A/N: Long wait, I know. Thanks for being patient. I'll try to have a second chapter up later this month, in celebration of the holidays, because I feel bad for always making you readers wait a month between installments.

Chapter 5: Azkaban

After meeting with all of the boys, Hermione returned to Flourish and Blotts. She browsed through spellbooks until she had found a spell that she'd heard of before. Until earlier, she had forgotten that it existed, but now that she only had a matter of hours left to be doing research in Flourish and Blotts, she decided it would be best to utilize it. It was a handy little spell that could be used to copy large (or small) chunks of text. If she used it on the right books she could have enough text to continue her research even while they traveled.

So for that day, and the next, Hermione spent her time copying large passages from the history books. In the end she had about fifty rolls of parchment for her to go through, which pleased her even though she didn't think it would be of much use.

Hermione had to shrink all the rolls of parchment before she could fit them in her bag, and then she returned all of the books to their shelves with relief. She would be glad to be gone from the place. The streets of Diagon Alley were nearly empty in the faint twilight so she hurried through them, mentally working out how to pack her things.

Without warning, two arms grabbed hers. Hermione twisted, reaching for her wand immediately. "Calm down there, Hermione," said a familiar voice.

"Yeah, you wouldn't want to hex your poor escorts, would you?" Fred asked.

She scowled at them. "You two should be more careful. You scared me to death!"

George looked over her head at Fred. "We should be more careful?" he asked.

"We're not the ones walking through Diagon Alley unescorted when it's almost dark," Fred pointed out.

"Okay, okay," Hermione said. "But what are you two doing?"

"Just watching out for our little brother's girlfriend," Fred said.

"I'm not his girlfriend," Hermione said quietly.

"But when you are, you will come in and help us work out some formulas, won't you?" George asked with a playful nudge.

"Sure, George," she said.

"Excellent," the twins said together, pushing their way through the door of the Leaky Cauldron without letting go of her arms. They led the way upstairs and then left Hermione at her door while they knocked on Harry and Ron's door. Leaving them to their goodbyes, she went into her room and began to pack. She was disappointed that her belongings didn't fit into her bag so neatly as they had in her imagination, but with the help of a few shrinking charms she was able to get fit everything.

Before she left, her eyes swept over the room, and she noted with a bit of shock that the lamp Malfoy had vanished had been replaced. With a small smile, she pulled her trunk out into the hall and shut the door behind her.

Hermione went first to Harry and Ron's room. The door was ajar, and she swung it open to see that Fred and George were still there. "Are you two ready to leave?" she asked.

"Um…" Harry mumbled, looking around. "Almost." His and Ron's belongings were piled up onto their beds.

Trying hard not to laugh, Hermione nodded. "I'll meet you at the car. Do you remember where it is?"

"Yeah," Ron said.

"Goodbye Fred. Goodbye George," she said, giving them each a hug.

"Don't forget you promised to help us," George reminded her with a mischievous grin.

"Goodbye, Hermione," Fred said, his smile mirroring his brother's.

She then went across the hall to Malfoy's room and knocked on the door. "Who is it?"

"It's Hermione," she said. It was annoying to have to announce herself every time, but at least he was being cautious.

The door swung open. "Are we leaving?" he asked, almost eagerly.

"Yes, we're leaving," she said.

Malfoy disappeared for a minute, and when he returned he was cloaked and hooded. He pulled his trunk out into the hall with him and then turned his head to her expectantly. She was amazed that he had actually been ready—Hermione had expected that he would be obstinate as he usually was.

"We can just meet Harry and Ron at the car," she said, realizing that she should have gotten Malfoy out first. If Fred and George saw him they would have too many questions.

He picked up his trunk, nodding, and then began to lug it down the stairs. Hermione followed at a somewhat slower pace, pulling her trunk along behind her. "Thank you for replacing the lamp, by the way," she said breathlessly when she met him at the foot of the stairs.

Malfoy shrugged. "I said that I would."

"I know, I just…" Hermione stopped mid-sentence, deciding it wasn't prudent to say what she thought.

"You just didn't expect me to do it," he finished for her. She felt the blood rush to her face with embarrassment. "A Ma—I never break a promise if I can help it."

Hermione couldn't find anything to say to that, and besides thanking Tom on the way out, said nothing. They got to the car and shoved their luggage in, then had to wait a full five minutes for Harry and Ron to join them. The pair stuffed their trunks into the back, then piled into the car.

It was a long drive, Hermione realized a couple hours in. She had made a bad decision in choosing to leave that night. At a gas station she stopped and got a coffee and a few cans of caffeinated soda to keep her awake before continuing. Harry and Ron and Malfoy were all asleep by then, so it was hard to keep herself from sleeping as well. To entertain herself, she played a game with license plates, going through the numbers, then the alphabet, and then trying to think of acronyms for various letter combinations.

"PCT. Please Clean Thestrals," she murmured. "DLN. Doors Like Noses. No, that's a bad one. Don't Lick Noses. That's bad too, but oh well. AND. Anacondas Need Drugs. FBU. Frogs Belch…"

"What the hell are you doing, Granger?" Malfoy moaned next to her, shifting in his seat.

Hermione blushed to have been caught playing her game. "I was keeping myself awake," she admitted. "It's a game I play."

Malfoy chuckled at her and sat up straight. "You know, your car isn't very comfortable for sleeping in."

"It wasn't made for sleeping in. That just happens to be your unfortunate situation." Hermione shifted the rearview mirror to see into the back. "Harry and Ron don't seem to have a problem with it."

"Those two dunderheads could sleep in one of the broom closets at school and not notice a difference," Malfoy said.

She tried not to laugh. It was true, though. When Harry and Ron got tired it was hard to keep them from sleeping, and once they were asleep it was even harder to wake them.

"You don't have to sleep," Hermione ventured cautiously. She didn't want to give him the impression that she wanted him to stay awake with her, but she really would appreciate the company.

Malfoy smirked at her, and she knew he'd seen through her careful words. "You know, Granger, if you want me to stay up with you, you could just ask me to."

Hermione clenched her jaw, embarrassed. "And why would I want a coldhearted bastard like you staying up with me? I'd rather throw myself off a bridge."

"Are there sharp rocks beneath your bridge?"

She threw him a scathing look. "No, but your mangled body is," she snapped.

"Then why are you throwing yourself off? Wouldn't it have been better to just say that you would rather throw me off a bridge?"

Hermione scowled at him and refused to comment.

When Malfoy next spoke, his voice was calm. "I'll stay up with you, Granger," he said quietly.

Realizing that he'd become civil, she said, "Thank you."

"Don't mention it, Granger. I don't mind."

She looked over at him, startled, to find him looking at her sincerely. His grey eyes glinted with light reflected off the windshield, making him seem childish and young in his earnestness. Hermione looked back to the road, unsettled by the glimpse of the real Draco Malfoy she'd just seen. "Do you want some Coke?" she offered.

"What's that?"

Hermione smiled and handed him a can. "It's a type of drink. Try it."

Malfoy inspected the can and then looked at her in confusion. "How do you drink it? There aren't any openings."

Despite trying not to, she laughed.

Hermione was struggling to keep her eyes open as dawn broke across the front of her windshield. Malfoy was in much the same situation as she, and was closing his eyes for long periods of time before he managed to pull them open again. "I think we need another game," she said with an effort.

Malfoy perked up. "Yes, a game. What game? Name a game. Quick, before I fall asleep."

She smiled at his attitude and thought, then frowned. "I don't know. Can you come up with one?"

He leaned his head back against the window and shook it slowly. "No."

"Okay, then. How about I just talk and you listen?"

"I'm going to fall asleep within a minute of you starting," He said dubiously, closing his eyes.

"Don't worry, Malfoy, I'll keep it interesting. I know I said the other day that it was none of your business what we three are doing, but I suppose that if you intend to stay with us I may as well tell you." This was a bad idea, she knew, but Hermione was too tired to care at the moment. And it only felt right to tell Malfoy what they were doing, since he was staying with them. Besides, he may be able to help them with it. It would be better to know if Malfoy knew anything than to have the answer sitting beside them the whole time and not realize it just because they wouldn't tell him the truth.

Hermione began their story.

"…so here we are, traveling to Azkaban to find your father, hoping to kill two birds with one stone. If we can get him out, we'll throw him into hiding with your mother, which cements our contract, and we can learn from him what he knows about the Horcruxes."

The sunlight was strong in the windows and Harry and Ron had begun to stir restlessly in the backseat. Hermione glanced over at Malfoy, who was staring at her incredulously.

"You expect me to believe that?" he asked. "I appreciate the story, but you can't possibly expect me to believe that's the truth."

"Well, it is. If it wasn't, why bother about getting your father now?" she pointed out. "Besides, we don't need you to believe me. You'll know how wrong you are soon enough."

Malfoy continued to stare at her, but his gaze was speculative now. He was assessing her, she knew, though what conclusion he came to she didn't know. She kept her eyes on the road in front of her. "We'll stop in the next town that comes up and get some sleep," she promised.

"Good," he murmured.

"Malfoy…" she began, then paused. He looked over at her questioningly. "Thank you. I'm grateful that you stayed up with me."

He nodded sleepily and leaned his head against the window. Hermione watched him, though, and she knew he didn't sleep. She had the satisfying feeling that he was processing everything she had told him, bit by bit.

True to her word, they stopped at the next town. She went to an average-looking hotel and got two rooms, one for her and one for Malfoy. Harry and Ron were awake by then, and decided they'd rather explore the town than continue sleeping. That was fine with her, and she was asleep almost as soon as she clambered into bed.

Hermione woke up to furtive sounds in her room. She rolled over and reflexively clutched her wand, which she kept under her pillow. "Git! Look, you almost woke her up!" she heard Ron whisper.

"Sorry," Harry muttered. "Wasn't that why we came here in the first place?"

"Yeah, but I wanted to wake her up nicely," Ron mumbled. Hermione let go of her wand.

"Fine, I'll go wait outside." She heard footsteps and her door shutting quietly.

Ron leaned over her and brushed the hair out of her eyes. "Hermione?" he asked quietly.

"Mmm?" she asked sleepily.

"Hermione, it's getting really late in the afternoon," Ron began.

She sat up in bed sharply. "What time is it?"

"Nearly three," he admitted.

"Ron! How could you let me sleep this long?" she shrieked, hopping out of bed.

"I—er…"

"No matter. Thanks for waking me up. Have you two woken Malfoy?"

"No," Ron said.

"Fools," she muttered. "Go get Harry and meet me at the car, I'll get Malfoy."

"Okay," he said submissively, leaving the room.

Hermione pulled on her sweater and put her shoes back on, then hurried to the room next door. She rapped on the door loudly.

"Malfoy, we're leaving! Hurry up and get out here!" Suddenly there was no door behind her knuckles.

"Please, Granger, must you use my name in public? I realize we may be in a muggle town but if anyone hears…"

She covered up her embarrassment at the mistake by snapping, "We're leaving."

"So I gathered. I suppose there's no chance you'll get back that good mood you had this morning?" He looked at her furious expression and sighed. "I guess not."

"Let's go check out," she scowled, leading the way to the front desk. Malfoy sighed and followed her at a more dignified pace.

They crammed themselves into the car and Hermione pulled out a map, studying it. "There's only a few more hours of driving. Do we want to attempt the break-in tonight or tomorrow?"

"Why are we breaking in? I think all we need to do is break out," Malfoy said from the passenger's seat.

"What?"

He smirked. "I can get us in. It's up to you to get us out."

Hermione smiled at him gratefully. "You just made this task a lot easier." Harry and Ron stared at the two from the backseat, but Hermione didn't care. It would seem that she and Malfoy had come to an understanding.

That night, two teenagers walked into Azkaban and asked to see Lucius Malfoy. The man sitting behind the administration desk scoffed at them. "You two want to see Mr. Malfoy? I'm sorry but visitors aren't allowed after six."

Draco Malfoy drew himself up to his full height. "Do you know who I am?"

"Who you are doesn't matter unless you're actually visiting," the guard pointed out with a superior smirk.

Hermione saw the corner of Malfoy's mouth twitch in annoyance. "Who I am does, in fact, matter," he said, leaning in close to the man. "I'm Draco Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy's son. If you intend to live a prosperous life at all you'll let me in to see my father," he threatened.

The guard clenched his jaw defiantly but knew that the Malfoys had enough power in the wizarding world to wreak havoc upon his family. "Who's she?" he snarled.

"She is not important," Malfoy said dismissively. "Nothing but a family servant who happens to be rather handy with a wand, should anything…unexpected occur."

Trying to look cold and calculating, Hermione was careful not to show much expression but to examine the security guard with interest. She didn't actually care about him or his features but it made him somewhat intimidated, which is what she had planned on. "All right then," the man said, seeming rather ruffled. "But I can only give you five minutes. Hurry up, then." He opened the door to let them in, and Malfoy walked in imperiously without looking back. Hermione paused long enough to let Harry and Ron go through ahead of her (they were under the invisibility cloak) and then she went through, being careful to cast wary looks around at all times.

The man stalked through the halls, clearly annoyed he'd been thwarted. Malfoy walked unconcerned, but Hermione was slightly panicky even though she was careful to not show it. Despite all of her researching on it, Azkaban had always been annoyingly difficult to find information on. It was hard to separate the facts from the rumors, and even more difficult to piece together the information she had into anything useful.

Malfoy had told her that the whole place was enchanted so that if any magic was used it would be detected at once and the whole place would lock down. Invisibility cloaks were exempt because they were magical items and didn't exude a magical "mist" as he called it, like most things did. Hermione had read about the "mist" before, and it made sense—any spell used left a sort of echo behind so that, with the proper tools, even the smallest spell (like Lumos) could be detected. Azkaban had the proper tools.

Besides that helpful bit of information, Hermione also held a complete copy of the blueprints. She'd found it in her robes after the night at the Department of Mysteries a couple years before. The only explanation for that was that it had fallen into her robes when she'd been knocked into a bookshelf and all the books had fallen on her. Despite having very serious moral issues about stealing, she'd been knocked out before ever knowing she had the plans. So now the blueprints were hers, and she hadn't turned them in to the Ministry because if the Ministry arrested anyone important, then she could possibly lend a helping hand in getting them back. Stan Shunpike's arrest had simply supported that conclusion and the blueprints hadn't been returned, although neither had she put them to good use before this day.

Hermione grunted softly as she ran into Harry and Ron in front of her. She'd been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn't even noticed anyone stopping. Though, to be fair, the two of them were under the invisibility cloak, and she couldn't see them. They had all decided that Harry and Ron were too conspicuous to go unnoticed, and if word got back to the Death Eaters that the missing Malfoy had been seen with them, they would figure out that he'd switched sides. Hermione, however, was unknown enough in the wizarding world to not raise so much interest. Quickly, she resumed her watch of the prison's halls, waiting for anything suspicious.

The guard had stopped in front of a cell and was standing off to the side, waiting for them to finish their visit so he could usher them out. Hermione carefully watched their surroundings, checking that no one else was coming their way. There was a muffled grunt and when she looked back, the man who had led them to Lucius's cell was lying on the floor.

Ron stepped out from under the cloak and rolled the man onto his back, fumbling for the keys on his belt. He looked at the ring in dismay. "Do we really have to try all of these?" he asked miserably. The ring had at least thirty keys on it.

"Just find the key," Malfoy said. "And don't forget, no magic."

"Draco?" came the hoarse voice from inside the cell. For a second, there was absolute silence and no one moved. Hermione took a cautious look at Malfoy, who was staring at her forcefully. "Son, is that you?"

Malfoy's face hardened and he stood stock still, waiting for her to make the decision. His eyes asked her to let him speak with his father, but his expression told her that if she said no he would act as if he didn't care. Hermione let her breath out slowly, just realizing that she'd been holding it, and nodded. There was a flicker of relief over Malfoy's face that made breaking the contract worthwhile.

"It's me, father. I've come to get you out of here," Malfoy said quietly, his eyes locked on Hermione's. She gave him one final nod and looked down at his hands. His nails were black, as if with nail polish.

Ron began to work with the keys. Lucius Malfoy gasped. "Is that a Weasley you have with you?" he asked, his voice dripping with disdain and disgust.

"Not like any of your Death Eater pals were willing to come and help me get you out," Draco Malfoy snapped. "So I had to devise my own way." Hermione noted, with a slightly giddy feeling, that Malfoy had said "your Death Eater pals" and not "our Death Eater pals."

The Malfoys stared at each other, and Draco looked away first. "You don't have to come to their side, father. I just needed them to get you out."

Hermione resumed her watch, but glanced back at the pair frequently. They had stopped talking but seemed to be communicating more through their expressions, which Hermione didn't have the time to interpret. She pulled the blueprints out of her robes and examined them. Their original state, or at least, the state in which she'd originally found them, was a small, square scrap of parchment, almost completely black with the inked in passages. When enlarged, though, the black passages spread out to give the whole place a rather fantastical look. Hermione speculated that Azkaban had at least as many halls and secret passages as Hogwarts, but contained in a much smaller area so that it was like a labyrinth. This time she had enlarged them beforehand, knowing that if she used magic in Azkaban it could mean the deaths of them all.

She'd never mentioned that she had the blueprints to Harry until recently. Hermione had a bad suspicion that he would decide to save anyone that the Ministry unfairly sent to Azkaban, and Hermione preferred that they only use the blueprints in dire need.

"Harry," Hermione said, to get his attention, and then she gestured down the hall she was supposed to be watching. He nodded, looking at the blueprints she held, and then moved so that he could peer down both ends of the corridor. She sank to the floor and spread out the map out on the floor in front of her. Hermione hadn't had much time to examine it recently, and she did so now. Ron's keys rattled in counterpoint to her mind as she tried to devise a plan.

She thought she had finally figured out a way to escape Azkaban when the keys fell silent. Hermione looked up at Ron, her smile fading as she realized the door to Lucius's cell wasn't open. "It's not here," Ron said, bemused.

Hermione frowned. "Now that you say that, it doesn't make sense that the guard would have the keys to the cells. That would make it too easy to break out."

Everyone else stared at her, wondering what to do next. Even Lucius Malfoy looked at her curiously. Hermione wracked her brain for an answer, then looked speculatively at the bars of the older Malfoy's cell. "No magic," she murmured thoughtfully. "Okay…new plan, then. All the magic detectors felt four people come in, no matter what the guard saw. So they must feel four people go out."

She turned her gaze to Draco Malfoy and gave him a hard look. "Don't break the contract," she told him.

He scoffed. "Of course I won't."

"I want your wand."

Malfoy's face turned cold. "Then take the bloody thing," he said, handing it out to her. Lucius watched the proceedings avidly, his gray eyes taking in the fact that his son was following orders from a Mudblood.

Hermione pocketed his wand, then folded the blueprints up neatly and shoved them in a pocket of her robes. She took a deep breath, then let it out again, still looking at the bars of Lucius's cell. Hopefully, she could squeeze herself between them. The older Malfoy wouldn't be able to do so, but Hermione had a more delicate bone structure and might be able to manage it.

She sat down on the ground and fit her head through the bars, then encountered a problem with her shoulders. "Merlin," she muttered, pulling herself out. It was going to be a tight fit, tighter than she had hoped for, but she thought she could do it. She pulled off her robe before trying again. Hermione raised her arms over her head as if she were about to dive, then inserted her hands between the bars. Wriggling on her side, she pushed her hands through until she was almost to her head, and then tilted her head sideways so that her nose was pressed into her upper arm.

Hermione continued to squirm between the bars, inching her way in. Once her shoulders were entirely in Lucius's cell, she put her arms down and used them to push her torso through the bars. For once, she was glad that she was very flat-chested, or she wouldn't have ever been able to squeeze in. After a few more minutes of twisting around to make her body fit, Hermione found herself completely inside Lucius Malfoy's prison cell.

"Great, now there are two of us in here," he said sarcastically.

"It is great," Hermione snapped at him, not in a mood for his nonsense. She glanced down at her arms, which were red and chafed from the bars, and knew that her hips would probably have bruises on them in a few hours. Reaching through the bars, she took her robes back from Ron, who had picked them up from the floor. Pulling them on, she looked Lucius over again. "Do you think you can hold my weight?" she asked him.

"I'm not going to touch you, Mudblood," he growled at her.

"Oh, well, in that case, you're just going to be stuck in this cell with me for a while," she snarled. "Because I'm not sure I want to go through the trouble of going through those bars again just to get out."

He looked ready to retort but held his tongue, for which she was grateful. Hermione's temper was reaching its breaking point, and she was not going to take any slander from Lucius Malfoy. She looked around the cell again, considering, and then went over to the right corner. "There is a ventilation shaft, up here, disguised with a spell so that it doesn't look any different from the ceiling. You can't reach it on your own, and I can't reach it on my own, but if you pick me up and can hold me for long enough I think I can get it open."

"Won't it be locked? What makes you think you can even open it?"

"Why would they lock a vent that their prisoner can neither see nor reach?" Hermione countered. "It doesn't make sense. Besides, why would anyone be silly enough to think they can escape with all those dementors around? We just got lucky that Voldemort is keeping them busy elsewhere," she said smugly, enjoying how both Malfoys flinched at the name.

"Don't—"

"Don't tell me what to do or you won't be getting out of here," Hermione snarled at him. "I've already proven that I can barely get through the bars, if you'd like to try I'd welcome you to do so. At least we'll all get a laugh out of it." He was silent and Hermione gestured him over to the corner where she stood. "Now help me get up there."

His face showed her the distaste he had for her, but she refused to let that stop her. Lucius Malfoy grabbed her waist and raised her up as high as he could. Hermione reached her fingers, but couldn't touch the ceiling. "Higher," she murmured, and Malfoy complied with a grunt.

Hermione pushed up on the cover of the vent until, with a creak, it acceded to her wishes and slid out of place. She grasped the edge of the hole that remained with both hands and said, "Lift me."

Lucius Malfoy shifted his grip on her and took a firm hold on the soles of her shoes, lifting her above his head. She scrabbled to get a grip on the walls of the ventilation shaft and managed to slide the rest of her body into it. Hermione could almost feel everyone's eyes upon her.

In the tiny space of the shaft, Hermione managed to turn herself around, then carefully poked her head back down through the hole. "Malfoy, can you climb?"

"Of course I can climb," he said haughtily.

It took effort not to roll her eyes at his tone, but she managed it. "Then I need you to get the rope from Harry and hand me the end."

"You expect me to climb up a rope?" Lucius Malfoy asked dubiously.

"Do you have a problem with that?" she snapped at him. "I certainly don't have the strength to pull you up here with me."

He quieted at that, and turned to the bars of his cage with a grimace. Harry wordlessly passed him the rope, glancing at Hermione. She peered over at her friends and the younger Malfoy. "You three might want to take care of that guard," she said. They looked around nervously, and then their gazes all turned to the man who was unconscious on the floor.. "Tie him up and gag him or something. And I'm fairly sure we will be coming out in that hallway over there, so after you're done with that meet us over there."

Lucius Malfoy handed her the end of the rope, and she grabbed it firmly, then moved through the passage until she was above the cell that was just to the right of Malfoy's. They would need to travel through the left hand passageway to get out. Hermione tied the end of the rope to the other grate, then crawled back to Lucius's cell. "Good, you already moved the bed. I'm going to go over there and make sure the rope doesn't come loose, and you should count to ten slowly before trying to come up."

He nodded at her, his disgusted scowl from earlier turning into an expression of confusion. Hermione didn't stop to gloat about it, and backtracked through the vents, then sat down on the cover that she'd tied the rope to. Her plan at the moment was to make sure that the vent didn't come off while Malfoy climbed. She felt the rope grow taut as he began to come up, and pressed herself against the top of the shaft in an effort to keep the vent cover from moving.

The rope went slack. "Malfoy?" Hermione whispered.

"I'm here," he replied breathlessly. Apparently he wasn't as good a climber as he'd thought.

Hermione didn't reply, but crawled through the shaft until she came to his cell. They pulled up his rope and replaced the grate, and then she directed him through the ventilation system. "Now, there should be another cover coming up. Does it lead to a cell, or to a hallway?" she asked.

"It doesn't look like a cell," he said hesitantly.

"That's the one, I think."

"You think?"

"Yes, I think," she growled. "It's not like I make a habit of doing this."

"Really? I would have guessed that you did," he said earnestly. Hermione frowned but didn't respond. She heard the grate groan as Lucius opened it. "Are you sure this is it?"

"If it's not a room, that's it," she snapped.

He dropped down to the floor below and Hermione crawled to the opening of the shaft. "There they are," she said, catching sight of Harry, Ron, and the younger Malfoy.

Hermione leaned down through the vent and called to them softly. Harry and Ron smiled as they approached, while Malfoy looked pensieve. Ignoring the blond Malfoys, Hermione focused her attention on the other two.

"Harry, here are the keys to my car," she said, fishing into her pocket and passing them down to him. "I want all four of you to go wait there. Neither Malfoys have a wand, but be careful. They probably have more than a few tricks up their sleeves, so keep a close eye on them." She looked over at the two blonds. "I don't think you'll get any trouble from Draco, but his father…"

"We know, Hermione," Ron said softly.

"Okay then. I'll meet you at my car in twenty minutes."

Her boys nodded, and she disappeared from their view. She pulled the cover back over the vent, then closed her eyes and envisioned the blueprints. Murmuring instructions to herself, she crawled through the ventilation shafts until she was looking down into an office.

Hermione lowered herself onto the desk and looked around warily. No one was in the office at the moment—she'd gotten lucky—but she couldn't depend on that fact for long. She pushed the grate over the opening until it was almost closed but would give easily and then inspected the office. The desk probably faced the main door, and so she went through the door beside a bookshelf on a different wall. Inside was a room with walls covered in shelves. She browsed through them until she found the label, "Lucius Malfoy" on the wood. His wand and a small box of trinkets lay on the shelf. She grabbed them and put them into a pocket of her robe, then left.

She paused in the ventilation shaft and pulled out the blueprints in the dim lighting above the office. Tracing her finger along the path she wanted, Hermione memorized the route and then continued on her way. After some time she saw a dim light at the end of the tunnel. She carefully pulled herself out of the opening and dropped a short ways onto the sharp rocks below. Hermione breathed deeply in the moonlight, grateful to be out of the confining ventilation shaft.

Making her way around to the front of Azkaban, Hermione went to the Apparition platform and Disapparated to her car. Because Harry couldn't Apparate, they had used a small boat to get to Azkaban originally, and Hermione was sure that the foursome had taken it back to the car for the same reason. When she arrived, the Malfoys were standing beside her trunk, conversing in quiet but harsh tones. Harry and Ron were watching them warily and jumped at her sudden appearance.

"Okay, now if everyone would please get into the car," Hermione said, taking her keys back from Harry. Harry took his usual backseat, and Draco Malfoy took the passenger seat, leaving Lucius to sit behind Hermione. "Ron," she murmured quietly, "Will you go to the Order and tell them we have Lucius and will need to have someone collect him so he can join Narcissa?"

"Of course," Ron said. "Where can I find you, though?"

"Do you remember where we stopped this morning?"

"Yeah. Should I meet you there?"

"Yes, at the hotel," she agreed.

"Okay, I'll see you there." He touched her arm tenderly. "Please be careful, Hermione," Ron said, before Disapparating with a pop.

I gotta get outta here
And I'm begging you,
I'm begging you,
I'm begging you to be my escape.

I'm giving up on doing this alone now
Cause I've failed and I'm ready to be shown how
He's told me the way and I'm trying to get there
And this life sentence that I'm serving
I admit that I'm every bit deserving

—Reliant K, "Be My Escape"