"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."

After asking for what she hoped would let Malfoy shift the room himself, Hermione slipped into the Room of Requirement. When she saw him bow out at dinner, she had to know. She had to know if this was why Harry couldn't find Malfoy on the map sometimes. He'd mentioned it to her in passing. Sort of. Well, he'd muttered about it under his breath when he thought she wasn't paying attention to him. To be fair, she hadn't been. But this made sense. It was the only thing, besides leaving the grounds, that she could think of. And she had to know. The only thing worse than not knowing was having a guess and not being able to prove it. She had to know.

Fortunately, she didn't have to wait long for the room to shift ever so slightly around her. Apparently, a great big garbage heap was where Malfoy was lounging about these days. She roamed around the stacks, looking for a place to hide. Not too difficult, with all the pathways veering away from the main trail she walked along. All this junk… Maybe this wasn't the right place. Maybe she just equated Malfoy with piles upon piles of garbage.

The entire room shifted and shuddered a bit and that's when she heard quiet footsteps echoing in the vast chamber.

It wasn't a difficult thing, to sneak along the mounds of garbage behind Malfoy. He made no effort to silence his footsteps or check around corners. As they moved deeper into the piles of garbage, his steps slowed. By the time he stopped Hermione was only just preventing herself from screaming at him for meandering.

He stopped in front of a tall cupboard, dusty and empty when he pulled on the tarnished handle.

Nothing happened. Hermione watched him poke at the cupboard and mutter for at fifteen minutes, then twenty, then thirty. She slipped back into the shadows when he pulled a book from a musty pile three pathways down from the cupboard, then spent another hour watching him turn through the pages and poke at the cupboard some more.

Eventually, she slipped out as quietly as she could. He was just messing around with a cupboard. Surely that couldn't be nefarious. She glided out of the room, only pausing to give a concerned glance at a young student sleeping in the corridor. The girl had a set of scales clutched in her hands, and they tipped precariously toward the floor every time she exhaled. Hermione was about to wake her when she heard the faintest whisper of the room shifting behind her and decided to break away instead. Everything was fine. It was just a cupboard. Nothing special.

Something stirred in the pit of her stomach. It felt a little like dread.

The thing was, once Hermione took notice of Malfoy sneaking away to the Room of Requirement, she couldn't unnotice it. He slipped away constantly. He was nowhere to be seen during the Hufflepuff/Gryffindor, but that wasn't terribly uncommon. But after the match he didn't even gloat about Harry's injuries or the horrible loss Gryffindor took after McLaggen's arrogance cost them their Seeker.

A coded notebook lay in the bottom of her bag, looking for all the world like a drabby, empty journal. None of this made sense. It would eventually. If she could just… piece it all together.

She couldn't afford to keep following him back to that room. She shouldn't. She really shouldn't.

She did.

There were two first-years in the corridor again, both holding an instrument or ingredient used in Potions. They didn't look exactly like the first-years standing there last time, or the girl sleeping in the corridor the first time, but this hallway was so very… random. What reason do any first years have to be chatting in this corridor? None.

"Do you know how close it is to curfew?" She strode brusquely toward the whispering students. The girl holding a size 1 pewter cauldron dropped it, the clang when it hit the floor made Hermione flinch. Her palms felt moist. She knew it. Loud noise when item dropped. It had to be some sort of warning. Which could only mean these two first-years were bribed to waste their time here or not first-years at all. Adrenalin flooded through her. She could do this.

"Run along to your dormitories, you two, you might make it back before curfew if you move quickly." They stared at each other. Hermione waved her hands in a shooing motion. "Run along, run along! You wouldn't want to be in the hallways after hours and have a professor come along to take points, would you?" She glanced at their ties. "Hufflepuff is doing well with house points, I'm sure you would hate to ruin that." The two girls, stared at her with big round eyes. She flapped her hands again. "Run along! Run along! And take your cauldron with you," she advised the girl before they scampered away.

After she was certain the girls had actually fled the hallway and were not going to return, Hermione set about getting into the Room of Requirement.

It wouldn't let her in.

Twenty minutes of her pacing quietly in front of that stupid blank wall and it wouldn't let her in. She was about to give up when the quiet grind of stone pulled her from her thoughts. She jumped away from the wall and stared. Where there was only stone, suddenly there appeared an innocuous door. It opened slowly, revealing a shock of blond hair and a pale arm. An incantation was whispered and a miniscule paper airplane flapped away from the open door. The door shut again, but remained in place. Hermione watched the tiny bit of paper make its way down the hallway when an idea sprung into her mind.

The paper was nearly out of the hallway when she pointed her wand at it, duplicated it, and summoned the copy to her outstretched palm.

The little plane stopped flapping once she began to unfold it. On the thin, fine parchment, in incredibly neat print read: I know I said to keep away from this, but I need you up here for a few minutes. Disillusion yourself this time, idiots.

What an idea. She shoved the parchment into her pocket, later she would put it in her notebook. Hermione disillusioned herself and crept toward the door. She opened it slowly, so slowly it felt like she wasn't opened it at all. Once it was open enough, she slipped in and closed it much faster. The small click when the door closed made her wince, and she stood still waiting for Malfoy to come running, or firing curses, but nothing happened. She crept forward into the stacks of garbage to find a place to hide, moving towards the soft noises that Malfoy made when he worked on the cabinet.

There was a little alcove across the isle from Malfoy's creepy cupboard, inside which was a two-legged chair, a warped upside-down cauldron and a plush purple footstool that turned the back of her jeans bright orange the last time she was here and sat on it. Hermione stared at the footstool. She could stand for however long this would take, sit on that footstool and ruin another pair of jeans, or conjure a towel to cover the stool with. She stared. Her silent conjuring wasn't great yet. Orange jeans? Possibility of making noise?

There was a murmur of voice behind her, she spun around and tried not to gasp aloud. Malfoy and those two Slytherins. The quiet one with calculating eyes and curly hair… Nott? And the flamboyant one with the mother. What was his name, it sounded like a car…. Zamboni? No, no.

"Zabini, I told you to disillusion yourself. What the bloody hell do you call that?"

Zabini shushed Malfoy with a wave of his hands, but before he said anything Nott cut in. "Leave Blaise alone, that's pretty much the only charm that Blaise truly struggles with."

"You should have done it for him," Malfoy grumbled. "It's a risk enough to come up here as it is.

Speaking of risk, have you seen Crabbe and Goyle?"

Zabini nodded. "They came tearing into the room maybe twenty minutes ago. Grumbling about missing dinner. And drafty skirts."

All three boys smirked at once, it looked bizarre and choreographed. Hermione tried not to snort imagining them practicing their smirks together, jostling for place in a mirror, but a noise must have escaped her. Nott glanced her direction out of the corner of his eyes as the other two boys turned toward the cupboard.

Hermione stood frozen, waiting for him to shout 'a-ha!' Her heart pounded, could he hear it? No, that was preposterous. Right?

He looked like he could hear it.

Nott raised his wand. This was it. He knew she was there.

Then he simply cast a soundproof barrier of sorts around the three boys. Mufflatio? She could counter that, right?

No. Probably not. Not without giving herself away. Hermione fumed silently. Her breaths got shorter and shorter. This was a stupid idea, she was going to get caught. Merlin. Her vision started to swim and she had to sit down on that stupid footstool or she was going to pass out. Her head was still between her knees when she heard the spell being lifted and the boys walking away.

Her breathing was nearly back to normal when her wand was pulled from her fingers. Her head jerked up to watch in horror as her wand flew through the air into Malfoy's outstretched palm. He eyed it warily.

"Granger, is that you?"

What.

"Finite."

A floating book to her left crashed to the floor. He adjusted his aim.

"Alright. Finite Incantatum." The spell shot just over her shoulder and hit a blank canvas. She glanced back as colors splashed themselves across the canvas in a landscape with an incredibly angry looking warlock silently fuming. There was a lot of arm movement.

Malfoy, undeterred, shot another spell, then another. Should she dodge or stand still?

A shuddering feeling ran down her spine.

"Granger," he hissed. "What the bloody hell do you think you're doing here?"

A quick glance down told her he had managed to counter her disillusionment. And her pants were ruined.

"Yes I can see you, Granger." He advanced into her personal space. Partially because there wasn't a lot of space in the little garbage alcove she hid herself, but the other part -the larger part - was that Hermione Jean Granger wasn't about to back away from Malfoy.

"What, am I interrupting something?"

"Do not play stupid, Granger. You did not just magically end up here. Have you been following me?" His gray eyes widened and suddenly he shoved her into the leaning pile of discarded books behind the stupid pants-ruining footstool. "Have you been following me?" His voice was a low hiss, more serious that it had ever been when they fought before.

If they ever truly fought before. Hermione was only now realizing this was the first time he'd taken such a tone with her when it was just them.

"Listen, Malfoy, I know what is going on here. I think."

He smirked at her. His stupid smirk was right at her eye-level, which made it all the more infuriating of a response. "No. You only think you do. You think you know everything."

"Well I know you're working yourself into an early grave for whatever this is!"

"And what is this, Granger?"

She hesitated. She didn't want to say it in case it were true. It was as if voicing her suspicion out loud would suddenly make it real, something that actually had to be dealt with. "Let me help you," she said instead. "I can help you."

He reared back in surprise. His eyes softened and cast about her face, as if he could find answers written on her cheekbones or chin. Then, without warning, he tensed up and looked over his shoulder.

"Malfoy, what - "

"Shhh!" A large hand clamped over her mouth. Malfoy cocked his head just before Nott walked back into view and saw them. She could barely see over Malfoy's shoulder, but she knew the moment they could see her. Or if not her, her hair.

"Ohaaa?" He backpedaled into Zabini.

"Hey - Theo, what? Oh. Wait. What?"

The two boys stared at them, Hermione and Malfoy stared back. If there was ever a time in her life when Hermione thought that perhaps she would have a heart attack and die, now was that time. Her heart pounded so hard, so fast, she was sure Malfoy could hear it. Could probably feel it from where their bodies were pushed together. Still. He wasn't letting go. Why wasn't he letting go?

She coughed. Malfoy startled and turned around completely, still mostly concealing her from the other two boys.

That was stupid. She could see them over his shoulder. He crowded her backwards and stood up straighter.

Malfoy cleared his throat, but Nott interrupted him before he could even get started. "Don't even try it, mate. I can see her hair over your shoulder."

"Damn. I knew that hair would going to get me into trouble one day," Malfoy whispered.

"Hey!" She reached up and patted her hair. "My hair is not to blame for your actions, thank you!" Malfoy looked back over his shoulder at her with raised eyebrows. Maybe he'd thought he was whispering quieter than he was.

"My hair is not the problem here."

"Well-"

"Now is not the time, Blaise!" Theo cut off his friend. He didn't stomp toward them, but his steps were sharp and agitated as he led Zabini toward their trash alcove. Once in front of them he eyed them both for a quiet minute before pronouncing, "We have to obliviate her."

"What?!"

"No we don't, she'll keep quiet. Won't you, Granger?"

"I most certainly will not."

"See," Theo threw his hands up and glared over Malfoy's shoulder. "Draco, we can't risk it. She's got the Granger face on. Obliviate her."

"What? The Granger face? You will do no such thing! The Granger… this is my face!"

"Granger, be quiet," Draco muttered. "Theo. I have this under control. Go back to the common room."

"Ah, haha, no you don't, mate. What you have is a problem. Blaise, tell him he has a problem."

Blaise looked up from his nails, a bored expression painting his face. "You do. Have a problem, that is."

Hermione shoved Malfoy to the side and strode right up to Nott. "I am not the problem. The problem here is whatever it is that Malfoy thinks he is doing is very obviously not working, and only endangering innocent bystanders in the process!"

She rounded on Malfoy. "You are going to knock it off and let me help you this once! Give me back my wand." She threw her hand out sharply and waited. There was a moment, a brief moment when she saw Malfoy's eyes go wide and angry before she felt hands grab her arms from behind and lift her up slightly off the floor.

"Hey!" She kicked back with her heels but didn't manage to make contact.

"Calm down, Granger," Zabini muttered, grip tightening around her arms. He pulled her slowly away from Malfoy and Nott, who had begun to snarl at each other while she tried in vain to break Zabini's grip. "No, seriously, calm down. I'm just trying to get you out of the line of fire. Sometimes when they disagree," he trailed off and she quit struggling to glance over her shoulder. He shrugged, the movement jostled her as well. "Well it's best to just stay out of the way for a bit. Now, I could use the company of a clever girl while they go at it." He set her down, spun her around, and straightened her black cardigan where his hands had bunched up the sleeves. "What do you know about concealment charms, spells, and/or potions?"

"What?"

"Concealment charms, spells, and/or potions, Granger." He snapped a couple times, the movement pushing the air motes around in swirls. "What do you know about them?"

Confusion bloomed in the front of her brain. It was an uncomfortable confusion. New, sharp, and she wasn't too proud to admit, a little scary. What was happening right now? Why were these boys here? Maybe she'd stepped into something bigger than she thought. But then again, maybe not. Maybe Zabini had a homework question.

"That's too broad a question, Zabini," she snapped finally. "What do you want to know?"

"Well, there's a bright orange-"

"Nothing." Nott stepped into the little pathway they'd been standing in. His steps toward them were sharp, irritated. "Looking forward to working with you, Granger." When he got closer he leaned down and hissed, "You should have taken my advice." Nott knocked his shoulder into Zabini's and strode toward the exit.

"See you soon, clever girl." Zabini winked and flounced after his friend.

"Close your mouth, Granger. You look stupid with it hanging open like that."

She turned on Malfoy, but he was in her space, too close for anything remotely comfortable. "I, wait, no. What was that, Malfoy!? What the bloody hell just happened? I thought they were going to attack me! Obliviate me! Do you know how much damage that could have done, how much trouble you all could get in?"

He had the gall to roll his eyes. "I don't think you can take the moral high ground, here, Granger. You were, what, spying on me? And Nott is quite skilled in most the spells he puts his mind to, hasn't truly mangled any one, or anyone yet. Now," he stepped forward again. It was a stupid power play he loved to use, and she didn't want it to work, but she couldn't think with him standing over her like that, staring down at her. She stepped back until he'd backed her up against an old library bookshelf, charred and sure to ruin her cardigan. A shove at his chest was enough for him to take a step backwards, but he continued to glare at her like it would solve all his problems. "Why were you following me, Granger?"

His eyes darted between hers, studying them as though he could find answers just by looking. "I told you to stay away. I know Nott probably took it upon himself to do the same."

"You are coming awfully close to hurting people, Malfoy. I wanted to know what you were doing so I could stop you."

"Stop me?" He huffed. "I cannot stop. Not now. There's too much on the line. Don't come back here again. I mean it, Granger. I'll let Nott obliviate you if that is what it takes."

"You wouldn't."

"I would, Granger. There's too much at stake here. Don't come back here again. Stop watching me. Stop following me. Stay the hell away from this place."

He stepped away, the air cool in his absence.

"I'm not giving up, Malfoy. If you won't let me help you, I will still stop you."

He shrugged his shoulders, hands up and out to the sides. "You can try, Granger, but do not count on it. I cannot be stopped."

"Can't? Or won't?"

He turned on his heel and strode away from her. "Can't, won't. Take your pick. Makes no difference to me."

In the echo of his footsteps she heard a faint, "Also, there seems to be a bright orange stain on your pants. You should probably get that looked at."

Oh bloody-

A/N: Hey guys. Yes. Yes. I'm still around. Things happened. Thanks to everyone who is still following along ha.

You know how writers generally have to learn the hard way to back up the stuff?

I'm taking suggestions on plot because I lost the stuff. *cries a little* I don't want to talk about it. It was... discouraging, to say the least.

Sorry if this chapter seems super unpolished, but it is super unpolished so there ya go.

I hope you enjoyed this installment. Let me know what you think and please be kind

LL