By the time Hermione had calmed down, it was past curfew. With plenty of floors, prefects, and professors between herself and the Gryffindor commons, Hermione began panicking again. Draco took a couple minutes of it before making the oddest suggestion.

"Just come with me," he grumbled. She stared at him in the same way many people stared at Luna. Cheeks flush, he picked up his things and started for the door. "Fine, stay here!"

"No, wait!" She hesitated, obviously reluctant to go along with him. Spending a night in Draco's company was not her idea of a good time and it made her just as nervous. But she also did not want to stay in the lavatory with Moaning Myrtle, who had taken to being incredibly unpleasant to Hermione when Draco was not around. There was no way she would make it up to the Gryffindor commons without any kind of invisibility device. "Okay, I'm coming."

Easter was too heavy for her bag, but he followed along in the shadows as the two students carefully made their way down to the dungeons. Hermione's gaze wandered everywhere, having never been this particular way before, but she also kept close to Draco. When they were near the portrait hole, he had her stay out of sight while he went to open the door. He was gone for several minutes, heightening Hermione's anxiety so much that she was about to take her chances going all the way up to the seventh floor. Draco returned before she could make her move, however, and she followed him through the open door.

She remembered Harry and Ron's descriptions of the commons from second year and found that nothing much had changed. The commons were empty and even the portraits were all asleep. Draco gestured for her to take off her shoes before they continued down a dimly lit hallway. He stopped at the fourth door and opened it with a key from his pocket.

The room was surprisingly similar to the bedrooms in Gryffindor save for the color scheme and there were only two beds in this particular room, leaving more space for trunks and desks.

"Why are there only two beds?" she asked as Draco put his things in his trunk on the left side of the room.

"No questions," he snapped. He pointed to the bed on the right side. "You can sleep there."

"I'm not sleeping in here with you!"

"Then you can get the hell out of here. Good luck getting to your common room."

She glared at him but moved over to the bed. "Whose bed is this?"

"Blaise's."

"Won't he come in?"

"He's going through a spell of insomnia. He hasn't touched the bed in two weeks."

"Then where is he?"

"God, you ask a lot of dumb, useless questions." He turned to her. "Go to bed."

"I need to brush my teeth."

His mouth opened, but nothing came out and he settled on flicking his wand at a closet. It opened up, revealing a basin full of water below a mirror and some hand towels neatly folded to the side. A dish of soap was next to the basin. He grabbed some clothes from his trunk and walked out. Hermione set her bag down just as Easter stepped out of the shadows behind Blaise's trunk, sniffing the room. She avoided him as she went to the basin, finding some extra toothbrushes and toothpaste in the cabinet below the basin. Splashing her face with cool water helped relieve some of the anxiety she had been feeling since Draco read from the tome.

"I can't believe this is happening to me," she said, looking over at Easter. A dangerous animal is what Hagrid had said. Hagrid, who believed dragons were friendly enough to be pets. No survivors. No known ones.

She shook her head as logic started to kick in. If this were really that Mngwa creature, then Hermione would have been dead at the antique shop. Easter was irritable at some points, but on whole he had been a good pet. Very amiable, at least with Hermione and Draco. No, this was not the same creature. This could not be.

"Are you done, Granger?"

Hermione moved to her designated bed as Draco went to the basin to wash up. He had changed into some green drawstring pants and a shirt, something she had never imagined she would see him in. He was rather trim, like Ron, with muscular arms and a lean torso. Shaking her head to get rid of the thoughts, she reminded herself that she was sharing a room with Malfoy and that there was no amount of trimness that could dismiss that. She looked down at her clothes and shifted uncomfortably.

"Um…Malfoy?"

He glanced at her. "What?"

She rolled her eyes. "You invited me down here. You don't have to take a tone. I just…I need something to sleep in. I can't sleep in this."

His eyes moved over her briefly and, after brushing his teeth, he pulled some things out of his trunk and tossed them to her.

"You can burn them when you're finished, as I'm sure Blaise will ask you to do with the sheets."

She looked down at the clothes and then at him again very pointedly, cheeks aflame. "I have to change."

Draco got into his bed and yanked his drapes closed, ending any more conversation. She got into her own bed and closed the curtains before changing into the cotton shorts and shirt he had given her. Folding her clothes neatly at the end of the bed, she settled down into the sheets. She could hear Easter padding around the room and pulled the curtain back to see him pawing at Draco's curtains. He mewed loudly, something she had never heard before. The curtain drew back, revealing Draco's tired face. He stared down at Easter before moving out of the way so that the creature could leap up into the bed. Then, with a fleeting look towards Hermione, he released the curtains. Hermione retreated back into her own bed, and listened to Easter's low hum and the dreadful quiet of two people trying desperately to ignore each other's presence.

Easter was gone when both students woke up, but Blaise was present, much to Hermione's dismay. He was sitting at his desk, already dressed for school as he finished up some homework. When Hermione drew back her curtains, he only glanced at her.

"Malfoy will be back shortly," he said. "He will let you out of the dungeons."

She frowned. Had Malfoy told him about what they were doing? As if he had heard her, he shook his head.

"I don't want to know what you two are up to. It's not my concern if he decides to take up with muggleborns."

Flush from embarrassment, she just nodded and went to the basin to wash up. She changed back into her other clothes within the privacy of the bed curtains and opened them to find Draco waiting for her. Blaise put down his quill to look at his roommate.

"Am I to guess this is going to become a habitual thing?"

"No!" both said emphatically. Blaise nodded.

"I'll leave the sheets on, then, Granger. Do bring some of your own clothes, though, next time?"

"She's not coming back," Malfoy snapped.

"Of course not. I'll see you at breakfast, Draco."

Grumbling under his breath, Draco led Hermione back through the deserted commons. She could tell the whole situation had fouled his mood and decided that this was no way for the two of them to continue.

"I'm sorry."

He stopped and she ran into him. They were still in the dungeons so she was a little nervous as he turned to her, glaring.

"Excuse me?"

She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "I'm sorry. About what happened. About what I said. You're right, I had no right to call you a coward. I guess, when you're trying to protect Harry, everyone who won't stay looks like one. I should have had all the facts first."

His eyes narrowed. "What is this about, Granger?"

"We…I have a problem. Easter…I don't know if he's that Mngwa thing or some other creature in one of those books. But he's my responsibility and…and he is yours, too. So arguing amongst ourselves isn't going to help us, especially if he gets bigger. I don't like you, Malfoy. And you certainly don't like me. But we have to at least try to coexist while Easter's still here at the castle."

Again, an odd look passed over Malfoy's features when she mentioned how they did not like each other. But it disappeared and he turned away from her.

"Fine, whatever."

"Thank you."

His body stiffened. "What?"

The words tasted like metal in her mouth, but she repeated them. "For letting me stay here."

For a while, he said nothing. She wondered if someone had ever thanked him for anything before. He soon snapped out of his reverie and moved at a brisk pace to get out of the dungeons. When they reached the ground floor, he hesitated, unsure if he should continue on with her. Her stomach tightened, but she ignored it and continued on without looking back at him.

Hermione got to the commons without incident and was able to shower and change without waking her roommates. She had put the clothes Draco had lent her in her bag. After a moment's hesitation, she shrunk them down and tucked them into a pocket in her schoolbag. Harry, Ron, and Ginny were all sitting in the commons when she returned.

"Where've you been, Hermione?" Ginny inquired.

"I was taking a shower-"

"You didn't come back last night," Ron said, clearly concerned. She tried to act nonchalant, shaking her head to dismiss the statement.

"Of course I came back-"

"We waited up until two," Ginny pointed out.

"Well, Ron stayed up until two," Harry clarified with a yawn. "What happened? I thought you were just going to talk to Slughorn?"

"I did, but something else came up and-"

"You know, Hermione, there have been a lot of things that just come up." Ron pulled her down into the seat beside his, holding her hand tightly. "You're starting to worry us all."

She was starting to miss the quiet of Malfoy's room, a thought that made her cringe inwardly. "I'm sorry I worried you all. It won't happen again, I promise."

"You haven't told us what it is, Hermione!"

"Because it's private." She stood with a sigh. "Look, can we just go to breakfast?"

It was not hard to tell that her friends were not done questioning her. Ron especially looked worried that something serious was going on. It was, but he couldn't know that. The walk to the Great Hall was long and silent, allowing Hermione to think over last night.

Draco's confession about his absence during the war bounced around in her mind, along with his strange kindness, if one could call it that, by letting her stay in his room instead of risking a certain detention for being caught past curfew. He seemed less hostile, outside his outburst, and she realized that she had not been too bothered staying with him. In fact, once she had fallen asleep, she had rested quite well.

What actually bothered her was Easter.

The description in the book had been brief only because so few people had ever seen the creature and lived, and most of it was just speculation anyway. Then there was its habitat, Tanzania. If Easter was indeed an Mngwa, then how had it gotten to London? And why had he not killed Hermione immediately?

They passed into the Entrance Hall just as Nott and his friends appeared. She noticed the look he gave her and was reminded of Draco's words. A light blush came to her cheeks and she pulled her robes closer around her. Why Draco had thought she needed to know what Nott was thinking was beyond her.

Finding herself at the table, she looked down at her plate and her lip curled. Why did her appetite always suffer when there was so much on her mind?