AN: Sorry about the wait, guys! My boyfriend came to visit me at my university and I got a tiny bit distracted... but the chapter is here now! I hope that you all find it to be worth the wait, and that you'll leave me a review with your thoughts! Also, there is a bit of a time jump between last chapter and this one, so don't get confused. Okay, I'll stop bothering you now and let you read…

Disclaimer: Harry Potter isn't mine

October 1st, Slytherin Common Room, Hermione's POV:

Things had fallen into a stiff routine after that second day.

Hermione went to her classes but barely spoke other than to answer a question or ask one, she sat at the Gryffindor tables during lunch and did her best to keep herself a part of the lives of her friends, and she still hadn't spoken to Ron since Ginny had hexed him. She knew that Ginny hadn't spoken to him either, but she couldn't fault Harry for it.

When they weren't spending what time they could with their friends, Hermione and Dean stuck together like burs. As a result of this they had become a lot closer than they had ever been in Gryffindor, and Hermione found that she was glad for the chance to be close to him. Their company was always joined by either Blaise or Pansy, so much so that they'd given up on using last names, for the most part. Hermione was also quite glad for their championship, despite the fact that nothing had been done to herself or Dean since that second day back.

Something that hadn't changed was her relationship with Malfoy.

The only time they spoke to each other was during the two hour time period every night when they sorted out their Head's duties. He still teased her and lately he'd found a new way to drive her round the bend. He'd started staring at her, looking away whenever she caught him at it. She had no idea why he was doing it, and the not knowing was making her mental.

He was doing it right now, in fact. His shining silver eyes were trained on her, and Hermione was doing her best to ignore it. Staring determinedly at the wall of stone in front of her, she started playing with the small bottle of Dreamless Sleep in her pocket and wondering if she had it in her to take it tonight.

Hermione had been having nightmares of the war since it had ended, reliving every fear-laced experience she'd had each night. The bottle had been waiting in her pocket for two months, tempting her, but Hermione wanted to get over her nightmares on her own. She refused to take the coward's way out.

Malfoy was still staring.

About to finally break and say something about it, Malfoy suddenly stopped and snapped his head in the direction of the boy's dormitories, where Blaise was exiting.

"Blaise! What are you doing? You're supposed to be with Thomas!" Pansy was on her feet, pale and shaking. Blaise stopped in his tracks.

"FUCK! He was supposed to wake me before he went to his meeting with Flitwick but he never did, and I only just woke up…" His voice trailed off and it looked like Pansy was about to lay into him again when they all heard Malfoy speak behind him.

"Bugger." His head was turned towards the door to the common room, where Nicolai Daival had just walked in, along with the rest of his little cronies- Astoria Greengrass among them. The sickeningly smug looks on their faces made Hermione's stomach drop down to her knees.

Blaise, Pansy, Malfoy and herself all shared in a look of horror before Hermione made a run for the door. But it was too late, as she reached the final step, Hermione could feel McGonagall's wards fall into place, locking them all in the room for the next two hours. The laughter that she heard behind her made Hermione's nerves combust.

"I had almost given up hope on catching that little mudblood on his own, but imagine my surprise when I found him alone in the hall… we had the most lovely little chat," Nicolai drawled. "It's a pity that we're stuck in here for two hours, I don't think he'll last that long, not with the way he's bleeding all over the floor."

Nicolai pulled something out of his robes, and Hermione now saw that his fingers were stained red. But what she noticed next was enough to send her screaming into a blind fury- though she remained perfectly still. He had pulled out Dean's wand.

Oh no…

Dean couldn't leave her on her own down here. It couldn't happen. And that's when the fear hit, followed soon after by rage. Her adrenaline kicked in and suddenly Hermione felt like she was in a place that was so familiar it almost made her smile; Hermione was at war again. An eerie calm flowed through her veins, and out of the corner of her eye, she could have sworn that she saw Malfoy smile a bit at the way she gripped her wand and glared.

Why she was noticing Malfoy was beyond her, what she needed to be focusing on was Dean and the selfish piece of gutter-shite in front of her.

Now, a year ago Hermione would have hexed Nicolai within an inch of his life to teach him the error of his ways. But now she knew better than that. She needed to make him fear her, and she couldn't do that by hexing him. No, but she knew how she could.

A flick of her wand had the Slytherin's laughing in front of her rooted to the spot, unable to move a muscle. She caught them glaring, and she knew that she had to do this exactly right in order for it to work. But what words to use?

"There is a reason that your pathetic lot lost in the war," Hermione said airily. But it wasn't until she smiled sweetly (a tricked she had picked up from Pansy) that she saw a few of their glares falter. Turning her sweet little smile into what she thought might look something akin to a malicious grin, she finished her statement. "That reason would be me."

She knew that it wasn't entirely down to her, but that wasn't the point. Without another word and before anybody could stop her, Hermione turned on her heel and threw herself into the wards locking them in the dungeon.

The wards were powerful, though she didn't know what she had expected to find. Whatever it was, she'd had no idea that it would flood her body like electricity and then explode out of her. She panicked for a briefest second before she felt another power in the room moving against what she was throwing it off. Right, of course Malfoy would know what was happening.

Assured that no one else would feel the backlash, Hermione pushed headfirst against the pain attacking her body and threatening to split it apart. She couldn't stop now- what would happen to Dean? Desperately she reached out, appealing to McGonagall's wards and hoping they would open for her. But they refused to budge, they were far too powerful. It seemed the McGonagall had set them up in the air. Instead, she had used the wall of the common room as a base, and had set the wards into the stone.

Despair clawed at her heart. Gone were thoughts about getting the Slytherin's to stay away from her, if she couldn't get through the wards, Dean was going to die. Thankfully, her years of burying her nose in a book paid off once again. If the wards were in the walls… what would happen if the wall wasn't there anymore?

Unaware that power was cracking off of her in brilliant shades of silver, and had been since she had jumped inside the wards, Hermione whipped out her wand.

"Bombarda," Hermione brought her wand down and to the left, before swinging is backwards and jabbing it in the direction of the solid stone wall before her. "MAXIMA!"

She hoped it worked, she had no other ideas if this didn't work and the pain, oh the pain PLEASE let this have worked-

The stone exploded and went flying in every direction, and the wards dropped, releasing Hermione from the pain of their power thrumming through her veins. If it had taken even a second longer, she would have passed out. Trusting that Malfoy was still shielding everyone, she took her chance and ran through the shower of stone, ignoring the cuts and bruises she was receiving in doing so.

When she reached Dean, a sob let itself out of her throat. Without stopping to think she lifted him up in the air with her wand and sprinted in the direction of the Hospital Wing, leaving the destruction behind her without another thought.

Draco's POV

His voice was one of many that shouted out shield spells when Granger blew the wall into shambles. Merlin but he wanted to curse her for being so foolish!

He searched for her in the dust but she was nowhere to be seen, he cursed and rushed out of the hole where their door used to be, and stopped short at the large pool of blood on the floor, Granger and Thomas were gone from sight and Draco knew that if she was as crazed as he thought her to be, she would have Thomas in the Hospital Wing by now. Pansy and Blaise spluttered behind him, and Blaise was staring at the pool of blood and chanting like a madman.

"It's all my fault… It's all my fault…"

Draco ran his fingers through his hair, not knowing what to do or what to say to snap his best friend out of it. The common room was in an uproar, he could people arguing over who had the right of it; Granger, or Nicolai and his crowd. Some people were already dueling over it, and some lunatic released the group of bastards that did this from Grangers spell and he cursed, reaching for his wand.

Draco felt like he was back in the war.

"Draco! We need to close the wall back up before Filch comes," Pansy snapped as she started working on the repairs. It was a good thing that everyone had helped do repairs all over the Wizarding World- by now this spell was second nature to many.

Blaise couldn't be shaken out of his stupor, so Draco gave up and raised his wand and watched as stone moved in front of him. He was breathing harshly, and if he had been paying attention he would have seen that his wand arm was shaking.

He was upset because if those bloodthirsty maniacs would attempt to murder a muggle-born, how long would it be until they decided they wanted to kill those who associated with them? AT least, that was what he kept telling himself. In truth, he had come to like Thomas, he wasn't so bad and from what he had heard of his discussions with Blaise at dinner, he had a good head on his shoulders.

But this biggest reason he was afraid was because it meant that Granger would be next. And of course later he would come up with a whole list of reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with him caring for Grangers well-being, but for right now his brain was too shorted out by that fear for him to come up with any.

Oh well, he would justify it later.

Draco and Pansy finished putting the wall back together while Blaise stared at the blood on the floor, and then they all but ran through the halls to the Hospital Wing to check on their housemates. When they rounded the final corner and burst through the doors, they couldn't see a thing. But the shouting they heard coming from behind the curtains was enough to tell what had been going on.

"-no idea what has gotten into you Ms. Granger! You should have contacted me or-"

"Nonsense Minerva, if it had taken any longer to get this boy to me then he would have been far behind my care-"

"-But to throw yourself into the wards without any warning or preamble you could have harmed yourself or seriously injured your housemates-"

"Malfoy was right there and I knew he could handle it! If you had left any room for emergencies in your wards or better yet, not gone through with the new sorting, this wouldn't have happened in the first place!"

Draco didn't know what to be more shocked about. The fact that Hermione Granger was not only arguing but yelling at the Headmistress or the fact that she had faith that he would be able to handle the situation earlier. When would this stupid girl stop making his head spin!

"Be that as it may, there are rules for a reason-"

"Come now, Minerva, get ahold of yourself! Think of whom you are speaking to! How many times has Ms. Granger ever broken rules without a good reason?"

"Well, actually-"

"Of course, allow me to rephrase, she has broken rules to save lives before. You did not punish her then and I will not sit by and watch you do it now! If you had a care to notice, the girl is seriously unsettled! Think of how strong you made your wards, she may need treatment!"

He heard McGonagall sigh in defeat. "Yes well, how did you manage to get through them? I had a base-"

Granger's quiet murmur was lost in the screech that followed it.

"YOU BLEW APART THE WALL-"

"That's it! Out, Minerva!"

The curtains were ripped open to reveal a red-faced Headmistress, a flustered Healer, and Granger- she looked so small and timid it was almost impossible to believe that not even fifteen minutes ago she had blown apart a wall. He couldn't get a good view of Thomas, but judging by what he had heard; Draco thought he was going to be alright.

Everybody froze when they realized that their conversation had been overheard- Draco had to fight the urge to point out that their conversation was probably heard in Hogsmeade. Pansy broke the silence.

"The wall has been repaired and no one was hurt by the explosion, no harm done," Draco followed her gaze to see that she was staring at Granger's small form.

Hecate, was everything about this girl small? Small hands, small nose…

"Very well then. Mr. Thomas will be fine, but have we any idea who did this?" the Headmistress asked. Her glasses were knocked slightly askew and her tight bun was somewhat more loose than normal. She was more shaken then she was letting on.

Draco was about to say that he knew bloody well who did this when Granger looked up in alarm and cut in before he could breathe a word.

"It could have been anyone; we actually haven't a clue who it could be. We just… noticed that he wasn't in the common room and, well, my instincts have never been wrong when it comes to things like things. I've always been told I have the makings of a seer." Her voice has grown will confidence in every word that she said, as if she had known the exact words to speak to get the Headmistress to believe her.

Her bald-faced lie was enough to make even Blaise in his guilt-ridden state open his mouth and stare. Draco looked up to meet Granger's eyes, and saw in them that she was almost pleading with him to catch on to why she was doing this.

And then it seemed to hit the three Slytherin's at the same time. If McGonagall found out who had done it, then they wouldn't be able to have their own revenge. They all had enough money to get themselves out of too harsh a sentence if they tried, so in order to punish them… properly… they would have to do it on their own.

Maybe she was more of a Slytherin than he thought.

"She's right," Draco cringed at the words, and hoped that he would never have to say them again. "We have no way of knowing exactly who did it."

"Well, until we get to the bottom of this, I want everyone to stick together. Now, I'm going send an owl to the Ministry so that we can get this looked into properly. If you three would please go back to the dungeons, we will make sure that Ms. Granger gets back safely."

They had no reason to stay, so Draco led them back out into the hall.

"It's crazy, isn't it? How she can go from looking like the most dangerous person in the world to no bigger than a bow truckle," Pansy said, a shake in her voice. "It's not right. She shouldn't have to be afraid."

Neither he nor Blaise had anything to say to this. Blaise because he was still wrapped up in his guilt, and Draco because he was still trying to keep himself as far from anything to do with Granger as he could. If he let himself feel for her, he would want to talk to her, become friends. And if that happened, he wouldn't be able to handle the changes she might bring. Draco couldn't have her change things.

Because if she did, he wouldn't even know who he was anymore.

Not a word was said as the three split, and Draco went up to his room, resigning himself to stay awake until Granger got back. He had a promise to keep, after all.

So he sat down and wrote to his mother of everything that had happened. He wrote pages and pages, letting his problems drift away as the ink was absorbed into the parchment. He wouldn't send this letter, he knew. But he needed to write all of this down, and he didn't have a journal.

So lost was he in pouring himself into the parchment, that he hadn't noticed Granger had come back to her room already. Draco didn't notice she was in her room until he was startled by her nightly screams of terror.

Something broke then, inside him. He didn't have to speak to her, but he couldn't listen to this anymore. Tomorrow he was going to do something, and he knew exactly what to do. Because Pansy was right, Granger didn't deserve to be afraid.

Not anymore.

AN: I hope it was worth the wait!