Disclaimer: Why would I write fanfiction if I owned the whole series? I'd have enough power to make a whole spin off from this little thing! So nope, I own nothing. Read.

Hermione shut the door behind her carefully, listening the sound of Victor's steps echo around the stark, stone hall.

So. Here they were.

Hermione barely knew how it had happened. There had been so many faces… faces that she knew. Faces that… Okay. That was enough.

"No more agonizing," she said as she walked across the room. "I've got a job to do, remember?"

She let her bag drop to the floor, and looked at the room around her. It was a small, stone room in the fortress' main building. Their guide, Victor Matthews, a French man with decorative tattoos covering his arms and neck, had told them that their rooms were in the residential wing; the offices and meeting rooms of the fortress were all on the lower levels.

Blaise had vanished after letting them into the castle, muttering fiercely to himself and fiddling with the mug tied to his pants. There were so many people…

Right. Stop it. You're doing it again. No more melodramatic despair. It was time for work. But though she knew she had to start now, she couldn't help but stare in awe at the room around her. It was… it was a nice room. Small, and nice. It had a soft carpet, and a generous fireplace. There was a small table against one wall, and a big chair. The bed had a canopy! She'd always loved canopy beds!

Well. This could be alright, she thought to herself, smiling a little as she explored the desk and the small bookshelf next to the bed. I'm in a huge, forbidding castle with hordes of people who are certainly foul and evil, and there are several of them who I know personally, which makes this really embarrassing, but look! I have a canopy bed and a fireplace!

She spent a happy minute figuring out every bit of the room, including the secret passageways behind the headboard and in the back of her closet. Then she decided to get to work. She moved over to her discarded bag, and rummaged in it until she found the cute little notebook with the frolicking puppies. They barked silently at her, putting their paws up against the inside of the notebook cover. She gave herself a moment to grin and roll her eyes at them before flipping the book open.

No new messages from Lupin. The last thing written had been the message telling her to get ready. She rummaged again in the bag and dragged up a pen. She thought for a moment, and then wrote:

We've gotten into the fortress safely, and are in our rooms now. Hannah's down the hall. Did you know who was in charge here?

She waited for the response.

And she waited a little longer.

Hm.

Well, there were a number of reasons why there was no answer. One very big one was that Lupin was practically running England's wizarding world; he had plenty of problems to keep him busy.

But still…

Hermione continued writing anyway, telling him about the buildings in the fortress, the people she'd met, and about some of what she'd observed. This last was very brief. It's hard to observe much of anything when you've gone from nervous to enraged to tearful to nervous again in the space of an hour.

And then, because she knew she had to, she took a deep breath and wrote:

Draco Malfoy is their leader.

She tried as hard as she could to think of something to put after that, but no ideas were forthcoming. So she sighed, slid the book into the pocket of her jacket, and left the room. Maybe Hannah could help her think of some way to spy on a person without wanting to leap out and strangle them whenever they met.

The fortress was big, and stony. That was about it. The monotony of the stone was broken up by the odd tapestry every once in a while, but after looking at one, Hermione averted her eyes. Warlocks were strange. Very, very strange. And with decidedly unnerving artistic sensibilities.

Hermione walked past the door to Hannah's room without really thinking about it, but she didn't turn around. Now was a good time to explore a little. She didn't make any pretensions to knowing Malfoy at all well (there; she'd thought his name without feeling as though nails were being dragged across her brain. She knew she'd be able to beat this), but she would bet anything that he was now in either a bedroom or study, sulking. It would fit. So she would be able to roam for a while, without having to worry about meeting him in a dark corridor.

Not that there were any other kinds of corridors for them to meet in. Narrow, dark, stony corridors were the fortress. At least as far as she could tell. This is going to be such fun, Hermione thought, finding a staircase and taking it to the floor below. I can hardly wait for the claustrophobia to set in.

But it was very quiet. You'd think that a nest of evil dissention like this one would be a little more… lively. But there was barely anyone around. Hermione heard hushed voices from behind some of the closed doors that she passed, but didn't go inside. She did have some sense of self-preservation, for all that she'd signed up for this insane venture.

Hermione glanced at her watch, unsurprised that the digital face was blank and lifeless. Well, if the magic around the place was so thick as to keep anyone from outside it seeing what was going on, it made sense that her Muggle-made watch wouldn't be able to stand up to it. Poor thing. Not even three years of unremarkable complacency, and it was suddenly being dragged into a magical mess it wasn't prepared for.

But it wasn't that late, Hermione though as she stopped to look out a narrow window. Not late enough to justify the emptiness of this place. It couldn't be later than… five? Six? What time had she left her flat? How long had their journey to this place taken? How—

"Hermione Granger?" the startled voice from down the hall jerked her out of her thoughts as she whirled around, immediately recognizing the figure coming towards her down the hall.

Except… except he was… rolling?

"Snape?" She asked, her voice louder than she'd meant it to be, as her former professor wheeled himself to about ten feet away from her. Hermione felt, absurdly, that they were squaring up against each other. Well. Maybe they were.

"So it is you," he said, frowning. His dark stare was slightly less intimidating when it was roughly three feet closer to the ground than it had been. Hermione tried to quash the flash of pity flowering in her stomach before it grew, but still… He looked so small now.

"Yes, it's me," she said, suddenly remembering why she shouldn't be pitying this man. "Apparently I'm just fated to be constantly running into old friends."

The barb didn't even hit. He raised an eyebrow at her, almost to acknowledge it as it flashed by. His hair was graying, and it was shorter than it had been. And he had more lines on his face. But his tall, lanky frame was no longer so terrifying when it was folded into a wheelchair almost identical to one owned by her aunt.

"I take it you've seen our fearless leader, then," he said coolly. "And how did he take to seeing you? He certainly didn't know they'd been sending you."

She didn't say anything. It was almost revolting to be in the same place as this… this man. And he, infuriatingly enough, seemed to not care about her in the least. He could at least have the grace to pretend to hate her.

"Ah. I thought he might react like that," Snape said, his chair moving forward a little. He peered into her face, taking in the changes wrought by six years. "He has remembered you. That must flatter your delicate ego, at any rate."

To his surprise, she smiled. It was a somewhat terse and rueful smile, but a smile nonetheless. How very strange.

"Yes," she said, turning away from her former professor and starting to walk away. "I was most flattered."

"You shouldn't turn your back to anyone in this place, Hermione Granger," he called after her.

She turned then, and looked hard at him.

"I'm not afraid of turning my back on you, Snape. As I recall, you're much more fond of killing face-to-face, aren't you? I'll just have to make sure I don't come across you at the top of any towers."

She was sickly gratified to see him flinch, and then she turned away and kept walking, all traces of calm gone.

This is not a nice place, she thought to herself, pausing when she was sure he was no longer near her to lean against the wall and quietly hyperventilate. This is not a nice place, and you must prepare yourself to meet people who don't like you. People who don't like you, and who you know.

What fun this would be, she thought, pressing a hand over her eyes and shaking her head wearily.

Two floors down, Blaise was standing outside the door to Draco's office, trying to look cool while standing on his tiptoes and darting little anxious glances at the door.

Blaise had been waiting, poised to rush in when Draco started throwing things. He'd been poised for about five minutes, and yet there hadn't been any noise. He'd almost mapped out the path of destruction Draco would choose. First the curved bowl would go slamming into the wall, and then the elaborately carved elephant would be launched at the door, where it would stick and quiver in the wood. He'd then move on to the desk itself, throwing papers and quills all over the place…

But there was no sound at all from inside the office. Draco had returned from the cliffs cold and resolute, had gone to see Victor, and had issued a general statement to the inhabitants of the fortress. That had caused a mess, and there had been many, many people who wanted to talk privately with Draco after that. He'd obliged most of them and sent Victor to deal with the rest, and had only now retreated into his study.

But he hadn't been throwing things. And Blaise was getting distinctly worried.

"Blaise," Draco suddenly said. Blaise lost his balance and almost toppled to the floor. "I know you're out there. You might as well come in."

Blaise entered carefully, in case there were any shards of priceless glass or dead bodies littering the floor. There weren't. There was just the usual mess that came with power, and one thin leader sitting cross-legged on top of his desk with his face in his pale hands.

Blaise stood uncomfortably at the door for a moment before crossing to the chair sitting before the desk and perching on its edge. He waited for Draco to speak, as he always did.

"I don't," Draco said roughly, raising his head from his hands to look blankly at the floor. He tried again. "I don't know how I could have missed this. I'm usually much better at predicting things. At predicting people. And," he faltered again, closing his eyes wearily. "And I thought I had Lupin figured. I mean, he taught me for a whole year. That's not much time, but I figured it was enough. Enough to figure out how he'd… who he'd… I never expected this," he let out a short laugh, sinking his head into his hands again. "Stupid bastard."

"You, or the werewolf?" Blaise asked.

"Mm. Well, I meant him, but it would go for me as well, wouldn't it? Even if he didn't know I was here, which is somewhat more likely, why would he send her? She's been gone from the wizarding world for years, while the rest of the heroes," he spat the word like a curse. There was something he hadn't done in a while. "Are happily running the government. She has nothing to do with the present situation, and no connection with the Rebels or the Order as a whole. What is she now? A textbook name that people would wonder briefly about as they had to write paragraphs about the Battle. Maybe after she died they'd raise another monument in the little hovel where she was born, or something. She was the past. She was supposed to stay there!"

"Life isn't poetry, you know," Blaise said dryly. "Just because you think she should stay a part of your past doesn't mean—"

"Did I say she was a part of my past?" Draco cut in, eyes flashing as he stared at Blaise. "I mean a part of the past! A part of the Battle, and of things that are over with! Her place in my life has nothing to do with it. Other than being somewhat uncomfortable," he amended when he saw the look Blaise gave him.

"So then who are you angry with?" Blaise asked as Draco hauled himself off the desk and over to the window. "Lupin? Hermione?"

Draco frowned and deflated, groping for the mug of coffee behind him on his desk. "Neither of them really. I'm just annoyed that I hadn't considered the possibility that the envoy would be her. It should have entered into my calculations, and it didn't. I don't know why. But if I had been able to consider it, then that little scene on the cliffs would have been much more…"

"Calm?" Blaise suggested.

"Well, no. I was thinking more one-sided," Draco said, narrowing his eyes as his sipped from the mug. "There was no way that could have been calm. At least there I can't blame myself."

Blaise looked at the Rebel's King, and wondered if the man had somehow lost his fire.

Draco turned to face him just as he thought it, eyes suddenly full of bottomless, barely repressed fury. "Just keep the Mudblood away from me, Blaise," he said, his voice rising involuntarily. "Keep her away from me, and maybe she won't ruin everything," His pale glare pinned Blaise to the chair. The two men stared at each other, one paling under his dark skin, the other's cheeks tinged with pink. Finally Draco jerked his head towards the door, and turned away from Blaise. "Go and find Severus. I want to talk to him before he finds her and says something absurd."

Blaise departed a little more speedily than he'd meant too, haunted by the rage in Draco's eyes.

Waiting until the door was firmly shut, Draco set down his mug carefully, and looked at his hands. Hm. They were shaking. He jammed his hands under his armpits, and stared again out the window. She couldn't ruin everything. She couldn't. Not again.

Well, this time he was wiser, wasn't he? This time he wouldn't be such a moronic child. If it hadn't turned out as seriously as it had, he could have laughed. But he had learned one thing about Hermione Granger from that night, six years ago. Never trust her. And never, never turn your back on her.

Draco took another sip from his mug, one finger reaching out to touch the frosted glass of the window. He thought of that night, of the panic and the fear and the guilt. And he remembered her flying down the stairs towards him, her hands outstretched—

I should have let her fall, Draco thought miserably, It would have made all this a good deal less complicated than it already is.

A/N: Sorry again for the late, late update! My excuse this time is that I just finished (!!!) my Labyrinth fanfic, and that took up a lot of my muse power. The poor thing was utterly exhausted. But I bribed it with hot chocolate, and this time I got more plot, less trippy flashbacks! Please review!