Disclaimer: Of course, these lovely characters do not belong to me. I do borrow them for a new idea.


Trust

April - May 1st, 1998

"We need Polyjuice."

Hermione was staring at her best friend. It was 4 in the morning and she had rudely been awakened. She took in a deep breath. She had stopped going over options after Draco's first visit in her mind. Instead, she had surprised Molly by asking for cooking lessons. Filling her mind with as much useless junk as she could. He had been upset the following evening, just to fully outcall her crazy the night after when she had learned to crochet.

"Do I get the plan?"

"For now, we just need the Polyjuice."

She wanted to be mad, but for all, she knew Draco had already fished the Polyjuice from her brain. After grabbing her purse, she took a careful step to follow him out of the room. Wondering if they had hexed Ginny for her to sleep through that. She followed her friend into his bedroom, where Harry seemed to be preparing.

"Does she have some?"

"Of course, I do." Her wand in hand, she accioed the Polyjuice out of her purse. She handed it to the boys and waited for further explanation, but none came. With a huff, she sat on one of the beds and stared at the floor. She was surprised they even let her stay. As she sat there, her fingers once again found the necklace he had given her. As her finger pressed against the tenant, she could feel the engraved dragon.

"What's that?" Ron eyed her suspiciously.

"A necklace my mother gave me. I just found it again, when I was looking for something else in my back." He seemed to consider whether he should believe her. She swallowed. It had only been half a lie. Narcissa now was considered her mother in some way, even if it wasn't the mother Ron was be thinking of.

Finally, he looked away and began whispering with Harry once more, who eventually turned to her. He was handing her a black dress and cloak that seemed to be from aunt Muriel's endless closets.

"Put that on, we'll be right back." He gave her shoulder a small squeeze before they hurried past her. She looked at the old dress and decided it was rather hideous. There were a thousand questions she wanted to ask the boys and she was sure to find at least as many flaws in their plan, but it was clear the less she knew the safer they were.

Dressed in the hideous outfit, she waited for their return, surprised to see Griphook with them. Ron laughed when he saw her unhappy face, but handed her some toast. It was a silent breakfast and her stomach wasn't too fond of the early meal either. She noticed the goblin eyeing her and decided to do the same. While she was a huge fan of equality, she still had read about goblins and their foul tricks towards the wizards and witches around him.

"The Malfoys, is it true the Dark Lord put them under house arrest?"

Hermione glanced at her friends, before silently nodding. Draco had mentioned something along those lines. He had been granted special permission to take her off the property, before being escorted back to Hogwarts himself.

"Bellatrix being amongst them?"

She hesitated. She hadn't asked about the woman and had simply been relieved that Draco had shielded her from another run in.

"I would assume so, however, I do not know."

The two boys exchanged a look: "We will have to take a chance."

Harry glanced at his watch and nodded: "Hermione, would you add these things to your purse?"

There was a pile of things on the other bed and she put them into her purse with an elegant fling of her wand. When the sun rose the two boys apparated the quartet to the outskirts of London. Carefully hidden from anyone to see them.

"We need you to make enchantments to Ron's face, so he isn't recognized." Hermione opened her mouth, once again a long list of questions and concerns ready to be voiced, but finally just lifted her wand and said the first spell. It didn't take her long to grow his hair, make it rattier, make his nose longer, his ears shorter, his eyes narrower and his face filled with a full beard.

"That should do. Now you." Harry gave his friend an approving look, before adding a black hair to the Polyjuice and handing it to Hermione.

"Shouldn't you be disguised of all people?"

"Drink." He wasn't rude, but his tone indicated that she had to follow their plan at this point. The juice was disgusting and she was tempted to spit it out at once. At the final swallow, she almost gagged and she could feel her body begin to change.

When she felt the transformation was over, she straightened herself to glance at her friends, who stared at her wide-eyed.

"What?"

"See for yourself." Harry handed her the tiny shared of the mirror, he had been carrying. As she saw her image, she let out a scream, before twirling on her heels to look behind her. Her heart raced until she was sure there was no Bellatrix behind her. She caught a glimpse at the black curls on her shoulders instead and groaned.

"We weren't sure if it was actually her hair." Harry thrust his elbow into Ron's side, but of course, Hermione had already heard.

"Turning me into a cat once more would have been funny. I can see that." She glared at the two of them, given her transformation both of them took a step away from her.

"It's probably not the best idea to give you another one of these, but this is her wand." Harry handed over the tool and Hermione eyed it suspiciously. Something in her wanted to simply break it into little pieces for all the pain it had caused her. She swallowed and looked back at her friends.

"We are breaking into Gringotts."

Of course, they were. It had been on her list of possibilities. After all, her torture had been initially based on the fact that Bellatrix seemed to fear something being stolen from her vault.

"Can you handle posing as Bellatrix to get us in?" Ron looked at her almost sheepishly. "I mean, you are a Malfoy now, so it might come more naturally."

She gave him a glare that would have let Bellatrix look pale, but didn't disagree. Raising her posture a little more, changing it how she thought Bellatrix would behave, she listened to the plan, learning what exactly Griphooks part was and that they would proceed as soon as Gringotts would open.

The rest of the morning was a blur. It had been more of a challenge to pose as Bellatrix than she had expected and if it hadn't been for Harry they would have failed right at the start. What none of them had expected were the Death Eaters that had surprised them on their way out. With Griphook gone and the Horcrux in her purse, they had been contemplating their next move, already knowing the goblins would be after them.

They had barely won the fight. In fact, she had been hit by a couple of curses, still wondering how she wasn't dead on the ground. Now they were sitting on the back of the dragon, who had not only flown them out of Gringotts but also blasted quite the firewall against their enemies.

"How did they know?" Ron's call from the other side of the dragon caught her attention.

"He might have gotten it out of Bellatrix," Harry called back, but his eyes were on Hermione.

"Are you insane?"

Having him in her head just now, got her to look away from her best friend.

"I didn't know anything, remember?", but she wasn't sure. Naturally, she had known the options her friends would explore. Even if she didn't know the specifics, he would have a list of possibilities. Her stomach turned and she felt sick at the thought that they could have died, because of her.

"It's lowering, there is a lake." Ron's voice got to her again and she followed his glance, more than happy to change the topic.

"Answer me. What were you thinking."

"Jump." She didn't even check the height again, but simply trusted the boy judgment.

"Granger!" She hit the water the voice in her head now screaming. Her arms and legs paddled to get back to air.

"Are you trying to kill all of us?"

"Get out of my head!" She opened her eyes, seeing that she was still far from the surface. But fighting Malfoy in her head was taking her strength.

"Answer me."

"I won't be able to, if I bloody drown, because of you." Her legs pushed her further towards the surface. The silence was long enough for her to think he was gone.

"Use the necklace."

There he was again. She was irritated beyond measure. The surface did not seem to come closer, although she was paddling. One of her angry hands finally grabbed the necklace, attempting to rip it off, but as she touched it something changed. Suddenly she burst through the surface, gasping for air. She coughed, gasping for more air, hearing similar sounds from her surroundings. Her hand let go of the necklace.

They began to make their way to the shore furthest from where the dragon had landed. She could feel a chill creep into her although she was swimming the whole time. As she finally reached shore, she collapsed and once again gasped for air.

"Malfoy knows." She gasped, as she seemed to have enough air in her lungs to form words once more.

"I suppose the whole world knows by now. We broke into Gringotts and left on a bloody dragon." Ron was laying little ways from her, still catching his own breath.

She turned her head the other way, having heard Harry's cough from there earlier. She found him standing and applying the wards that would keep them safe, should someone have followed them. While he was continuing his task, she set up and began going through her purse. After a while, she had dry clothes and a snack for each of them prepared, as well as a bottle with a potion that each of them put on the burns and scratched they had suffered during the break-in.

She had also taken out the cup, which was now sitting between them, while they ate.

"Are you still there?" She thought she heard his huff in her thoughts, but he remained quiet after that.

"We didn't intend for it to blow out of proportions like that."

"Yeah, right. Because Potter ever acted like a normal person not making the newspaper." Hermione took another bite of her food, too tired to argue with Malfoy.

"I had Snape report the information I gathered from your thoughts." Fear crept inside her, as she became aware that although silent he had already taken the liberty to get the information he needed.

"I would have told you."

"I needed information fast. Something to prove that the Malfoys had not once more failed. You didn't really know anything he hadn't known before."

"Does he know what we took?"

"A cup."

She closed her eyes.

"What's with those Horcruxes or what you call them anyway? I did some reading on them…"

"Hermione." It took her a minute too long to register that Ron was talking to her as well. He was pointing at Harry and she just now saw that he seemed to have one of his visions.

"Don't worry about it." With that she shut him out as well as she could, turning to Ron.

They waited for Harry to recover. It was like she had assumed, the Dark Lord knew what they were after. However, he did not know how many of them they had already found and destroyed. One could only hope that he didn't let Malfoy fish that information out of her head too.

Harry also now had proof that the last one was back in Hogwarts.

"Can Malfoy get you in?"

Hermione looked at Ron like he had gone crazy.

"He is trying to spy on us, not help us win, Ronald."

"Didn't he claim he wanted to keep you safe? There is his chance."

"His choice would be for me to stay right here and he is right. I would be plenty of safe."

The two friends stared at each other, while Harry looked between the two. He finally stopped on her with concern.

"Did he send the Death Eaters?"

She looked away admitting to guilt, although she didn't actually know for sure. She heard Harry sighed but was busy trying to keep the tears from falling.

"We'll go to Hogsmeade. From there we will find some way." His voice was determined.

"I should stay here." Her voice cracked and with that, the first tear fell.

"That will only weaken us." She looked up in surprise, meeting Ron's eyes. She was shocked to not see them wild and angry like he usually turned in situations like this.

"Ron is right. If he knew about Gringotts although we didn't tell you, he already knows about Hogwarts. At least when you come we will have your wits." Harry gave her an encouraging smile, now standing in front of her extending his hand to help her up.

"But what if I give you away?"

"If it gets too dangerous we'll just lock you up somewhere." She stared at her two best friends.

"That was a joke." Seriously at first, a small smile broke on Harry's face. He made a step towards her and hugged her tightly.

"We don't stand a chance without you. I mean look at us, Ron and I had no plan of getting out after we got into Gringotts." Ron nodded with encouragement behind him. She closed her eyes and willed the tears to stop before she finally nodded.

With the cup packed back up they finally huddled together for their probably final step. They held their hands together, every one of them taking in a deep breath. They were so close, failing now wouldn't be an option.

"Don't…" the moment Malfoys voice popped into her head they had apparated and the moment they set foot into Hogsmeade she knew what he had tried to tell her. A loud and shrill alarm caused her to cover her ears and they all took cover in the nearest doorway, as a couple of Death Eaters ran by shouting to each other.

"There's a curfew."

"Curfew." She relayed the information to her two friends.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Ron stuck his head out, just to immediately pull it back when he heard footsteps.