Chapter 6: Accio Loathing

Hermione was out of sorts. A Muggle might say that she'd woken up on the wrong side of the bed. Actually, she'd woken up in the wrong bed altogether. She hated sleeping in the Slytherin girls' dormitory, but some nights it was an absolute necessity. Usually, she used the Time-Turner to backfill any noticeable absences, but last night she hadn't been able to avoid sleeping there herself. She'd crawled into Imogene's bed and pulled the covers up over her head, but not before she noticed Pansy Parkinson scowling in her direction. She'd been tempted to place a few wards around the bed in order to keep Pansy from jinxing her in her sleep.

Not that she'd actually done much sleeping. She'd spent most of the night trying not to think about Draco Malfoy, but it turned out he was rather insidious. She really had to put her foot down when it came to thoughts of Draco. She had much more important things to think about, chief among them how she was going to make it through Potions with Draco and Imogene sitting at the table in front of her. Now that he'd actually seen the golem, touched it, kissed it, she'd have to go out of her way to make it authentic or he would begin to suspect that some sort of hex was afoot.

It took a lot of concentration to make Imogene nuanced. It was especially difficult when Hermione was required to divide her attention between the golem and something as intellectually rigorous as a N.E.W.T.-level potions class. She sighed. To make matters worse, Professor Slughorn hadn't showed up yet, which was odd. He usually greeted them at the door, waiting anxiously to bask in the glow of the Boy-Who-Lived. The downtime left the class chattering amongst each other, all except Draco and Imogene. He stared at her, grey eyes sharp, observant, taking her in, from the soft curl of flesh that was her ear, along the exposed skin of her throat, to the curved lines of her lips.

That wouldn't do. Hermione felt her face heat as if he'd been staring at her. He hadn't of course. He was watching Imogene and she realized that he seemed to like looking at her. That wouldn't do at all. It was pointedly distracting.

And Imogene? Well, Imogene, Hermione decided, ducked her head slightly and allowed her hair to slip forward, covering the side of her face. It had the effect of screening out Draco's gaze while it played into the impression that perhaps she was feeling a bit shy after last night.

"Hermione!" Ron said, in what she thought to be an extraordinarily loud voice. She nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of her name. "What are you staring at Malfoy for? He do something to you?"

Hermione shushed him six ways from Sunday. Then she shushed him some more. "No, Ron," she said finally, "and I'm not staring. He's right in front of me. I can't not look at him."

"I can," Ron grumbled. He leaned over to Harry and asked in his whisper that wasn't a whisper, "Harry, does Hermione seem jumpy to you?"

"I can hear you, Ron!" Hermione explained.

"Well, then you know that I'm asking Harry a question."

"Is that what you do then? Talk about me to Harry behind my back?"

Harry sighed. He pretended to be very interested in a loose thread hanging from the sleeve of his robes.

"I'm not talking about you behind your back, am I?" Ron said. "I'm talking about you right in front of your face!"

"Ten points from Gryffindor for inane bickering and the wasting of precious class time." Severus Snape swooped into the room, dark robes billowing as he stalked to the front of the class. "Professor Slughorn was called away on urgent business. He will return in time for your next lesson. In the meantime I am to see that you follow the instructions he has left for the class."

Ron groaned. "We have Defense Against the Dark Arts after this. That's double the Snape!" he whispered to Harry.

"Ten more points from Gryffindor for talking out of turn. Mr. Weasley, do learn how to whisper."

"Shut it, Weasley," Dean Thomas muttered from the back of the room. Ron folded his arms across his chest and sank into a sulk. Snape turned his attention back to the rest of the class.

"You are to brew the Amortentia potion. Who here knows what that is?"

As if on cue, Hermione's hand shot into the air. Snape saw it and ignored it. He glanced at the class. Several of the Ravenclaw students had their hands raised as well, but Miss Granger had certainly been the first to launch her hand aloft.

"Miss LeCoeur," he said finally.

Hermione's mouth was already open to begin her answer when she realized that he hadn't called on her. He'd called on Imogene. Her eyes narrowed. Snape knew how difficult it was to make the golem speak. Was this some sort of challenge?

"Don't be shy," Snape said. Coming from any other teacher it would have been gentle encouragement. Coming as it was from Snape the effect was altogether different. This was not encouragement. It was an order.

Imogene sat up straight and pushed her hair from her face. Her eyes slid slowly up to meet Snape's gaze. In them was a look of such clarity and determination that he blinked in order to be sure of what he was seeing. Imogene was suddenly very present, very real and perhaps just the least bit angry. She bristled with an intensity that Draco couldn't help but react to. He leaned back in his chair in an elegant slouch to watch her, a proud smirk settling on his lips. It was the girl behind Draco, however, that Snape had turned his attention to. Hermione Granger was seething.

"The Amortentia," Imogene began in her low, slightly raspy voice, "is the most powerful of all love potions. It is believed to have first been brewed by the Amazons who used it to bind their male mates to them for the duration of the mating period after which they disposed of them."

Snape listened carefully to her answer. Imogene's voice was noticeably different from Hermione's but the cadences, the words she chose and her distinct phrasing all belonged to a particular know-it-all who at the moment was quite unhappy that he'd forced her to this complicated bit of magic first thing in the morning. No matter. He'd achieved his end. It was vital that she breathe life into the golem and she had; uncanny life.

"Excellent. Ten points to Slytherin."

Hermione's mouth fell open. If she'd been angry mere moments ago she was practically livid by now. Never in all her days had she hoped to use her intellect to benefit Slytherin House in any way.

"Now, you will work in pairs for this assignment. Instructions can be found in chapter seven of your textbook. I would advise you to follow them carefully as you and your partner will be required to test your own potion," Snape explained.

Ron moved quickly in claiming Hermione as his partner. She wasn't at all pleased about it, but her alternative, Harry, had already paired off with Parvati. Hermione glanced quickly at the table in front of her to see Draco and Imogene organizing their ingredients.

"Just a moment," Snape said suddenly. "It occurs to me that the true test of this potion is not if it is used among friends but among rivals. Therefore, your partner will be someone of a different house." The entire class froze, unready and unwilling to comply. "Very well," Snape said. "I shall choose the pairings."

Hermione felt her stomach drop. Snape was up to something. She had a feeling that she knew what it was even before she found herself standing next to Draco Malfoy, having been ordered to switch partners with Imogene. She waited for Malfoy's face to twist into a scowl and braced herself for the insults that she knew were sure to follow. His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. She was doing her best to summon the intense feelings of loathing and righteous indignation that should have resulted when Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy were forced into contact with one another, but it wasn't working—no matter how many times she muttered "Accio loathing" under her breath.

She simply knew too much about him. She knew that much was expected of him, much that was unkind, but there was something in him, a tenderness, that made it difficult to hate him outright. It was because of last night. He'd been so careful with her—with Imogene—the way he'd touched her, gently, and she realized that there was nothing she could do about it. It was up to him to make her hate him and he was failing at it, miserably. Go ahead, Malfoy, she thought, make me hate you.

Draco continued to regard her. She could see him thinking, but what he was thinking she had no idea. He quickly looked away. Hermione leaned across him, reaching for the first of the ingredients. She felt him tense.

"Not so close, Granger," he said. There was a low note of warning in his voice.

"Sorry, did I sully His Majesty's robes?"

"Just because I have to work with you doesn't mean I want to wear you."

"You needn't worry about that. I'll keep my distance."

Draco leaned in close to her. It should have been threatening. For some reason it wasn't.

"See that you do," he said.

Hermione felt her face heat. She told herself it was because of the steam rolling off of the cauldron in front of her. She busied herself rolling up the sleeves of her robe and twisting her hair into a knot at the back of her neck.

OOO

Ron was quite simply flabbergasted. Potions was hard enough as it was. Usually, he spent half the class worried that his cauldron would explode. Now he had the added pressure of being partnered with a Veela, and not just any Veela, the dark-haired Slytherin Veela who'd haunted his dreams. He was terrified.

She seemed content not to talk to him, focused as she was on the task at hand. She neatly arranged the ingredients and began to work, methodically following the instructions in the textbook. Oddly, there was something about the Veela that reminded him of Hermione. Maybe it was the way she tied her hair up into a knot to keep it out of her face. Or maybe it was that funny way she had of peering sideways into the cauldron in order to keep her eyebrows from being singed off—a lesson that Ron had had to learn the hard way.

The Veela offered a bowl of valerian roots to him, gesturing that he should add them to the potion. Ron croaked in response, a charming toad-like sound that was clearly born from his own nervousness. He stared at her, frozen. She shook her head and added the roots herself, after which she began to carefully stir the potion. Once she looked away from him he seemed to thaw out. Ron's first move was to lean over to Harry.

"I'm dying here!" he gasped, talking out of the side of his mouth as if that would make him less conspicuous.

Harry turned away from the potion he'd been brewing with Luna Lovegood. His glasses were fogged from the bluish steam that rose from his cauldron. He pulled them off and wiped the lenses on his robes before answering Ron.

"I dunno, Ron, your potion doesn't look so bad."

"Not the potion, Harry, the Veela," he said, nodding toward Imogene. "She won't talk to me. I'm going down in flames!"

"What did you say to her?"

"Nothing."

"That's probably why she won't talk to you."

"Harry, help a bloke out here. What do I say? What do you say to a goddess?"

"Er, maybe, hello?"

"Hello? I can't say hello! She's a goddess!"

"I thought you said she was a Veela."

Snape rapped his wand against the teacher's desk as a warning that the conversation in the room had gotten a bit too loud.

Ron and Harry turned back to their respective potions, but moments later Ron leaned over again.

"You're holding out on me, Harry!"

"What?"

"C'mon, you've gotta show me your moves."

"My moves?" Harry asked, confused.

"Yeah, you know what I mean. Your Cho Chang moves. Your mojo."

"Ron, there's no Cho… mojo. That didn't really work out, remember?"

"'Course it did, mate. You snogged her."

"Yeah, well not in potions class and I had to talk to her first."

"Right. So what did you say?"

Harry shrugged. "Sorry I saw your boyfriend murdered by Voldemort."

"That's no good. No bird wants to hear that," Ron said.

Harry was at a loss, so he was somewhat thankful when Luna spoke up.

"Ronald, if Harry says that he has no mojo, then I think we can believe that he has no mojo," she explained.

"Thanks, Luna," Harry said, though he wasn't sure he would've put it quite like that. What he was trying to say to Ron was that there were no magic words. In fact, there was no magic at all. It was more a matter of Muggle chemistry.

Disappointed, Ron went back to his potion. He stood stiffly next to the Veela trying for all the world to think of something to say.

OOO

Hermione was for once thrilled that Ron managed to be so woefully inept when it came to girls. It saved her from having to make the golem speak. She had worries enough of her own to deal with, namely this newfound sensitivity to Malfoy. They'd spent the better part of class trying to avoid speaking or even looking at each other, but they couldn't avoid touching when working in such close quarters.

Draco reached around behind her for the cutting knife to her right. It had the effect of pinning against the table, leaving her sandwiched as it were between him and the cauldron. It was closer than Draco had ever intended to be to her, a fact that struck him profoundly when he found his nose buried in the soft, curly brown hair at the top of her head.

Hermione went rigid. Draco jumped back as if he'd been burned. Her hair. Something about it felt... right. It even smelled vaguely familiar. It was entirely disturbing. Maybe the vapors from this ridiculous potion had gone to his head.

He cursed himself for being so clumsy, so stupid. He could simply have asked her to pass the knife to him, but that would have required speaking to her and he'd been trying to keep that to a minimum. Irritated, he drove the cutting knife into the table. The blade caught in the wooden surface and the knife stuck there, handle vibrating as Draco stalked off toward the store cupboard to retrieve one last ingredient.

Hermione was just as jumpy as Draco. It didn't help that Snape had been watching them closely the entire class. He'd seen their hands touch, seen them desperately trying to negotiate what suddenly felt like the very cramped space of the worktable. At one point, several strands of her hair had come loose and managed to become tangled in the fastening of Draco's robes. They'd been stuck together for several tediously uncomfortable moments with Snape watching them, hawk-like and sharp-eyed.

Thankfully, the potion was nearly done. In another ten minutes they'd be ready to test it.

OOO

This is a test. This is only a test, she thought. And Hermione was usually quite successful when it came to exams and the like. After all, she studied hard, she was eager to acquire knowledge, and she was known to be a fast learner.

Hermione was passing this particular test with flying colors; folded in Draco's arms, kissing him in such a way that would have made the French proud.

She'd pulled him to her by his tie and now her mouth was open over his, her lips soft, wet, attentive. Draco locked his arms around her waist, drawing her close, crushing their robes between them. He kissed her hard, pressing her back against the edge of the worktable.

It was over almost as suddenly as it had started. Snape grabbed Draco by the scruff of his neck and dragged him bodily from Hermione.

"A strong potion, indeed. I don't believe I've ever seen two students return to kissing one another after having taken the antidote," Snape said drily. "Top marks to you Mr. Malfoy, Miss Granger."

"Antidote?" Hermione said. She followed Snape's gaze to the empty vial that he held between his fingers. He had given them the antidote some minutes ago—she remembered that now—but somehow it hadn't stopped either of them from falling on one another.

Her thoughts were interrupted as Draco spat on the floor and scrubbed his mouth with the back of the hand. It was a good show, and she would've considered being hurt if it hadn't been for the fact that the disgust which had settled over his features didn't seem to reach his eyes.

Draco was doing what he was supposed to do. He knew what was required of him, Lucius had seen to that. Even if he were thinking that Granger was an annoyingly competent kisser with legs for days beneath the pleats of her skirt, he could in no way own or acknowledge it. It had to be the bloody potion, antidote or no.

For Hermione the utter mortification was beginning to sink in. She had shamelessly snogged Draco in front of the entire class and quite frankly she was afraid to even look at her classmates. When she finally did muster the courage, however, she was shocked to find that the rest of them were engaging in rather similar behavior.

Harry held Luna in his lap, chuckling as she kissed his glasses off of his face, Neville Longbottom was lovingly braiding Padma Patil's hair, and Ron was on his knees clutching the hem of Imogene's skirt. Snape made his way across the classroom administering the antidote to one and all. He sighed wearily when he reached the last pair, Dean and Seamus. They'd been forced to work together due to the extra number of Gryffindor boys in the class. Snape pried the kissing boys apart and dosed them heartily. The boys fell into an embarrassed sulk once the antidote had taken effect.

Mercifully, they'd come to the end of class. Snape dismissed them all summarily and Hermione rushed to pack her things. She was exhausted and struggled to turn her focus to Imogene whom she'd neglected somewhat the moment she'd found her mouth on Draco's.

Draco pushed passed Hermione, rudely, and it pricked her temper. She thought he may have just done it; he may have succeeded in getting her to hate him again. So be it. She was prepared. She felt anger tighten her hands into fists and she would have kicked off her hatred right then and there if it hadn't been for the clumsy and unintentional sweep of his gaze. She met his eyes briefly and in less than an instant she saw it: confusion. Draco turned on his heel and left the room.

The whole thing left her decidedly unsettled. She scooped up her bag and started for the door under the weighty burden of Snape's impassive but by no means benign stare. And that's when she remembered. Another set of eyes. Another pointed stare. She'd glimpsed it just as Snape had separated her from Draco; eyes that had cut into her, eyes that had focused jealousy and rage and distilled them into one venomous stare. It was impossible, but it was true.

Imogene had glared at her.

OOO

It'd been a while since the fire in the Gryffindor common room had died. The stone walls and high ceiling worked in concert to cultivate the chill which blossomed from the ground up, seeping into the rafters. Despite the noticeable drop in temperature Harry was beginning to doze. It may have had something to do with the absence of other students, the deep darkness, and the late night silence which had descended on the space.

He felt rather than heard the sound of the portrait hole opening, not fully awake. There were footsteps, faint. He forced his eyes open. There was a cloaked figure stumbling in the dark. Presently, it tripped and fell on him where he lay stretched out on the couch. Harry wriggled and managed to find his wand as the bundle of arms and legs on top of him struggled to right itself.

"Lumos," he whispered. The figure stopped struggling when the wandlight spilled over her features.

"For the love of Merlin!" Hermione exclaimed. "Harry, you scared the pumpkin juice out of me! What are you doing up?"

"I was waiting for you. Had no idea it'd get so late."

"I lost track of time. Harry, is everything okay? Is it your scar?" she asked, touching his forehead.

"No, my scar's fine. But your elbow's in my—"

"—Oh, sorry," Hermione said. She resumed her efforts to climb off of him. Her cloak had become trapped underneath him and rather than tug it loose she simply unclasped it and slipped it from her shoulders. Moments later, the two of them sat next to each other on the couch. Harry used his wand to rekindle the fire in the fireplace.

"What's wrong?" she asked finally, sensing his unease. She hoped that Harry wasn't upset with her. Ron had already declared that he wasn't speaking to her due to what he termed her tongue-dueling with Malfoy. She didn't need that kind of rebuke from Harry as well.

"Well, I…," Harry began, but stopped. He rose to his feet and started to pace back and forth. She could see him thinking, working things out. "I was looking at the Marauder's Map the other night. I've been looking at it, you know, to see what Malfoy's been up to. He's been skulking around the castle, acting strange even for him."

Hermione froze. If Harry had seen Draco on the map, he might also have seen anyone in the immediate vicinity, say, atop the Astronomy Tower for instance.

"But the other night, I saw you on the map and there were two of you. Two Hermiones."

Hermione chose her words carefully.

"Are you sure it wasn't some sort of foul-up? With the map, I mean."

"That's what I thought, only the map doesn't foul-up," Harry said softly.

"No, I don't suppose it does," Hermione answered. She folded her hands in her lap to keep them from shaking. Lying to Harry as she was about to do made her especially nervous. She didn't like it. "I think it's just the map's way of reading the Time-Turner."

"You're using the Time-Turner again?"

"Well, it's N.E.W.T.s, isn't it? I haven't possibly got time for all my classes," she said, a bit defensively.

"The Time-Turner." Harry seemed to mull it over. It was a plausible explanation as to why the map would read her twice—almost too plausible. He thought back to third year, trying to remember a time when he might have seen Hermione use the Time-Turner on the map. He couldn't think of any. He really hadn't known she'd even been using it until end of term.

Hermione picked nervously at the hem of her skirt, her eyes downcast. She couldn't look Harry in the face. She could only hope that he was buying her story. They sat in silence for several moments and she was just beginning to relax when Harry spoke.

"Hermione, your tie."

"What?"

"Your tie. It's green and silver."

Hermione's fingers flew to her neck and clutched at the tie knotted neatly at her throat. She was wearing Imogene's uniform. It may have had something to do with the fact that she'd spent the entire evening as Imogene and had only returned to Gryffindor Tower after the polyjuice had worn off. She hadn't planned on running into Harry on her way to the girls' dorm.

Harry watched as panic streaked across Hermione's features. It was fleeting, however. In moments she'd recovered herself.

"Oh, that," she said casually. "It's some silly charm that the Slytherins have come up with. It changes your house colors so it looks like you've switched allegiance to Slytherin."

Harry looked at her, somewhat skeptical.

"They've been using it a lot at Quidditch matches, you know, turning the stands green and silver. Guess you haven't noticed though. You're usually pretty busy during Quidditch matches."

Hermione decided that now was the time to stop talking. The more she spoke, the worse her story sounded.

"It's a charm?" Harry asked. "Then you know the counter-spell?"

"Of course, I do."

Harry looked at her expectantly.

"I'll handle it once I get upstairs. Honestly, Harry, you don't think I actually want to be wearing Slytherin colors, do you?"

"No, I can't see why you would." He stood and began to pace again, wearing a path in the carpet in front of the fireplace. "Is something going on Hermione?"

"Everything is going on. There's the Runes exam in two weeks, the Potions project, the Transfiguration essay—"

"—No, I mean, is there something else going on? With you?"

"With me? Well, no Harry. I'm the same old Hermione, a bit knackered maybe, but, you know, all in all just right as rain."

Harry seemed to accept this, or at least, he accepted it enough not to press the matter further. It was late and they were both exhausted.

Hermione gathered her cloak and mounted the stairs which led toward the girls' dormitory, a bit knackered and in no way right as rain.

OOO

Hermione was clearly slipping. There was entirely too much to keep track of. There was Hermione's uniform and there was Imogene's uniform. There were Hermione's classes and there were Imogene's classes. There were times when she was supposed to hate Draco Malfoy and times when she was supposed to like him. There were the details of two distinct and separate lives, which had begun to blend together. Indeed the devil was in the details and he would see to it that the details were the death of her.

Hermione sighed. Quietly, so as not to wake Lavender, she pulled aside her bed curtains, turned down the sheets and slid between the covers. It was the simplest action in the world. It had no hidden meaning, required no subterfuge. Hermione was getting into bed, her bed, not Imogene's. She was grateful for the unfettered simplicity of it. She took delight in the transparency of the act.

By contrast, her night up until this point had been much more complex, and as such it bore the requisite symbols of complexity: cloak, potion, and clandestine meeting. It had been the usual circus; the bell, book and candle routine which summoned Imogene into being by way of the polyjuice potion.

This Imogene, of several hours ago, was somewhat more real than the Imogene of this morning's potions class. This Imogene was an altered Hermione trying desperately to mind the details.

She'd come across Draco in the seventh floor hallway earlier that night. The timing was everything. A moment earlier and she would've seen nothing but an empty corridor. A moment later and she would've seen Draco strolling the hall. She would've missed that crucial moment when he stepped out of the wall through a door which rapidly faded from sight. Draco Malfoy had stepped out of the Room of Requirement.

She watched as he turned to face the wall behind him. He placed his palms against it and leaned into it, almost as if he were trying to push the wall away from him. He let his head hang forward and pressed against the stone surface tightening his arms. Frustration drove him. He gritted his teeth and ground his palms harder against the rough stone.

"You won't win," Hermione said softly. "It's stronger than you are." She took a couple of tentative steps toward him. "It's been here longer."

Draco jumped at the sound of her voice. He realized he wasn't alone and immediately straightened, dusting his palms against his robes. The heels of his hands were raw from where they'd rasped against the stone.

When he looked up at her his eyes were clouded with uncertainty. Hermione held her tongue. He looked as if he might speak. But he didn't. He looked away. When he looked back, the uncertainty was gone—in its place a more familiar expression; one that was cocky, teasing.

"Out looking for me, were you?" he asked.

"Blaise said you sometimes like to walk the castle."

"The castle is huge, and yet you found me here."

"I thought you might be looking for that girl you snogged this morning, the one with the frizzy hair. We are near Gryffindor Tower, after all."

He walked toward her, but stopped a foot or so away. Draco circled to her right. When he spoke, it was from behind her.

"I should tell you that I don't like clingy girls," he said, "or jealous girls either for that matter."

"Really? Then poor Pansy Parkinson. She's horribly jealous."

"And why's that?"

"She's under the impression that you like me," Hermione said, without bothering to turn and face him.

"Wonder what gave her that idea." Draco leaned against her. He was standing very close behind her, his breath in her hair, his chest against her back.

Hermione closed her eyes, doing her best to summon those details which were relevant to the circumstances. Imogene liked Draco, she was supposed to, so it was okay if she leaned back against him as he stroked his fingers through her hair. It was okay if her breath caught in her throat as he brushed her hair from the back of her neck and touched his lips to her nape. It was okay if she found that she wanted to be near him and that more than anything she wanted him to touch her—Imogene, that is, wanted him to touch her.

Draco had been watching her all day, waiting for the chance to kiss her again, to touch her and make sure that all of the time he spent thinking about her wasn't in vain, that he still wanted her, that she still made him tense, that she still made his skin hot when she touched him, and that it was Imogene that he wanted—Imogene—and not, as the Amortentia potion would have him think, Hermione Granger.

Imogene it was. She turned to face him and caught his hands in hers, tracing the raw skin at the heels of his hands with her fingers. Her hands were incredibly soft, her touch, gentle. She leaned up to kiss his mouth, drawing his hands to her waist. Draco needed no further encouragement to pull her close, tightening his arms around her. He drew her hard against him, leaning back against the wall behind him.

Hermione moved her hands to his face, palms rasping against his jaw. She drew his mouth more firmly to hers and opened her lips. Draco tensed and made a sound low in his throat. She felt the vibration of it along his jaw which she traced with the tips of her fingers. He crushed her closer, leaning into the wall, which suddenly gave way. Unprepared, Draco stumbled, taking Imogene with him, through a large wooden door which had suddenly appeared in the wall behind him.

Hermione blinked. They were standing in the Room of Requirement, there was no other explanation for it, but she had never seen the room quite like this. It was absolutely huge, the size of a large cathedral with vaulted ceilings and high windows. It was crammed full objects, stacked and stored in towering rows, forming alleys and lanes; a veritable city of forgotten odds and ends. Hermione shook her head, trying to process it all. She was trying to figure out how snogging Draco Malfoy had got her to this.

Draco thoughts were dark. Of all the rooms that he possibly might have needed whilst kissing Imogene, this certainly wasn't one of them. This was the place he'd left only moments before meeting her in the hall. This was the place that haunted his nightmares. This was the place that—each time he stepped into the seventh floor hallway—he hoped never to find again. The Room of Requirement must have a horrible sense of humor if it thought to bring him here.

"Incredible," Hermione said. She stepped forward to inspect the stack of objects closest to her.

"It's the Room of Requirement," Draco said stiffly.

"I know—I mean—I heard about it from some of the students," she replied. "Is it always this… messy?"

"I suppose not. It isn't always anything. It's whatever you need it to be." And suddenly it occurred to him, why he was here.

Draco stepped over a couple of Fanged Frisbees and ducked beneath a heavy, bloodstained ax. He walked several paces and stopped before a broken Vanishing Cabinet, the one Montague had got lost in the previous year. Draco kicked the cabinet. He kicked it savagely and repeatedly until it shattered into splinters.

Hermione watched, silent. She hadn't the least idea what was going on, but she knew better than to say anything.

He was sweating, breathing hard and exhausted from having kicked the cabinet to pieces. At last, he extended a hand in her direction.

"Come on," he said. "Let's get out of here."

OOO

He hadn't explained the cabinet. In fact, he hadn't said much at all after that. Hermione was still thinking about it even now, as she lay in bed. What could it mean? She played the scene over again in her head, looking for anything she might have missed, scouring it for details; for it was an undisputed fact that the devil was in the details.