" Shit ." Hermione ran toward Malfoy who had doubled over and fallen to his knees. "Did I hurt you-"

Then she was knocked to the floor with a thud and all the air was expelled from her lungs. She gasped and heaved; coughing as oxygen choked her.

"Never let your guard down," Malfoy sneered. He was nasty like this, but Hermione had no time to care about his complete derangement. "Don't rush to me just because you think we're friends-"

Hermione flicked her wand at him and his feet went out from under him. The floorboards vibrated with the force of his impact and she grinned. He groaned convincingly, but instead of tending to him, like her entire body was urging her to, she bound him with ropes and sat cross-legged at his head.

Malfoy craned his neck to see her and his entire face was pink from the effort he put into attempting to disentangle himself. She could count the veins in his neck and it bolstered her confidence.

"I give up." Spittle hit the floor from Malfoy's angrily twisted mouth. She flicked her wand and the ropes disappeared. He remained there, half-contorted, heaving for breath. Only when his lungs calmed did he roll onto his back and stare at the ceiling.

"How'd I do?" Hermione leaned back onto her forearms, legs still crossed. She was feeling smug and revelling in it.

"I don't think you need my help," Malfoy said to the ceiling. The beds all seemed to laugh at him in the semi-darkness; their sheets like white smiles directed at his inadequacy. They had cleared the unused infirmary to use for her training, and it was still on the small side even with the beds stacked atop each other. She was glad it was just the two of them; there wasn't room for any more people.

"Was I that good in training?" Hermione grasped at the memories like smoke, feeling them slipping through her fingers as her muscles, unused to being used, tingled and throbbed. "Before, I mean. Was I this good at training before?"

Malfoy rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees before leaning back on his heels and looking like a man about to pray. "You were shit."

Hermione scoffed and was tempted to point her wand at him again, if just to scare him a little. He rolled his eyes and got to his feet.

"We were all shit." Malfoy swiped his hand through his hair, and where his palm met his forehead it left a swipe of dark dust or basement dirt. She couldn't be sure from this far away. Her eyes followed the stripe and Malfoy noticed. He looked at his palm, then at her, and his shoulders slumped in defeat. "I have dirt on my face, don't I?"

Hermione made a show of giving him a once-over. "Do you want to continue, or does the Prince of Darkness need a moment to collect himself?"

A smirk broke Malfoy's formerly dismayed face. He got into position, as did Hermione.

Without a countdown, they began. She dodged, then deflected left and found herself against the wall with a half-assed barrier of beds between her and Malfoy's wand. Thinking quickly, she dropped abruptly to the floor and aimed at his feet. He yelped, but somehow none of her other spells hit him. His shield charm was working well.

She cast a disillusionment charm and went still. Even as her heart thundered in her chest, she forced her lungs to intake only necessary amounts of breath, and not an ounce more. Malfoy scrambled to his feet and the boards creaked. She was glad at that moment for the wooden floors. The concrete underneath it might have made for harder falls.

"Granger," Malfoy said carefully. "I know you're in here, I saw you behind the beds."

She cast muffliato and scrambled at the same time, crawling quickly to freedom before crouching and holding herself still when she heard him say finite.

"Tricky, tricky," Malfoy mused. "You forgot about something."

She was tempted to ask what. For the sake of learning, not for teasing him. Of course.

Then all at once, while Malfoy was approximately five feet away, three things happened. Rain began to pour from the ceiling, mud spewed in a comedically hose-like stream from the tip of his wand, and she was hit. She sputtered as it went into her nose, her airway, down the front of her robe. The disillusionment charm immediately dropped and Malfoy lunged at her.

A high-pitched yelp escaped her throat as she fell back across one lone bed- her bed- and he landed on top of her. He had her pinned, his wand pressed to her wrist between his palm and her skin. He somehow kept a vice grip despite the mud.

He wasn't using magic.

"Get off me." She thrashed under him, but her legs didn't reach his testicles which she desperately tried to knee. Her wand was slipping because the slimy sludge lubricated her palms. He sneered as his hips pressed down onto her thighs; his weight was enough to immobilise her. He pressed her hands firmly to the mattress above her head as her legs dangled off the side of the bed helplessly.

She could feel mud in her shoes.

"Fun trick I learned that training didn't teach." Malfoy leaned a little over her, and she could think of nothing to do but jut her chin out defiantly, grime and all. "Fight a wizard like a muggle, and they almost never know how to react." His voice was quiet and chiding.

He was talking too much. Hermione felt the wand shift back into her palm and closed her fingers around it, formulated her spell, and then her wand was yanked free. No spell came. "Yield." His breath tickled her face and she wished it didn't. All of him was dripping off onto her, seeping into her skin, into her clothes, and he was winning. She attempted another kick at his groin but her leg only jerked up two inches before meeting his solid thigh.

He was infuriatingly cleaner than she was.

"See? Stumped." Malfoy loosened his grip on her wrists. "Yield." The syllable hit her face in a puff of breath, and she fought the way it lulled her body into a sense of calm and safety.

"Well, that was stupid," Hermione grinned. His eyebrows only had a millisecond to furrow in confusion before she pivoted him, then rolled off the bed onto the floor as she landed on top of him. He groaned with his eyes closed.

"What was it?" She quipped as she gripped his wand and bound his arms- above his head- to the leg of the bed. "'Never let your guard down'?"

Malfoy winced. "I had you," He groaned as he tried to heave her smaller frame off his but was incapable of doing so since he was bound and wandless.

"Sure you did, sweetie." Hermione pressed the tip of his own wand to his throat and he grunted. His eyes were slits as he looked at her, lungs heaving. His hips were pinned by hers as she pressed down onto him with all her weight, fighting to keep him still. She was aware she was straddling him, but she was enjoying this too much to let their positions frazzle her.

"I yield." Malfoy yanked his head away from his wand. Hermione stood with the aid of the bed. She watched Malfoy on the floor under her and felt a sense of accomplishment warm her entire body.

Or was that pain?

"Are you going to untie me, or stare at your handiwork?" Malfoy's eyes darted up in the general direction of his tied wrists.

"I quite like you like this." Hermione pursed her lips. "You're likablenow."

"Ha, ha," Malfoy deadpanned. "Granger-"

With a flick of his wand, he was untied and lifted to his feet. She turned the wand around and held the handle out for him to take. He did. As she stooped to look for her lost wand amongst the floorboards, a thought occurred to her.

Peering up at Malfoy and abandoning her search, she stared at him. He paused mid-action of dusting off his robes. "What?" The smear of dirt still decorated his forehead and some of his white hair.

"Why didn't you make me go back to McGonagall or Kingsley, or whoever else might be in charge?" Hermione narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "Why are you helping me?"

Malfoy did the Malfoy thing he had taken to doing whenever he thought Hermione was being annoying, or had asked an obviously answered question. He rolled his eyes and scoffed. " Because Granger. If you can remember what I said, they've shut down operations to lay low-"

"Actually," Hermione interjected and Malfoy tilted his head, "you said that they shut down operations yes, but that Recruitment was responsible for training."

"I-" Malfoy blustered, "I- uh, may have said that." He turned to face her and a tickle of pleasure slid through her at the sight of his dirty face and faltering bravado. "But, I meant all operations, not just Headquarters."

"Convenient." Hermione heard her wand roll and followed the sound. Her foot had touched it, and she grabbed it before it rolled further away. She didn't like it much. It felt like a flimsy wood, pliable because it didn't put up much of a fight to her using it, and weaker than her own. But maybe she was biased.

"Convenient how ?" Malfoy combed his hand through his hair, in that mildly infuriating way he would do whenever he thought he stayed still too long.

"How do I know that everything you've told me is the truth?" Hermione got to her feet and began cleaning the mud and water off her body. And off the floor and her sheets. She said it without much accusation in her tone, but she could tell from her peripheral vision that he had gone still.

"So, you don't trust me either." Malfoy's voice sounded wounded. Hermione didn't believe it for a second.

"You're a git." Hermione threw a glance his way and his eyes were glinting mischievously.

"Go to Recruitment if you like. Have them treat you like a delicate little flower and make you start from scratch." Malfoy shrugged and began cleaning the transferred mud off his clothes.

"Answer my question, Malfoy." Hermione levelled her wand at him and he cocked an eyebrow. He lifted his hands, dirty palms and dirty wand faced her in mock surrender. "Why are you helping me?"

"I'm helping you so you can help me, " Malfoy said smoothly. He rarely used that voice. It was a mixture between his explain-everything-like-she's-hurt voice and I'm-smarter-than-you voice.

"You're using me?" Hermione didn't have it in her to pretend to be wounded. Instead, she was intrigued. She batted her lashes though, and Malfoy's eyes flickered at the movement.

"You're the Golden Girl," Malfoy smirked, regaining his control. "I thought I could garner favour." He smeared the dirt with the back of his hand so it looked less bad, except it was more evenly distributed in a thinner layer.

"What can I do for you?" Giving up, she pointed her wand at him again and, before he could defend himself, the dirt was scrubbed from his forehead and a pink shadow was left in its place. To his credit, he had only winced, and not yelled like she expected him to. Well, she wanted him to.

There was a moment of silence, long enough that Hermione thought he wasn't going to answer. Deflect as he usually would. "I need to brush up on my duelling." Malfoy pressed his palm to his forehead to search for damage and gave an exasperated groan when he realised he had smeared more mud back onto his skin.

"You're doing fine," she said absentmindedly, as her mind whirred on why he would need to brush up on his duelling. The beds began to unstack themselves and settled into their previously occupied spaces with her guidance. Malfoy disappeared into the bathroom and she heard water running, then splashing aggressively.

"Wait a second." Hermione followed him and stood in the doorway. She had him cornered, and when he glanced up, she saw that thought flash in his eyes. His hair was hanging messily in front of his eyes; trickles of mud filled the bags of his eyes. He looked wearier than if he had lost an entire night of sleep. "You said you've been through training. And all you're using me for is practice."

"What do you want, Granger?" He dipped his face into his cupped hands, shut off the water, and turned to face her. The water trailed down to his chin, his neck, dampening the neck of his robes.

"What are you practicing for ?" She made herself as large as possible in the doorway. He leaned leisurely back onto the sink and ignored the undoubtedly annoying water on his face. She could see the trails grabbing onto the ends of his invisible facial hair and she realised he had stubble. White, like his hair. "Where are you going?"

Malfoy crossed his arms now and closed his eyes. He sucked in a breath, and pressed his lips together before he groaned. "If you must know, I'm looking for my parents."

Hermione's ears rang at the confession. Even in the middle of this war, while he fought for the Order, he was looking for them. She laughed, short and humorlessly. It was fruitless. And naive of him, in her opinion, that he would believe they would join him. He shot her a quizzical look, and then smiled like he had a sudden revelation.

"I believe you observed that I am without my family?" He was taunting her, but it was half-hearted. "Mother is the reason I'm even with the Order," he answered her unasked question. "And when she went missing, the Order didn't lift a finger to find her."

"Why?" Hermione blurted. Malfoy chuckled, and Hermione could feel the rumble of it from where she stood.

"I guess it's because we're all Pureblood and couldn't be trusted." Malfoy took a step toward her, and she knew it was his attempt to intimidate her so he could get out of the enclosed space. She didn't move. She was too interested.

"But they let you join." Hermione half-rolled her eyes and tilted her head in her best impression of a teenage girl. "They trust you enough."

"Well, I'm valuable ." Malfoy took another step toward her, and she pulled herself up to her full height. "And, your scummy friends thought if my mother had indeed left her only son, then she might be dead."

Hermione's chest tightened into that too-tight cage that liked to remind her that she was in the middle of a war and surrounded by loss.

She continued for him. "And because she might be dead, they didn't want to waste limited resources to track down a woman who wasn't valuable." Hermione had to look up to meet his eyes, but she didn't feel cowered by him. His eyes had gone glassy at some point, and she couldn't decipher if it was tears or residual water still dripping lazily from his damp hair.

"So will you help me?" A droplet of water landed on her chest; he was that close.

And he was asking for her help.

"It seems like you need a friend." She stepped aside to allow his freedom. He exhaled sharply, and a smirk curled his lips.