Disclaimer: Malfoy's ferrety self does not belong to me. :P

Chapter Fifteen

It took every fiber of Hermione's willpower to keep her feet planted on the floor as she watched Blaise disappear around the corner, knowing that it would be an undeniably massive mistake to chase after him. She was satiated momentarily by the fact that he was, miraculously enough, alive, but she was afraid that he might disappear again. For now, she knew that all she could do was be patient and wait for an opportunity to present itself where she could pull him aside and have him fill her in on what happened after she Disapparated.

But right at that moment, there was a new obstacle in Hermione's way: What was Malfoy up to? And more importantly, what did it have to do with the Room of Requirement?

She turned abruptly to Cedric, crossing her arms and furrowing her eyebrows. "What do you know?"

He sighed. "Not much," he said, shrugging. "Just that Malfoy's been hanging around the Room for the past couple of months."

Hermione was utterly perplexed, and admittedly a little hurt. Had Cedric really known all this time without telling her?

"I don't know a lot about it, Hermione, I promise you." Cedric said softly before she could interrogate him further. Her eyes flickered downward negately. "You know I wouldn't lie to you, don't you?"

Hermione suddenly realized how childish she was being. She trusted him, and if Cedric said he didn't know anything else, then that was that. "Is there anything else?" She asked, looking up.

Cedric ran a hand through his hair. "Like I said, I don't know a lot about it. When he would come in, I would suddenly find myself outside of the Room." He took in Hermione's confused face. "Wait, it gets weirder. Once I was outside, I couldn't get back in until after he left."

"That's odd," Hermione murmured, thinking about how only moments ago the Room was rejecting her when the Slytherins were still inside doing Merlin-knows-what.

She shook her head to clear her thoughts of the new information she had just been relayed and summoned the door, hoping the Room would let them inside. It appeared without a second's hesitation.

They went inside and found their comfortable arrangement set up, and Hermione immediately curled up in her favorite armchair. And as hard as she might've tried to keep herself from doing so, she couldn't help but think about everything as she stared silently into the flames. And while Hermione found it all a little strange and mysterious, she had a creeping suspicion that whatever Malfoy was doing in there was something very dark and pernicious.

"Cedric," Hermione said after a while.

"Yes?" She could feel his eyes on her, and she turned to him.

"What's the first thing you want to do when you come back?"

He smiled. "Truthfully?" She nodded. His eyes shone. "Take you to Hogsmeade and show you what a real good time is."

Hermione laughed quietly. "And why is that?"

"You sure ask a lot of questions." Cedric replied with a chuckle.

She shrugged, smiling. "Only to get the answers I want."

He gave her a thoughtful look, his eyes twinkling. "You..." He shook his head, a small smile returning to his face. "You're something else, Hernione Granger."

She opened her mouth for further inquiry when the Door slammed open. Both of their heads turned toward it in surprise as Scott stumbled in. His eyes were wide, his hair crazy, and he was out of breath (which suggested that he had run all the way there from either the library or the Hufflepuff common room). But as soon as he locked eyes with Hermione, she could see the excitement burning in them.

In his left hand, he was clutching The Extreme Uses of Dark Magic as if it was the only thing that held him to the ground.

She held her breath as he uttered the three words that would change everything.

"I found it."

Her heart spluttered and skipped a beat. "You found what, exactly?" Her voice was suddenly hoarse, her mouth parched.

He closed the Door behind himself and took a shaky breath before his face broke out into an ear-to-ear grin. "The cure. I've found the cure."

"Let me see it." Hermione held out her hand urgently, acutely aware of Cedric's intense gaze focused on her.

Scott walked over unsteadily, still trying to catch his breath, and fumbled with the book before handing it to her. Hermione opened it and a slip of crisp parchment fluttered out. She instantly recognized Scott's untidy scrawl when she unfolded it.

Surge, amica mea.

She instantly recognized it to be Latin. Funny, everything seemed like it was in Latin when it came to spells.

Arise, my love, it translated.

"What does it say?" Hermione turned to look at Cedric, who had spoken up for the first time since Scott barged in.

Hermione folded it back up. "I don't know." She lied, gingerly sliding it into her front robe pocket.

Scott plopped down on the couch and held out his hand toward Hermione, her tell-tale signal to let him see Cedric. Hermione reached out and touched the back of his hand lightly with her index finger, and Scott smiled at his friend. "You'll be back before you know it, mate."

Cedric smiled her favorite crooked smile and locked eyes with Hermione. "Can't wait."

Her heart fluttered and she beamed at him.

"Neither can I." She murmured.

Hermione cracked open the book, sifting through the pages to find the corner that Scott had dog-eared. After what felt like nearly two geological ages had passed, she found it.

At the top of the page, written in faded black calligraphy, were the words Resurrectionem Alica.

"Resurrection Spell," Hermione whispered. Her eyes flitted across the words written across the brittle yellow-grey page, so old that the words, much like the cover, were almost illegible.

Only the purest of heart, with true intentions, can retrieve a soul from the afterlife with mutual consent. It involves powerful earth magic that, if done even slightly incorrectly, will kill the caster. Every move must be exact.

At exactly midnight on the night when the sky is dark and moonless, a circle of seven candles must be lit around a cauldron filled with the Elixir of Life, from which the soul shall arise, replanted into its mortal shell. Each candle represents a characteristic of life: joy, sorrow, anger, forgiveness, courage, strength of will, and love.

The directions for the Elixir of Life are as follows:

Five cups of Wormwood Essence.

Three Asphodel roots, beat to a fine powder with mortar and pestle.

Stir three times clockwise.

Bring to a slow boil and maintain it for five days. Keep in dark room to keep from contaminating unfinished solution.

After five days of steady boiling, add ten scruples of fluxweed.

Two cups of salamander blood.

Stir once counterclockwise.

Raise to a higher boil. Maintain for seven days.

After seven days of steady boiling, three drops of honeywater.

One powdered moonstone.

One drop of unicorn blood.

Stir once clockwise, then twice counterclockwise.

Slowly lower the temperature until the boil dissipates.

Now add exactly one drop of caster's blood.

Stir once clockwise.

Let the potion mature in the same continually dark place for two days.

After the two days are up, the potion is ready.

Hermione carefully copied down the potion instructions, and beneath that was the incantation that Scott had partially written down.

Surge, cor de mei cor.

Expergiscere, oculos de mei oculos.

HALO, os de mei os.

Surge, amica mea.

While Hermione's Latin was a little rusty, she could tell that the incantation was deeply intimate. She knew that cor meant heart, oculos meant eyes, and os meant mouth, but she was having difficulties piecing the rest together. It was something she would research later, she decided, after suddenly realizing how tired she was. She closed the book.

And had she been paying closer attention, she would have seen the remaining bit of text on the page.

Hermione and Scott started working on the potion almost immediately. It took a bit of sneaking around after hours to peruse through the Herbology greenhouses and stealing from Snape's ingredients closet (something she felt terribly about and had to constantly remind herself that she would replace) on her part, but eventually they located everything that was necessary to brew the Elixir of Life.

The next new moon, which Hermione puzzled out to be the "night when the sky is dark and moonless" that the book had been talking about, was scheduled for the end of the month, which gave her and Scott exactly three weeks' time to prepare for.

Truth be told, Hermione was beginning to feel anxious about the whole thing. Not the fact that Cedric would be coming back—it was literally emotionally impossible for her to be any more excited about that—but the fact that he was beginning to fade faster than ever. His legs and arms were beginning to disappear quickly. His shoulders had been gone within about three days' time.

He was so supportive and encouraging along the way that when she was with him, she could almost, almost forget about it. He would smile and laugh and help pull her through her worry.

They had also begun to grow closer than ever (if that was even possible). Their new favorite game was elaborate plan-making for things Cedric would do when he came back.

"I'll finish up my seventh year of Hogwarts with Scott and the rest of my best mates." He said.

Hermione nodded. "And you'll be the top of your class."

Cedric smirked handsomely. "Naturally."

They sat in contemplative silence, listening to the occasional pop and crackle of the fire as it slowly began shrinking into what would soon be smoldering ashes and charred shards of logs.

"I'll hug my mum and dad and tell them all about how helpful you've been," he said after a while, turning and looking at her with a warm glow in his eyes.

She looked at him, giggling. "I'll shake their hands and say, 'Why, it was no trouble at all! It's all in a day's work.'"

His grin returned. "And my mum would cry and hug you and reply, 'You're a savior, Hermione Granger. An angel sent from heaven.'"

Hermione smiled wistfully at the vivid memory they were painting. "Then I would say, 'Please don't cry, Mrs. Diggory. I was truly glad to help your son.'"

"Thank you, Hermione."

Gone was the amusement and the lightheartedness in his voice, replaced by seriousness and genuine gratefulness. Hermione's eyes softened as she looked into his, and she knew he meant it for much more than having just, in her own roundabout way, said that she was unutterably grateful for him.

She knew him so well now that she could read him like the back of her hand, and right at that moment she knew that he meant for everything. For having solved his riddles in the beginning. For staying with him when he was all alone. For being his friend. For helping to save him from his fate.

"You're welcome." She said, and she meant it. She wouldn't have wanted things any other way, despite the way her heart had skipped a beat when he had told her that.

"If it's all the same to you, I'd like to be the caster of the spell." Hermione said to Scott.

He furrowed his brows. "That's a dangerous job, Hermione," he said, his eyes shining with concern. "If mean, if you mess up..."

"Don't think about the negatives, Scott." Hermione said quickly. When she looked up and saw his somber expression, she gave him a reassuring smile. "And besides, I'm not called the Brightest Witch of Our Age for nothing, you know."

He chuckled. "I know." Scott raked a hand through his hair. "And you're the only one who could do it anyways, so I guess I don't really have a say in the matter, do I?"

Hermione overlooked the bit about her being the only one of them who was capable of bringing Ced back (she figured he meant that her title made her seem more qualified than him, which was completely absurd) and simply chose to beam at him.

All of a sudden, Scott's eyes grew as round as saucers and he dove behind a column. Hermione looked confusedly at him before glancing around the corridor to see what had gotten him all riled up. It was empty except for them and...

Hermione's eyes widened in surprise but she quickly composed her expression to hide her pleased smile.

"Hello, Hermione," a light, dreamy voice said.

Hermione smiled brightly at the blonde haired, blue eyes witch. "Good afternoon, Luna!"

Luna Lovegood had the latest edition of the Quibbler in her hands, upside-down, of course, and yet another pair of whimsical glasses settled on her nose. Small radish earrings dangled from her earlobes. "Here," Luna said calmly, handing Hermione a necklace made of a piece of white string with a few tiny heads of garlic tied onto it. "This should keep the Furnkel Wheedles from nesting in your ears while you sleep tonight. They quite detest garlic."

Hermione awkwardly took the necklace from her odd friend. "Er, thank you," she said, trying to refrain from breathing too deeply to inhale as little of the strong perfume the garlic was putting off as possible.

"You're welcome." She replied with a dreamy smile before resuming her reading and walking out of the corridor.

Hermione strode over to the column with a huge grin on her face. "You fancy Luna Lovegood, don't you?"

Scott stumbled out from his hiding place, looking a bit out of sorts. "What are you talking about? I just really liked that column."

Hermione simply smiled knowingly and tossed him the necklace. "I heard that it'll keep you from having Furnkel Wheedles nest in your ears."

She didn't miss the grateful look in his eyes before she made her way to Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Hermione stared at the mahogany wardrobe at the front of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom in horror. She hadn't seen the bloody thing since third year, and it still shook each time its contents slammed into the wooden walls inside with a loud thump.

Lupin, who was allowed to return as the DADA professor on the grounds that he switched places with his new wife, Tonks, on the week leading up to the full moon, paced in front of it with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Can anyone tell me what this is?" he asked. Hermione raised her hand slowly. "Miss Granger?" He called out.

She cringed slightly and lowered it again. "That's a boggart, professor." She felt her brows draw together nervously. "Its true form is unknown because it transforms itself into the looker's biggest fear."

She swallowed hard, hoping no one noticed the way she was trembling ever so slightly. She knew what that boggart would transform into if it was her turn, and the thought made the bottom drop out of her stomach.

After all, what was she supposed to say when it turned into Cedric's dead body?

"Correct!" Lupin smiled. "Five points to Gryffindor for Miss Granger's perfect explanation."

There was a dark chuckle from the back of the room. "Leave it to the mudblood to know all the answers to everything," someone murmured. A chorus of quiet laughter ensued after the remark.

Normally, after enduring stupid comments like that since her first year, Hermione would have just ignored it and moved on, but she foresaw it as her chance to get out of there. She spun around quickly and walked as fast as she could out of that classroom, putting on her best hurt expression.

Just as the door was about to close behind her, she heard professor Lupin angrily reprimanding the offender, who was apparently in Slytherin, revoking his house of fifteen House points. She stood outside the doors, her breathing heavy. Her heart was beating erratically in her chest, the adrenaline of storming out of a class combined with the thought of the catastrophic disaster that would have ensued had she faced the boggart still coursing through her.

So engrossed in her own thoughts was she that she had yet to notice the other person who had entered the corridor, nor the fact that they were headed straight toward her.

She was abruptly brought back to reality when she felt her arm being jerked into an adjoining dark, deserted corridor. Her back was pushed up against the wall, and a hand covered her mouth to smother her yelp of surprise.

"Bloody hell, Granger!" a familiar voice hissed into her ear, and she calmed her thrashing limbs.

"Blaise!" She breathed when he released her mouth, flinging her arms around his neck. She pulled back when she felt him flinch, and looked over her friend worriedly. "What happened to you?" She demanded. "I thought you died!"

She then noticed now that she was closer to him that he was in worse condition than she had originally thought, nearly every inch of his tanned skin marred by purple bruises. She gasped in horror when she saw that his shirt had unbuttoned slightly and shifted enough that she could see a glimpse of a sick yellowish color across his shoulder. Tears sprang to her eyes as she realized how much he had suffered on her behalf.

"Merlin, Blaise, I never meant for this to happen to you..." She whispered.

He shook his head vehemently and roughly buttoned his shirt back up to cover up the offending skin. "It's okay, Granger. I would gladly have gone through it all again if I had known the consequences back then."

"What happened to you?" She repeated her earlier question, blinking the tears away.

His lips set into a grim line. "After you Disapparated, Greyback tackled me with the intentions of killing me. Lucius talked him out of it, convincing him that I'd be of much more worth to the Dark Lord if I was delivered alive. When I was brought to him, he was furious that you managed to escape. Your magical signature couldn't be traced from the library since it burned to the ground, but they identified you through the Imperius you cast on that house elf to let you through."

Hermione raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Why does Vold—"

"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named," he corrected quickly, a panicked look on his face. At her questioning glance, he said, "His name's taboo now. Speaking it aloud will summon him or a couple of his nastiest followers."

"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named," she amended, "care so much about me, anyways?"

Blaise let out an exasperated sigh. "Why shouldn't he? You're best friends with Wonderboy for one, and then there's the fact that you managed to singlehandedly bypass all of the wards and security measures set up and sneak in under the noses of all of his Death Eaters as well as himself."

Hermione nodded understandingly—his explanation made logical sense. "What happened after they identified me?" For some unknown reason, she could feel the hairs on the back of her neck beginning to stand on end.

Blaise broke eye contact, his eyes fixating themselves on a point somewhere behind her. She could see pain shining deep in their dark chocolate depths. "The interrogation began. The Dark Lord asked me about my relations to you and what you were doing in the Manor, but when I refused to talk, he let Bellatrix have her way with me."

Hermione let out a silent gasp of horror, her mouth forming a perfect "O", and raised a hand to her lips. She knew what that meant: the Cruciatus for every time he didn't answer a question. "Then what?" Her voice was a shaky, nearly inaudible whisper. Blaise closed his eyes.

"I was sentenced to death."

Hermione's mind reeled at the information, but suddenly everything became quite clear to her.

The secrecy about the Room.

Cedric mentioning that it was protecting Malfoy.

That night when she saw him escorting Blaise out in a suspicious manner.

"Malfoy...saved you." She said softly.

His eyes snapped open and looked into hers. "Yes," he murmured. All of a sudden, she saw the light shifting in his eyes and he grew very frantic, placing his hands on her shoulders. "Listen, Granger. I've been trying to find a way to tell you this without being seen because I've still got a huge bounty on my head, after all," he spat the last part bitterly, "but it's extremely important."

The way he was acting was starting to stir fear in her gut. "What is it, Blaise?"

"Very soon, Hogwarts is going to be a warzone. Death Eaters are going to storm the school—"

Hermione shook her head, unwilling to believe such a crazy notion. "But how could they?" She asked. "There's enchantments set up all around the school that will keep them from stepping even one toe onto the grounds."

Blaise's eyes were wild now, and the fear inside of her morphed into terror. "You don't understand, Granger—they're going to come in from the inside."

The inside.

The inside.

The inside was...

Hermione's eyes widened.

The Room of Requirement.

Blaise's urgent voice drew her from her thoughts. "The Dark Lord is planning something big, something that I don't even know everything about. But one thing is certain." Hermione didn't like the underlying tone of dread in his voice. "He's after two things."

No.

Hermione could feel the color slowly draining from her face.

"The Dark Lord wants both Potter and you dead by his own hand."