Hermione woke up feeling slightly sore, and she wasn't sure if it was down to the brief exposure of the Cruciatius curse she'd suffered the previous day or if it was just a combination of being hit with the curse after a night where she hadn't had much sleep. Either way, she wasn't felling her best as she got dressed and headed down to meet Harry in the common room.

"Morning," Harry greeted her brightly.

"Why are you so cheerful?" Hermione grouched.

"Why are you so moody?" Harry countered. "Seriously, what's got you in such a foul mood? Shouldn't we be celebrating Ron's departure? No more Weasel to put up with."

"It would have been better if he could have gone without torturing us," Hermione retorted.

"It wasn't like it was too bad," Harry replied with a shrug. In actual fact the curse had hurt like hell, but he didn't want people to worry about him so he was brushing the incident off slightly. "I'm sure a lot of people could have done worse than Ron. It was a pretty weak attempt."

"Weak or not, it was still an attempt I could have lived without experiencing," Hermione shot back.

Sensing his aunt was only going to argue with whatever he said, Harry gave up as they headed out of the common room and down towards the Great Hall. Fortunately as they came down the stairs the Slytherins were coming up from the dungeons, and Hermione rushed down the last few stairs and into Draco's arms.

"Are you okay?" Draco asked his girlfriend, slightly taken aback by the way Hermione had launched himself at him.

"Just a bit tired and sore," Hermione admitted.

"Do you need to go and see Madam Pomfrey?" Draco checked, worried in case there was something wrong with Hermione after her ordeal the previous day.

"I'll be fine," Hermione insisted. "How are you today? How's Narcissa?"

"I was up early and spoke to my Father. He said Mother had a good night's rest," Draco replied. "I'm going to see her at lunchtime."

"Give her my love," Hermione said.

"I will," Draco promised. "Do you fancy sitting with us for breakfast?"

"Gryffindors at the Slytherin table, what will people say?" Hermione chuckled.

"Screw what people say," Draco snorted. "I want to eat with my girlfriend, and there's no rules about eating at other house tables at general meals. The only time you have to be at your house table is big feasts, like the start of term."

"What did you do, look up the rules?" Harry asked with an amused laugh.

"I just asked Severus," Draco replied with a shrug. "But if you don't want to join us, Harry, feel free to eat with the Gryffindors. I'm sure the Weaselette will be lonely without her brother, maybe she'll welcome your company."

"Not after last night she won't," Harry chuckled.

Heading into the Great Hall, Hermione and Harry joined the Slytherins as Harry filled them in on what had happened with Ginny the previous evening. Of course the Slytherin's had all known that Ron had been suspended, with legal action also hanging over his head, as they'd all been in the hospital wing as Harry and Hermione had been checked over.

While Harry was telling his story, Hermione leant her head against Draco's shoulder. Draco frowned down at his girlfriend in concern as he slipped his arm around her waist.

"Are you sure you're okay?" He asked in a whisper.

"I'm fine," Hermione replied. "I just need a good night's rest and maybe a nice bath to ease my aches and pains."

"I'm sure I can help with both tonight," Draco replied with a smile. "How about this evening we take a trip to the prefects' bathroom and end the night in our special room?"

"That sounds like heaven," Hermione admitted, smiling up at Draco. Already she felt better just thinking of spending a relaxing evening with her boyfriend.

"It's certainly something to look forward to," Draco said. "But right now, the best I can do is breakfast. If I were you, I'd grab a sausage before Vince and Greg get their eyes on them. Once they've spotted the sausages, they go fast."

"Juice will be just fine," Hermione replied.

"You really should eat something," Draco said with a frown.

"Yes Mum," Hermione muttered sarcastically with a roll of her eyes as she grabbed herself a glass of cranberry juice and just to keep Draco quiet she added a slice of toast to her plate.

Draco watched Hermione nibble at her toast, before reaching for his own food. As he ate, he tried to encourage Hermione to eat some more, but all she managed was the initial slice of toast she picked up. Even the speciality of the Hogwarts house elves, scrambled eggs with ham pieces, didn't appeal to her when it appeared on the table. Despite his concern, Draco knew better than to press Hermione into eating. He just made the decision that if she was still off colour the next day he would force her to go and see Madam Pomfrey, even if he had to throw her over his shoulder and take her there by force.

By the time most people were starting to finish their breakfast the first of the post owls arrived. Draco didn't expect an owl from home, as neither of his parents were there, but an owl carrying an edition of the Daily Prophet landed in front of him at the same time as one landed in front of Hermione. For the last few years they'd both subscribed to the paper so they'd been able to keep up with how the war was going and what Voldemort was up to.

"Give me one of those," Harry said, reaching across the table and taking Hermione's paper from her hands before she'd even had a chance to unroll it. "You don't need two."

Letting her nephew have the paper, Hermione leant closer to Draco as he unfurled the paper and spread it on the table in front of him. The front page of the paper was dominated by a picture of Sirius, and the headline proclaiming he'd been caught and was back in Azkaban.

"Such a shame," Draco muttered sarcastically, as he opened the paper to read the full story.

Together Hermione and Draco devoured the story, as Harry and Daphne did the same across the table. The article wasn't exactly full of details, and it was very clear the Ministry weren't going to talk about things further. The Ministry had merely announced that Sirius had been recaptured and was currently back in Azkaban. It was also mentioned that the Ministry knew exactly how he'd escaped before and measures were in place so that it couldn't happen again.

The beginning of the article was just what they'd expected, but half way down things took an interesting turn when it was mentioned Sirius was captured in a hideout, and some of the people suspected of keeping him hidden had gotten away. It also mentioned that some of his cohorts had been killed in the ensuing capture. Although even more surprising was the news that Aurors, Kingsley Shackelbolt and Nymphadora Tonks, had been killed in the same scuffle. Even though it wasn't explicitly stated, it was certainly implied that Sirius had been the one to kill the two Aurors. Anyone who didn't know the truth would read the article and think Kingsley and Tonks had lost their lives trying to apprehend a murderer.

"Impressive," Draco chuckled as they reached the end of the article. "Black certainly comes out of things looking bad."

"And it's going to be hard for the families of Kingsley and Tonks to deny the claims they were killed in the line of duty," Hermione said. "If they deny the implied reports, it'll then be claimed they were helping Sirius and were on his side."

"Which they were," Draco pointed out with a chuckle.

"We know that, and the Order know that, but to the general public Sirius is still a mass murderer," Hermione said. "Dumbledore never bothered to clear his name, so no-one but a select few actually know that he was falsely accused of killing Pettigrew and all those muggles. To everyone else, he's a dangerous criminal and it won't do the reputations of Tonks or Kingsley any good to be linked to him."

"I'm sure the Order will still protest though," Draco said.

"What's left of them," Hermione snorted dismissively. "Face it, we're down to Weasleys and Lupin now. Everyone else of importance is gone."

"And we don't really know what sort of state Lupin is in," Draco mused. "He may have escaped, but he could still be seriously hurt. He could have just crawled off to die."

"I'm sure we'll find out sooner or later," Hermione replied as she turned back to the paper and flicked through to see what else was happening in the world.

Ten minutes later, breakfast was finished and everyone left the Great Hall to begin classes. The rest of the day passed like any other, aside from the fact Draco disappeared at lunchtime to go and see his mother. During afternoon classes, he filled Hermione in on how Narcissa was faring, which thankfully was rather well and it was hoped she'd be back home in a few days' time. After classes, Hermione spent an hour studying in the library before dinner, and after dinner she headed off to spend a relaxing evening with Draco.

The evening started in the prefects' bathroom, where the couple shared a relaxing bath. Hermione's fear of the water had all but disappeared by this point, although she still preferred to only use the prefects' bathroom when she was with Draco. When Draco was with her she knew nothing would happen to her, whereas she wasn't sure if she would be so comfortable if she was alone.

After a soothing bath the couple retreated to the magical room, where they settled into the room they'd come to think of as theirs over the course of the year. With a soft plush sofa in front of a roaring fire and a luxurious king size bed the couple were spoilt for choice where they settled down. Since the evening was supposed to be about soothing Hermione's aches and pains, Draco suggested that he gave her a massage. No sooner had he suggested it then some massage oils appeared beside the bed and dozens of floating candles popped into existence, giving the room a soft, gentle glow.

"It seems rude to say no now," Hermione chuckled, taking in the changes the room had made at just a suggestion of Draco's.

"You mean you were going to say no?" Draco asked in mock outrage. "I don't do this for everyone you know. You have to be special to get my hands all over you."

"I know, I'm a very lucky girl," Hermione chuckled as she began to undress.

Once Hermione was naked, she settled herself on the bed and Draco got to work easing her aches and pains. For a while Draco managed to massage Hermione as he'd intended, but he could only last so long before running his hands over his girlfriend's naked body began to affect him. Ever so slowly the massage turned into him teasing Hermione, and before long he had her panting and moaning for him. Quickly shedding his clothes, he joined Hermione on the bed and the evening took a sensual turn after its relaxing beginning.


C.O.T.D.


Forty eight hours after launching their attack on Order headquarters, Voldemort sat in his study contemplating his next move. On a whole the move to attack the Order had been successful, although there had been a few things that hadn't gone their way. Narcissa's injury was the main one, but Voldemort was still stinging over Bellatrix trying to kill Beth and ending up dead. Of course he was very grateful to Narcissa for saving his wife's life, but he couldn't help but feel that Bellatrix had gotten off lightly. If he'd gotten his hands on her, she would have suffered greatly before meeting her maker.

The other incident that was bothering Voldemort had occurred the previous day when one of the Weasley children had attacked Harry and Hermione. Of course since it had happened at Hogwarts, Severus had dealt with it and Ron had been suspended, but Voldemort wasn't going to just let what had happened rest. He knew Severus had already started proceedings to have Ron expelled, and legal proceedings had been launched, but that wasn't enough punishment for Voldemort. He wanted his own retribution on the young wizard who dared to curse his daughter and grandson. Expulsion and imprisonment wasn't enough punishment for the boy who'd dared to hurt his family.

Voldemort mused on the best course of action for another few minutes before he called for two of his most trusted Death Eaters, Alecto and Amycus Carrow. Within five minutes the Carrows had arrived, ready to carry out whatever task Voldemort assigned them.

"The task I'm about to give you must be handled with care," Voldemort began. "I want someone killed, but it has to look like an accident. No matter how much fuss their family kick up, I want everyone to believe they're just grief stricken and talking nonsense. I want every expert they could consult to agree that what happened is just a tragic accident and nothing untoward occurred."

"You can count on us," Amycus reassured The Dark Lord.

"I do have a second requirement," Voldemort said. "While this death must look like an accident, I want it to be painful. I want the little toad to suffer. I want him to break before you finish him off, is that understood?"

"Yes My Lord," Alecto replied with an evil smirk. "Don't worry, we can inflict as much pain as you desire."

"I desire a lot of pain," Voldemort replied. "Now onto the victim. I want you to kill Ron Weasley. He's the youngest of Molly and Arthur's sons and he's just been suspended from Hogwarts. Any day now he's going to be expelled permanently, but it doesn't matter if you kill him before the verdict is reached. All I care about is that he dies as soon as possible and as painfully as possibly."

"Consider it done," Amycus said with a respectful nod.

Voldemort nodded back to the Carrows as he dismissed them. While it would have been satisfying to deal with Ron himself, he knew he didn't have the necessary control. True, he could have just torn the young wizard limb from limb, but then the Weasleys might gain some sympathy and people might agree that he was dangerous. But doing it this way, Ron could be dealt with and no blame would come his way. Try as they might, the Weasleys would never be able to pin anything on anyone from the dark. As far as the wizarding would was concerned Ron Weasley was about to die in a tragic accident.