Chapter 5: The Two Hermiones

Ron thought he was whispering but it was really more of a stage whisper, so loud and raspy that it could be heard at the opposite end of the common room.

"I'm telling you, Harry, it's true."

Harry was skeptical. There were times when Ron's imagination had a way of getting the better of him. Harry set down his broom and shrugged his Quidditch robes off over his head. He flopped down on to one of the couches near the fireplace. Ron sat down next to him and kicked off his cleats revealing a pair of sweaty, crumpled socks which hung limply from his feet. It had the effect of clearing Parvati and Lavender from the immediate vicinity. The two girls staggered back and relocated to a couple of overstuffed armchairs close to the portrait hole. If Ron's plan had been to ensure a bit of privacy with Harry, then he was an absolute genius; either that or he had no idea of the power of adolescent male sweat.

"Ron, it's not true. I was there remember? I would've noticed," Harry said.

"It happened after you got called to Dumbledore's office," Ron insisted.

"Are you sure you didn't just fall asleep and dream it all up?"

"Of course I was asleep! Everybody was asleep! It's History of Magic! You know Binns, as dull as the day is long. I swear they hired him because he's lived history. All of it."

"Ron—"

"—No, Harry. That's just it. Everybody was sleeping, even her. I saw it."

"She'd never fall asleep in class, Ron."

"Oh yeah?" Ron asked, eyebrows raised. "So right after you leave, Binns drones on about the Goblin Wars for a bit and I'm just sitting there, you know, trying to fight it. And I can feel my eyes falling closed and my vision's going a bit crossed-eyed and all, but most of Slytherin is still awake. Dean says they're on to some kind of charm that lets them sleep while their eyes are open, which might be true 'cause Fred and George once used a spell like that during one of Ginny's recitals, so I don't see why the Slytherins can't figure out a way to—"

"—Ron!"

"Right. Anyway, so the next thing I know, my head hits the desk and I wake up. And I'm drooling a bit but that's neither here nor there, really. So I rub my eyes and I look over and who should I see sleeping to beat ol' Trip Von Wrinkle—"

"—I think you mean Rip Van Winkle," Harry said. Apparently, Ron had fallen asleep in Muggle Studies as well.

"Sure. Who should I see next to me snoring—snoring to wake the dead, I tell you—but Hermione!"

Harry held his tongue and it was a good thing he did, because within seconds of saying her name Ron was nailed in the back of the head by a textbook in such excellent condition that it could only have belonged to the alleged sleeping beauty.

Ron howled and fell over sideways. Hermione retrieved her textbook from where it had landed on the floor in front of Harry. She squeezed in between the two of them on the couch and instantly regretted it. Clearly neither one of them had had a chance to shower after Quidditch practice.

"When did you become such a gossip, Ron?" Hermione snapped.

"When you decided to up and fall asleep in the middle of class," Ron answered, gingerly rubbing the back of his head.

"It's not true, Harry," Hermione said, turning to appeal to the more sensible of the two boys. Harry just shrugged. He knew better than to get in the middle of what could blossom into a full-fledged argument between Hermione and Ron.

"Is too." Ron folded his arms across his chest. "And everybody saw it including the Veela."

"She's not a Veela!" Hermione rolled her eyes.

"What Veela?" Harry asked.

"You know, the dark-haired one in Slytherin. The one with the pouty lips," Ron explained, a dreamy look in his eyes.

"She's not a Veela!" Hermione insisted, elbowing Ron to snap him back to reality. "Her name is Imogene."

"Whatever her name is she's pretty spectacular." Ron sighed. "It's like she glows or something. I swear I saw her flickering right before my eyes." Hermione tensed. She didn't want to hear anything about Imogene "flickering" in any sense of the word, especially since to her utter mortification she'd fallen asleep in class for the first time ever nearly causing the golem Imogene to vanish in front of everyone.

"She's the new girl in Slytherin," Hermione said quietly. "She transferred here last year."

"Oh, that one," said Harry.

"That one? What's that supposed to mean, Harry?" Hermione studied him.

"I guess she's pretty," Harry said, absently. "She sort of reminds me of someone—"

"—so, what did Dumbledore have to say?" Hermione interrupted. "Anything new about the H-O-R-C-R-U-X-E-S?" Leave it to her to spell out anything she wished to remain private. Harry doubted that it would've deterred anyone bent on eavesdropping. The only one who seemed to be confused by the sudden onslaught of letters was Ron.

"He thinks he may have a lead on one of them." Harry glanced around. The common room was filling up quickly as students trickled in to socialize in the hour before dinner. "Listen, let's talk about this later, somewhere a bit more…"

"Private," Hermione supplied.

Ron nodded in agreement before he let out a huge yawn. "I don't know about you, Hermione, but I could certainly use a nap."

OOO

It was late. The seventh floor hallway was deserted. It suited Draco Malfoy just fine. He didn't want any witnesses as he slipped from the Room of Requirement. The room's entrance disappeared completely leaving a blank wall in its stead. Draco leaned against the wall, his back to it, and let himself slide down the rough stone surface until he was sitting on the floor. He was sweating. His hands were shaking.

What in the bloody fucking hell was he doing?

What he'd been taught? What he'd been told to do? What he wanted to do? None of those answers seemed sufficient. All of them rang false somehow. He told himself that he didn't have a choice, but that wasn't true. There was always a choice, always more than one option. The other options weren't always so appealing, however. Options had a way of producing undesired consequences.

He raked his fingers through his hair and drew himself to his feet. Here was where things would get complicated if complications were to arise. He had to get back to the dungeons in the middle of the night without rousing Filch, Mrs. Norris or any of the other denizens of the castle who were likely to rat him out. There was nothing for it then but to get there as quickly as possible.

Draco made his way down the seventh floor hall, his footsteps the only sound that cut through the heavy silence which blanketed the castle at this hour. The repetitive rhythm of his step began to lull him into a false sense of security. He was so taken with the sound that he nearly missed the faint echo of footsteps coming from up ahead. Draco sank back against the wall of the corridor, hoping to hide himself in the shadows. When he saw her, however, hiding slipped to the bottom of his list of priorities.

She was walking toward one of the paintings on the wall. It was a portrait of some hideous fat woman stuffed sausage-like into the casing of a frilly pink dress. What Imogene would be doing here at this hour he couldn't possibly fathom. Well, that wasn't precisely true. If he allowed himself to think of her he might be able to come up with a reason, but thinking of her was strictly forbidden. Thinking of her was a trap of sorts and once sprung he'd find himself caught, tangled in urges which could only be his undoing. He wouldn't think of her as he stepped out of the shadows and walked straight toward her.

Imogene was still, uncannily so. Turned to the portrait as she was he saw only the clean, sharp lines of her profile. She seemed stopped there in time, as if pressed between two panes of glass which kept her suspended, waiting.

Draco approached. He thought himself detached, separated from the scene in front of him, but when he felt her stillness and saw the kind of cold detachment that he sought to achieve reflected in her motionless stance, he knew that what he had conjured was nothing more than a façade—and a brittle one at that. Anger was already beginning to seep through in places. How could she remain so unmoved? How could she perfect so easily what he clearly struggled to achieve? How could she not react to him, not feel his presence? She should not be capable of such fucking imperturbable poise.

It rattled him and his footfalls became heavy, pointed on the stone floor. He stalked toward her now consuming the space between them which each greedy step. When he was just beyond arm's length of her she turned her heard toward him, slowly, infinitesimally. He caught sight of her eyes, dark and curiously shallow, lacking a certain depth indicative of humanity.

It was then that Imogene did what any self-respecting witch would do when faced with Draco Malfoy in a dark corridor in the dead of night: she ran.

OOO

Harry couldn't sleep. It surely wasn't the first time. There had been a period of several months during fifth year when the mere thought of closing his eyes had terrified him. Now it wasn't so much fear that kept him awake. Fear was a constant. He'd accepted it, which isn't to say that he was unaffected by it. He'd just simply come to the conclusion that it wasn't going anywhere so he may as well invite it in and tell it to pull up a chair.

Tonight fear had nothing to do with it, or at least, not the kind of life-altering fear inspired by grims and dark lords. As fears go this one was a little one, a quiet one that kicked at his ribs and stomach and made his palms sweat. He knew how to get rid of it.

Harry tossed the covers back and rolled out of bed. He rifled through his trunk for a moment and then returned to bed holding a roll of parchment. He lit his wand and touched it to the parchment.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

The heavily inked lines of the Marauder's Map bled through the surface of the paper. Harry sought her out on the map. She'd be in the girls' dormitory at this hour. It wasn't quite the same as actually seeing her, but it was at least comforting to know that she was there.

Harry let his eyes wander the map. It took a moment before he noticed it. There were two Hermiones shown on the parchment. That couldn't be right. He shook the map as if doing so would somehow correct the mistake, but the two separate Hermiones remained. One was dark and bold and centered in the girls' dorm. The other was faint and it lingered in the hall outside of the entrance to the Gryffindor Tower. Could it be a ghost of her former location or an echo of some sort? Maybe the map had simply gone batty.

Harry shook his head. The map never lied. It never malfunctioned. If there were two Hermiones then there had to be a reason. Perhaps the reason was that Hermione was up to something. Harry sank back on his pillow as he considered this.

"Mischief managed," he murmured.

OOO

Hermione was sitting in her bed trying half-heartedly to stifle the gentle scratching sound of her quill against the roll of parchment spread across her knees. She was almost done with her extra credit paper for Ancient Runes and it was true that it wasn't due until next week but there was no time like the present. Lavender often complained that Hermione's late night scribbling kept her from her much needed beauty sleep. Hermione rolled her eyes at the thought. How anyone could be kept awake by the negligible scraping of a quill was beyond Hermione's ability to comprehend—and truly there were few things Hermione Granger couldn't figure out. So either Lavender Brown had the acute hearing of a three-headed dog or she was simply full of hippogriff shit.

Hermione launched into the conclusion of her paper, neatly summarizing the arguments she'd put forth in several concise sentences. The golem was a dull buzzing in the back of her head. It was due in at any moment. Lately, she'd taken to calling it back before banishing it. Ever since the incident at the manor she liked to make sure with her own eyes that it vanished when she severed her connection to it.

Hermione read over the last few paragraphs of her paper considering several revisions when a sharp, stabbing pain lanced through her head just behind her left eye. She squeezed her eyes shut and spent a moment trying to find her breath. The impact of the pain was so sudden that it knocked that wind from her lungs. Her face stung. Her lips ached. Her nose was wet. She opened her eyes to see several drops of blood on the parchment in front of her. Her nose was bleeding.

Instinctively, Hermione brought her hand to her nose. She used the sleeve of her nightgown to staunch the flow of blood. The initial pain in her head subsided and resolved itself into a dull throb. Released from its grip Hermione was able to focus again. Her thoughts turned immediately to the golem. It was running. It was running from Draco Malfoy.

She should've paid more attention to it instead of letting herself get distracted by her runes paper. Now it appeared to be in some kind of danger. Hermione wanted nothing more than to let her concentration slip and have the golem vanish instantly, but Draco was much too close. He would see it happen and then the "real" Imogene would be forced to explain.

Hermione climbed out of bed and pulled on a cloak. She had no idea what she was going to do but she did know that she couldn't leave Draco alone with the double. Something told her that it wouldn't stand up to his scrutiny. Hermione drew the hood of her cloak over her head. She spared the briefest of moments to rummage through her trunk and retrieve a carefully hidden vial of polyjuice. She ran down the stairs from the girls' dormitory and into the common room, her sights set on the portrait hole.

OOO

When she'd taken off running his instinct had simply been to follow. He hadn't thought to call out or hex her to a halt. He'd simply started running after her. Once he'd started running he'd given little thought to anything else.

Draco gave chase determined to run her to ground. He could keep this up all night if he had to, but after a while she rounded a familiar corner and mounted a spiral staircase. He knew that the chase was nearing its end. She was climbing the Astronomy Tower. Soon enough there would be no where to run.

Draco took the stairs two at a time gaining on her. Imogene didn't look back at him. She hadn't, not once, not the whole time he'd pursued her.

The narrow stairs wound their way upward inside the tower walls. He lost sight of her briefly as the staircase curved but the next step brought him closer and Imogene came back into view, her dark hair spilling out behind her as she continued to climb.

Finally she reached the top of the stairs and threw open the door which led out on to the ramparts. The top of the tower was deserted and the absence of the moon left the sky suffused in darkness. Imogene spun around once and then came to a complete stop. When Draco crossed the threshold seconds later he found her standing eerily still, her back to him.

"Was that really necessary?" he asked. For some reason the question didn't sound nearly as cross as he would've liked. It probably had something to do with the fact that he was breathing hard, having spent the better part of fifteen minutes running after her. He took a moment to catch his breath which crashed through his lungs like a drunken boggart.

Imogene didn't answer. She didn't bother to turn around. Draco was furious. He grabbed her by the wrist and spun her toward him. The least she could do was face him.

He was met with the same blank stare, the same curious lack of depth in her eyes. And there was something else. She wasn't sweating, wasn't remotely breathing hard. One would have thought she'd apparated to the top of the tower instead of having led him on a merry chase through the school and climbed a winding staircase mere moments ago.

Draco took a step closer to her. She didn't move. She simply stared straight ahead her eyes level with his collar. He tucked his fingers beneath her chin and, none too gently, tipped her head back so that she was looking into his face.

"Is this some sort of game, Imogene?"

No response.

"Because it's only a matter of time."

She remained unmoved.

"It's only a matter of time until you answer me."

And she would answer him, Draco thought, one way or another.

OOO

Hermione winced as she felt Draco touch the golem. His fingers were wrapped tightly around its wrist. She felt the intense pressure of his grip on her own wrist and it caused her to quicken her pace in the dark hallway. Her cloak billowed around her as she ran and the nightgown she wore beneath it tangled around her legs. Neither garment was responsible for the sudden stumble that left her sprawling on the cold, stone floor however.

Before she could determine what had occurred Professor Snape was dragging her roughly to her feet. He'd appeared and reacted so quickly that Hermione wondered if he hadn't just stuck his foot out in front of her and tripped her himself.

"Miss Granger!" he hissed. Still slightly off-balance Hermione steadied herself against his arm. In the process her hood fell back. "Or should I say, Miss LeCoeur," Snape amended and snatched his arm away. "Dare I ask where you're going at this hour?"

"Draco's alone with the golem in the Astronomy Tower. It's frightened. It's in danger."

Snape regarded her a moment. She looked terrified.

"I'll remind you that it can't be frightened. It has neither intelligence nor sentience. It isn't real. And the only danger present is of you growing faint from an unsightly nosebleed."

Hermione drew her fingers to her nose and sure enough it was bleeding again. Snape released a soft hiss of air which reached Hermione's ears as an exasperated sigh. He grasped her chin and tilted her head up to inspect the damage. Deciding it wasn't worth the time or energy it took to cast a spell, he produced a handkerchief from his sleeve with minimal prestidigitation. Hermione accepted the handkerchief and took a moment to tend her nose.

"The golem is in danger," she insisted. "How else do you explain this?" she asked gesturing toward her nose.

"Your inability to handle the magic," Snape answered coolly. "The golem is not in danger in the Astronomy Tower, I assure you." He paused a moment. "Or did you think I don't know what students do there?"

Hermione felt her face heat in embarrassment, but it was short-lived as she realized that at least she wouldn't have to explain to Professor Snape of all people that she didn't think the golem could withstand the kind of intense scrutiny and physical contact that was bound to occur during an encounter on the Astronomy Tower.

"So what did you think to do, Miss LeCoeur, substitute yourself? Without him noticing?"

Hermione opened her mouth and then closed it again. She had thought to do precisely that, but somehow hearing the former Potions Master voice her thoughts made them seem foolish and immature.

"And should you have succeeded in trading places with the golem unbeknownst to Mr. Malfoy, he wouldn't then notice your sudden change in attire? He'd simply think that you'd been wearing a blood-stained nightgown and a cloak all along?"

Hermione shook her head. She admitted that her plan was poorly conceived but it'd been born out of urgency.

"Allow me to address this," Snape said, and despite the politesse of his phrasing she knew that he wasn't asking her permission.

OOO

Draco was waiting for Imogene to answer him, and while searching for answers in her mouth with his tongue was certainly one method of eliciting a response, it wasn't proving to be at all effective. The kiss was flat, stale. Imogene was rigid in his arms. He may as well have been kissing Professor McGonagall. The whole thing was decidedly anti-erotic.

Draco tried again with renewed effort. He drew his hands up to her face and angled her head so that her mouth slanted more fully against his. It made absolutely no difference. Imogene was a complete and total cipher, almost an absence of being. If he hadn't had the evidence of her presence between his very hands he would have accused her of not being present at all.

It made no sense. He'd been close to her before. He knew what happened when the two of them were in a certain proximity to one another. It was the very reason he'd willed himself not to think of her. There was something about her that clouded his thoughts and chafed warmth into his senses. It was completely lacking now. Imogene left him cold.

Before he could ponder the matter further, he heard footsteps on the stair, and what happened next happened so quickly that Draco barely had time to even witness it. Professor Snape emerged from the staircase and snatched Imogene from his arms. He dragged her to the crenellated parapet and without ceremony threw her off of the tower.

Draco blinked.

Snape merely dusted off his hands and turned to leave as if that were all the explanation that was necessary.

"Professor? Surely you could have taken away house points. Surely there was no need to kill her?"

"Don't be foolish. There are much more efficient methods of killing a girl than tossing her from a tower."

"Then you didn't just murder a student?" Draco asked. It was perhaps the most curious question he'd ever had to ask his Head of House.

Snape turned his eyes to Draco. Quite frankly the former looked bored.

"Mr. Malfoy, what you were—I believe the term is snogging, is it?—what you were clearly snogging with such abandon a moment ago was nothing more than a rather nasty astral projection hex of which Miss LeCoeur had the misfortune to be the victim."

"A hex? A walking, talking, breathing hex?" Draco asked.

"Did it talk?" Snape countered, raising an eyebrow.

Draco thought a moment. It hadn't talked and for all he knew it hadn't been breathing either. "No, I don't suppose it did."

Draco walked to the edge of the battlements and peered at the ground below. There was no broken body as he might have expected.

"So this hex," Draco began, "it's quite gone now?"

"Quite," Snape replied.

Satisfied, Draco stepped away from the wall.

"And Imo—and Miss LeCoeur, she's all right?"

"You may ask her yourself." Snape nodded to where Imogene stood framed in the doorway to the tower.

Draco turned to look at her and the difference between the hex and the girl was immediately apparent. This Imogene was raw with feeling and her presence was palpable. Her eyes were alive, intelligent and damp as if she'd been crying. Her cloak was twisted around her shoulders and the nightgown she wore was stained at the sleeve and collar with what appeared to be blood. Her bare toes peeked out from beneath the hem of the nightgown. She looked utterly vulnerable.

She hadn't even done anything and already he was struggling with the urge to protect her—from what he hadn't a clue.

"I'm all right," she said quietly. Hermione knew as she spoke that the statement wasn't wholly true. She couldn't have anticipated the impact of the golem's terror as Snape had thrown it from the tower. It had been mind-numbing. She'd scarcely been able to release her concentration to extinguish it before it hit the ground. It left her shaken, weak.

Snape pushed past her through the doorway and began to descend the staircase.

"Come," he called.

OOO

He remembered nothing of the walk to the dungeons except that he'd walked behind her. Draco had watched her the entire way. What he saw was her back, her hair, and on occasion her bare heels and ankles when they crept out from beneath the edge of her cloak. It shouldn't have absorbed his attention, but it had.

Snape stopped in front of the entrance to the Slytherin common room, a blank stone wall that looked just like any of the other blank stone walls which formed the often circuitous corridors of the castle dungeons.

"I trust that the two of you can make it the rest of the way to your respective dormitories." It wasn't so much a question as it was a command, one delivered quite imperiously. The Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor didn't wait for a reply. He simply disappeared down the hall. That left the two of them.

Draco was watching her intently. It made Hermione fidget.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry if the hex was…mean to you."

"Mean? She wasn't mean. She just didn't seem to like me. Odd really. They always like me."

"Do they now?"

"Oh, yes. Never met a girl who didn't."

Hermione looked him over and got the strange sense that he was being earnest. Was it still arrogance if he accepted what he was saying as undisputed fact? She didn't have it in her to argue. It was bad enough that she was going to have to spend the night in the Slytherin dormitory.

"Good night, Draco," she said. Hermione turned to the wall, thinking hard about what the password could be. It was usually something pretty obvious like "pure-blood" or "Salazaar." Slytherins may be cunning but sometimes they weren't very bright.

Draco would not be dismissed so easily. He turned her back around to face him. She wasn't surprised but she couldn't say that she was quite prepared either. He unclasped her cloak and pushed the heavy garment from her shoulders. Before she could react he gathered her close in her ridiculously high-necked, long-sleeved nightgown and rested his forehead against hers.

"I have to know," he said. He heard himself speaking but he barely remembered forming a sentence. He was busy kicking himself for believing that the girl, the hex, the thing that he'd held earlier could possibly have been Imogene. Already he felt the difference: her scent, her warmth, the way in which her nearness influenced him.

He shifted and his lips found her brow before they slipped beneath its ridge to kiss her eyelid closed. He felt the fringe of her lashes against his chin and heard her inhale sharply and quickly as if she'd been caught by surprise.

Hermione was indeed taken aback. Of all the things she thought Draco Malfoy capable of, tenderness wasn't one of them. If he had simply kissed her roughly she could've fought him. It would have been all too easy. But this was something else entirely.

Draco moved again, his nose brushed hers briefly before he touched his lips to hers. He had wanted to know and here was his answer. This was Imogene; real and present; the girl Lucius would have him marry; the girl he suspected he should steer clear of for his own good. Her mouth softened against his and her fingers curled in the neck of his sweater. His whole body tensed knowing the answer, knowing what he wanted of her. Draco's hands snagged in her hair tilting her head back, gently, allowing him to take the kiss where he wanted; to draw back briefly, to touch his lips to the corner of her mouth, her chin, her throat, before finding her mouth again. A sigh escaped her, a soft exhalation against his lips, and in that moment several things became clear to him.

He should not allow this to happen. An attachment like this was dangerous. But it was already too late. He shouldn't have kissed her. He should have gone on without answers always wondering instead of knowing. Now the box was open, the lid no where to be found, and all that remained is that he wanted her. He wanted Imogene. And he would have her.

Something in his kiss must have told her that the decision had been made. She drew back suddenly, eyes frightened, searching his face.

"They can't always like you," she said a bit breathlessly. "Not all of them. Not all the time."

Draco shrugged, a familiar grin settling over his features.

"Always," he said. "All the time."

OOO

Further along the dark corridor but not so far as one might think from the entrance to the Slytherin common room, Severus Snape held his silence in a small alcove. The choice to leave them alone had been a calculated risk. The quality of the silence in the corridor, however, told its own story; the absence of speech replaced with a dialogue of another kind between boy and girl. The risk had paid off then.

It was done.