Author's Note: Hello all! I'm very sorry that this chapter took longer than usual. I had an unusually arduous week at work, and simply couldn't find the time to get this one going. Hopefully the next one is up a lot sooner though, so stay tuned! Thanks for your lovely reviews. As always, JKR is the Heir of Slytherin!

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Two days had gone by since Snape visited them at the cottage. By some kind of mutual unspoken agreement, they hadn't discussed the older wizard's suggestion that Draco go into the spying business. But it was always simmering there under the surface of their interactions, creating tension between them. Hermione had been a bit distant since then, and he would often catch her frowning in his direction, as though she wasn't sure what to think about him. It was like they both expected the other one to just leave and run away at any minute. Hermione was worried that he would go back to Voldemort's side to gain new information, and Draco was worried that she would return to her friends. It was making them both walk on eggshells around each other. The only one in the house who seemed to be unfailingly optimistic was Tilly. She seemed excessively chirpy, especially now that she wasn't required to go back and forth between the cottage and the mansion. With Narcissa's death, the little elf had no more obligations there, so she was free to spend all her time with them at Draco's house. And just like him, she found it a haven of tranquillity and joy. She still got to do the cooking and cleaning which she loved, but she wasn't over-worked like a slave or bound to people's erratic orders. And of course she adored Hermione. The two of them were becoming closer each day, with Hermione learning more about the nature of house elves, and Tilly being given special projects like sewing pretty new clothes for the Gryffindor, who had lost all her old garments a long time ago now at the mansion. She had always had an eye for design and how to make simple, beautiful clothes that would complement people. All house elves were naturally concerned with the issue of clothes, but Tilly seemed to really take it in her stride. To her it wasn't like a ticket to freedom, or a dreaded symbol of dismissal and rejection. It was a way to show her affection and dedication to her Master and of course his esteemed guests.

Draco glanced over at Hermione from where he stood in the kitchen. She was sitting on the couch and reading a book on tracking charms. He grimaced. With all the new clothes Tilly had made, she had a full suitcase of things ready to leave – even though she kept it all in the tiniest bag he had ever seen, which she had transfigured from one of his old quilts. It obviously held a lot more than it seemed. When he had asked her about it, she had told him it was an undetectable extension charm, which was pretty advanced magic. Then she had mumbled something about a witch named Mary Popkins or something, who he assumed was supposed to be a famous charms mistress even though he'd never heard of her.

And now she was reading up on spells to help her figure out where Potter and Weasley were. He gripped the edge of the counter with white knuckles. Their time was running out. And because of all the myriad problems they had endured recently, they had spent less and less quality time together this last week. Draco missed snuggling in bed with her in the evenings, and their light-hearted banter, and of course the feeling of kissing her and making her whimper with desire. He didn't like the idea of her returning to the side of Ron Weasley and giving them a chance to reconnect. Once she was reminded of that crush she had on the ginger from when they were at school, she might feel like it was her duty to stay with him. After all, it would be so much easier to date a Weasley than a Malfoy. There would be no stigma, no fighting with friends, or battling the legal implications. It would be a hell of a lot less complicated. He knew Hermione wasn't a shallow person, but she did like to do the right thing. And with enough pressure from all her friends, she might decide that the right thing was to be loyal to the red head instead of leaving him for the evil Death Eater.

Draco sighed. He didn't like being kept in this state of uncertainty. He watched Hermione for a few moments longer, smiling slightly as he saw the way she chewed on her bottom lip in such focused concentration, as if the world around her simply didn't exist. Releasing a deep breath, he put the last of the clean dishes away in the cupboard and wiped his hands on his pants, making his way into the living room. He had to clear his throat a couple of times, but eventually she looked up at him. He tried to ignore the way her smile seemed a little forced, as if she felt guilty reading a book on tracking charms right under his nose. She was smart enough to know how he felt about her studying ways to leave him.

"Hey," he said softly, sitting close to her. He was pleased when she closed her book and put it to one side, clearly wanting to give him her full attention.

"Hey," she replied with a shy little smirk.

Draco watched her for a second, thinking about all the things he wanted to say to her. He reached up and ran a hand down the braid that was draped over one of her shoulders. A few curls were wrapped around the outside of it, fighting to escape the tight knot it had been wrestled into.

"I think we should talk," he said quietly, and Hermione sighed and nodded in response.

"I agree. Professor Snape really confused us both…"

Draco chuckled.

"You don't have to keep calling him professor, you know. Little swot."

Hermione frowned at him, but it lacked any severity.

"It's different for you, he's your godfather! He still kinda frightens the crap out of me."

"Well it didn't show. You stood up to him better than I've seen anyone do for a long time."

"Yeh, well my heart was pounding. He's a scary man."

"Agreed."

Hermione smiled and shifted a little closer to him on the couch.

"But is he a good man? Can we trust him?"

Draco frowned.

"You said yourself that he's on the Order's side."

"Yes, but that doesn't mean he won't throw you to the wolves to protect his own cover."

Draco considered it for a moment. If the only way for Severus to keep his role at Voldemort's side intact were to turn him in, would the older wizard do it? Despite all the logical reasons why he would, Draco just knew deep down that it wasn't a possibility.

"No," he said, his voice sure and firm, "He won't do that. I have more faith in him than he has in me, I think. I've disappointed him too many times."

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him.

"You want to make him proud," she said. It was a statement, not a question, and she took a shaky breath as she continued, "You want to make up for your past behaviour towards him."

Draco ran a hand slowly through his blonde hair.

"Not just him, Hermione. I have a lot to make amends for. Ever since Snape suggested it, the idea has burrowed deeper and deeper in my mind. I want my godfather and my mother, Dumbledore, even some of my friends to be proud of me, but I especially want you to be proud of me. I don't want to be known as the cowardly little prat I was in my youth. This is my chance to do something good for once. A legacy that isn't just measured in how many millions of galleons I have."

Hermione leaned in and took his hand gently between hers.

"Draco, I already think you're very brave, just for being who you are. You could have so easily become what your father wanted you to be. But you didn't. You held onto your values even though they conflicted with what was expected of you. And that takes really guts."

"It's not enough though, is it?" He returned the grip on her hand tightly, looking at her with a meaningful gaze, "Hermione, I want to be with you. Not just here in this cottage isolated from the rest of the world, but for real. And I don't feel that I'm…worthy of you."

"That's not true-" she started to protest, but he didn't let her finish.

"Yes, it is. You accused me once of being weak for not fighting for what I believed in. Well now I believe in you. I want to help you."

Hermione stared at him with those endless brown eyes of hers that seemed to glow with an emotion he couldn't quite put his finger on. It might have been sadness, or joy or pity, but he was hoping it was pride. That meant he was already on his way to fulfilling his goal. After a while she blinked and looked away, and he realised her eyes were glistening just a little with unshed tears.

"Draco… I'm not used to people even listening to what I say, let alone caring about what I think. I'm just the brainiac who people ignore because they don't want me to spoil their fun."

Draco felt his heart clench painfully at hearing her say this so softly and with such a weight of insecurity around her. He loved how confident Hermione was, but there was this vulnerability underneath all that, because she had had to work so hard to make friends and then keep them. It was so vile that she hadn't really had people around her who appreciated how special she was.

"I know," he said quietly, "I hope to change that misconception."

He saw Hermione's lips twitch a bit, and he smirked at her until she finally gave in and let a smile light up her face. She gripped his hand a little tighter and leaned closer to place a soft, chaste peck on his lips. He sighed at her sweet, moist cupids bow pressing into him, but before he could really return it, she pulled back.

"Okay," she murmured, "I think you should do it," her eyes were wide and still a little shiny, but she was smiling softly.

"Really?"

"Yeh. I'm probably going to have a heart attack worrying about you, but I understand why you want to do it. I can hardly criticize you for putting your life in danger, when I'm quite willing to do the same."

Draco sighed.

"Don't even get me started on that. I'm never going to be happy with you risking your life."

Hermione smirked.

"I know."

Draco ran a hand through his already messy hair, a few strands falling in front of his eyes.

"So this is really happening," he said with a shaky smile and a chuckle.

"I suppose," she responded quietly, "At least now we know we're fighting on the same side, instead of opposing sides."

Draco gave a more genuine laugh this time.

"Well that's a bonus. I'd hate to be your enemy."

"Again, you mean?"

Draco leaned forwards with a cheeky smile.

"Sometimes I can still feel the tingling in my cheek from where you slapped me in third year."

Hermione blushed, raising her hands to cover her mouth as she shook her head.

"Oh Merlin, that's so embarrassing. I've never lost control like that in my entire life before or since. I was really ashamed of myself."

Draco shrugged one shoulder casually.

"I deserved it," he quipped, making her chuckle.

"Well yes, but that doesn't mean I'm happy with my own actions."

Draco leaned in a little closer, tugging on her braid again.

"I thought it was sexy."

Hermione's mouth dropped open.

"You did not!" she gasped, making him smile even more mischievously at her adorable expression of disbelief, "You hated me!"

He shook his head.

"I didn't know how to deal with it at the time, but it definitely caused some unpleasant tingles that I had to studiously ignore."

Hermione stared at him incredulously for a few moments.

"You're pulling my leg," she said at last.

"Sadly, no. I was fourteen years old and got slapped with an open hand by an attractive girl. I'd have to be an inferi not to get a little bit aroused."

Hermione broke off into a peel of giggles. Her head flopped back to rest on the back of the couch as she shook with laughter. Draco smirked as he watched her. He let himself be mesmerised for a while by her soft, tinkling laugh, before he heard a tapping at the nearby window.

Looking over, he saw a regal looking black owl perched on the sill. It was holding a small slip of parchment in its beak and waiting patiently to be seen to. It had a distinctive brown marking around its eye. Draco frowned.

"Huh…that's strange…" he murmured, and Hermione's laughter died down a bit to study the owl herself. She looked at him quizzically.

"Whose is it?"

Instead of answering her he stood and moved towards the window, unlatching it slowly and taking the parchment from the owl with a cautious hand. The bird didn't move a muscle. It also didn't seem impatient or agitated at all. It was very well trained, a beautiful and intelligent creature. Of course its owner had taken great pains with it; he was a perfectionist after all.

"Draco?" he heard her slightly bossy voice behind him and he couldn't prevent the little quirk of his lips. She didn't like being ignored.

"It belongs to Blaise Zabini," he said in a low, hesitant voice, returning to the couch with the parchment clutched in his fingers.

"Oh," she sighed with a touch of anxiety, "is that bad?"

He glared down at the paper a bit, as if it were personally responsible for making him so nervous. Maybe if he stared hard enough he could burn a hole right through it and not have to deal with his old friend. Instead he just sighed.

"Not exactly," he said slowly, his eyes flicking up to Hermione's and he saw the concern etched across her features, so he gave her a soft smile. "He's no Death Eater, don't worry. We just haven't spoken for about a year."

"He's your friend," she replied in a hushed voice, and although it wasn't a question, he senses the confusion in her voice.

"He was my friend. We had a falling out sometime towards the middle of our sixth year."

"What about?" she asked curiously.

"Blaise is a Slytherin through and through. He's more cunning than I am. And ambitious to a fault. But he's no supporter of the Dark Lord. He despises violence and the Death Eater's supremacist ideology." Hermione's eyes widened, but before she could interrupt he continued, "and he didn't like what I was trying to do that year. He tried a few times to persuade me to give myself in. I was…scared. Terrified, actually, about what that could mean for me and my mother. So I shouted at him. Called him a blood traitor. We never quite recovered from that. Last I heard he was living in Italy with his mother and her new husband to avoid getting …recruited, so to speak."

Hermione bit into her bottom lip hard, looking at him with something akin to surprise. Maybe she had never thought about all the different types of personalities in Slytherin house. He knew that her precious Potter considered them all to be nothing but a bunch of Death Eaters. But that couldn't be farther from the truth. No one ever appreciated how hard it was for the students in his house. How difficult it was being treated as inferior by most of your teachers, and being seen with suspicion and distrust by those who were supposed to be your peers and educators. And then you had the Dark Lord and his followers actively trying to force you into their ranks. Many didn't have a choice like him. They were volunteered by a parent whether they wanted it or not. With no other place to turn, many of them succumbed, but there were still plenty who slipped through. Blaise had always been in a lucky position. His mother had no strong ties to any Death Eaters, despite one unfortunate marriage that had ended as soon as it began. And he wasn't really rich enough or powerful enough to draw attention. In public he was very quiet, shy even, and kept to himself. He was fiercely intelligent, loyal, and had a lot of common sense that had kept him out of trouble so far. But Draco honestly thought his old friend had given up on him. He had said and done some terrible things. And he knew that in order to stay out of this war, Blaise was unlikely to contact him for fear of being pulled back into the old Slytherin influences.

"You think he's going to try to convince you to turn again?" Hermione spoke the words so softly he almost didn't hear them. He turned to her curiously. Her eyes were wide, but knowing. Maybe she wasn't as prejudiced and dogmatic as her two moronic friends often acted. She didn't look worried or doubtful about Blaise at all. Just concerned about how he felt about it. Once again her maturity and compassion astounded him.

"Maybe," he said with a little shrug of the shoulders.

"There's only one way to find out," she suggested, giving him a soft smile and nodding down at the letter.

Draco grimaced and opened up the parchment with shaky fingers. He looked down at the blank space for a few moments, before smirking and reaching for his wand.

"Amis Fortuna," he whispered, tracing his wand over the parchment and smiling in recognition as Blaise's neat, loopy scroll appeared in ink.

"Lucky friends," Hermione translated quietly, looking over his shoulder. He nodded silently and read the short sentence his friend had penned. He read it a few times to make sure he understood.

Open your wards. 9pm tonight.

Draco's frown deepened. That was infuriatingly ambiguous. Just like Blaise.

"He knows where this house is?" Hermione asked.

Draco just nodded.

"I sent him a letter about it when I bought the place. In case anything happened to me. But he would know that without my explicit permission he wouldn't be able to enter."

She nodded, going quiet and waiting for him to get his bearings. Obviously he looked pensive enough that she knew to give him some space. He was thinking about the possible implications of the message. If he let Blaise in through the wards, then he would be putting both himself and Hermione in danger. He had no idea what had really happened to his friend in these last few months. For all he knew, Blaise could be a spy, or under the imperius or even just spoiling for a fight. Or he could want to help again, like he had offered all those months ago when Draco had spat it back in his face. Either way he was dying to find out. For a few years as he matured from the tiresome prick of his childhood into a somewhat decent young adult, Blaise had been a strong and dependable friend. He wondered vaguely whether Hermione was starting to have too much of an influence in him. It was possible he was just blindly seeing the good in people. But damnit, this was Blaise. He and Snape were the only two people in the world aside from Hermione now who were genuinely on his side.

Which led him to wonder whether it really was a coincidence that they had both contacted him so close together. Surely it wasn't just luck that they were both insinuating themselves into his private cottage in the space of a single week. If he didn't know any better, he would say Snape had a hand in this. But that seemed risky too.

Draco sighed, collapsing back on the couch and closing his eyes. He didn't know what to think.

"What are you going to do?" Hermione asked gently, sitting back next to him and leaning her head on his shoulder, nestled into the crook of his neck. He took a moment to breathe deeply and inhale the sweet, calming scent of her hair.

"I don't know. I don't want to put you in any danger."

His eyes were still closed, but he opened them immediately when he felt Hermione's soft lips pressing against the underside of his jaw.

"I know you don't. Do you trust him?"

Draco chuckled softly.

"You Gryffindors trust too easily."

"And you Slytherins don't trust enough!"

He smirked.

"We'll have to agree to disagree."

She peeked her head up from his shoulder, her brown eyes piercing right through him.

"And Blaise?" she prompted.

He huffed out a breath through his nose, ruffling some of the hair on the top of Hermione's head.

"I guess we let him in, and take precautions just in case."

She smiled sadly at him.

"You want to see him."

"Yes," he admitted huskily, "I just hope he doesn't make me regret it."

Hermione nodded, then reached over and grabbed a quill from the nearby table that was resting between the pages of a heavy book. She silently handed it to him, and he wrote the single word Yes on the bottom of the parchment with a flourish, before standing to give it to the owl that had waited calmly all this time. The black beast took flight with a dramatic beat of its wings and was soon a distant speck on the horizon.

Draco felt the warmth of a body behind him, and he shivered pleasantly as he felt Hermione's arms wrap around his waist, her forehead leaning against his back between his shoulder blades.

"If he's coming at nine, then we should have some early dinner and prepare," she murmured, her voice muffled as her lips were pressed into his back. He liked the way he could feel the warm pants of her air as she exhaled.

Unable to stop himself, he spun around, which forced her a step backwards. Not letting her back away, he gently ran his fingers over her jaw and into her hair, using the grip to tug her forwards so that their lips would meet. He pressed his mouth firmly to hers, moaning instantly at the taste of her. It was getting harder and harder to keep his promise to take things slowly with her, and he could tell she was tempted to throw out her request as well. In fact, with the momentum from tugging her towards him, she ended up pressing him back into the book shelves underneath the window. The evening light glowed around them as they kissed each other thoroughly. Draco drew back after a few moments, staring down at her with her lips, swollen from his exploration, with her braid coming undone. He felt a shiver at the sight of her looking so bloody shag-able. He groaned almost inaudibly and leaned in to nuzzle his nose just under her ear.

"I can think of a much better way to spend the time," he purred, loving the way the goose bumps erupted all over the skin on her neck and collar bone.

"You seriously want to just snog for three hours?" Hermione muttered breathlessly, trying to sound dubious but it just came out as yearning. He smirked, placing a few open mouthed kisses down her neck.

"Definitely," he replied between kisses, "that…sounds…bloody…fantastic… to me."

Hermione gave a little whimper and stepped back to look him in the eye. She was clearly flustered.

"But what about Blaise?"

"Fuck Blaise."

He kissed her again, his eyes rolling back into his head as she succumbed to his passionate persuasion. He felt a thrill of desire as she threw her arms around his neck, drawing him closer and giving in.

He knew it couldn't last. For all his wicked talk, it was actually important that he be prepared to face his friend. But that didn't mean that he couldn't enjoy a good long snog session with Hermione before they both started to really panic about tonight.

He was a Slytherin, after all. That meant he wasn't above manipulating people to get what he wanted. And right now he wanted Hermione. She'd forgive him later for distracting her, it was her nature.

As she dug her sharp little nails into his back to pull him closer, he grunted and thought to himself that it was definitely worth it.

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Yes, I know. Another chapter ending on the brink of something happening. But I'm hoping that the next one will be up a lot sooner. What do you think is going to happen with Blaise? Please review!