Ignore him, Hermione, ignore him. . . .

Harry and Ron tried, she knew that they did. She was grateful for it, for having friends who cared enough to take time out of their evening to care about her. But those friends couldn't stop those cold, grey eyes from glaring at her from the Slytherin table.

He had been waiting for her. She was convinced. He wanted to give her that same look that he gave her earlier to make her feel worse. Why should he care? He was nothing but a heartless, cruel —

"Hermione?" Harry whispered, quickly snapping her out of her once-again rambling thoughts. He raised his eyebrows curiously.

"I just don't like the view at all." She shook her head and mindlessly moved a few peas around on her plate with her fork.

Having gotten to dinner later than most of the students, she, Harry, and Ron were forced to sit wherever they could find space. Tonight, for her, that was right across from Malfoy at the Slytherin table.

Ron narrowed his eyes at her. "You could try to stop looking, you know. . . ."

"Gee, Ron, why didn't I think of that?" she snapped. She hung her head down and sighed. "I — I'm sorry, Ron. I didn't mean to lash out at you like that…I'm just a bit frustrated."

"What are you frustrated about?" asked Harry, who was now grabbing a dinner roll.

"We have a lot on our plates, don't we?" She sighed exasperatedly. "I mean, what with O.W.L.'s coming up, not to mention prefect duties . . ." She glanced at Ron. "We have night shift tonight."

Ron looked at her over his glass of pumpkin juice. He set it down gently and raised his eyebrows. "Who with?" She nodded in the direction of the Slytherin table. "Malfoy and Pansy?"

She nodded again. "They won't be that close, though…they're positioned closer to the dungeon…you know, patrolling around the Slytherin common room. Shouldn't be a problem," she said, taking a bite of food. Her eyes met Ron's confused glare. "I'm not exactly happy about it, obviously. I'm just trying to look on the bright side. . . ." She caught Malfoy's eye; he shifted his glance to Crabbe, who was seated beside him, and muttered something to him. Looking a few students down from where Malfoy was seated, she noticed a pretty girl, with long brunette hair, blue eyes, and a lightly tanned complexion sitting at the Slytherin table. She didn't appear to be too much like the other students; while the others were all loudly discussing classes, Quidditch, and other students, she was quietly reading a book. Looking up, she caught Hermione's eye and quickly looked down.

Hermione leaned across the table to be quieter. "Do you know that girl over there?" she whispered. "The one about five seats down from Malfoy?"

Ron turned around. "Oh, yeah ― that's Charlotte Butler. She's in our Divination class. You've seen her before, haven't you?"

"No ― I guess I never really noticed her before…"

He smiled amusedly. "She's a bit of an odd one, as far as Slytherins go. Most people say she'd be a great Ravenclaw. . . . She's one of the top students in the school," he said, laughing lightly at Hermione's shocked impression, "but not surpassing you, of course."

Hermione gave an appreciative smile. "Thank you, Ron." She looked over at the clock on the wall and began to stand up. "Well, we better head towards the corridors . . . don't want any wanderers, you know." She turned to Harry and waved. "Bye, Harry."

"See you," he replied, with a forced smile.

She and Ron walked out of the Great Hall towards the main corridors, staying a couple of feet away from each other as they traveled. Hermione noticed out of the corner of her eye that Malfoy and Pansy had also gotten up and were probably heading towards the corridors near the dungeon.

"Poor Harry," said Hermione, taking a wishful glance back at the Great Hall as it became further and further away. "He's got so much on his plate right now. . . ."

Ron nodded. "And that Umbridge woman 'teaching' Defense Against the Dark Arts doesn't exactly help, either. She acts like learning this stuff'll never come in handy. . . ."

"Well, it might not be too important for every student, but Harry. . . ." She stopped suddenly where she was standing and shook her head. "It's too dangerous. He has to learn this stuff . . . I mean, if You-Know-Who really is back. . . ."

"He'll need all the practice he can get," said Ron, stopping also to face her.

"Exactly . . . I'm just not sure what to do anymore…"

Ron smiled encouragingly. "Like I've said before, Hermione, you're the cleverest witch of our age. I wouldn't be surprised if you could figure something out over the weekend."

"It doesn't matter how clever I am if You-Know-Who's back," she sighed. "Thank you, but . . . he's one of the most powerful wizards to ever exist, you know . . . it's not something to take too lightly."

The sudden rush of students coming from the Great Hall stopped their conversation immediately. They got out of the way quickly so that the crowd of Gryffindor students could make their way towards the tower. They watched them go up the stairs towards the common room and then turned back to each other.

"Well, it looks like everyone's up there," said Ron.

"All we have to do now is watch out for any potential troublemakers," said Hermione, with a slight smirk.

About an hour passed of just talking and walking around, but nothing particularly interesting occurred. Hermione tried her best to ignore Ron's exaggerated demonstrations of his boredom by staring out of a window.

"Come on, Hermione," he whined. "Can't we just check over there?"

Hermione was fairly fed up at this point about Ron's continual requests to investigate around the Slytherin dungeon. He kept asserting that it would be much more interesting; much more potential for troublemakers…Hermione ignored it for a while, but eventually got completely sick of his nagging.

"Fine, Ron," she snarled, "we'll check around their dormitory for a little while, but not too long, because I honestly don't think there'll be any problems there . . . I mean, they have prefects down there, although they're not necessarily the best. . . ."

"Exactly," said Ron. "I bet Malfoy's letting the Slytherins throw a bloody party down there. . . ."

Slightly angry that she gave in to something so stupid, she slowly followed Ron towards the Slytherin dungeon. Ron muttered that he heard something; in response, Hermione ignored him and walked ahead.

She quickly turned a corner around the closest wall to the dungeon and stopped dead in her tracks. She froze completely, letting out a sharp gasp, as she caught sight of Malfoy and Pansy sitting on a windowsill. Pansy was sitting on Malfoy's lap, facing him, with her tie thrown on the floor and the top two buttons of her shirt undone. Malfoy's hair was slightly disheveled and his tie was loose around his neck, held in Pansy's hands. As they noticed Hermione, Malfoy slowly took his hands off of Pansy's waist and sat up straighter.

At this point, Ron had caught up, his jaw dropping at the sight. Hermione shook her head at them and narrowed her eyes.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked, taking a few steps closer to them.

"What do you think you're doing?" Malfoy snapped. "Aren't you supposed to be patrolling around your assigned area?"

Hermione blinked. "You're not exactly doing the best job of patrolling, though, are you?"

Malfoy pushed Pansy off of him and jumped down from the windowsill. "Are you trying to start trouble, Granger?" He set his hand on top of his left pocket, where he had placed his wand. However, Ron's wand was already out, directly in Malfoy's face.

"Don't," said Pansy, getting down from the windowsill and getting her own wand out. She pointed it at Hermione and glared at Ron. "Don't do it. I don't have to play nice —"

Pansy was interrupted as Malfoy laid a hand on her shoulder. She slowly dropped her arm and turned to him. "It's not worth it," he said. "Don't waste your energy on a mudblood like her."

Pansy seemed satisfied enough with this and turned to Ron, who was looking even more furious. "Well? I've dropped mine, you could certainly drop yours."

"Don't ― threaten ― Hermione," he said, through gritted teeth.

"I only threatened her after you threatened Draco, you idiot."

"He deserves it!" Ron snapped, perhaps a bit louder than he should have.

"Give it a rest, Weasel," said Malfoy, taking a step back from Ron. "It's not that big of a deal." He shot a glance at Hermione and smirked. "She never does anything when I call her a mudblood, you know. I think she's finally accepting it —"

"Malfoy, I will tell Dumbledore you're abusing your privileges," Hermione interrupted.

"Go ahead," he said, with a slight chuckle. "Go on, see if I care. Just allow me to remind you about all the dirt I have on you two and Potter." He smiled maliciously and took a step closer towards Hermione. "I dare you," he whispered. "I dare you to try pulling something over me. You know my family. We don't play, Granger. I dare you."

He took a few steps back from her and smirked. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Pansy and I have some important business to attend to." He glanced at Pansy, who was looking as if she might burst with excitement, and then back to Hermione. "If you want to tell someone about this, go ahead; I just can't guarantee that Potter will be too happy with the result."

Ron started to say something, but Hermione glared at him, stopping him from saying anything stupid. She began to walk away from Malfoy (who at this point, had Pansy cornered and giggling) and the Slytherin dungeon, headed towards the Gryffindor tower. Ron looked confusedly after her, but soon followed, casting a final, resentful glare at the two as he left.

"What a git," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Don't you think we could still do something about it?"

Ron looked at her expectantly, but she remained silent. He narrowed his eyes after a few moments and moved a bit closer beside her.

"Hermione . . . are you all right?" he said, taking her by the arm. She pulled her arm out of his grasp and kept walking ahead of him.

"What ― Hermione, we can always get rid of him, I mean, we could get him expelled —"

"No." She stopped to face him for a moment. "No, we can't." She continued to walk, speeding up her pace slightly to prevent Ron from catching up too quickly.

Ron opened his mouth to speak, but held his tongue and followed slowly behind her. Hermione was too lost in her thoughts to want to speak to him anymore. She was absolutely appalled at the sight of those two ― prefects, no less ― clearly ignoring what she felt like the school was about. We don't have time for social games, she thought, especially with everything falling apart at the seams…

Why should she care, though? If one of the heads or teachers caught them like that, they'd be in a world of trouble. She assumed that they enjoyed the danger of being caught. Besides, it wasn't like many teachers went down there, anyway . . . except for Snape, who probably wouldn't have done anything about it except give them a warning and relieve them of their duties for the night. Although, she thought that not even the most biased of teachers would let something like that slide. . . .

She slumped down against a wall. She felt weak for just allowing Malfoy to persuade her to leave. It was stupid of her. She knew that she could've done better; she could've fought back, she'd done it before. . . .

But would she? When he mentioned Harry, everything changed. She knew that Draco knew a ton about them, and he was connected to so many Death Eaters . . . who knows what might become of Harry if they threatened him?

She felt lost and scared. She pulled her knees up under her chin and hung her head down. She felt an arm wrap around her, which she wanted with all of her power to throw off of her.

"Don't worry about it," said Ron. "He won't hurt Harry."

She couldn't say anything. She was speechless. She knew Malfoywouldn't hurt Harry, but what about the company he kept? They would give anything to kill him, she knew it. They wanted him gone…

But, Hermione was confused. She had just assumed that Draco only threatened Harry so often to prove himself. He sure acted like he'd kill Harry if he could . . . but something told her that he wouldn't. There was something within her that told her Harry would be fine, even with Malfoy's threats. . . . She didn't think that a fifteen-year-old kid would really have it in him to kill someone . . . even if it was Malfoy.

As she entered her dormitory later after completing her shift, she had a strange comfort that everything would be fine, even if it seemed like everything would fall apart around them. Something told her that Harry would be safe, although she didn't know how. She didn't pretend to know how. All she knew was that she felt better, ending the day with a positive reassurance that everything might somehow go better than she had expected.