was like a prickling at the back of your neck when you feel magical Energy."

Hermione nodded. She knew the feeling. Most witches and wizards did - especially if they'd ever dealt with strong or dark magic.

"Do you ever get warning before a surge?" she asked.

"No," Neville said. "And honestly, there is no telling how often it happens. I'm only out here a few times a day."

Hermione nodded again. Her bag vibrated again.

Shit.

"One second, Neville," she said, reaching into her bag and pulling out the notebook again.

"It's not helping. Nott's pain has moved up to an eight."

"And yours?"

"Never bloody mind mine! What do I do?"

"Give him the high dose Pain Potion in the cabinet behind your bed. It's green."

"I know what colour it is, Granger. I was headed to a Potions Mastery before The Dark Lord conscripted me."

"Fair enough. I'll be back within a half hour."

She put the notebook away and asked Neville to follow her to where the Energy was locked behind wards.

"Does this feel different?" she asked. She wondered if since Theo and Draco's pain was getting worse, the Energy was getting stronger.

"Slightly," Neville said, standing close. "Do you feel that hum?"

Hermione nodded. She did, in fact, feel a hum - sort of like the sound of a refrigerator when it clicked on. "Yes," she said to herself, moving as close as she could without triggering the wards. "It's like electricity."

Neville didn't know what she was talking about, she knew, but he could feel something had shifted. Then, the energy waned, the humming stopped and the feel of electricity was gone.

"Thank you, Neville," she said. "If you wouldn't mind, It would help a great deal if you could just send me a note any time you see or feel a change. I plan to come back most days, but I can't be here all the time."

"Of course, Hermione," Neville promised. With that, she said goodbye to Ron and Harry and went back to the castle to floo home.

Home. Was it home now?

She shook the thought from her head along with the floo dust and sent her Patronus off to Padma. She wanted a second pair of eyes on her theory about the cannabis potion. She thought she'd managed to come up with a workable theory about how to best administer the drug, but it couldn't hurt to make sure she wasn't putting together ingredients that would poison the men.

She looked in on the kitchen before heading upstairs, noting that lunch appeared to have been abandoned. Perhaps due to pain. She rummaged through the cabinets until she found a few bags of crisps and some water bottles.

Up the stairs she went, stopping at Draco and Theo's room where they appeared to be high as kites, watching Dirty Dancing. She smirked.

"Hermione!" Theo said in a sing-song voice that made her snort with laughter.

"How much did you two smoke?"

"A bit," Theo said, cryptically.

"Well, how is the pain?"

"Four," Theo said.

"Three," Malfoy answered, staring at the TV screen. She filed their high spirits away to add to her notes. That electric feeling coming from the wards surrounding the Dark Energy indicated a surge and now the surge had passed so they were in less pain.

"I had it on good authority that you were never going to watch this movie again," Hermione pointed out, raising an eyebrow at Draco. He ignored her.

"Nothing on the television," Theo explained. "I talked him into it. He's complained significantly less this time around."

"Okay, well, now that the two of you are feeling a bit better, I have some crisps and water for you. I can make you something more substantial after I speak with Padma about brewing a new pain potion with the cannabis…"

"I could help," Draco chimed in, finally tearing his eyes away from the screen.

Hermione actually hadn't thought about that. Malfoy was, without a doubt, one of the best potioneers of his age before he went into Azkaban. He'd been privately tutored by Snape for years.

"Well, it's all academic right now. When I've finished I'll have you look over it. Maybe you can help me brew it?"

Hermione felt her heartbeat faster and a swooping in her stomach when she saw Draco's eyes light up at the prospect. His inhibitions down due to the weed, he looked thrilled at the idea and was not hiding it. She smiled brightly in response. "Okay, enjoy your food and I'll be back in a few minutes."

When Padma arrived, she looked over Hermione's list of ingredients and plans for incorporating them and signed off on them. "I'm not a potions expert, but none of that should actually hurt or kill them," she assured Hermione.

"Draco, actually, is very adept at potions and he can assist me," Hermione said.

"Draco is it…" Padma said, quirking an eyebrow at Hermione.

Hermione wanted to crawl into a hole as she felt her face heat up and knew there was a blush staining her cheeks.

"Since when is he Draco," Padma asked, her tone honestly curious.

"Oh, he brought me down from a panic attack, I brought him down from one. Two traumatised people helping the other one through that ought to be on first name basis, don't you think?" Hermione said, not willing to give away more. Her feelings for both Theo and Draco were confusing enough without trying to analyse them with someone who couldn't possibly understand the full picture.

"Fair enough," Padma said with a shrug. She loved this about her Ravenclaw friend. Pads was not one for drama and she mostly minded her own business. "Will you be joining the group tonight for drinks? Parvati insists you be there."

"Oh, Merlin. I wonder what that means," Hermione said with a chuckle. "I'll be there unless something happens here that requires my attention."

"See you then," Padma said before making her way outside to the Apparation point.

After Padma left, Hermione went back upstairs and found Theo and Draco still watching the movie. They were sort of slack jawed and droopy, but they were still awake. "Mind if I watch?" she asked from the door.

To her absolute astonishment, Draco lifted his right hand and slapped it down next to him on his own bed. "Sit, Granger," he directed, but it wasn't an order - not like his usual directives. Hermione's brain sort of shut down as she wordlessly did what he asked, sitting primly on the edge of his bed next to him.

She tried her best to ignore that she was sitting in Draco's bed and there wasn't a medical emergency to justify it. Turning her attention to the television, she noticed they'd just gotten to the part where Baby and Johnny were dancing at The Sheldrake - the entire reason concocted for them to be thrown together in the first place.

Hermione took a deep breath and leaned back against the bed frame, lifting her legs up to cross at the ankles on the bed. Draco was so close to her she felt her stomach muscles flutter with tension and unexplained anticipation.

Relax. It's just a bed.

But with all the confusing new things she was feeling and thinking about, coupled with Theo's revelation that Draco cared about her in some way - it was more than just casually sitting on a bed next to a stoned Malfoy.

If Malfoy felt the tension, he didn't show it. He watched the scene unfold in front of him, blissfully unaware of her constant side eye glances. His own arms hung loosely at his sides, the writhing Dark Mark, on his left - farthest from her - his right arm nearly touching her own. She considered crossing her arms in front of her to avoid touching him, but that was silly.

Stop being a child, Hermione.

"These cars are ingenious," Theo said, breaking Hermione out of her internal thoughts.

"Hmm?" she asked, her attention pulled from Draco's impossibly long blond lashes to Theo.

"Well, they are much slower than Apparation, but look at the space inside that car! She can change her clothes while he drives, and it looks rather safe," Theo explained.

She felt the bed move as Draco snorted next to her. "Safe?" he countered. "Hurdling down roads in a metal box on wheels hardly seems safe."

Hermione smiled. "Draco is quite right. Auto accidents are quite common. But the invention of the car has drastically improved the lives of Muggles. Want to really be amazed, wait until you see how an aeroplane works."

Both men looked at her quizzically.

"Muggles have invented a machine that allows them to fly around the world at high speeds miles above the earth," Hermione explained. "I forget neither of you took Muggle Studies sometimes."

"Muggles are mad," Draco said. "They've taken the metal box and hurdled it through the air at higher speeds now."

Hermione chuckled. "In the case of aeroplanes, those actually are fairly safe. Plane crashes are very rare."

"It's madness," Draco insisted.

"I don't know. I find it fascinating," Theo said. "They don't have magic, but they've managed to use their brains to come up with work arounds. I wonder what wizards and witches could do if we didn't rely so much on magic."

"Bloody Muggle Rights Activist over here," Draco mumbled. "I blame you, Granger. One week with you in your Muggle house and Theo wants to join a committee to promote Muggle technology in our world."

Hermione would have been offended if it hadn't been obvious that Draco was poking fun at Theo and not Muggles. "Well," she said, finally allowing herself to settle into her seat beside him, "Muggles still have a lot of things to work out," she allowed. "For instance, this scene."

She pointed her finger back to the screen where Baby had just woken her father - a doctor - to see to Penny's injuries after a botched, illegal abortion.

"I didn't understand this scene the first time," Theo admitted. "What is happening? I gather that Penny was pregnant?"

Hermione nodded. "Penny became pregnant after sleeping with the waiter Robby. Robby had the means to pay for an abortion –" she realized they had no idea what that was.

She picked up the remote from Draco's side table and paused the tape. "Abortion is a procedure that Muggle women have if they become pregnant and either do not want to be or couldn't safely give birth. This movie takes place in the 1960s in New York. At that time, abortion was illegal. So, women would go to dangerous lengths to procure abortions. This was why Baby asked her dad for money and learned Penny's dance. They found someone who did back-alley abortions. But as you can imagine, such procedures were dangerous and often done by people just looking to make a buck. The guy who did Penny's abortion ended up hurting her badly."

Draco sat up straighter. "So, this entire movie is a social commentary?"

Hermione laughed. "Yes. It's not only a movie that highlights the need for safe, legal abortions but also the inequities between economic classes. There is also a lot of commentary about cross-ethnic relationships, but that's a long conversation for another day."

"You don't really think about how much harder things are when you don't have magic. I mean, Madam Pomfrey has been administering the decedium spell for decades - and that's at a school!" Theo said. "This movie makes so much more sense now."

"See," Hermione said, looking back at Draco. "It's not just a silly romance."

He just rolled his eyes at her and she pressed play. They settled back into a bit more comfortable silence as the movie continued but Hermione was very aware that after the interruption she was sitting so close to Draco their bare arms were touching. She wondered if Draco noticed too and if he did, how did he feel about it.

Just as Baby and Johnny were dancing in his cabin before they eventually have sex for the first time, she felt Draco's fingers twitch next to her own and his index finger hooked around hers. Hermione's heart stuttered in her chest.

She swallowed, her face flushing and her stomach doing somersaults. His fingers twitched again and suddenly her hand was entwined with his. She looked over at him, but he was staring straight ahead at the screen.

Her heart hammering in her chest she spread her fingers to comfortably clasp with his. It was such a small thing - holding hands, watching a movie - but between Hermione and Draco it was so much more, and she knew it. She knew cannabis lowered inhibitions, but inviting her to sit on his bed, holding her hand, these were not things she remotely expected out of Draco Malfoy - the former Death Eater who called her a Mudblood only days ago.

She heard a light snore to her left and realised Theo had immediately fallen asleep after her History of Film lesson. Suddenly the room felt stifling, Draco's light touch felt infinitely more intimate. Their hands threaded together, Draco shifted in bed so that his body was lying on his right side, angled slightly toward her but still in view of the television.

Hermione swallowed and - as if jumping off a cliff into the unknown - she slid down the bed, lying on her left side, angling herself slightly toward him but mostly toward the television as well.

Baby and Johnny were talking about the rich women Johnny had slept with over the summers, but Hermione wasn't really watching anymore. She was focused entirely on Draco's thumb rubbing circles into the delicate skin of her wrist. She watched him, as he continued to watch the movie, her eyes moving from the beautiful halo of white-blonde hair that fell over his forehead and into his eyes, down to the long eyelashes women would have killed for. She studied his face, his sharp, angular cheekbones, his straight, near perfect nose, his strong jaw and chin. It wasn't news to Hermione that Draco was attractive. She'd known since the moment she laid eyes on him at eleven years old. But his personality had destroyed any potential attraction that might have blossomed. He was objectively beautiful but a horror of a human being. That was that.

But she wasn't as put off by his personality any longer. There was depth to Draco Malfoy that she'd never even guessed at. He was a dedicated friend, a nearly obsessive protector of what he cared for, a good son. She'd started wondering what Draco's life might have been like in any other circumstances. What if he'd been born The Chosen One - would he have possessed enough inner character and goodness to make the sacrifices that Harry made? She wasn't sure, but she was sure that he had the strength of character to do the right thing if he'd been given the right foundation.

He wasn't evil. He wasn't even selfish. Well, perhaps he was selfish, but he was selfish only about the people he regarded as his. Those people, she had no doubt, he'd go to the ends of the earth to protect.

She reminded herself that Theo implied that, through no campaigning of her own, Draco regarded her as one of those he was sworn to protect.

His fingers tensed around hers and she realised he was looking back at her. His grey eyes peered into her brown ones, and she was momentarily transfixed. Heat pooled in the pit of her stomach, and she began to feel that tingle - that tell-tale, frustrating, wonderful tingle of excitement.

His heavily lidded eyes swept over her face, taking her in the same way she'd done with his profile only moments before. She licked her lips as his eyes stopped their tracking and hovered there, watching her mouth. She felt simultaneously sure he was going to kiss her and terrified at the thought - not because she didn't want him to kiss her. She could think of nearly nothing else at the moment. But this was dangerous.

Draco, at the end of the day, was her job. No matter what happened, it was her professional duty to protect him and fix him. The absolute last thing she needed to be doing was wetting her knickers and snogging him in his bed. She needed to move. She had to get out of that bed and away from Draco to get her bearings.

She extricated her hand from his and with a shy smile made her excuses. 'I'd better go get everything ready to extract your memories for the pensieve,' she finally said, proud that she was able to speak as his eyes - that same dark grey as the day she'd cut his hair - seemed to penetrate her soul with intensity.

He blinked, his lids becoming heavier, and gave a short nod, rolling back over to his back and refocusing his attention to the TV.

"I'm going to meet some friends this evening," Hermione said, getting up from the bed awkwardly. "But please write to me in the notebook if you need anything, Draco."

He said nothing but nodded again.

"We'll do your memories tonight after I get back," she said.

Another silent nod.