The moment Ron pulled Pansy onto his hospital bed with him, Hermione stepped back out of view of them, drawing the curtains closed around Draco's bed.

Draco raised an eyebrow at the sight of her smiling after all the shouting. "Everything alright out there?"

"Yes. Pansy's here, and they appear to be set on out-romancing us before she has to get back to class."

Draco scoffed, pushing himself to sitting in his bed.

Hermione rushed to help ease him up, propping pillows behind him. "Careful, Draco. There's no need for you to be moving about yet."

But he was through with being eased and tended, and also slightly offended at the idea of Weasley "out-romancing" him. As Hermione's fussing and tucking went on around him, he grasped her wrist, tugging, tipping her off balance so she'd tumble into his lap.

"Draco, mind your cut - "

Without flinching, he swept her up and held her against himself in spite of his wound, bringing both of them into a pose like the cover of a Veela romance novel, his white hair wild from being slept on wet, his bare chest exposed, clutching his loved one as she gazed up at him with wide eyes.

She was about to right herself, to stand up, when he said, "You're on assignment from Professor Snape to stay here and care for me. Today, I am your homework. Don't think of getting up and following Pansy to class when the noon hour is over."

"Don't you boss me. You know I won't leave," she said. "But you've got to be careful - "

"It's fine," he said. "Might just be that painkilling draught Pomfrey gave me, but it feels alright to hold you like this." He gathered her closer. "May actually feel better."

Hermione grew still, her eyes level with the ragged red mark slashed high on his chest. "Your face will recover completely, I think. But this one will scar," she cooed, grazing the skin next to it with her fingertips.

He forced a shrug. "No great loss. After what happened at the manor this summer, I was already out of the shirts-off set, wasn't I?"

The darkly flippant observation did nothing to diminish the sadness of it, and Hermione turned her face to kiss the firm, warm, white flesh below the wound. She had never kissed his bare skin so far below his clavicles before. Even in his injured, lightly drugged state, Draco shivered at the touch of her warm, sweet mouth and breath, suddenly intensely aware of his own state of undress, and the lack of the usual barriers between them.

He was so close to her. She'd almost lost him today, but here he was now, safe and healing. She needed him closer, and she began to trace a line of kisses along his chest, beneath his new scar.

He let out a shaky breath, his head tipping back, his arms still holding her tightly. "Hermione…"

She stopped at once. "Does it hurt?"

He laughed, low and soft. "Not at all."

She sighed, sinking languidly into his arms, pressing her cheek against his heartbeat. "You're alive. I'm so glad you're alive."

His voice was low and husky. "Yes, I'm quite alive."

There were loud voices outside the curtain again, not shouting but greeting.

"Mr. and Mrs. Weasley are here," Hermione interpreted. She felt something slip in Draco's grip, as if he'd just remembered something terribly sad.

"My parents aren't coming." Draco swallowed. "It's impossible. How could my mother show her face here, in front of Mrs. Weasley, or anyone, really, after all this? Did you know that's how the poisoned mead got in here? The same way as the necklace: my mother's murderously incompetent accomplice again."

She frowned. "I didn't want to believe it, but I had thought of it already."

He wasn't looking into Hermione's face anymore, but staring into the distance, such as it was in the small, curtained space around them. Here he was, Draco Lucius Malfoy, the boy who had built most of his life around his identity as a son, and now he was all but orphaned - his father in prison, his mother sick and demented, maiming random students. There was no one but his head of house left to act as his parent. Was this something like how it had always been for Potter?

Hermione's fingers were on his chin. Without a word, she was calling him back to her, and he was about to turn his eyes to her when he noticed a pair of feet in damp-looking shoes stepping up to the outer edge of the curtain.

His heart lurched, a rush of nerves and blood sending a tingle through his wounds.

"Come in."

Hermione's head jerked to see who he was inviting inside.

Harry Potter's hand parted the curtain. He had changed out of his blood-stained clothing, washed himself, but the traces of the fight were still visible in his body - in the way he held his jaw clenched, his shoulders tense.

His pained look was amplified when he saw Hermione caught up in Draco's romance-novel-cover embrace. Harry had known since shortly after the beginning of their relationship that they were together. Early on, he'd seen Draco kiss her twice. That was years ago now - years since he'd seen them together as a couple.

This was different. Unlike the kisses he'd seen, this wasn't a public show, a stunt. This was a glimpse of their real life together, Hermione's life, the one Harry could usually believe he shared with her. But all along, ever since the middle of fourth year, this is what a large part of her life had actually been like - a part she kept completely separate from him. She loved Draco Malfoy. It wasn't just gossip. And even though Harry had just been hugged and kissed by the Weasleys on the other side of the curtain, seeing Hermione so deeply involved with Draco left him feeling lonely, more motherless than ever.

She seemed to know, and maybe it was more than shyness or good manners that had her scrambling to disentangle herself from Draco, returning to her bedside chair. "Harry," she greeted him.

Now that they'd separated, Harry stepped further inside the curtains. The first part of his visit would be simple, if not easy. He would be a monster if he didn't say it - or at least, an utter failure at developing his character.

"Malfoy, I'm sorry I did this to you," he said without qualification. "I hadn't used that spell before and didn't know what it would do. I had no idea it was so dangerous, and it was reckless of me. I apologize."

The words were sincere but automatic, like a recording he made in his head while he stood in the shower, washing away the traces of the blood and dirty water, and which he was replaying for Malfoy now, like a well-programmed machine.

But the calm circumspection of his apology was covering a flow of acidic thoughts and feelings threatening to burn through his resolve to follow Snape's orders to remain civil. Since he arrived, Harry had only glanced at the red slashes on Malfoy's chest and face. Looking more closely at them now, he saw that Snape and Pomfrey had done well in treating them, and the gory, dying Malfoy he'd seen on the floor of the flooded bathroom was no more. Harry was not a murderer.

Seeing that Malfoy would recover freed Harry's anxiety to fix on other things, like the fact that even though Malfoy should have been stripped down for his treatment, his arms were still fully covered by his sleeves.

And where was his mother? Was there some reason she couldn't leave Malfoy Manor to come storming into the school demanding justice, the way the Malfoys had done when Draco had his brush with Buckbeak?

And then there was still the question of what was going on in the Room of Hidden Things. Everything Hermione had promised to tell him the night before was still unspoken.

Before any of that was addressed, Harry waited as Malfoy accepted his apology with a modest shrug. "Right. I deserved worse," he said. "It was me who lobbed the first hex today. And I am sorry about your nose."

Harry nodded, his hand absently rising to smooth the repaired bridge of his nose, not knowing what to say next.

Snape had assured him Hermione would make this difficult exchange possible, and she did. She stood up from her chair, patting him on the shoulder. "I don't hear the Weasleys anymore. Are they gone already?"

Harry nodded again. "Just for a bit. Now they've seen Ron's alive, they're meeting with Dumbledore. They'll be back."

"Well, go fetch Ron then, would you? We are about to tell you everything, Harry." She said it with an air of grandness. "And I'd rather not have to rehearse the whole thing a second time for Ron."

Slouched into the corner of a wheelchair, Ron was rolled to the foot of Malfoy's bed, Harry leaning over the chair's handles.

"True confession time, at long last, is it?" Ron said, awake and upright but still a small, faded version of himself.

Hermione took in an enormous breath. "If we are going to tell the both of you everything, it means a long and complicated story told from its very beginning. And so you must stay until the end. No righteous rushing off in the middle."

Ron gestured at his chair. "Well, I'm an inmate here. Harry?"

He nodded. "Let's have it. Muffliato."

She needed another breath. "So after their defeat at the Department of Mysteries, the Death Eaters retreated to Malfoy Manor. Everyone assumed as much, but it's true. The inner circle is sheltered there right now, even You-know-who himself."

Ron scoffed. "Lucky you."

Hermione shushed him but Draco was answering for himself. "It was no honor. They came rushing in to execute us. But mother offered them asylum in the house. And father - he offered them me. He was desperate to keep us all alive and a Hogwarts student the Dark Lord could use as an operative inside the castle was one of the few things Father had left to bargain with. If I was braver and better, maybe I would have let him kill us as soon as I knew. But instead…"

Draco reached across his wounded chest to slide his left arm out of his shirt sleeve, baring the Dark Mark to Harry and Ron.

Ron gasped and looked away.

Harry's entire body jolted forward, toward the mark, as if he was barely holding himself back from pouncing on Malfoy, tearing him open all over again - or at least from springing forward to pull Hermione away from him, back to their side.

"Say it, Potter," Malfoy said, nothing like a smirk in his voice. "Say you knew it all along."

"We've seen it. Put it away," Ron said instead, as if the sight of it was sapping the little strength he had left.

"Not yet," Hermione said, crossing behind the head of the bed to stand on Draco's left side.

'So you're a Death Eater spy," Harry said to Draco.

"Wait, Harry. It's complicated," Hermione said. "When I knew the Mark was inevitable, I inscribed my own charm in the same flesh - a little token of defiance, something You-know-who would see, something to annoy him, and let him know not everyone had given up Draco to the Death Eaters. It was an old charm I read about in a book, and like we saw today, Harry, sometimes spells we've never tried ourselves come with unintended consequences."

Draco still hadn't re-sleeved his arm. "Yes, something went wrong when the Dark Lord tried to remove Hermione's charm before he marked me," He was explaining as Hermione took his arm, her fingers smoothing the blackened skin. "Something went wrong for him, at any rate."

The casualness with which she touched it, the sound of Draco using the title "the Dark Lord," as if Voldemort deserved any respect or reverence, was almost more than Ron could stand.

Hermione noticed his uncomfortable shifting in his chair. "Watch," she said, in a firm voice the boys had long ago learned to obey. "Don't look away."

"Careful," Malfoy whispered as she bent her face over his arm, kissing the remnants of her charm to life. She drew her head back and Draco turned his arm, showing the boys the broken blue light shining on, around, and through the Dark Mark.

Ron gasped again. "Hermione, how in the stars…"

Draco could only nod, hushed, as he usually was whenever the token was visible.

Harry took a step forward. He knew this mark. He'd seen it before, in his nightmares.

Ron choked. "This is the token they found in Malfoy Manor, isn't it? The one they blamed on my Pansy. It was never an object. It was you, you yourself." He sat sputtering for a moment before he managed to say, "Malfoy, how could you ask me to keep Pansy safe without actually telling me how dangerous the situation truly was?"

"I was sure you'd do it properly whether you knew all about it or not," Draco said, not taking his eyes off Hermione's charm. "When it comes to that kind of thing, I suppose I must trust you."

Harry leaned closer, adjusting his glasses. He didn't mean them to, but his fingers were reaching toward Draco's flesh. He came close enough that Draco looked up from the token to watch his advance.

Hermione moved to where she could intervene if she had to. Harry's face was changing, the neutral expression he'd succeeded in maintaining until now was beginning to twist and crack.

"Harry?" Ron said.

As Ron spoke, Harry fell back, crying out, sitting down hard on the ground, the palm of his hand mashed against the scar on his forehead.

Draco jammed his arm back into his sleeve as Hermione fell to her knees beside Harry. 'I'm sorry," she was saying. "I was afraid this might happen to you, but we had to show you anyway."

The splitting pain in Harry's head was ebbing away as the lights of the token subsided. "Why does it hurt him?" Harry managed to say. "Voldemort - why does it hurt him? Why do I see him hurt and enraged and attacking Malfoy over this token in my dreams."

"You see what?" Ron asked.

"It just started. During the holidays," Harry said.

Draco nodded. "Makes sense. Snape says the Dark Lord's soul was split by some Dark magic, and a strong bonding charm, like this one, will attach itself to frayed edges like his. When he tried to vanish it from my arm, it stuck to his damage. And now he's involved in it with us."

"Like a horcrux," Harry said. "Dumbledore's only just confirmed that Voldemort is using horcruxes to keep from dying. The killing curse tears the soul, and in that condition, it's possible to use this awful Dark magic called a horcrux to take a part of the torn soul and attach it to something else. Stashing it somewhere, like in Tom Riddle's diary, or even a living thing, like Voldemort's snake."

"Yes, yes," Hermione said, elated as Harry clicked the pieces together. "It's like that, but in a loose, accidental way. And he certainly didn't attach his soul to my charm on purpose. Especially not when he's connected to us in a subordinate position."

Harry perked. "Subordinate?"

"Yeah," Draco said. "Whenever the charm is activated, he gets hurt somehow - I don't understand it but it's awful to see. Worse than watching you come down with a headache any day."

"So just now, with my scar - "

"Yes, he would have been hurt too, wherever he is - or at least, angry," Draco finished.

"And as you saw, when I activate it myself," Hermione went on, 'I'm fine. But when You-know-who does it, like when he attacked Draco, he hurts himself, as always, but - well, the last time he did it, during the holidays, way out in Malfoy Manor, I fainted in my parents' kitchen."

Ron swore. "Oh, of course. It can't be easy, can it? What a mess you're in, Hermione. I don't care how sweet it is, we have to get that thing off Malfoy's arm before you end up like Harry's mum."

The room fell icily silent. Harry got back to his feet. "What about my mum?"

'Listen to me, Ronald," Hermione said. "And you too Harry - you've got to understand. The charm is indeed something like the magic your mother used to protect you from You-know-who. It worked for her. And I might be able to make it work for myself too - "

"No." Harry was pacing between the curtains. "Absolutely not. It did not work for her. She died." He rounded on Malfoy, his finger pointed at his face. "If you really loved her, Malfoy, you would not let her do this. And believe me when I tell you that if she sacrifices herself for you, you'll survive just to be miserable, guilty, angry - "

"Harry," Hermione called over him. "It's not that kind of sacrifice. In fact," she laced her fingers through Draco's. "It might not be a sacrifice at all. Snape is giving me access to the books I'll need to make a matrimonial charm that will be strong enough to cut You-know-who out of the charm we already have. It could even be powerful enough to damage him, weaken him for a few more years, like your mum did, until you and Dumbledore could succeed in a plan to be rid of him for good."

"More time, safer conditions for horcrux hunting?" Ron said.

"Will you shut up?" Harry snapped at him.

"What? It's true confessions day. Snape trusts Malfoy with this and Dumbledore trusts Snape - "

"Enough of that. No more Snape. No, no matrimonial charms," Harry was ranting. "This is completely ludicrous. Hermione is not going to save the world by marrying bloody Malfoy while she's still in school."

Hermione released Malfoy's hand to fold her arms across her chest, widening her stance. "Why not, Harry? Because I'm not the Chosen One?"

"No, because this is mad," he said. "And I won't listen to another word about it until someone tells me what the hell is going on in the Room of Hidden Things."

Draco sighed. "Fair enough."

He told Harry about exactly what Voldemort had expected of him when he sent him back to Hogwarts this year as his student operative - the suicide mission to kill the headmaster, the vanishing cabinets, the deliberately slow repair, the reason Snape made the unbreakable vow, and even his mother's crazed, overzealous attempts to help him by having her bumbling accomplice bring dangerously enchanted goods meant to kill the headmaster into the school.

"And for that, I beg your forgiveness, Ron, on behalf of my mother."

Ron was stunned, somewhat embarrassed by the apology. "No real harm done, I suppose. Not much, anyways. Good job Harry was there…" He didn't want to speak of it anymore.

Harry clapped his hands, once, loudly. "Well, the vanishing cabinet needs to go," he said. "Get me back into that room and let's burn it to a heap of ash."

"And then my mother dies."

"Yeah, welcome to the club."

"Harry, wait," Hermione said. "Draco negotiated a deadline with You-know-who. Either the cabinet is operational by the end of term, or clemency for the Malfoys ends, and they'll all be killed. Don't you see, Harry? If Draco keeps working slowly enough, the deadline buys us time to figure out the matrimonial spell - "

"Don't start with this again - "

"Or," she went on, ignoring his interruption. "Or it gives us time to find whatever else there may be in the old spell books that could damage You-know-who and help you finish your mission as the Chosen One."

Upon hearing this title yet again, Harry rolled his eyes.

"Harry," she said, taking his hands. "You-know-who has taken paths that now make the prophecy inevitable. In the world he's shaped around himself, you are the Chosen One, and it will be you who defeats him. I believe that. But I never believed you would do it alone. And you won't be doing it without love either. Isn't that what Dumbledore told you?"

She sat down on the bed, linking her hand with Draco's again. "Maybe he doesn't just mean your love. Maybe he means my love too. Or more specifically," she lifted their joined hands into her lap, "ours."

Harry's gift of love felt far away as he stood over Malfoy's bed. One apology and some convoluted explanations did not make them friends.

He could see that Malfoy was fading, just as Ron was. Both of them had been cuddling their girls, sitting up, and then having this exhausting conversation far too long for people as badly injured as each of them was. They needed to rest. Malfoy's head had sunk back against his pillows. His white skin had a grey cast to it and his eyelids were heavy. He looked, again, like the boy Voldemort had attacked - the one Harry joined in attacking.

Harry couldn't give in to the urge to storm away, still sworn enemies. Snape had warned him not to and he'd given his word that he wouldn't be angry. He couldn't offer Malfoy friendship yet, but he could offer peace - a deal.

"You make sure your mother sends no more curses into the school, and I will do what I can to support Hermione. I'm not saying I'll be best man at you Hogwarts wedding - "

"Don't worry about that. You won't be - "

"What I'm saying is," Harry paused, clenching his eyes shut for a moment. When he opened them, his voice was almost serene. "I believe in you too, Hermione. I know if anyone can make something good out of this, you can."

From his chair, Ron was barely able to nod his suddenly very heavy ginger head. "Agreed," he said, as he fell to sleep.