"Quiet, quiet!" McGonagall tapped her wand against the table to get the attention of the students. When the hall fell silent, she stood. "Now, I know you are all wondering why you have brought in and I am sure rumors have already spread as to the reasons, so let me inform you as to the points. Only thirty minutes ago, it was discovered that a creature had gotten into the castle and attacked a student. It is still unknown what sort of creature we are dealing with, but the Ministry has sent experts to assist us in the capture or expelling of the beast. Now, some of you have seen the scene on the second floor and no that this is not a situation to take lightly. The creature is most likely injured, making it more dangerous. We must be vigilant and for this purpose I am instituting new rules. As of today, curfew is set at eight p.m. Ministry officials, who will also be about the castle as a precaution, will escort all students to their classes. Students may not go anywhere alone, and third year students and lower must have at least three people with them before going anywhere within the castle. All classes in the dungeons will be moved to the third floor and all Slytherins will sleep in the Great Hall until further notice. Any student found in violation of these rules will be immediately expelled."

Any chuckling at the Slytherins' new situation was silenced at the last statement. Hermione's stomach twisted painfully and she looked to the Slytherin table. Draco had not come in, but Blaise met her gaze and he nodded curtly. She sighed. So the lavatory had been cleared out. But that did little to relieve her anxiety.

"Lunch will be served now, and then all students will return to their common rooms. The Slytherins will be allowed to go to the Library until dinner. Please keep the new restrictions in mind."

Hermione kept quiet as others around her began chattering. Ron, Harry, and Ginny were sitting down the table and people noticed the schism.

"Are you okay, Hermione?" Luna inquired, sitting across from her. She glanced at the others with evident concern. "You look dreadful."

"Do I?"

"Quite. Is something wrong?"

"Everything." Hermione buried her face in her hands. "Everything is wrong, Luna."

"I'm sure Ron and Harry could help."

"They…" In another future, yes. If Draco Malfoy was not involved, then she would have run to them immediately. "Nobody can help."

"It doesn't have to do with this monster they're talking about, does it?"

Hermione felt like unburdening herself, but she just sighed and shook her head. "No, Luna. I…I'm so sorry."

"What is it, Hermione?"

"For…for being so absent." She looked around at all the students in the Great Hall. So many people could get hurt because of her. She could still see Easter's snarling face as he hurt himself against the wall.

What had happened?

Hermione noticed Draco slip in past the officials and take a seat by Blaise. He glanced over towards her and she could tell he was thinking the same thing. They needed to get out of there. They had gotten lucky with Filch's search, but Hermione had caught a glimpse of the equipment the Ministry officials were using. They needed to find Easter.

"Oh, look. It's Charlie Weasley."

Hermione turned to the entrance to see Ron's older brother stride in. McGonagall met him there along with Hagrid and a couple Ministry officials, falling into quiet conference. Ron and Ginny tried to catch their brother's attention, but he only glanced over while listening carefully. His eyes moved to Hermione briefly before he nodded.

"Of course, Headmistress. I'll do as I can. Is it okay if I speak to my brother? I find it hard to believe something like this has happened and they don't know about it."

"Be my guest."

Hermione watched him sit beside his sister, greeting them all curtly. She could not hear anything, though. Luna noticed her disheartened expression and stood.

"I'll see what they're talking about."

"Thanks, Luna."

Almost ten minutes passed before Charlie stood. "Well, I better go talk to her."

"Why?" Ron said loudly and Charlie rolled his eyes.

"You know, if you're trying to keep Hermione as your girlfriend, you're doing a really crappy job of being her boyfriend." He left his brother red in the face to come sit across from Hermione. "Hi, Hermione. How are you?"

"If you've come to ask me a question, then just do it," she muttered, glancing over at Ron. Charlie smiled wanly.

"Trouble in paradise, hm? Not my problem," he added when she gave him a dark look. "I've been brought in to help out with the monster issue. I hear you were one of the first on scene. Can you tell me what you saw or heard?"

"I just heard the girl scream. That's all. When we came around the corner, nothing was there."

His eyebrow rose. "We? You mean you and Draco Malfoy?"

Her cheeks warmed. "Well, he must have heard the girl, too, because he showed up about the same time I did and we both went around the corner. All we saw was the blood and fur."

Charlie glanced over at where Ron and Harry were watching them. "It's not my place, but it seems like Ron's being a bit of a git."

She shook her head. "It's not him. I've been…It's my fault, too."

"Well, I doubt it's been anything to warrant him acting like such a big arse." He stood, turning to the Slytherin table. "Let's hope Malfoy is less of one."

Hermione watched Charlie walk away with the urge to run out of the Hall.

When people started finishing with their lunch, they paired up or got into groups to go back to their respective common rooms, or to the Library if one was Slytherin. Hermione joined a group of first years after Draco and Blaise had left, knowing she might be able to catch them in the Library. Unfortunately, Nott left at the same time, catching her unawares on the way out.

"Saw you upstairs," he said and she rolled her eyes.

"Yes, you probably did. I was there."

"Quite a mess, eh? Must have been a shock. For you and Malfoy."

She noted the edge to his voice when he mentioned Draco. "It was scary."

"Seeing all that blood? I would have thought, with you fighting in the war, that something like that wouldn't scare you."

"Some things always scare you. What do you want?"

He shrugged. "Nothing. Just talking."

"Well, I don't have time." She picked up her pace, glancing over her shoulder. His eyes were wandering over her and she shivered, hurrying to the front of the group. They passed by the Library and against her better judgment she went in. There were not too many people around, so nobody paid attention when she entered. She found Draco and Blaise arguing in the back of the Library.

"Well, if you had listened to me, then this shit would never have happened!"

"How the hell were we supposed to know it was going to-"

"I'm not talking about the bloody cat, Draco. I'm talking about you being involved. If you had controlled your stupid feelings, then we wouldn't be involved in this mess."

Draco's face flushed angrily. "There's nothing we can do about that, so why don't you stop bringing up shit we can't change."

Blaise rolled his eyes. "What can we do? You completely screwed up."

"It's not his fault," Hermione snapped, stepping into the aisle. Blaise and Draco turned to her. "We couldn't have known-"

"That it would act like the crazed, deadly creature you read about?" Blaise finished with a sneer. "Of course that came as a complete surprise!"

"Hey." Draco pushed Blaise away from Hermione. "Don't start."

"There is a bloody nightmare hiding somewhere," Blaise hissed. "I hate cats. You know I hate cats. And you two idiots freaking let one loose in the castle and we can't even tell anyone because, being a lunatic myself, I let you tell me what you were up to! So now all of us are going to get expelled and then they'll put us in Azkaban."

Aside from sounding a little paranoid, Hermione knew Blaise was justified in his statements. They were all in serious trouble.

"Blaise, why don't you go make sure nobody's listening in on us," Draco suggested. "When we think of something, we'll call you."

"Whatever. I'll just go to this corner and get mauled."

Blaise continued to grumble as he walked away. Hermione rubbed her face.

"This is so bad. This is so bad!"

He leaned against the bookcase. "Blaise is being paranoid."

"But he's right! You saw him!" Her breathing was speeding up again. "You saw what he did to himself! He completely lost it!"

She held her chest, crouching down as she tried to control herself. "I can't believe this is happening to me! Nothing this year has gone right for me!"

"Thanks, Granger," he muttered, crouching down beside her. Blushing violently, she glanced up at his stoic face. How was she supposed to tell him that his kiss had shocked all recollection of its occurrence from her mind?

"This isn't the time," she ended up saying. "With Easter…and-"

"Weasley?"

Her stomach twisted terribly. "I can't do this now."

He nodded, glancing around at the books around them. "So, what do we do?"

"We need to find Easter before they do. And, with Charlie here and all these rules, it's going to be impossible."

"Well, we should just go turn ourselves in."

"I didn't say that!" She rubbed her sweaty palms against her legs. "He may not even be in the castle."

"We need to check, and fast. They've already started checking the towers."

"He'll be in the dungeons."

Draco nodded. "Yeah, so we need to get down there before they do."

She shivered. "And then what? What do we do if we find him? He's…he's huge, Malfoy. If he attacks…"

He tilted his head to catch her gaze. "One mountain at a time."

Her mind spun and then her eyes lit up. "The cloak."

"What?"

"Nothing…stay here."

"Yeah, I've got so many places to be, Granger."

She couldn't help a smile at his cynicism. "Right…I'll try to be back after dinner. Maybe sooner."

"We don't have that kind of time."

"I can't get back here without somebody with me and how do you expect me to get any of my friends to come with me if they all hate me?"

His eyebrows rose. "What are you planning on doing?"

She stood, sighing. "I don't want to tell you in case it doesn't work."

"If it doesn't, I suppose you won't be showing up after dinner?" he inquired, standing as well.

"If it doesn't, you probably won't see me at dinner." She covered her face. "I'm not going to have a single friend when this is over."

He smiled wanly. "One mountain at a time."

She smiled as well, looking up at him. "I'm sorry I dragged you into this."

"I blackmailed you into this, if you remember," he said with a shrug. "Not much dragging involved."

"Yes, well…okay."

She started out, catching sight of Nott in the corner, watching her as she went. She waited until a group passed by and followed them up to Gryffindor Tower. To her dismay, Ron, Harry, Ginny, and Neville were all there in the commons but she squared her shoulders and went over. If she was going to do what she needed, there was only one way to get up into the boy's dormitories.

"Hello," she muttered. Ron stood before she could sit.

"What do you want?"

"Ron, listen-"

"No, you listen, Hermione. I'm done with you. What happened? Not getting Head Girl has completely ruined you. You're not the girl I thought you were and I can't stand you anymore. You've no idea who your friends are!"

"You are my friends!"

"You don't lie to your friends, Hermione!" he roared, attracting so much attention that Hermione knew she had made a mistake. "We can't bloody trust you anymore!"

"There are things in my life-"

"What? That you can't share with your friends? We fought a bloody war against Voldemort together and now you think we're not worthy of your secrets?"

She stood to face him. "Ron, please. I never meant to hurt you all. I've just been so busy with things lately and I haven't been spending enough time with you."

His face turned red. "You think this is just about missing a damn date? This is about you forgetting that other people exist." He leaned in close, eyes blazing. "Go to hell, you bloody bitch."

The commons were dead quiet as Ron stormed towards the stairs. Tears streamed down Hermione's cheeks and her lips trembled horribly as she tried to hold back any sound of horror. Ginny could see Hermione's distress and felt for her.

"Hermione, Ron didn't mean any of that-"

A choked sob escaped her lips and she shook her head. "I hate you, Ron!" she screamed suddenly, stopping Ron's progress up the stairs. "God, I hate you!"

When he turned around, she went right up to him with tightly clenched fists and a dark expression underneath all the tears.

"You can't possibly know what I am going through right now and instead of just accepting that I have something I cannot share with you, you turn into the most horrible, unhelpful wretch! I want to tell you! I cry at night because I can't tell you and you just say all of these hateful things like I don't feel anything! Like I betrayed you! But when Harry kept things from you, it was fine and dandy and it was okay because it was HARRY!" She released a scream of frustration before shoving him hard, tears drying up with the gravity of her rage. "If you cared about me at all, you would have trusted me like I trusted you to be there for me! You hateful little boy, I hate you!"

Somewhere deep down, she knew she had done the worst thing ever. But she didn't care anymore. Easter could kill someone and Ron was here giving her grief about it. She wanted nothing more than to have Ron and Harry help her, but if this was how they were going to treat her for trying not to get them involved, then…

She backed away from Ron's shocked, hurt face, hating that she was the one who created it. Looking around the room, she knew she had burned her last bridge. With a long exhale, she walked straight up to her bedroom.