A/N: I just wanted to add a quick warning here, there is a brief mention of violence in this chapter. As I said, things do get darker in the story.

Being Hermione, it didn't take her too long to formulate a sound enough plan. She soon realised she would need two things to gain access to the room of requirement at the same time as Draco: Timing and disguise.

The initial thought of hiding herself, in Animagus form so as not to be seen, somewhere in the corridor waiting Draco to next appear presented itself immediately but it was a terrible idea and Hermione dismissed it just as quickly. It could involve indefinitely waiting around and Merlin knows she still had her own education and life to think about. The corridor and entryways to the seventh floor were also very wide and exposed. Hiding places would be limited and she could easily be seen. She lamented, not for the first time, not taking the form of something as commonplace and therefore discreet as a tabby cat like her professor.

Cat, owl or toad would have been perfect. All were animals they were allowed to bring with them and would unlikely cause anyone passing to blink an eye.

An otter however, she was fairly certain would attract some surprise, even in Hogwarts. On both practicality and risk she ruled her first thought out as a terrible plan.

The time to use her new skill would undoubtedly come if she ever needed to get closer to Malfoy. McGonagall had shown her some entrances she could use to access to pipes which led to the dungeons. For what she needed now though, it wouldn't help her much, except as a potential escape plan.

The idea came to her as she was brushing her teeth as good ideas often do.

Upon making McGonagall aware of what she needed at breakfast that Monday morning, she was given access to Slughorn's potion stores as well as a few hours of his time after classes later in the week.

They were not due to learn how to brew the invisibility potion until almost the end of their seventh year, Slughorn had told them when she first enquired, due to the very real likelihood of students using it for mischief in the school. As such, it was one of the final potions they were taught before sitting their N.E.W.T's.

However it took only a quick word from McGonagall on Monday morning, which involved a passing mention of Hermione's intention to sit her N.E.W.T's early alongside a a sprinkling of compliments of the potion master's unrivalled expertise and he had agreed to teach and brew one with her later that week.

To begin, Slughorn had taken his time to explain the invisibility potion's uses and weaknesses before he even begun to weigh the ingredients. It was a heavily time-dependant potion whose effects lasted nowhere near as long as Polyjuice, and for that reason wizards would simply revert to disillusionment charms which could be reinforced where needed, or simply adorn an invisibility cloak if invisibility was their goal. It would offer the drinker only a few minutes of its effects. Luckily, if her plan worked, a few minutes would be all she would need.

She had seen Malfoy at dinner every night, leaving the hall with either Crabbe, Goyle, Zambini, Nott or a combination of the four. Always making their turn to the dungeons afterwards never up to the higher floors. Though she couldn't be completely certain, Hermione was fairly confident that whatever his little project was, he was making it his priority on the weekends alone for now.

Because of the small window of opportunity she would have, she needed one other thing, alongside the potion, and to obtain it she too would have to lie. Only this time to her best friend.

'Here you go,' Harry said, passing the map to her as she stood leaning against the doorway to his dormitory.

'Thank you Harry, you're a life saver. I promise to keep it safe for you.'

Ron was looking at her quizzically, he sat cross legged on his bed eating a chocolate frog that was feebly trying to leap out of its box.

'She needs it for homework,' Harry explained, adding, when Ron just looked even more confused, 'For Binns, there's apparently a lot of really interesting stuff we can learn about Hogwarts's history from the castle ghosts.' The simultaneous roll of both Harry and Ron's eyes together made it clear they had both made the right decision dropping history of magic after their O.W.L year.

'He wants at least ten different accounts from the ghost's memory of the castle's history - they can't all be from the same time either.' She said, fully aware neither of them were paying too much attention but wanting to make sure her lie was convincing. 'I thought if I borrowed the marauder's map from Harry it would at least cut down half the time I'd need to spend tracking down who I want to speak to.'

Ron was busy dismembering his frog which, thankfully, had stopped moving so as Ron bit its head clean off the scene didn't look too disturbing.

Her eyes met Harry's and she looked purposefully over at Ron. Harry shrugged his shoulders. She really hoped he wasn't going to wait too much longer before he said something about Ginny. There was an obvious sort of chemistry building between the two of them that was getting more and more plain to see the longer they were back at school together. While nobody could accuse Ron of being the most emotionally perceptive of the three of them he was not dim and Hermione knew even he would notice the changing relationship between his sister and best friend before long.

Harry grabbed his wand off his bed and his jacket. 'You headed to the library?' he asked her.

She folded the map away and nodded.

'I'll walk with you, Dumbledore's asked me to go to his office.' he said. Hermione noticed a soft edge of worry to his voice.

'What for?'

'Didn't say,' replied Harry as they made their way down the stairs together.

A warm and delicious smell greeted her as she entered the library. She raised her hand in a half wave at Madam Pince who sat perched on her desk. The librarian couldn't return the wave but nodded in acknowledgement, as one hand was clutched to a copy of the prophet she was scanning, the other held a slice of cinnamon toast she was happily nibbling away on. The smell made Hermione quite hungry and she made a note to herself to try it as a late night snack at some point in the near future. She was on good speaking terms with a few of the kitchen elves after her few weeks in the castle alone and was sure they wouldn't mind sending her a slice or two up to the common room one evening if she asked nicely.

She found a desk quite deep in the aisles and settled her bag and books around her. Only one other student was sat in her row on the other side of the aisle, and it was a fourth year Ravenclaw she didn't recognise. She pulled out her homework from Snape, happy there was nobody around so she didn't have to make conversation, and got to work. Quickly becoming a routine, Hermione was using her Friday nights to finish all her homework which left the weekend completely free. The fact that the library was almost always deserted at this time made it a perfect routine to get into. She could completely focus on her work and since she didn't have to keep stopping to help Harry or Ron, she found it took half the time it usually would. After about an hour the younger girl from Ravenclaw packed her things up and gave Hermione a quick smile as she left. Earlier the girl had struggled to find the shelf her last book belonged to, passing up and down the aisle a few times before Hermione pointed her to the bookcase two rows down.

She was alone now, finishing up her final paragraph for Snape with her head close to the parchment and so didn't see them as they passed but the hushed, easily recognisable voices stopped her in her tracks.

'Why won't you listen to me! I can help, please Draco-'

'Help?' Draco scoffed under his breath, 'I don't need your help and I don't want it either,' he snapped, storming past her row quickly as he went deeper into the library.

Hermione turned her head in time to see Pansy's cloak trail behind her as she hurriedly tried to keep up with Draco.

'Please Draco-' she begged, their voices were becoming distant and more difficult to hear with their low whispers.

Hermione rose from her seat and edged towards the end of her row and quickly peeked out into the aisle.

They turned left at the last row before the restricted section and out of her line of sight.

Draco's recent change in behaviour to Pansy had initially made Hermione think there had perhaps been a rather sour breakup between the two. But with Pansy's persistent attempts to stay close to him despite his obvious dislike for her at the moment, Hermione wondered if there was maybe more to it. Pansy still had her standards and she was a proud witch. Somehow, Hermione didn't see Pansy as the type to act pathetic if her advances had been rejected. If Draco had simply broken off whatever it was they had, she doubted Pansy would be scurrying around after him all the time like a love-sick puppy. She would be getting even, probably trying to use someone else to make Draco jealous, not still attached to his side when he clearly didn't want her there.

They were around eight rows further back than she was and she couldn't hear anything else they were saying. Hermione weighed up whether or not it was worth getting any closer. She had enough books she could simply pretend to be putting some of them back if they came out of their row to find her eavesdropping.

Before she could think too long on it, there was a sudden bang from the direction they had gone in. She heard what sounded like a quick scuffle, hushed voices arguing and then another thud. Hermione looked back to the front to see the librarian in her office, realising she clearly hadn't heard a thing otherwise she would already be running to the defence of her precious books.

She was frozen in place. She desperately wanted to see what they were doing but part of her told her to stay out of it, especially after the way Pansy had responded to her last time in the bathroom.

Suddenly there was again the clicking of footsteps, only one pair this time, and she moved instantly back to her seat, opening her book to a random page and hoping she looked deeply engaged in whatever she was reading as they strode past her. It could have been either of them, she didn't chance another look up to check.

Whichever of them it was, paused on their way out with a quick cough followed by a tight 'Fine, bring it back for Monday,' from Pince before they continued to storm out the library. She recognised it as Draco.

Only after a few minutes, when it was clear Pansy was not following him, did she cautiously approach the back of the library. She couldn't see too much at first since the row was so far back and dimly lit compared to where she had been sitting. It took her eyes a moment to adjust fully. There was the faint outline of the desks, a few books scattered on the floor and then in a curled position on the floor next to the window huddled Pansy. She had her head down, covered by her arms that hugged her knees and though she made no sound at at all her shoulders shook with the force of her tears.

Hermione paused where she stood, not wanting to startle her, but on seeing what looked like a trickle of blood on Pansy's head, quickly made her way over and knelt down in front of her.

Pansy's head shot up and her eyes flashed with rage, tears streaming down her face along with a thin stream of blood which seemed to be coming from a cut on her head. She rubbed furiously at her brow to get the blood off her face, still glaring daggers Hermione's way, though despite the fact her mouth opened and her lips clearly began screaming something at Hermione, no sound came out. Pansy realised this after a moment, looking like her effort to yell had made her lose her breath and the rage in her eyes almost instantly vanished, replaced with complete despair as she pointed away from them and covered her face again. Hermione understood she was telling her to go away, though in Pansy's usual coarse language no doubt, but found she couldn't.

'Did- did he do that to you?' she asked quietly. Pansy didn't even look up but her shoulders continued to shake ferociously and she was shaking her head.

'Did Draco hurt you?' Hermione asked, her voice calm and monotone. Inside her anger was already starting to bubble but she didn't know the full story yet and thought her best chance of getting Pansy to talk was to act like she didn't really care. She had tried the other route with her last time and that hadn't gone well, Pansy would only perceive Hermione's help to be pity if she sounded like she was worried about her.

She looked at Hermione and again her mouth was moving quickly with not a word coming out of it, which only seemed to distress her more.

Hermione drew out her wand. 'Finite Incantatem!'

'-nothing, its nothing to do with you! Get away from me now or I swear I will curse you!' Pansy started shouting, but seemed to quickly realise that would only draw the attention of the librarian. She looked past Hermione for a moment, as though she wasn't ever there.

'Please just go.' She finally said, hanging her shoulders and looking defeated.

'I'm not bothered if you won't talk to me, if you don't want to tell me what the hell just happened with you two that's fine - but I'm still a prefect and I'm not leaving you with your head hurt. You could have a concussion Pansy.'

'He didn't.' She said, looking down, 'He didn't hurt me, I wouldn't get out of his way and he shoved me. I lost my balance,' she said standing up again, moving to grab the books off the floor that Hermione assumed had been knocked over when she fell. 'I swear Granger you better not report him, I mean it!'

Hermione looked at her, vaguely confused, but just shrugged. 'If you say so, but your head..'

'I'll go to the hospital wing now if you just keep your nosy mouth shut!' she hissed.

Struggling between wanting to help but equally having too much respect for herself to be talked to like she was a piece of dirt, Hermione dropped it.

She managed to catch a quick glimpse into some of the titles in Pansy's hands that she was now putting back on the shelves.

Enduring the Damage: a guide on repair and maintenance of magical artefacts by Rudolph Fenwick

Spells and Objects: my life as a magical antiques dealer by Emilia Gouldfrey

Hermione puzzled over them for a second, there were more books but Pansy had already hastily shoved the rest back on their shelves, and was now brushing past Hermione as she watched her go.

As far as she knew, she took every class Draco took plus some. The section he had been looking in had absolutely nothing to do with any of the homework they had been set, and frankly, she just didn't see Draco as the type to spend his Friday night in the library reading for leisure. She grabbed the books by Fenwick and Gouldfrey and added them to her own pile.

Whatever he was looking for help with hadn't been solved with either of these books, so although there was no way of knowing what book he had checked out, at least a read of two of the others he had looked into might give her some clue as to what he was searching for.

Hermione held them up one by one to the librarian as she left. Pince simply nodded, still engrossed in her own reading.

Hermione decided to skip dinner that evening, the small hunger pangs she had felt earlier had completely vanished after seeing Pansy in the library in that state. She quickly unfolded the map from her robes once she was safely back in her room and alone. With relief, she saw Pansy's little dot was next to Pomfrey in the hospital and was grateful that Pansy had at least been true to her word in getting herself checked out.

She scanned the map for her friends, finding them congregated amongst a sea of names in the great hall. There were so many of them squished together that most were completely unrecognisable, but she saw the two scribbles of 'Weasley' for Ron and Ginny sat side by side. Harry wasn't there but as she unfolded another corner of the map she saw he was perfectly fine, his own little dot right next to Dumbledore's, still in his office.

Then she looked for Draco. Her eyes scanned back over the great hall first, half expecting to find he would have simply gone down for dinner after leaving Pansy in that state.

He wasn't to be found there so she looked lower down the map at the dungeons instead. That took hardly a second to check since there were almost no names at that part of the castle, everyone having gone to dinner already. There was only the moving dot of the Bloody Baron which she saw float through a wall separating the common room and the corridor outside. He was neither at dinner nor his common room.

She scanned her eyes as quickly as she could over the rest of the castle on the map but couldn't find him anywhere.

She went over it twice to make sure she hadn't just missed him but she definitely wasn't mistaken. He was not showing up on the map at all.

That at least meant her hunch was right; He was without doubt using the room of requirement since it didn't show up on the map. She was already too late to enter with him that night but at least she would be ready and waiting the next time.

Reaching her arm outstretched under her bed, her hands grasped a small box and pulled it out. Its brown leather material had worn away over the years through how much she had had to use it but that made it all the more an appealing place to hide things, her diary in first year, the ingredients for the Polyjuice potion they had made in her second, then the time turner she had been given in her third. It was safeguarded with a spell meaning it only opened at her touch but it now looked so worn and battered she was fairly sure nobody would even give it a second look, so the touch enchantment was only really an additional precaution. She didn't expect anyone would ever really try to open it.

The map was neatly and safely folded away, she tucked it behind the phial of invisibility potion she had been left with from her lesson with Slughorn the previous night.

She would need both this weekend.

Making the most of the quiet that had settled in the castle, she grabbed her wash bag and headed for the prefects bathroom, deciding she had earned herself a long soak in the giant tub before an early night.

She didn't know exactly what time Draco would be making his move this weekend but logic told her it could be early, especially since he had undoubtedly been frustrated that someone had beat him to the room the previous weekend when she had been using it to practice. She remembered the voices she had heard when transformed, the ones that sounded like arguing, and wondered briefly if that had been Draco along with someone else who must know more about what he was doing.

There would be a very small window of opportunity for her to put her plan into action and she didn't want to miss her chance, which would mean she would need to get up early tomorrow, even earlier than the weekend before, and be ready and waiting, map and potion in hand for when she would see his little dot move upwards through the rows on the map towards the seventh floor.

As the tub in the bathroom began to quickly fill with the force of the hundred or so taps in the centre, she carefully laid her clothes, wand atop, on the edge of the tub and sunk into the mountains of bubbles that patiently waited for her to disturb them.

The heat from the bath hugged her whole body, head to toe, and she let herself relax further until her legs were stretched out fully and she was submerged up to the curve of her neck. Hermione laid her head back against the edge of the tub and closed her eyes. Before long she began to feel the familiar tug of her Animagus in her mind, vying for attention. It seemed that part of her thrived in the water and couldn't really distinguish between a cold, dark weedy lake and the warm soapy suds of the bubble bath. If there was water and a chance to swim, it wanted in.

Smiling to herself she subconsciously shook her head. She brushed it aside and tried to close the image off from her mind so she could empty her thoughts and focus on nothing but how good the water felt, but found it was a stubborn little creature to ignore. She felt as though her mind was a safe shore, the tide carrying out her thoughts with each receding wave leaving her alone and at peace. Then she would see her Animagus, abreast the waves, swimming back to bother her time and time again.

She only noticed anything had happened when suddenly she sunk down, right to the bottom of the tub and realising with disbelief her hand and feet were now paws, and webbed. Her tail flicked out behind her and she propelled herself up, sneezing as she broke through the mound of bubbles in her way to the surface. She looked, confused, at her pile of clothes and wand.

She had done it. Whether intentionally or not, that was a matter for another day, but Hermione had wandlessly transformed, a feat McGonagall had said could take weeks or months of practice at best.

How much was down to her skill and how much had simply been instinctive magic within her, she didn't know. But for that moment it didn't really matter, she felt a surge of gratitude for her magic and wasn't even annoyed her Animagus form had been pulled from her unwillingly.

She allowed herself to enjoy a few laps around the tub, which now felt the size of an Olympic pool, before she turned back to herself again.

The door closed behind her after she washed and dressed. Unseen from behind one of the pillars, an uncharacteristically quiet Moaning Myrtle floated out to stare after Hermione with a mild expression of bewilderment behind her rounded, ghostly spectacles.