He was still there when she arrived. Hermione hadn't expected to feel relieved. She didn't want him dead, most days, but he was hardly a bosom friend. Even to Cathal he was a prat. However in some obscure way he was the inverse of Harry and in that same helplessness to fate she could sympathise. Malfoy might have jumped into the Dark Mark, and flaunted it, but he'd never frightened her. She knew evil when she dined with it. Malfoy was still at the kiddie table.

"Whatever you're looking for, you won't find it up here." Hermione tucked her Map away. He didn't turn around.

"Piss off, Rosier." Malfoy told the storm.

"Shan't." She replied crisply, striding over to the balcony until he was within reach. He had a foot propped up on the railing. Hopefully a resting stance for balance against the wind. How did you ask someone if they wanted to kill themselves? Do you just blurt it out bluntly hoping to shock them into reconsidering? If she lived through this herself, she'd make sure to take a counselling course, Muggle if it wasn't offered at St Mungo's. Something that would help her know what to say.

"Did Pansy send you?" He glanced at her. His eyes raked her faded robe and ratty slippers. Rosier wore her poverty like defiance. She made no excuses, justifying herself to no one. What must it be like to have that sort of self-confidence?

"I try never to oblige Parkinson." Hermione couldn't help but see his pallor, the smudges under his eyes. He wasn't wearing a glamour to hide the effects of stress and sleep deprivation. He looked awful, shaky and wrung out.

"I won't tell you." Draco gritted the words between his teeth. He had been tasked by the Dark Lord himself. For the first time in his life, he wasn't an adjunct to his father. He was the Chosen One.

"Muffliato." She doubted anyone could hear them over the weather. That went both ways though. Harry had hidden below the stairs unobserved to see the whole of Dumbledore's swansong. "You've been ordered to fix the Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Hidden Things."

He paled into something blind that lived in lightless caves; a bloodless colourlessness. He could've been an Inferius. When he made a convulsive movement towards her she jabbed her wand into his chest. That stopped him. Malfoy knew in shuddering detail how much pain a wand could give in the hands of a witch. Auntie Bella was an excellent teacher.

"No, no, don't try anything." Hermione wanted him to listen. She'd definitely got his attention. "I'm not going to muscle in on your mission. That glorious quest is wholly yours." His expression changed. It wasn't relief. "But I'll do your homework."

"You?" Draco scoffed before he could stop himself. The wand prodded. "You haven't taken Runes or Arithmancy. You can't pull an essay from the ether." He wanted to let her help him. He needed someone to help him. The horrible, sickening realisation that he didn't have enough time gnawed at him. He could fix the Cabinet, he was almost sure he could, but he had to concentrate on it. Everything else was noise and waste.

"The significance of the interactions between the higher factors of seven and the unreal numbers derived from Pi is most visible when calculating in base twelve." She said, quoting from this year's Arithmancy reader. "I can repeat that in Old Norse, if you'd like."

"Cow." The ghost of a smirk twitched his mouth. "How long have you been studying on the sly?"

"Since First Year." Hermione smiled. Who knew why he found her prevarication amusing but she'd use that little spark to coax him onwards. "I'm interested in everything. I just don't want to be Granger with her arm always in the air." Truer words she'd never said. "Let me help."

"I haven't done any of the winter assignments. Haven't even started." Draco confessed to test her mettle. She muttered an obscenity a nicely reared pure-blood girl shouldn't know. "I spent the hols frantically catching up on what was overdue. I haven't even looked at what's due now." Exhaustion dragged at his shoulders. "I can't think of anything but the Cabinet." The wind howled around them but could not steal his words however faint. "He'll kill my mum if I haven't made progress by the Easter break."

She hugged him. It was stupid and probably violated half a dozen daft little etiquette rules. She did it anyway. He needed some physical contact before he collapsed in on himself. His surprise lasted less than a second before he sagged against her, burying his face in the collar of her robe as he shook as though under the Cruciatus.

Hermione held him, thinking randomly that it was handy Cathal was so tall. Malfoy didn't have to stoop to sob into her shoulder. Not that he would've lowered himself to cry on Granger. Nor would Granger, still innocent of a war, be much inclined to offer sympathy. Knowing how this durance vile would end made quite a difference.

"Why did you come up here?" Hermione asked quietly because saying 'there, there' or 'it'll be okay' seemed monumentally feeble.

"To remind myself there's a way out." Draco muttered, his lips moving against her neck. She smelled of herbal soap and girl with a hint of cedar that lingered on all laundry done at Hogwarts. Her body, her curves he noticed were pressed against him, was warm. He should've reacted but all he could feel was an emasculated sort of gratitude that someone cared enough to look for him.

Hermione didn't have anything to say in reply. What could she say that wouldn't sound trite? She couldn't tell him that he wouldn't run, that no matter how pants-wettingly terrifying the war got, he didn't flee the country. That for love of him his mother defied the Dark Lord. That whatever fear had him in its grip, he wasn't craven. He didn't turn them in. She couldn't tell him. He'd have to learn what line he wouldn't cross for himself.

"It's perishing cold up here." Hermione complained instead, still holding him. "Next time you want to contemplate the void, do it in a nice warm potions classroom."

"You should've dressed for the occasion." He said with a sniff they both chose to hear as criticism not soppy emotion.

"I am dressed for all I planned to do tonight." She huffed. Malfoy slowly disengaged, reluctant to leave the solace she offered. He mopped his face with a handkerchief because of course he had one. It was monogrammed. Because, again, of course.

It was late or early enough for them to get something to eat in the kitchens. Hermione insisted they go there and was similarly adamant that Malfoy do more than pick at his food. She got two bowls of soup into him along with half a loaf of bread, and a promise not to skip meals. His appetite might be shot but his magic needed fuel.

"Hufflepuff." He grumbled, mopping up the dregs with a crust.

"You'd best hope I'm a Ravenclaw." She pulled her journal out of a robe pocket and a fountain pen from another. Quill and ink were mandated for class but pens won hands down for convenience. "Which classes are you taking?" Hermione knew though she supposed Cathal wouldn't give a damn. "And in which one are you lagging most?"

"Charms, Defence, Transfiguration, Potions, Runes, Arithmancy, and Astronomy." Draco supplied then chewed glumly. "Hard to say. The classes all seem so pointless."

"What subjects do you need?" The question had rather a lot of emphasis on the last word.

"Merlin knows. Every time I think I've made progress there's some fiddly thing I have to correct." He dropped his head into his hands, slumping into his chair. "Charms and Transfiguration. I have to keep Potions. And Defence. Arithmancy is important too." The complex mathematics were his best route for finding the spells necessary to mend the damage to the Cabinet. It was not an object at which to randomly sling charms.

"Drop Runes and Astronomy." Hermione suggested, feeling a sense of deja vu. She'd had a similar conversation with Marcus Flint, who she hoped remained very busy across the pond. "Anything you need from Ancient Runes you can find in the Library on your own. It'll save time. And with your name, you can't tell me you don't already have a handle on Astronomy."

"I like stargazing." Draco muttered at the table. He'd not thought much about his course load going into Sixth Year. He'd assumed repairing the Vanishing Cabinet would be a few weeks work then he could refine an ambush. Something stealthy and efficient. Now the school year was half over and he had little to show. The Dark Lord had been unimpressed with his progress.

"You're named after a constellation. I'm sure you've looked at yourself quite enough." Her tartness made him laugh.

"You're one to talk. Cathal is a boy's name." He smirked. The British branch of the Rosier family favoured Celtic names out of centuries old tradition beginning when Everard Rosier had found sanctuary in Ireland after fleeing Normandy under Papal interdict. The Rosier arrival in the British Isles pre-dated the Malfoy family's establishment by eight years, giving the former ever so slight precedence. That had rankled the Malfoys for the better part of a millennium.

"It means 'battle rule'. My middle name Machtilde means 'battle strength." Hermione didn't know why Evan and Derica had chosen those names but she could guess. "I rather think my parents had expectations of me."

"Very probably." Draco agreed, weighed down by parental expectations of his own.

That weekend, she discovered Malfoy had not been exaggerating when he said he had done nothing towards his assignments due this term. Even discounting the work for Astronomy and Ancient Runes, there was a perilous mountain. He brought everything he had pending to the study room she specified, dumped it on her table, then collapsed into a padded chair.

Courtesy of Harry and Ron and their perpetual last minute homework, Hermione was prepared. She had a calendar to mark off the sequence of due dates, one of Malfoy's quills charmed to take dictation then scribe in his own handwriting, the text books for all the subjects, and thermos full of hot chocolate because one did not cheat by strength of will alone.

She couldn't help him with any of the wandwork or practical lessons, hence his presence, but she could do the observations and write up the notes. Hermione started with the essay on the Water-Making Spell due on Monday. Granger's work had concentrated around the uses of Aguamenti to better society. Rosier had written the required three feet on shaping and control of the created liquid. In toto, Malfoy had written 'water is necessary'.

"How much do you actually know about water magic?" Hermione asked after beginning with the classic introduction framing the question, defining the spell, and its origin. That padded out six inches as well as testing the quill. The script wasn't elegant but it looked passably like Malfoy had scrawled it in a hurry. It'd do. She was aiming for par not Pulitzer.

"Salazar Slytherin was a water mage. There's an ancient tradition in the fens of aquamancy. The liquid itself comes from vapour in the air so casting unbound water charms in arid conditions can blight the locale." Draco rummaged through his head for some snippets. As a boy, he'd read stories about the Founder flooding Muggle settlements with giant waves. He'd drawn a few pictures of tiny stick people running from a great magus with blond Malfoy hair.

"Right. Climactic contingent effects it is." Hermione added a few quotes from the text then scribbled down some references. She flicked the parchment at the supine boy. "Check those books out of the Library. Be seen checking them out. Oh, and put your name down for 'Of Flocks, Murmurings, and Bellowings' by Ernest Pluckett. You'll need it for Transfiguration."

"Name down?" Draco asked, distractedly perusing Rosier's blockish letters obviously never softened by a governess. If he'd presented a hand like that, his mother would've had him copy out an entire manual of calligraphy.

"There's only one copy. The Ravenclaws are serially checking it out. Madam Pince has a priority list for the other Houses. You won't get a look in if your name isn't on it." She'd grabbed the book in October and had done her essay on Avis well before the rush. Temporal precognition made life so much more efficient.

Malfoy dragged himself off. Hermione poured herself a cup of hot chocolate and sipped it meditatively. She had time in hand, enough to do his work to catch him up to the spring holidays. After Easter, she'd reassess. He wasn't going to sit his exams this year. With the death of the Headmaster, all exams were cancelled. The Ministry had made special arrangements for the OWLs and NEWTs but the other Years received interim marks. Hermione doubted the Carrows held the deferred assessments in September.

Which was not so far away.

She got back to work, knocking out the framework of the essay with spaces left for the insertion of relevant quotes. Leaving the DADA report because Snape would likely accept anything Malfoy handed in, Hermione turned her attention to Potions. Malfoy didn't even have the class hand-out. Had he been there? She'd been messing about with agave extract for the Everlasting Elixirs in the back of the room and hadn't noticed.

Duplicating the parchment, she filled in the easy bits about Libatius Borage. Granger had added a page about the accomplished potioneer including extracts translated from the Spanish. Rosier had dashed off a precis about the developer of the Elixir then filled the page with observations just in case Slughorn had noticed she hadn't in fact brewed the potion in class. She'd handed one in she'd made the week before.

If Malfoy hadn't brewed the Elixir or at least stuffed up the brewing of it, he'd have to make an attempt out of class. Unless he was a good enough liar to bluff his way through. She doubted he cared enough to try to cover himself. What sort of mistake could an inattentive brewer make? Running through the process in her head, Hermione had the bespelled quill write down the standard results for the first three steps then had Malfoy let the Syrup of Hellebore boil, which meant when he added the Sal Ammoniac it would clump thus rendering the potion so much noxious gloop. He could follow the instructions all he liked after that and he'd still end with the same yellowish-purple lumpy slime.

Thinking of hellebore diverted her for a moment. She used her own quill to scrawl a reminder in her journal. The effective dosage of hellebore was very close to its toxicity, which had led to the creation of several charms to gauge its concentration. One of which had been included in the 1968 edition of Advanced Potion-Making though removed in later editions. The Half-Blood Prince had included a reference to two other spells for the same purpose. Harry hadn't paid any attention to the addenda in his cheating but Hermione had.

Her musings on how to not poison herself while experimenting were interrupted by the return of Malfoy. He set the library books on the table then collapsed into the stuffed chair. She flicked his Charms essay and Potions classwork to him, frowning as he nearly fumbled them. He was a Seeker, impartially a very good Seeker. He looked up, saw her about to speak and shook his head.

Hermione didn't ask when he'd last slept properly. She didn't fuss over him or even air her opinion that he'd be no use to anyone if he put himself in the Hospital Wing through idiot stubbornness. She left him to familiarise himself with his homework. When he nodded off she didn't rouse him until the bell for dinner.

The pattern of their meetings was erratic but frequent enough Parkinson got snippy about it. Nott asked with reasonable tact if he could assist. Hermione palmed off a Transfiguration essay onto him, which answered both spoken and unspoken questions. There was no budding dalliance between herself and Malfoy.

The Slytherins weren't the only ones interested in why the two Sixth Years met in the unregarded room tucked behind a disused pantry now filled with crockery. Hermione knew Harry was watching Draco so when on Prefect patrol Hannah too casually asked how she was managing with Malfoy, Rosier told Abbott to tell Granger to tell Potter to mind his own damn business.

Valentine's Day happened. Hermione skipped that Hogsmeade weekend in favour of more of Malfoy's schoolwork during the day and skulking around with Moppet at night. The two of them scouted out possible cache or safe-room locations. There were rooms in the 'border zone' half-forgotten but not asleep, thus still physically attached to the manifested fabric of Hogwarts. Hermione learned more about slip-zones and phase transition theory from the Voice than she ever had from her Professors.

Nett result was four rooms that were stable, large, secure, and accessible enough to shelter people during the Carrows' regime. None of the rooms could expand in size like the Room of Requirement but they were outside the 'live' parts of the Castle over which the Headmaster or Headmistress had sway. With some ward legerdemain, Hermione set up defences that would respond to her and to Moppet once the house elf was no longer bound to Hogwarts.

She keyed the wards so anyone inside could leave freely, to ensure no one was trapped if something happened to her, but to enter she or a pass token keyed to Moppet needed to be present. They could have sneaked into the Room of Hidden Things to purloin furniture when Malfoy wasn't working there but Hermione thought it too risky. Instead she taught Moppet how to transfigure simple beds and chairs with her wand. House elf magic could mend but not create. Once she had shaped the furnishings, Moppet could tweak them to her liking. She had a lovely time decorating the rooms.

Apparition lessons were considerably less irksome than the fourteenth day of February. She wouldn't be able to get her license until the end of summer due to her August birthday. However Hermione wanted to take the lessons to make sure she hadn't lost her knack. Her first few jumps as Cathal were a bit wobbly from nerves but once she'd shown herself that in this at least nothing had changed, she was translocating happily. The instructor was sufficiently impressed he signed off on her competency that afternoon.

To celebrate retaining all her limbs, Hermione went to bed early. She slept like the dead and when she woke seedy at her alarm she had to concede that Cathal was not used to chain Apparition. Her body felt put together incorrectly from creaky hinges and over-stretched elastic bands. A hot shower did little to improve things. It seemed like each of her vertebrae were complaining individually.

That evening, still feeling poorly assembled, Hermione checked with the Voice. Had whatever Hogwarts done to put her in Cathal been affected by Apparating? The answer was 'possibly perhaps'. When she pressed for details the Castle gave her doublespeak. What had been done could not be undone by Apparition so while the sensations were likely physiological she could put them aside as a product of her current corpus not being as accustomed to translocation as her previous corpus.

Grumbling, Hermione took herself off to the Prefects' Bathroom. She filled the tub with Epsom salts and multicoloured bubbles then stewed. Granger had Apparated too often for counting. She recalled being nervous about the lessons but they were so long ago she couldn't remember if she'd felt poorly afterwards. Maybe rushing through hadn't given her body enough time to get used to the strain. She sank into the steaming hot water up to her nose and grumbled some more.

Hermione had just about talked herself out of her sulk when the Bathroom door opened. Graham Montague lurched in like an old man. He pulled off his sweater and shirt as one, swearing as he did so, dumping the garments on the floor before he looked at the bath. Which was full of water and witch. He groaned.

"Please say you're almost done, Rosier." He begged as he turned abruptly, slipped on his shirt, fumbled for a towel rail, and ended up on his bum on the tiles. The obscenities he uttered undid his gentlemanly attempt to preserve her modesty.

"You alright?" Hermione slid to the edge of the bath to peek out through a wall of foam. She might have overdone it with the bubbles.

"Peachy." Graham got as far as his hands and knees before his arms failed him. He twisted enough when he collapsed that he didn't impact nose first. "Just leave me here to die of mortification." He groaned again as a spasm shot up his back. It hurt enough he forgot to censor his language. "I fucking hate the Weasley twins."

"Are you still having seizures from the Cabinet?" She levitated a robe to her, donning it hastily then securing it with a sticking charm. Montague didn't seem in a fit state to importune her had he been an importunate sort of fellow. She got out of the bath to help him into a sitting position. He winced when she touched him. "Sorry."

"Not your fault." He gritted his teeth. "I thought I was up for some flying. Madam Pomfrey said I could do some gentle laps." As much as he'd wanted to cut loose, he had heeded her cautions. A few turns around the towers, nothing too fast. "I reckon it was the cold." Graham took a slow, deep breath. "Merlin, everything hurts."

She helped him out of his clothes down to his boxers and into the bath. He squeezed his eyes shut against tears as the heat invaded his muscles. Hermione rolled a towel into a neck pillow, sticking it to the edge of the bath so he could lean back. He subsided, still with his eyes closed. Rosier adjusted taps, filling the room with the scent of marjoram and peppermint as she added those oils to the water.

"I did lock the door." Hermione remarked. "You should've knocked."

"Wasn't locked when I tried it. I apologise unreservedly." Graham wouldn't have minded sharing a bath with the curvy Miss Rosier, however he stepped on that thought bloody quickly. It wasn't appropriate. "Madam Pomfrey can open all the doors in the Castle. Must've undone your charm on the door when she sent me here."

She hadn't realised the matron could do that. A sensible precaution in medical emergencies. Either the access was keyed to her wand or to her badge of office, as Hogwarts: A History made no mention of an investiture ceremony. Hermione wondered how much that passkey ability superseded. She might be able to get into the Chamber of Secrets with a little larceny.

"Are you alright to be left?" She asked. He nodded with a muffled grunt. Retreating into one of the lavatories, Hermione rinsed and dried herself then got dressed. She hung up Montague's clothes for him, putting his wand on the little shelf by the bath designed for that purpose. "When you're done, find me in the Common Room and I'll cast some massage charms on you. They're better done by someone else."

"My mum did them for me over the summer. Haven't asked any of the blokes in the dorm to help. Not really the done thing." Graham didn't know any of the Sixth Years well enough to ask and didn't trust any of the Seventh Years to cast properly. Vaisey wasn't a duffer like the others. He simply had no knack for healing spells. He'd once switched his toes accidentally while trying to mend an ingrown nail.

Armed with a cast iron excuse, Hermione went to the Hospital Wing. Hunting for horcruxes had provided her an extensive repertoire of detection spells. She cast three of the most likely out of sight before approaching Madam Pomfrey. The matron was busy with a patient so Hermione had a good few minutes to scan her.

The passkey was the old fashioned watch brooch the nurse wore on her pinafore. There was an anti-theft hex on it as well as a locator charm, though judging from the sharp border on that spell Hermione thought Pomfrey had put that charm on her badge herself. Blinking, she dismissed the detectors before the older witch turned around. Her question about appropriate charms for muscle strain confirmed she could help Montague without undue harm.

She went to the dungeons and, ensconced in her bed with the curtains drawn, called for Moppet. They had a short conversation under Muffliato then arranged to meet at one o'clock in the morning. Hermione took a book on advanced ward theory into the Common Room to bone up on the tricky bits while waiting for Montague.

He came in just before curfew, moving a little more freely but still grateful for her offer of help. They went together to the Sixth Year boys' dorm. Graham changed into a pair of sleeping shorts in the bathroom while she pushed the covers back on his bed. Once he was lying on his stomach, Hermione started with a Warming Charm then the mildest of the osteopathy spells she knew.

"Effleurage." She moved her wand in a circular motion. Montague sighed, pressing his forehead into his pillow. When he had relaxed, she increased the pressure differential of the spell for a firmer kneading sensation. Her patient moaned when she swept her wand over his shoulders. "Too much?"

"No, ow, no, it's fine." Graham muttered. "Just tight along the backbone."

Hermione cast an Episkey with her second wand while maintaining the first charm. Montague flexed then muffled a curse in his pillow as his ribs crunched back into their proper setting. All his mother's nagging about stance and correct form on a broom came back to him. He'd been slouching over the stick.

"Better?" There was some redness there, localised inflammation. Nothing too bad but soft tissue injuries ached for days even after healing.

"Much, thanks." He let his breath out. "Need to work on my core strength. My posture's rubbish."

She tried a 'grabbier' massage charm that was supposed to encourage lymph drainage and remove fatigue by-products. Hermione didn't tell Montague the spell had been developed by a Muggle-born to help in physiotherapy. St Mungo's didn't use the charm but the wizard had self-published a handbook. Her cousin Bastian Max had recommended it to her in an idle conversation about Quidditch injuries as Krum swore by the book.

Montague was grunting and intermittently swearing when Nott strode into the dorm. He assessed the witch, fully dressed, and the wizard, barely dressed, and Parkinson's sly hint he should check his room. Rosier gave him a nod as he crossed to his own bed. Rigid self-control had kept him from bursting in like a Gryffindor.

"A silencing charm, perhaps." Theo suggested with deliberate casualness, tamping down the juvenile pathetic jealousy bubbling inside him. He wasn't a child to have a temper tantrum when someone played with his favourite toy. Thank Morgana, Rosier wasn't a Legilimens or she would never speak to him again. "From the hall it sounds like you're torturing someone."

"Is." Montague panted as the witch released the charm. He flopped onto his back then lay still, breathing deeply. "Much obliged."

"No trouble." Hermione flicked the blankets over him and cast yet another Warming Charm. "Try jogging instead of flying, at least until it's warmer." His answer was a heartfelt groan. She drew his curtains to keep out the draughts. "If he's stiff in the morning, please help him to the shower."

"Of course." Theo said, with a face that could have played poker with the Devil.