Incorrigivel

by xItachi-lover18

Sou ruim em introducoes. Disclaimer: I own nothing!

23. Chapter 23

"You're the most infuriating woman I've ever met."

"Because I think logically, and—mm, it usually counters your highly illogical arguments!"

"My argument was completely—fuck, logical, you just wield bravery and call it logic, when it's actually stupidity."

"Yet you're the one who goes from… Huh…huh…"

"You can pull my hair all you want, Granger, but I'm not leaving here."

"Then stop smiling just because…ugh. Ju-… You go from me just saying we should skip a meal, to demanding we leave the tunnels! It's-"

"Logical, considering the loss of supplies, and that-"

"Illogical, considering we still haven't found Justin and P-P-Puh… Oh. Um. Padma, Padma, and, uh…yes!"

"Mm."

"Don't look at me like that. Oh."

"Like what?"

"Like you're-"

"Urgh."

"-winning."

"I always win, Granger."

"And then you met me."

*

Hot, damp, soft, and then a tug between teeth. If Hermione hadn't been sparring with a very angry and naked Malfoy at least an hour earlier, she might have slapped him in the face before she could process it. As it were, his mouth was doing things to her ear that was causing reactions she hadn't known ears could provoke. He was hot and hard against the top of her bum, and his fingers on her left nipple made her arch back against him.

"I won, you know," she whispered, moaning on a sigh when he moved his lips down the underside of her jaw.

"I think it's fair to say we both did."

She pushed her bum back against him when he sucked a patch of her skin into his mouth, and he shoved forward hard enough for her to know he had less patience than he did last time.

"It almost…" She slid her head back, and locks of his hair ghosted her cheek as he explored further. "It almost makes me wish you keep saying such asinine things."

"Granger," he growled in warning, and his teeth nipped her jaw.

Hermione sucked in a breath as his hand pushed down her stomach. "Sorry. I don't know how to quit."

"Then apply that to other things instead."

"Like what?" Her heart skipped as he pulled her leg over his own.

His smile curved against her cheek, and she turned her head to claim his mouth.

*

Malfoy wasn't talking much, and she didn't know why. He kept his responses as short as possible, even when her prods into conversation were long enough to wind her. She felt like she was talking to herself, and so she didn't talk at all.

Maybe he realized they were going in circles. She had thought she bypassed the tunnel with her arrow on it quickly enough, but when their paranoia had trained them to seek out anything abnormal, he probably spotted it. Malfoy hated to waste time, and he no doubt thought they had. And he was probably blaming it all on her in his head.

Hermione figured they had just eliminated that section. While it had been a bit detrimental for not actually finding anything or anyone, at least they knew. She was more concerned with the knowledge that they were heading back towards the device. Considering their depth from where they had originally entered the tunnels, and from where the magic had made them flee, they'd reach the device in a day – maybe two.

*

Hermione yelled, turning in a circle as she jumped, her arm flying up into the air. Her left wrist sent a frisson of pain up to her elbow each time she came back down onto her feet, but she was too excited to stop herself. She also should have been conserving her energy after having to cast three banishing spells on the beast that had been blocking this tunnel, but she'd worry about that if another one came around the corner.

"Do you see?"

Malfoy had been leaning a shoulder against the wall and watching her in amusement the past minute…or so, but he sadly did not appear close to jumping in victory. "You've been shining your light on it, adamantly pointing to it, and doing some sort of tribal dance in front of it for the past five minutes. Yes, I see, Granger."

"And there's another one, right there, at the turn. I can see the blue just at the edge. We found them!"

"We found the marks they left on the wall after losing them days ago. They could have made it here from the tunnel they split into within a day."

Hermione bit her lips, looking up at the circle of blue with a line coming out of it, pointing straight ahead. "They were walking back towards the device. They would have known that."

"So they thought that's where we would go. That's where we were supposed to go."

"No," Hermione said. "It's illogical. The magic is too strong that way for two people, and the main spell can't be cast without all four. It's too risky. They would have either traced back to find us, or…waited."

"Waited?"

"Yes." She nodded, looked down the corridor, and then nodded again. "Padma is highly logical. There's no logic in walking towards the device, a day's walk from the tunnel they saw us go down, and just hoping they'll run into us on the way, or be enough to fight a magic four of us had to run from."

"The logical thing would have been to turn back."

"They might have got lost and didn't know how to get back to us. I'm telling you, they're either trying to find a way over, they're only moving to keep the magic from catching up as much as possible, or they're following our arrows now."

"Wonderful. We'll all keep going in a giant circle then, shall we?"

Hermione shot him a look, but he couldn't ruin her mood. This was the first sign they had from Justin and Padma, and, eventually, they'd find one another somehow.

*

"Would you stop?"

Hermione looked back in surprise, but slowed down when she saw how rugged he looked. She'd been so busy chasing the marks, she hadn't realized how much the last few spells took out of him. He had cast four times in rapid succession when the group of birds had flown at them, and they had been gone before she got half the spell out. She hadn't felt the draining pull of the magic, and had selfishly not registered his own.

"I-"

"You've been stomping about for bloody hours now, as if we're going to find them any second. You're like a naïve child in a Death Eater dungeon, and I'm sick of following after you."

Hermione narrowed her eyes. "This is the first time you said anything about stopping-"

"I said it two hours ago!"

"Well, I'd forgotten! I'm sorry!" She pointed her finger at the blue mark on the wall. "You can tell that they were running when they did this. It's in the middle and not high up, and it's just a blast, or a line, with no indication of which way they went until we find the next blast or line. We-"

"And they probably ran for another two dozen tunnels before the marks become normal again, and they perpetually remain two days ahead of us."

She took a deep breath, her eyes wide and her look hostile. "What is your problem? You've-"

"I'm exhausted, and I ache, and I am tired of running around tunnels in blackness, while constantly being hounded by Dark magic and the mind-stabbing sound of your chatter."

She was more offended than she should have been, but she knew the taste of him on her mouth, and that changed everything. "Oh, well, I'm sorry being near me is so terrible for you, Malfoy! I'm sorry this is such a hard experience that requires a little effort-"

"A little effort? Our lives are at risk every second of every day-"

"It's nothing we haven't been through before, except-"

"Except I don't get off on this shit like you do!" he yelled. "I don't want to be a hero, Granger, I'm not. Tried it once for someone else, and we all know how that ended." He looked at her like she'd been the one to make him do it.

"No one is asking you to be a hero-"

"You did, with all your bullshit talk about-"

"No, I didn't, you made this choice! Just as you've made every choice, so don't blame it on me! It doesn't matter that you're not this sort of person, because you're here, and you have to be now. Sometimes life gives you more than you think you can take, and sometimes more than you possibly can, but you do with it what you have to!"

"I'm well-"

"People don't go out and just say, think I'll go save the world today. They do what they have to do, because they're the only ones who can. That's what you're doing now, and it makes you more than you think it does. But don't try to justify wanting to give up to me, because I won't believe it."

"I didn't say I wanted to give up, I'm saying it's rubbish that you expect me to not be pissed off at the situation, and everything going wrong, just because solving the problem is the right thing to do. I'm saying that I'm not taking this in stride because I have a hero complex that requires I happily take a sword to the chest in the name of people I don't give a shit about!"

Hermione's head pulled back like he'd punched her on the chin. "What people?"

He threw his arms out. "Everyone!"

She looked at him for a long moment, until the pressure on her chest became too much, and she killed the light of her wand. She pulled her bag over her head, throwing it towards the wall, and heard a jar crack open. "Go to sleep."

*

Silence. Hermione preferred it. She'd rather not talk to him at all for the moment.

She'd calmed down since last night, but it might have had more to do with the fact that she hadn't slept well, and now emotions were dulled. It wasn't that she didn't understand his point – er, when she did finally understand his point. Malfoy didn't do things like this, and when the situation stacked almost all the odds against them, Malfoy's instinctual reaction was to take stock and retreat. Maybe he did mean to come back if they left for more supplies, but they couldn't go back now.

And he could have just talked to her like a normal person instead of getting so angry! He should have just told her that he really needed to rest right then. She might have fought to keep going a bit longer, though, since she'd been worried over the marks. Then there might have been a fight anyway. Probably.

She kept wondering what exactly he meant by not caring about everyone. If he had meant the students, or if he had included her in that. She didn't know what she expected with Malfoy, or even what all she wanted, but she had thought…

Hermione shook her head, rubbing a palm against her forehead, and kept walking.

*

Hermione broke off into another tunnel, desperate to pee. She scanned her light, making sure there wasn't anything about to attack her.

"Where are you going?" Malfoy asked gruffly.

"Do you really care?" she snapped. She had meant for it to come out a lot more nonchalant.

She took a left into another tunnel, and cast a Muffling Charm before unbuttoning her jeans. She transfigured a piece of parchment into softer paper, squatted, and preceded to send looks of paranoia all around her until she was finished. Beyond sleeping, it was the time she was the most vulnerable, and she didn't want to fight anything with her trousers around her ankles.

She cast a Vanishing Spell, followed by a Cleaning Spell on her hands, and then headed back towards Malfoy, quickly buttoning and zipping her jeans. He was standing rigidly at the end of the tunnel she had turned into, his lips thinned and his eyes hostile. Fantastic.

"You wore out my last nerve awhile ago, Granger."

"Then you shouldn't be feeling anything at all." A little better on the nonchalant tone this time. "I'm sure the numbness is preferable for you."

"I tell you I don't give a shit about those people, and now I'm a heartless, evil bastard with no emotions." Those people swung in her mind like a pendulum. "Not only are you an assumptive, judgmental twit, but-"

"I am not-"

"Those people don't give a toss about me, so why am I going to care about them? Most of them know I'm missing by now and are hoping I'm dead, at the same time that I'm doing all this shit to stop them from being so-"

"Then why are you here?"

"I don't know!" he yelled.

They stared at one another in the silence that fell, but as much as she tried to read him, the emotions were moving too quickly across his face. "You have to know."

"I-"

"You do the assess and plan thing, and you had to have assessed, and you have to know why you're here, and not-"

"Because I had to be! Because it chose me. Because if Hermione fucking Granger believed in it so much, than it's probably the only right thing I've done in my life, no matter how wrong it feels."

Hermione nodded slowly, crossing her arms, and Malfoy looked extremely annoyed with himself, or her, or both of them. "Is that also why you're…why we're …you and I, I mean…"

"Have I only been with you because it's the right thing to do?" He raised his eyebrows, and the annoyance broke for a moment when his lips twitched. "I don't think Draco Malfoy shagging the golden girl would be accepted by anyone as the right thing to do. In fact, they'd think it was the very opposite of what I should be doing, which is buggering myself to hell."

Hermione let out a breath she hadn't noticed she was holding, and nodded again. The last thing she wanted was for all of this, with the two of them, to have been some point he was trying to prove to himself or other people. She swallowed and then cleared her throat, looking back up at him.

"I think it is the right to do. Uh, you being here, not…well, I mean, that's also…" She blushed, shaking her head as if it would rid her of the anxiety. "You and I are…however we feel about it, and what other people feel about it doesn't matter. And it's the same for this whole situation, too. It feels wrong because it's different, but you know it's right. It's not just me telling you it is, you know being here is the right thing to do. And it doesn't matter what the world takes from that, it matters what you do."

"I don't care what the world thinks of me anymore. That-"

"Good. Because you're not wrong as a person. You're not bad, you know. Not too bad, anyway."

He raised an eyebrow, slanting his eyes to the side, and looked rather unimpressed. "Thanks, Granger."

"You're like an earthworm," she told him, starting to walk again. "You cut it in half, or pull it apart, and then throw it away from you in panic when you realize it's still moving. And you think it's just the twitching of nerves in death, but the truth is that it's still alive, and now there's two of them-"

"Are you claiming I have a split personality?"

She snorted. "Sometimes I think so," she muttered. "I'm saying that most people don't know how many hearts an earthworm has, and if you cut it in half, both sides stay alive for a little bit. Eventually the bottom half dies, but the top half regenerates itself into a whole worm again. So-"

"You've cut an innocent worm in half?"

She looked back at him, exasperated. "Have you not heard anything-"

"Granger's a worm killer. What would the house-elves say?"

"I was a curious child! I regret my experiments!"

"Experiments?"

Hermione walked faster.

*

When Malfoy thought with no deep concentration, a muscle in his jaw would twitch every few seconds, and sometimes his tongue would press to the inside of his cheek. His gaze hardly every wavered from the line of his light, though Hermione knew her own tended to dart all over, even if she wasn't seeing anything. Unless she was looking at him while she was doing the thinking, of course.

Malfoy turned his head enough to look down at her, and she met his eyes for a second before looking ahead. She could feel him still looking at her, or maybe it was her imagination. She glanced from the corners of her eyes, and he made a breathy sound.

Hermione fought back a smile without knowing exactly why she felt like smiling, and went back to scanning the walls for any sign of the blue mark.

Hermione and Malfoy pulled to a stop at the same moment, and Hermione held her breath to better hear the dragging noise somewhere ahead of them. There was a succession of tapping sounds, and two thuds, and then more tapping.

A dark figure rounded the corner of a tunnel further down the one they were standing in, followed by a few quick taps before a woman emerged into the faint reach of Malfoy's wandlight. She was dragging herself along the walls, and her hands were clamped around her throat. There was blood pushing out from between her fingers and flowing over them, and an oval of red was soaking her shirt from the neckline and down to the stomach.

Hermione and Malfoy exchanged a glance just a second before galloping started in the distant, dark reach of the tunnel. Hermione raised her wand, her gaze trained on the line of Malfoy's light, and waited until the Thestrals emerged. There were at least three of them, two flanking the one in the lead, and riders were atop each one. Their robes were dark blue, and would have looked black had it not been for the inky, skeletal shine of the animals they rode. The hoods were pulled over their heads, covering their faces in darkness, and all of them raised their wands as they raced towards the two of them.

Hermione yelled the banishing spell, but it only made the woman against the wall disappear, as well as the several colors of curses that were shooting towards them.

"Shit," Malfoy whispered harshly, the sound nearly lost under the pounding of hooves.

He turned, and she felt a hard yank on the sleeve of her shirt as the Thestrals closed in on them. Hermione grabbed his hand instead, pulling back, and surprisingly, he didn't rip it from her grip or launch her into a run by dragging her with him.

"Trust me," she said, though she didn't know if he heard her, and she yelled the banishing spell at the Thestrals.

Malfoy jerked once, but it was too late, and the Thestrals were barreling over them. Hermione had to stop herself from leaping away from the hammering legs and curses shot at them, but she knew from the sword that had been in her chest that the magic couldn't touch them right now. Malfoy threw his arm over his head as she yanked him forward, but she couldn't see much of his reaction in the midst of the vision – she didn't think he fully processed what was happening until the Thestrals had already moved through them. Hermione spun around, facing the backs of the creatures and riders.

She pulled her hand from Malfoy's, and they both raised their wands, yelling the banishing spell as the Thestrals tried to turn in the tight tunnel. The vision shimmered, and then disappeared like a person had slowly slid an image of the tunnel over them.

"What-"

"In the crowd, I cast the-"

Something flashed at the edge of her wandlight, and Hermione chased it, lighting a black figure. It looked like a silhouette of a person, but her light was right on it, and the blob didn't change. Hermione killed her light and cast the banishing spell as the shadow person flew at her. The light of the spell reached the tip of her wand, showing the figure jerking to the left, and she flicking her wrist just as the spell left her wand. The spell curved, then sunk into the blob a moment before they both disappeared.

"Lumos," she said, spinning in a circle, and cast at another shadow as Malfoy yelled the spell twice.

She turned again, and saw a flash of two at the edge of her wandlight down the tunnel. She cast once as one of them yelled, and two balls of light burst into the darkness. Both of the lights jumped apart as her spell slammed into the far wall, and Hermione froze at the arm and leg she saw.

"Were those jeans?" she asked, breathless from the exertion of energy as Malfoy panted over her shoulder.

Malfoy's light joined hers, and the two shadows were lit into people.

"Ah!"

"Ah!" Hermione yelled.

"Ah!" Justin repeated. Hermione ran at him, and he grinned, opening his arms. "Slow down a little, though, or I'll fall."

Hermione laughed, sliding across the floor, and hugged him. "I was so worried! I kept thinking something horrible might have happened-"

"-running, and running, and we had thought, okay, they were going pretty fast-"

"-found our way back, but you two were gone, so we left these arrows, did you find those? I thought-"

"-we completely forgot our steps, and no, no arrows, but you found the balls? You found the balls!"

"We found the balls! We found you! Or you found us!"

"Both! We heard the yelling, and the spells, and we knew the visions wouldn't attack unless there was someone they were attacking, and my heart just started bambambam, and we knew it was you."

"Malfoy."

"Patil."

"Sorry for casting at you, though, there were-"

"No, no, there were those shadow things. We've ran into them twice. I hit Padma once with it because of 'em."

"Really? That was the first for us. The magic must have been weaker."

"That's what we thought, too."

"Are you guys all right?" Hermione asked, stepping back to rub Padma's arm in greeting and survey them.

"A bit banged and scraped up, but better than I thought we'd be," Justin said, turning his grin to Malfoy, and clapping him on the arm. "A vision cast a spell on us when we were sleeping, and I just saw this flash of white, and I thought it was your hair shining at me."

"It doesn't glow, Finch-Fletchley."

Padma nodded. "He just said, Malfoy?, then screamed in pain – which didn't deter me that much from assuming you two had found us."

Malfoy glared at Padma, but he was too distracted from commenting when Justin had moved to clapping him on the back. "It does have a bit of a shine to it, mate. You use women products for that? Some pixie dust?"

"What supplies do you have left?" Padma asked.

"-spent more time in my bath than I have-"

"Barely anything. We got caught in a horrid vision, and we've had a lot of injuries." Hermione pulled the strap of her bag over her shoulder, and took Padma's bag as Padma took hers.

"-curls, and this dimple right here? I'm angelic, Malfoy, I don't need to glow, too. Then people might sense that I'm trying to cover up my hard, rugged interior."

"You're a Hufflepuff."

"Exactly."

*

"That's how you combined them?"

"Yes. I made sure the other runes weren't touching the wand, though."

"What happened?" Justin asked.

"It lifted me off my feet and slammed me into a wall. I think it was the way it drained me that knocked me out, though. Especially after the first one came back."

"But it got rid of the magic?"

"I believe I saw it disappear before I went unconscious, and it must have. We were untouched beyond the injuries we sustained before that. We would have been dead had the magic still been there."

Hermione glanced at Malfoy, but he was staring straight ahead.

"It's good for a last option," Padma said. "But a very last option."

"Yeah." Justin rubbed his hand across Hermione's back. "I can't believe you just tried it. You could have killed yourself."

"I had to. What's important is that it worked. Thankfully Padma still has a few vials of Invigoration Draught, though, so if we do run into a situation where we have to use it, we should be able to bring ourselves back."

"We just need to be careful with it, and only use it when there is really no other option – the spell and the draughts. We have to start wrapping wounds that are deep but aren't as life-threatening."

Malfoy's jaw clenched, but he didn't say anything. Hermione cleared her throat. "I agree. Malfoy has the numbing balm, so it'll help with the pain, and we can stop the blood. As long as it's possible to deal with it in another way, and still be able to continue on, we'll do that."

"Is that working okay for you?" Justin asked.

"Wha- Oh, this is broken," she said, and his eyes flashed up from her wrist. "In that horde of people, one of the men with the swords broke it. I used part of a book cover, though, and some fabric, so it's held pretty straight. Doesn't hurt much, unless I grab something."

"Damn," Justin muttered.

"Which reminds me," she said, then pointed at Malfoy, "and I meant to tell you this before, but I cast a banishing spell just before I was stabbed with a sword. It didn't hurt, it didn't do anything. Then, as he was pulling it back out, it cut me. So I think when they don't disappear from the banishing spell, they're weakened enough to be like they used to. We just go through them."

"How long does it last?" Padma asked.

Hermione shook her head. "A few seconds."

"Better than the nothing I thought we got before," Justin said.

"It's just going to get worse." Malfoy looked left and right, and then turned into the tunnel that had the nearest turn going straight ahead. "We're beyond where we were before when the magic split us."

"I don't feel much like sleeping anymore," Justin said. "Oh! Padma and I were eating breakfast, and this man with no. Face. Was eating this blood-spurting thing. Now, I have a very weak stomach in the morning…"

*

There was a shift in the air. It could have been a sense of something watching or there, or as subtle as a single degree drop in temperature, but Hermione felt it. She moved to her knees, grabbing the low-burning candle against the back wall of the nook, and leaned over Malfoy towards the opening. His breath touched the side of her neck as he moved a little to the left, and the light of the candle flickered onto…bark?

"What are-"

Hermione cringed as she used her injured hand to press fingers against Malfoy's mouth, and lifted the candle higher. More bark, more – the thick trunk was close to covering the entire exit from the nook, except a small patch high on the left, and a larger passage even higher on the right where the branch bowed.

"Wake up!" Hermione yelled, flinging herself back.

Wax sloshed out of the candle, burning her hand, and Malfoy hissed. Hermione pulled the strap of her bag over her head, Padma's head clipping her chin as they both moved to stand at the same time. Malfoy was already on his feet, dragging up a sleep-clumsy Justin.

Hermione blew out the candle before shoving it in her bag, and lit her wand. Three other wandlights were already on the tree. "It's trying to trap us!" Justin yelled.

Malfoy pushed his foot into the spot above where the wall and trunk met on the right side, and launched himself towards the bigger gap, bark breaking under his scrambling shoes. Hermione shoved her shoe into a sliver between the wall and trunk, her ankle twisting oddly, and tried to pull herself up with her right hand. She forced her left arm through the crack after a moment of failure, gritting her teeth at the protest from her wrist. She moved an inch before hands slammed into her, and she scraped up to the wider crack, bark burning into her hands and arms.

She sucked in as she shoved herself into the gap, her breasts and bum squished as flat as they were capable of. Something yanked sharply at her hip, and she saw Malfoy's face lit by the wand between his teeth, his arm stretched above his head and a finger curled in the belt loop at her hip. He yanked again, and Hermione's breath caught as she pushed herself into the air. He caught her around the hips, and her wrist reminded her why she shouldn't be grabbing things when she clawed into his shoulders.

He dropped her to her feet, and Hermione moved to Padma when she fell hard from the other side of the tree. Hermione helped her up as Justin yelled from the nook, and then cried out the banishing spell. He sailed right through the trunk a second later.

"What are you doing?" Padma yelled. "You shouldn't waste energy, there's bound-"

"I was bitten! It was this little gremlin thing, and it had vampire teeth, and it bit my flesh."

Hermione looked at Justin's arm and the two curves of teeth marks, with two punctures that were gushing blood. Malfoy grabbed his arm and cast the spell to stop the bleeding, and Hermione turned her attention to Padma's straying wandlight.

There were more trees up and down the tunnel, and some of them were so thick that they took up the entire width of space unless they climbed. She only saw trees, though. If the magic was trying to trap them and slow them if they ran, she knew it hadn't just created one creature to attack them during it.

"Sorry, Hermione," Justin said. "It was just…out more, and I didn't mean to touch you there."

Malfoy's eyebrows drew together, and he looked over his shoulder at Hermione before turning his head to stare at Justin.

"It's fine," Hermione said. "I'm only worried about what the magic is trying to do right now."

"It's trying to block us in. But the magic can only attack in forms." Padma looked at her like a teacher waiting for the student to understand.

Hermione bristled. "Yes, obviously they are trying to hide the forms, but we're standing here in the open, and it's not doing anything."

"Let's just move towards the end," Justin said. "Nox."

There was a rustle of leaves, and then Padma hit the floor on her knees, screaming. Malfoy blew the creature off her back with a blocking spell, and Justin dragged her to her feet as they all started running. Treetops began to rustle all around them, until the tunnel was filled with a frantic crinkling. They dodged around trees, hitting their shoulders off them, and tripping over roots across the ground.

Hermione gasped as ice cold fingers grabbed her arm, and small feet slammed into her ribs as the creature launched itself up her side. Teeth sunk into the skin around her collarbone, and the creature jerked its head, tearing out a chunk. Hermione screamed, trying to push it off of her, but it was impossible. She cast the banishing spell just as Padma did, and the creature flew back as the four of them ran through a tree that had been too thick to go around.

Hermione clamped her hand over the wound, but only until the next creature flung itself at her from a branch, and she shot it from the sky with a blocking spell. Justin grabbed her arm, tugging her to the right, and they all continued running as the creatures flew at them from all angles.

*

"Lavender will almost convince my sister that I ran off to some distant island with a Quidditch player, and that I'm too busy enjoying him to owl. My sister, however, will think something exaggerated, like a cursed book in the library taking me into the world within its pages."

"And both will have already been spread all over the school," Hermione muttered, pulling her robe on after checking all her bandages were secure.

"My House will just suspect Draco kidnapped me to feed me to fishes, or try to get a full pardon from the Ministry or something. Eh, no offense, but they saw us walking together a few times, and they think I've been cursed."

"If I was going to curse you, I wouldn't do it so that you stayed by my side," Malfoy drawled.

"What about you, Hermione?" Padma asked. "What do you think your House and friends are going to say of your absence?"

"That I'm in an underground labyrinth at Hogwarts, fighting a Dark magic, and stopping a device before it breaks into the school."

Justin laughed. "You just reckon Harry and Ron will figure all that out without you there to do the researching?"

Malfoy breathed a laugh, and she pursed her lips, shooting both of them a look. "They'll know because I told them. I left a letter in my trunk explaining almost everything, as well as some books on the device. I'm not sure if they found that yet, but if they did, I suspect McGonagall has cleared the school, and Harry is ordering everyone to blow the floor out of the dungeon."

Silence.

"Saves us from explaining when we get back, huh?" Justin asked.

"I would have preferred Hogwarts not closing. Its reputation might not be able to sustain this if it gets out."

"I would have preferred that as well, Padma, but the students are in danger. I knew if we didn't stop it within two days, there was a high chance that magic would get into the school before we blocked the device. I wasn't willing to risk that. Even so, four students going missing would make headlines as well."

"Why aren't we leaving, then?" Malfoy asked.

"Because we don't know how far the magic will spread, they might not have found the letter yet, Hogwarts will forever be abandoned if we do, and plenty of other reasons."

"They'd keep the reason secret until they had the information, though," Justin said. "If they've cleared the school, they probably told everyone some lie about it, like a weakness in the wards or something."

Padma crossed her arms, holding her wand out over the bend of her elbow as they turned into a new tunnel. "Do you think the magic reached the school? It feels like we've been down here for weeks, but it must be at least Tuesday or Wednesday by now. At least."

"It's impossible to know."

"Which is why we shouldn't think about it," Justin said.

But then there was silence, and Hermione figured that's all they were thinking about now.

*

Hermione frowned as she watched Malfoy pull back the foil, and then pop the sweet in his mouth. His eyelids drooped, his lips pursing and jaw moving as he sucked on it. His tongue chased it across his cheek, and she watched the line of it until it disappeared. The tip of his tongue flicked out to lick his lips, and she remembered it doing the same to her. The little square had looked red, and she wondered if his mouth and lips would taste like strawberries, cherries, watermelon, or raspberries.

She looked up from his mouth, and he was looking back at her. His eyes were hooded again, and she couldn't tell if they were darker from the bounce of the candle flame or something else. She was feeling a bit warmer than she had when she was sniffling earlier.

"What flavor is that?"

He looked devious, and her heart gave a weird little jolt in her chest. "Would you like to try it?"

Her lips parted in surprise, and she shot a quick look to Padma and Justin, her cheeks coloring. "Uh, w- Yes, actually."

The corners of his lips lifted into an irritatingly knowing smile as he pulled another sweet from his bag, and then held it out to her. "I think you'd enjoy it."

She cleared her throat, shrugging as her fingers skated his. "Maybe." He raised an eyebrow. "Sometimes the flavor isn't really enough. I also like complex flavors. Little hints of other things."

"Like a good wine," Justin said, nodding around his plum. "You just roll it across the tongue, swish it about."

Hermione's eyes widened as she looked down at the treat, not sure if she should be paranoid or laugh. She just needed to get off this…thing they were doing all together. "Honestly, Malfoy, you shouldn't just eat unhealthy things like this."

"I don't really care that it's bad for my health. It tastes too good to stop."

Her eyes flashed to his as the sweet slid into her mouth. She sucked on it, twirling her tongue around it, and watched Malfoy do the same as he watched her back. It tasted like a cross between raspberries and cherries.

"What do you think?" Malfoy murmured.

"It's not too sweet, which is good, and I like the combination."

"Mm."

She gave a pointed look to her bag before lifting her eyes back to him again. "You really do need something more to sustain you."

"And you have all the sustenance I need?"

"If you're still hungry. I have-"

His smile curved slowly, and she realized he was still talking about something very much other than food. Hermione's stomach clenched in recognition of the look on his face, and Padma started making clicking noises as Justin whopped her on the back.

Justin pushed away from her, drawing his wand, as Padma coughed violently. "I'm fine, I'm fine!"

"I thought something was choking you."

"My food."

"No, I thought the magic-"

"It has no power unless it takes some sort of form. Which is why part of the protection spell prevents it taking form."

"I know that, but it's evolved before."

"Because it had to break through runes to fully release itself to us. You could have killed me."

"I didn't even cast anything!"

Hermione looked away when Padma looked over at her, and pulled her bag towards her. She pulled an apple from the depths and held it out Malfoy. He gave her an inscrutable look before accepting it, and Hermione made herself busy with looking at her kneecaps.

*

"I feel like we've been looking for this thing forever." Justin cracked his neck and swooped his wandlight in a circle.

"Commitment, dedication," Hermione said. "Sometimes you really have to keep pushing yourself to find what you want and need, but it's worth it when you do."

"If you ever do," Malfoy grumbled.

"Some people are very satisfied with what they have," Justin said.

"Most aren't."

"I always look for something more challenging, and more knowledge," Padma said.

"Exactly," Hermione said. "People are always looking for something. You want love, you find love, and then you also want money, so you have to keep earning money, and you want a...pet unicorn, so you have to go through a ton of laws and-"

"Did you attempt acquiring a pet unicorn, Granger?"

"Yeah, but going by that, some people never find what they want or need," Justin said. "Not to be pessimistic or anything, but there are a lot of tunnels. You know, metaphorically. And actually. Take Padma - she wants knowledge, but she'll never be all-knowing, and so she'll never be satisfied. So she'll never really find anything at all."

"Thanks, Justin."

"No, not everyone finds it. Maybe even most don't find what they're looking for. But people find a lot of what they need - love, or-"

"Love isn't always found either, Hermione," Padma said. "The majority of people fall in love more than once, and most of them aren't looking for something that will end - they're looking for a lifetime with that person."

"But they still have love, and they're still going to remember and hold that love for a lifetime, in some capacity. It doesn't matter if they lost it, it matters that they found it."

"People are rarely satisfied with having something they want and then losing it," Malfoy drawled.

"But they found it in the first place, and aren't they satisfied with that?" she asked, looking over at him.

"I don't think many people find love, or understanding, or another person in the world they match all up with, without settling for it because it's just close to what they want." Padma shrugged. "So I doubt many of those people actually, really find it."

"People are always looking for something more, something better...it's impossible to find it, because there's going to be something better than the best they thought it was before, or more than the most." Justin swooped his wandlight in lazy circles. "So if they find it, and then they lose it, they're going to be looking for something better than it had been the next time. Then better after that."

"I don't believe that," Hermione said. "I believe while people might continue looking for other things in their lives, there are certain areas where they aren't wanting, because they've found the exact thing they want in that place, that makes them happy. Not many people do, but...it happens."

"It's like a relationship, Granger." Malfoy flashed her a knowing look. "You're with someone, and you're satisfied with that person, but you want them to stop dating other people, or stop snoring, or get along with your parents, or put you above their friends. Whatever it is, you want something more."

"Or a job," Padma said. "You want a higher position, you want more money, you want more respect."

"It all depends on the good things in each one," Hermione said. "You might stay with a job because you can't afford to quit, but what are you doing at the job? Are you happy to go to work because you're doing something you really believe in?"

"But you still want more."

"Yet it becomes worth it. And relationships – I mean, if it's not what you want, then you're probably not going to be with the person. The good outweighs the bad, so you accept the bad because it's part of the person you love. You're satisfied and so you're keeping it. At the end of it all, it's about finding things you can keep – and we keep everything in some form or another."

"So the majority of the world are lookers, while Hermione Granger is a finder."

She gave Malfoy a glare without heat. "You don't think you're a finder in some way?"

"Well," Justin said. "I'd really like to find the device, but I think I'm still a looker."

"And a bed."

"Food."

"A shower."

"A toilet."

"Warm, clean clothes, that…"

18-

Sound hit them like the ceiling had dropped out and hundreds of people fell with it into the tunnel – and they had. Hermione recognized the screaming and crying before she made out the people all around her, though no blinding light came this time, and then they pushed into her in a mess of stiff limbs and hard torsos. A larger, strong hand grabbed her own, and she knew it was Malfoy's without looking. Padma's arm looped around her elbow, and then immediately dragged Hermione backwards and down as Padma was pushed to the ground.

Malfoy tugged her hand forward, and Hermione's forearm shook with the strength it took to pull Padma back to her feet. Hermione shoved around the people, grunting when someone hit off her wrist. A strong, orange light burst into life behind her, and she twisted back when she felt heat prickling fiercely on the back of her.

Justin was behind Padma, his arm raised towards the ceiling, and a large tunnel of fire shooting from the tip of his wand. It blasted down the length of the ceiling in the tunnel, lighting everything in dancing orange and yellow light. Malfoy pulled her forward again, and she bent her arm tighter around Padma's, pulling her with them. The crowd shoved, pushed, and ran right into them in a constant stream of hard hits, and Hermione decided it wasn't just being lost in a sea, but a sea filled with strong creatures and concrete blocks.

Hermione almost lost her wand as a woman crashed through the link of hands between her and Malfoy. Someone banged into her from the side, and she staggered. A man was grabbing shoulders to push himself faster along, and he clamped onto Hermione's like a vice. She almost kept upright, but then Padma collided into the back of her, and they both hit the ground.

Hermione screamed at a shock of pain from her wrist to her temple, that didn't go away even when the foot left it. The toe of a shoe kicked into the side of her head, and the world tilted before the stomps on her fingers and calf brought her back.

Padma yelled a blocking spell, and Justin helped Hermione halfway to her feet before the horde was knocking them around again. She linked arms with Justin, turning her head to make sure Padma was with them, and then looked for Malfoy's hair.

Hermione shoved the people, swiveling and bending her body around them as she tried to get to Malfoy. She was just two people away from him when he found her hand in the swarm, and she looked up from the man with a sword a few feet away. She nodded her chin when her gaze met his, urging him forward, but then caught sight of very familiar fingers over the top of a bald, bleeding woman's head.

Hermione's eyes flashed to Malfoy's, widening as the grip on her hand tightened, and Malfoy's widened in response. She looked down at the hand, up a hairy arm, and to the very large man who was standing still. His eyes looked like someone had filled the iris with ink and spun it, except for the orange flames reflecting back at her. There was a single second in which she was aware of other people in the horde stopping, and the hitch in her breathing. Then the man snapped his hand out, and it smashed against her chest.

Hermione flew backwards through a space between bodies, banged into something that felt like rock, and hit the ground on her bum. A woman's lips pulled back like an attacking animal, jumping towards her. Hermione jerked her foot back, and the woman landed on the bottom of her leg rather than the kneecap she'd been aiming for. Hermione grunted, scrambling to her feet as a hand grabbed the back of her neck, another on her arm, another in her hair.

Hermione yelled the banishing spell, and the grips fell away as she rushed forward. She moved through six people before she yelled it again, again, again. All around her were vicious faces and swirling black eyes, and the flames Justin had sent across the ceiling were fading. The horde was thinning, but there were still enough people that she couldn't dodge around one without running within reach of another.

"Hermione!" Justin yelled, his voice muffled, and she turned.

He was running towards her, his mouth bloodied, and shot a blocking spell to the group between them. He grabbed her arm, and they surged forward as he cast the banishing spell. They ran through four people, around two, and Hermione's head snapped back as a chunk of her hair was ripped from the scalp. She cried out, but the grip was gone, and she kept moving – through three, around five, through two.

It felt like she was lifting a stack of books in one hand as she raised her wand, casting another banishing spell. She and Justin ran through a group of four people, and then she spotted Padma and Malfoy at a corner to another tunnel. Padma blasted a banishing spell towards them, and they surged through the rest of the vision before the four of them sprinted down the tunnel. The last of the horde followed after them, but the stampeding of feet turned into hammering, pounding, and then a murmur.

*

Pain. Searing, grinding pain that overwhelmed her from the foot to the knee. Hermione awoke on a scream, her body dragging across stone, and she heard more join hers from behind. She snatched her wand as her leg was shaken violently, the pain tearing now, and cast a blocking spell blindly to the area near her feet. She scrambled back, but only made it an inch before teeth stabbed into the top of her foot through her shoe.

Something heavy and warm leaped on top of her chest, and Hermione screamed the banishing spell in the wolf's face as it lunged at her neck. She rolled as the wolf went through her, but was yanked back by the jaws around her foot. Hermione sucked in a breath, and it stayed in her throat as everything erupted into a golden purple light.

Silence, and then puh-pampampampam of her heart, and a rush of yelling. Hermione dug her elbows into the ground, dragging herself back as tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. Her ankle was a mess of torn skin, blood, and exposed tissue, and it felt like her leg was falling off by way of eating itself.

"Padma! Padma! Padma!"

"She cast the spell, it knocks them out," Malfoy wheezed out.

Hermione was shaking as she tore through her bag, pulling out the bottle of Dittany. She had to squeeze it in her grip just to stop herself from shaking the liquid out. She bent forward, pulling the dropper, and clenched her jaw as she squeezed four drops onto her ankle. The liquid sizzled, but for the first time, she only felt the pain lessen as the holes mended.

She turned, and her elbow brushed Malfoy's head. She forgot about being careful of anything when she saw the thick chunks of flesh and tissue missing from his side, beneath the ribs. Her ankle was throbbing, but she could still find enough strength in it to scramble over Malfoy. There were bite marks on his arm, but they were punctures, and he must have got the wolf off him before it could tear.

"Lie back," she barked.

"Can't, pain."

Hermione thought it was going to hurt no matter how he was positioned. "Then roll over some, Malfoy, I need to see the side fully," she told him, yanking his shirt up. "Justin-"

"I've got us covered. Padma's Dittany is now gone, though."

Malfoy's knuckles turned bright white, matching the sickly pallor of his face, as she watched the chunks from his skin begin to fill in. She squeezed another drop of liquid into one of the tears, and scowled at the wounds.

"That's go-" Malfoy broke off on a yell. "Fucking shit, Granger, tell me when you're going to do that!"

"Knowing doesn't make it hurt any less!" The tears were still deep, but they were manageable if he kept them wrapped. "I'm sorry," she told him, and reached to wipe the sweat from his temple before she could stop. "I'm doing your arm now."

"My arm is fine-"

"No."

"Should I use the Invigoration Draught on Padma? I think we should get out of here."

"How many bottles-" Malfoy grunted as the Dittany sunk into his wounds.

"Three."

"Put a little in her mouth and see if she swallows it," Hermione said.

"Granger, you can't run with that, put another few drops on it."

"We have another few drops left."

Malfoy snatched the bottle from her, held it up in the candlelight, and then shifted his eyes to glare at her. "There's enough for-"

"There you go, Padma, welcome back. Hi, hey. Is your arm all right, or do I need to put more on there? It's just-"

"Give her a moment, Jus-" Hermione sucked air in through her teeth, yanking her leg back, and looked up in accusation. Malfoy arched an eyebrow as he screwed the top back on to the Dittany, and put it in his own bag.

"Give that back to me!"

"What happened?" Padma asked, pushing herself up. "Are they gone?"

"Yeah. All three dozen of them."

Hermione stopped trying to wrestle Malfoy's bag away from him. "Three dozen?"

"Did I take a blow to the head, or are you on Malfoy's lap right now?" Padma lowered her chin and blinked several times.

She wasn't on his lap. She was hovering over it in a strategical recon mission. "There were three dozen?" Hermione asked again, pulling a book from her bag.

"At least."

Hermione ripped out several pages from the book, transfiguring them into gauze. She pushed herself off Malfoy's lap as she handed him a few pieces, and then held out more to Justin. He could keep the Dittany for now, but if he even thought about misusing it, she'd Accio it quicker than he could open it.

They all wrapped their injuries in silence beyond the occasional charm, and Malfoy's jar of salve made its way around the group. No one said what Hermione was thinking, but she doubted she was the only one. The air felt charged – it wasn't like it had been after the first time she'd used the combination spell. This was heavier, like every breath she took left something behind in her chest, making it tighter.

They gathered their things, lit their wands, and started walking wordlessly. Hermione limped for a few steps, but the routine motion evened out, and her pace turned easy. She didn't think a longer, waking silence had persisted between all four of them since they got here. The feeling in the air was growing with each turn they made and end they reached, and the three minutes of walking felt like an hour.

Then there it was.

"Stairs," Justin said. "There hasn't been stairs before. I knew it. I knew it, I felt it."

"I felt it, too," Padma said, "but I wasn't sure if it was from the other spell or the Invigoration Draught."

"We have to get ready," Hermione said, feeling anything but ready at that moment, despite all the preparation for this very one. "Runes? Spell? Everyone set, memorized, been rehearsing through all this?"

"We're not going to have time to get the blood together when we're down there – if the device is indeed down there-"

"There's stairs," Justin said. "And there had been wolves."

"It-" Malfoy leaned back when Hermione thrust the knife at him, and took it from her gingerly.

She dumped out a jar of water and cast a Drying Charm on it. "The runes are going to be pretty big – we're going to need a good amount of blood from everyone. About here."

"Christ," Justin said. "No one happened to bring Blood Replenishing Potion?"

"Remember the lines." Padma pulled a book from her bag and then shoved it back in. "The symbol for the device has to be around the device, and also done in blood."

Malfoy was staring holes into the palm of her hand, and she wondered if it was because she hadn't bothered cleaning his blood off the blade before slicing her hand open. There was a tremble in her chest from fear, panic, and excitement, and it only magnified when she downed half a vial of Invigoration Draught. Justin was visibly shaking, and Malfoy looked like someone had cast a Freezing Charm on him.

Justin and Malfoy kept their wands lit, lowering two beams of light down the beaten stairs. A dozen steps, and Hermione's heart picked up a little more speed on each one. She knew the feeling of walking into a place she was unsure if she would come out of, but it never stopped it from freezing out her insides.

There were five people dressed in white against the far wall at the bottom of the stairs. Hermione and Padma cast a banishing spell as soon as they saw them, and the four of them broke left, darting down a curved tunnel. Lights skidded across cracks in the walls and floor, and Hermionejust missed tripping over a pile of debris when that unearthly scream rang out. She heard the flurry of wings a second later, and knew the hurricane of flying creatures was on its way.

She thought they were running over a floor of rocks, hard shapes digging into the bottom of their shoes as they crka, crka, but a flash of light over the floor proved it to be thousands of bugs. They were crawling over one another and back towards the entrance, making the floor look like a moving river, and Hermione felt it in the grip of her feet. Before her foot touched down in the next step, the foot on the ground had been pulled back. It was as if she was running on a flat escalator in the wrong direction, and her foot was close to slipping out from under her every time she moved forward.

Padma cast a banishing spell behind her, and then the winged creatures hit them like razor cuts all over their exposed skin. A few of them tangled in Hermione's hair, pulling out strands and pieces, and cutting into her scalp. The tunnel was plunged into darkness as the swarm grew thick enough to block wandlight, and Hermione yelled the banishing spell, hearing the others do the same somewhere in the pulsing beat of wings.

The floor turned solid again, and the creatures pushed back until they couldn't be heard. There was something wet and warm streaming down the side of Hermione's face, and the skin on her face, neck, and arms was stinging. She knew better than to be relieved, though, and when three animals jumped out of the wall in front of them, she was far less surprised than Padma.

Hermione saw one of the animals leap, and then Justin screamed as his wandlight shot across the tunnel. Hermione raised her own as they were plummeted into darkness again, and then something collided into her back with enough force to send her flying through the air before she hit the ground. Deep, stabbing pain erupted along her shoulders, and Hermione gasped, throwing a banishing spell behind her. She rolled out from under the animal and to her feet, yelling the spell again, and then again in the direction of a screaming Padma.

Hermione could hear a pounding sound coming from down the tunnel and towards them, like dozens of feet or paws slamming into the stone. Light finally came, and Padma cast a spell at the animal charging at Hermione before Hermione even saw it. Hermione pushed forward into a run, shooting a spell with Malfoy at the creature biting into Justin's arm, and the four of them finally broke past the barricade.

Barely.

Justin and Malfoy's lights were moving all over the place as Malfoy dropped Dittany onto the shredded wound of Justin's arm. Padma was breathing heavily next to her, and her cheeks were wet.

"Are you all right?" Hermione gasped out.

Padma nodded, glancing back at the animals that were losing ground, or maybe at the pounding noise that was growing louder. "You?"

"Yeah. Malfoy?"

"What?"

There was only a second of hesitation, a rock back of shoulders and a lifting of chins, at the giant wall of fire around the bend in the tunnel. The fire was blazing hot on them even from a distance, but they had no time to guess or discuss. Hermione only heard the shuddering of inhales before they all cast a banishing spell and jumped through the flames.

For a second, it felt like standing in a windless, silent, even temperature room. Then the heat flared so hotly she thought they hadn't made it through before the power of their spells ended. Only the back of Padma's robe was set ablaze, and Hermione helped her rip it off, throwing it against the wall. The small fire died in a second, and then a snake lunged from the fabric and sunk its teeth into Malfoy's leg.

Malfoy yelled, reaching to pull it off of him on instinct, and Justin cast a blocking spell. Hermione got out the first sound of the banishing spell, but the snake disappeared.

"Were the fangs big?" she asked. "Do you need Dittany?"

"No. The Dittany is gone."

Heaviness settled around them, and it only felt harder to breathe in it when they could hear the approaching storm of whatever the Dark magic had sent after them.

"I'd rather run around the curve, but I think we're turning here," Padma said.

Hermione glanced at Padma and then turned, looking at the wide tunnel to her right. The water was murky and still, and across from it, she saw nothing but a wall. "There's no exit."

"Unless it's like…wall at Hogwarts," Justin said through his panting.

"It goes toward the center. I think that's it."

Hermione nodded. "We'll blow the wall down if it-"

There was a roar somewhere past the wall of fire, and it was followed by another, another, a dozen more, until it felt like the air was shaking with it. They all turned and ran, the ankle-deep water splashing up to her cheeks with the force of their footfalls. It was freezing cold; the sort of water one would expect under the ice in the middle of winter, and it shocked her system.

Justin made a loud, long hesitant sound that turned into a yell, and she heard Malfoy curse viciously as wandlight fell on an Inferius rising from the water. Hermione raised her wand, and felt an ice cold, bony hand wrap around her arm. She gasped, pushing her wand towards where she thought the source of it was in the darkness. Her forearm was shoved up to point her wand at the ceiling, and another hand grabbed the top of her arm, yanking her forward. Hermione shoved back, but the grip was unrelenting. She kicked out her leg, and felt it meet something as unmoving as a wall.

Her forearm pressed into wet, grainy skin that gave, folding like soft rubber to the side of her arm. She smelt the putrid rot of dead flesh, and could taste it along her tongue. The Inferius dug its long, pointed nails into her chest, above her heart, and Hermione snatched the wand from her captured hand. She yelled the banishing spell and fled, wondering wildly if the nails had cut into something vital in her heart when it danced erratically under the wound.

The water was up to her knees, then her hips, her ribs, her breasts as she alternated lighting spells and runic magic. The Inferi kept rising out of the water in brown and grey shapes, sloshing towards them from all sides, and were completely unhindered by the rising water. Hermione couldn't get enough speed, and her legs were cramped with the effort.

A hand slapped into her throat from behind, and she was flung backwards, slamming into and under the water. Two lights crossed over one another above the surface of the water, and then all was dark. Hermione pulled her wand towards her head, and something grabbed and twisted it. The hand around her throat clenched, nails digging into the side of her neck.

Hermione's heart pounded, adrenaline racing through her and making her tingle with numbness, and fear filled her more coldly than the water around her. She reached with her left hand, trying to twist herself, and another hand grabbed it, wrenching it down. Her broken wrist popped, and Hermione screamed under the water, releasing the last of her oxygen.

Something slivered against her hip, then the side of her face, and Hermione had to force herself not to suck in a breath that would have been all water. There was a deep pressure in her chest, and her throat kept clicking, but her mind knew better than to breathe. She bucked against the hands holding her down as slick skin dragged over her wrists and ankles, and then curled around her like snakes. It tightened until the point of pain, and then the hands flew off of her.

There was a light above the water surface, and then something pulled on her leg, her shirt, and then yanked on her arm. Her chest and throat were burning with the lack of oxygen, and the light above her was dimming. Hands grabbed her upper arms, and then something golden shot down towards her before she flew up, up, crashing out of the depths of the water.

Hermione sucked in a tight breath that growled and whimpered in her throat, and that she didn't feel at all. Justin stared at her, soaking wet, with wide eyes that showed every bit of panic and fear she felt. Padma was behind him, nearly lost in the outskirts of light as she yelled for them to hurry.

Hermione pulled in another breath, gasped, another, another, and her next exhale came out in a broken, sobbing sound. The arm that had moved around her waist yanked her again, her back pressed to something solid and shaking, and she heard Malfoy growl something she couldn't hear over her breathing.

The bone-threatening grip around her ankles was immediately gone, and she slanted backwards under the sudden release. She was desperately trying to not lose her mind with the pain in her wrist and the ball of emotions in her gut, but the broken noises continued as Malfoy spun her to face him. She slipped against his chest, the water up to his chin, and her feet weren't on the ground.

His eyes were just as wide as hers, and she found something there that stabilized her tottering on the brink – the way he looked at her like if she lost it, this was all going to fail. And she wouldn't lose it now. Not yet.

He cast the Bubble-Head Charm on her without a word, and just turned her in his arms and plummeted her back into the water. She lit her wand, and saw Justin's legs kicking forward through the murk. Her teeth grounded together, the ball of panic still alive and explosive in her chest, and spread her arms out into the water. Her wrist felt like it was in flames, and she imagined there might have been tears had she not been submerged, but she shoved herself forward anyway.

The runic magic cut like bullets through the water, tunneling in flashes of light. The Nefari and snakes infested the water all around them, and no matter how much magic they threw at the corpses, they kept coming. Hermione felt like she sunk a little more each time she cast, but the adrenaline was making her whole body throb.

Justin's feet disappeared in front of her, and she only had a second to realize there was a wall there before she went through it. The stroke of her arms pushed her hands against dry stone, and then she was sailing out into the air. Whiteness blinded her, and she hit the ground with a thunk, a pressured squeak of air knocking out of her.

"Roll!" Padma yelled, and Hermione did, a cry caught in her throat when she twisted her wrist to tuck her arm against herself.

She heard Malfoy land where she had been, and he sucked in a breath before releasing it with a stream of curses. Hermione dragged her waterlogged body to its feet, staggering back as she squeezed her eyes a little tighter. She rolled them, trying to ease the burn from the light, and then opened them into slits. Her back bumped into something hard, and she jerked forward, clenching her wand. It bumped into her again, pushing slowly, and Hermione shot a hand out to feel the wall.

The walls were moving.

"Run, run, run!" she yelled, her voice croaking, and no one bothered to ask why.

She expected anything at any moment – a hand, claws, fangs ripping into her throat. She had managed to lift her eyelids halfway now, but there was nothing but light that was more blinding than the darkness. She heard Malfoy curse from behind her, and knew that he had gone over enough to feel the closing walls.

She glanced over at him on instinct, and almost recoiled. All she could see was the faint pink of his lips and cheeks, and the black irises turned grey in the light. He turned sideways, and she felt the walls touch her shoulders two furious beats of her heart later.

A ridge caught the toes of her shoes, and she fell forward as a loud grinding noise started somewhere ahead. Malfoy fell on top of her, knocking her flat against the ground, and then pressure rolled across them as Malfoy grunted in her ear. Padma screamed in surprise when she fell over them, and Malfoy pulled up. Hermione scrambled to her feet, sure the walls were going to close in, but there was a wide space around them.

"Keep running!" Justin yelled. "Malfoy's door, Malfoy's door!"

Hermione's mind went blank on processing what he meant as she sprinted forward, but then the grinding sound registered. Rock was sliding against rock, and either the tunnel was falling in on them, or one of the ends was shutting. Piles of debris and crumbled stone littered the passageway, catching all their feet, but she couldn't hear any smashing sounds.

Hermione banged her forehead off stone, and she gasped for air, feeling along the wall for the exit. She found someone's fingers pushing out, Padma's by the length, and she grabbed her wrist. Padma edged slowly to the side before jerking her, making a sound of triumph as they rushed through the narrowing gap.

The light was gone, and Hermione's eyesight burned red in the dark as she turned. Justin was trying to shove through the gap as it continued narrowing, the stone unmoving even in the face of his banishing spell. Hermione made a strangled sound as she grabbed him, and Malfoy reached over her shoulder to grab the arm Justin was holding above his head. They dug their feet in and threw themselves back, and everything but his leg scraped out as they all hit the floor.

"Turn your foot!" Malfoy barked.

"I ca-" Justin screamed as something cracked loudly, and Malfoy hauled him back just a second later, pulling him out the rest of the way.

Justin sucked in a breath and screamed again, tendons on his neck rising. He shoved himself over, reaching for his leg as he pulled in another breath, but turned instead, vomiting onto the floor. Malfoy leaned back, as if it could somehow bounce off the floor, over Justin, and land on him.

"Oh, my God," Justin breathed. "I'm dying."

Hermione shook her head quickly, afraid to look at his leg. "No, but you broke your leg pretty severely from the sound of it." She reached out to run a hand over his wet curls, unsure who was trembling or if they both were. "Just breathe. Your body's defenses will kick in in a moment."

"We have a problem." Padma was digging in her bag for something, and Hermione lit her wand to look at where they were. "It's empty. There's a tunnel right there, but…"

"No." Hermione looked at the square entrance to the rounded room. "This has to be it. It's a room."

Padma knocked into her elbow, and Hermione looked at the vial before taking it. She could feel the draught's path to her stomach, and then the tingling shoot out into her limbs.

"But the room is empty."

"Get me up, please."

Hermione took a step forward, but it was Malfoy who lowered his hand to Justin and pulled him to his feet. Foot. Justin's cheeks were bright pink, and he looked dazed as he took the draught from Padma.

"There's runes," Malfoy murmured. "Center of the room."

Hermione turned her head to look, but before she spotted them, the image shimmered and three wandlights illuminated a room of beasts. Hermione took three steps back without a thought on holding her ground, her back hitting the wall that had shut. She recognized several of them from the castle and the tunnels, but there were larger ones now, their fangs as long as her hand.

In front of the entrance were five grey, striped animals, their backs as high as her hips, and two fangs hanging over their jaws on either side. The animals hunched, curved claws scraping against stone, and Padma breathed a word that caused all of them to raise their wands as one.

The sound of the combination spell was lost under the roar of a giant, brown beast at the center of the room, but the golden purple light exploded in the faces of the beasts as they all charged forward. The pulsing force of the spell pressed Hermione to the wall like the wind of a hurricane, and it felt like it took all her magical strength to create itself.

Sound and light vacuumed from the space, and four pairs of legs gave out before they all thudded to the ground. The feeling inside of her was dull but heavy, making her think of rocks in a bag of skin. Her thoughts were blurred into thinly constructed words, and fear took a few seconds to tear through the exhaustion. She opened her eyes, and watched a single beam of wandlight sweep the empty room.

"We have to go now," Justin said, his voice dragging and cracking. "It's going to come back."

Hermione struggled to her feet with one arm, and grabbed Padma's elbow when the girl sunk back down again. "Do we have any Invi-"

"One vial," Padma breathed, pressing it into Hermione's hand.

Hermione took two sips and passed it back, then shifted her bag to the front of her. The draught started working as her hands sped up to the pace they should have been at, but her whole body still felt heavy. They wouldn't survive another combination spell, and there was no going back now. It wasn't even a matter of principle or timeliness – they couldn't make it.

Hermione pulled the knife and jar of blood out of her bag, moving forward, and jumped when glass shattered. She looked back, and watched Malfoy pick up shells of brown. He handed it to Justin, who looked at in bewilderment.

"We can't cast the spell with the runes on our fingers."

Hermione let out a hard breath, walking back to Malfoy. She had forgotten about the runes, and if Malfoy hadn't remembered, it would have been the end to everything. She only felt mildly better when she told herself she would have remembered when she was making the cuts.

Malfoy held out a piece of glass, and Hermione slid her fingertips against it, the vestiges of Dittany stinging the tiny cuts. She inspected her fingertips to be sure it was all gone, and then slid her arm around Justin, urging him forward.

"Do you have to hold the knife on my back like that? Not that I don't trust you, but it's a knife. And it's on my back."

"Relax, Justin, just…"

"Hurry up," Malfoy said, finishing the sentence she hadn't wanted to.

"If you hadn't broken my leg-"

"The wall broke your fucking leg-"

The device was in the center of the room, shaking silently. It was a fairly large, green, metal box with some sort of wheel rising from the top of it, and looked roughly like one of the pictures had shown. There were runes around it, and large cracks that ran through them. Hermione cast the strongest repairing spells she knew.

"Just everyone shut up and hurry up!" Padma yelled.

Hermione looked at the runes around the device before Padma cleared them away, and then made sure all the cracks were completely sealed. Hermione held out the jar of their blood, the top frothy from being shaken, and they all dipped their wands in it.

She moved as quickly as she could while making sure she didn't mess up any of the runes, and was slightly less nervous about Justin when she heard Malfoy snapping to draw the line straight. She didn't often like to expose her friends to the sharper edges of Malfoy's personality, but this was one of those rare times where she was glad he was doing it so she didn't have to.

She could hear things moving inside of the device, and the Dark magic gathering strength to push against the remnants of protective magic they had unleashed. Hermione finished her last rune, checking to see that everyone else was on their last, and then threw the jar of blood out of the circle they had formed.

Malfoy and Padma were drawing runes at the end of the long line that ran across the floor and through the center of the device. There were four shorter, grooved lines that ran diagonal from the device, and Hermione took her spot at the end of one. She slashed the knife across the palm of her right hand, above the cut she had made earlier, and then across her fingertips with a grimace. She held the knife out to Padma, her hand shaking.

Hermione bent, squeezing her hand into a fist, and watched the blood flow from the bottom and into the line. The blood began to trickle, and she stretched her hand out, then shut it again. It moved far too slowly down the line and towards the device, but as long as it reached it before they finished the spell, they would be fine. She just desperately hoped they had all done it right.

"Mine's touching, are we-" Justin started to say, but was cut off by a roar of fury from somewhere in the room.

The sound bounced off the walls, followed by a weaker roar, and then one that was even stronger than the first. Hermione's heart pounded as the adrenaline picked up where the two sips of Invigoration Draught couldn't. Malfoy threw the knife behind him, and then the tips of their four wands met directly above the center of the device.

"Onetwothree," Padma yelled.

The spell rose and fell in lower consonants and higher vowels, their voices moving at the same speed. Hermione did her best to clear her head of impending doom and focus on channeling her magic down her arm and through her wand, her bloodied fingers slipping along the smooth wood. She felt the spell take her magic, in a bubbling, static heat that swelled from her chest and pulled slowly down her arm.

A golden ball was growing around their hands, flashes of white and curls of red moving within it. Hermione was frozen into place, her eyes caught in the storm of magic within that expanding ball of light. All the energy she possessed seemed to be draining out of her, leaving her statuesque and devoid of life.

The ball reached to her elbow, the red curls now flashing like lightning within the gold, and her tongue was leaden as she pushed out the end of the spell. She was going to collapse to the ground in a sack of skin and shrunken bones, but then the ball erupted. Her head snapped backwards, and she was the light, and the magic, and the air, and the blood. It felt like a terrible freedom – it felt like death.

*

Hermione's body was ice: cold, stiff, and cracked. Or perhaps she was dead, and it was just the way the dead felt when they woke up to find themselves in such a state.

She blinked open her eyes, and her breath whooshed, blowing up dust on the ground. Her arm was there, caked in blood, yet golden from the firelight. She curved her fingers, feeling the stiffness and tinge of pain.

She groaned as she pushed herself up to a sitting position, and had to fight her body and herself to not collapse back down again. It was like someone had replaced her skeleton with metal, and she was just waking up to the surprise. Her whole body ached, and where it didn't ache, it burned.

She stared at the wall, blinking twice, and there was nothing in her hand when she went to grip her wand. She stumbled and staggered to her feet, her head swooping with dizziness.

"They've been there for awhile," Justin said. "I didn't see torches before the spell, but…I don't think it's a vision. Nothing else has come, but I don't know what lit them."

Her wand was against the wall of the room, which wasn't, as it turned out, very far from where she woke up. She picked her wand up, and then turned to the device. It was still thrumming, but the runes around it were glowing gold. Judging by the dried blood on her, they had been asleep for awhile, but the blood in the grooved lines around the device was still wet.

"It knocked us all out of the circle." Justin nodded his chin to Padma and Malfoy, both of them sprawled out on the ground. "They're breathing. I mean, they look okay. Do you think it's over?"

Hermione swayed on her feet, and then moved to Malfoy, narrowing her eyes at him. He liked to pretend to sleep too much for her to ever trust he wasn't awake. "I know we're alive. I know we wouldn't be if the spell didn't work. We'll know for sure by the time we reach the end of the tunnels."

"At least we have the arrows to guide us back. Should only take a few days. If I don't die before then."

Hermione gave him a look. "You're not going to die. I want to wait until we're out of the room, and then we'll try to heal ourselves up. I can transfigure you a walking stick."

Justin leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes as he grinned. "I'd like it to be silver, with a badger on the handle. We'll call it Hufflepuff Stick, and whenever Malfoy gets out of line…"

"That's the least inventive name you could have possibly came up with, Finch-Fletchley."

Hermione glared at Malfoy, but he kept his eyes shut as she made her way to Padma.

"I could have named it Stick. And what do you care? The most you'll see of it is when it's hitting you about the head and shoulders."

"And when I kick it out from under you."

*

Hermione wobbled under Padma's Levitation Spell, and Justin and Malfoy both reached out a hand. The two of them looked at one another as Hermione reached for both, but Justin dropped his hand away.

"Your arm is bleeding again." Hermione frowned at the gauze over Malfoy's arm as her feet settled onto the ground.

He pulled back, but she was quicker, lifting the square. The skin around it was still red and swollen, and while they had kept it clean, she still couldn't tell if it was infected at all.

"We'll be in the infirmary in a matter of minutes," he told her.

She looked up, and found him close enough that her nose brushed his chin. She paused, staring up at him, and couldn't read his expression as he stared back.

"If it's not the middle of the night," Justin said. "Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for you bringing some of your clothes – and happier still that you didn't use them, like—"

"But if it's the middle of the night, we're going to be trapped in your bedroom," Hermione said, and Malfoy's eyebrow might have twitched at the statement.

"If it even works!" Padma yelled. "Now can someone levitate me up, or do I have to stand here all day?"

"Oh, here-"

"No, uh… Hermione?"

Justin gave an amused look to the hole before turning for the wall, and Hermione pointed her wand at Padma, levitating her up. Justin and Malfoy cleared the wall of runes, and Padma helped them repair the cracks and chunks as Hermione pulled out the jar of blood. They drew the runes on the wall, and then wiped off their wands before rolling the tips in the blood from the cut across their fingers. They all drew their own summoning rune, and then cast the spell they had done seven times before.

It didn't take as much for the runes on the walls, and Hermione didn't know if that was because it wasn't around the device, there was no unleashed Dark magic, or the runes were smaller. She did know that she was thankful it didn't take everything from them each time. It had taken them at least two days just to do the runes on the walls, and she hated to think what it would have been like if they were knocked out after each one.

"Now? I haven't even caught my breath, you're going to make me sick."

"You're probably going to get sick anyway, Justin," Padma said. "Unless you're really mindful of not putting that leg down when you land, it's going to be extremely painful."

"Well, now I'm minding."

"Let's just hope it works," Hermione said, tapping her wand against the wall. "Or we're going to knock this wall down."

"Not the trousers," Justin announced. "Which, I'll have you know, you owe me a pair."

Malfoy raised an eyebrow, then tossed the trousers at Justin, pulling out an oxford next. Hermione knew to grab it when his eyes widened, and Padma and Justin were quick to follow. She shut her eyes at the pull behind her naval, her stomach fluttering with nerves.

Justin pitched forward when they landed, and Hermione darted out to push him upright. Malfoy murmured a spell, and the torches around the room lit, revealing…

"It almost looks exactly like the tunnels," Justin said.

"Sod off."

"Except there's a bed." Padma said it like the person of her fantasies was on top of it, and Malfoy's eyebrows drew together as he gave her a look between being disturbed or cautious.

"Any food in here? It's been two days, and-"

All of them jumped, and automatically pointed their wands at the entrance when it began grinding open. Three Aurors appeared on the other side, and Hermione lowered her wand when she caught sight of glinting glasses and static hair.

"You think they're real people?" Justin whispered.

"There goes our claim to sanity," Malfoy muttered, tapping his wand against the side of his leg.

There was a moment where Hermione felt like a child about to be scolded, but then she lifted her chin. Harry raised his eyebrows in response, but it was all lost when he hugged her to him. "Are you angry?"

"We'll talk later," he told her. "Are you all right?"

"Better now."

"It-"

"You're not taking Malfoy," Justin said. "We forced him to break his curfew. We actually, literally, forced him. With-"

"Justin," Hermione said, shaking her head at him.

"All I'm saying is that you're not taking Malfoy without taking the rest of us, because-"

"We don't want Malfoy," Harry said, his eyes skimming over the blond. "Yet. The Ministry has to interview all of-"

"The Ministry can wait until my students have been to the infirmary and have their rest, Mister Potter." McGonagall pushed past the line of Aurors, and her hand fell onto Hermione's shoulder. She was both relieved and disappointed, and Hermione and Harry exchanged a look at the sight of it.

McGonagall ushered them out of the room, and Hermione turned to make sure they were all behind her. Padma was giving one of the Aurors a suspicious look, and Justin had decided to start telling Harry everything now. Malfoy was stone-faced, and she had a feeling that the next two days were going to feel longer than the entire trip back through the tunnels.

*

Hermione smiled to herself as she saw the blue and green feather of a quill sticking out from under a tapestry. She glanced behind her, but the group of students were far down the corridor. She pushed the tapestry aside, and a hand snapped out to grab her own, yanking her into the dark.

He smothered her sound of surprise with his mouth, an arm wrapping around her waist and pulling her against him. Hermione tried to speak, but he only took it as an opportunity to flick his tongue into her mouth, and she was lost.

She pushed an arm around his neck, and the other curved beneath his arm, her hand wrapping around the back of it. Malfoy pushed her against the wall, and she let out a shuddering breath when she felt the reason for his rush.

"Not here."

"Yes, here."

"We leave Hogwarts tomorrow," she said. "I'm not getting expelled the—mm, day, mm..."

His fingers worked on the knot of her tie as his other hand pulled her shirt from her skirt. "I'm not waiting until tomorrow."

"We- My flat- Oh."

"Your beast ripped my robes to shreds last weekend-"

"He just has to get used-" Hermione gasped out a breath.

"After dinner, then. My bedroom."

"Okay," she said, gripping his nape to pull his mouth back to hers.

She kissed him for a moment and then pulled back, but he grabbed her jaw and pressed fully against her before she could move. "It doesn't mean I'm done, Granger. You're not leaving until you're trembling, or I'll have to wait until you've finishing coddling every wide-eyed first-"

"Trembling? Unless you suddenly turn into-" Hermione moaned, tugging hard on his oxford, and pulling the hem from his trousers. "Prat," she breathed. "I'm bringing Crookshanks with me now."

"You can try," he muttered against her neck. "You need a better familiar. Something hairless."

"Crookshanks is the best familiar there is. There's nothing better."

"So you've found your perfect pet? He takes up that one little spot of the things you're no longer looking for, and there's no hope for me to push him out a window?"

"There will be no pushing, or-" Hermione panted for breath. "Or, uh...I'll do very bad, painful things to your person. Crooks is all I need for a pet." She swallowed as his lips traveled across her cheek. "And I've stopped looking for other things as well."

He paused, his hands stilling in her hair and the clench of his fingers on her hip. He raised his head, and they shared a breath, chests rising and falling together.

"For now," she said.

His lips curved against her mouth, and her own curled back.

Everyone in the world was looking for something. It was just a matter of realizing that they were all finders, and sometimes, it found you.

fin.