Twelve

The Missing Friend

"Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise."

–Alice Walker

The Weasley's were crowded in the familiar rooms of the Hogs Head waiting to go through the hole that would lead them to the Room of Requirement. Ginny couldn't believe the news they had gotten about Hermione, in fact she refused to believe it in light of the news that Harry and Ron were here at Hogwarts again. Hermione was stronger than that.

"Ginny dear your nerves are showing," her mother said and she drowned out Fred and George teasing her about something or another.

Around them the floo flared as more people stepped out, Lee Jordan, Cho Chang; everyone rushing in because Harry was alive and he had a plan to defeat You-know-who. If Harry was alive then surely Hermione would be?

Then there was a pop outside as someone foolishly apparated and the death eaters screamed, the dementors rising up against the windows. Aberforth cursed and begged them to either go through the hole or duck down, to get away from the windows and avoid detection.

The words Expecto Patronum were roared through the darkness and an eagle burst through the skies.

"Ginny come on!" Fred pulled on her arm as the twins dragged her to the passageway. Her mother and father were at the front but something told her to look back, to keep her eyes on the windows and on the door.

"Aberforth has to help us," a voice whispered out, and another Expecto Patronum was called. This time a prancing otter could be seen through the air, Ginny's heart skipped.

Could it have been Hermione? For one fleeting second she thought it had to be. It had to be didn't it?

"He doesn't really have a choice," the sentence was hissed back and then someone was kicking down the door, a spell locking it as it swung shut behind two people. Ginny let go of Fred's hand and they all stilled, halfway out of the room.

The Dark Mark flashed in the dim light and Aberforth's wand was positioned against a person's throat, their head tipped back. "I believe my godfather told you this might happen?" a voice crooned and she knew that voice. Ginny had heard it often enough in school. Draco Malfoy stood there in a three piece suit, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a wand held slack in his grip. His companion stood in the darkness next to him but she could see the silvery heels on her feet from there.

Aberforth grumbled, "What was on the note Severus Snape wrote for you before he left?"

Draco opened his mouth, his throat contracting against the wand that sat there but he didn't answer. Instead his companion answered, "Keep each other alive." The wand was shoved into their face and with the lit tip Ginny could see the features of her friend.

"Hermione?" she whispered and the Weasley clan were rearing back, watching as their friend came into the light. It was Hermione and it was not. She still had the same bushy, uncontrollable hair but she was in a green dress that was far too revealing for her tastes and earrings that stretched down her neck. Ginny was walking towards her just as Hermione started to move away from Draco.

His hand pulled Hermione's back, "First you bring me here and then you just abandon me?" he joked, hissing something in her ear. But she refused to listen to him and soon she was shrugging out of his grip and moving to hug Ginny.

"I thought you were dead," she whispered into Hermione's neck.

"Well I'm not." Hermione replied and exchanged hugs with Mrs. Weasley who started to sob into her shoulder.

"You better go through, otherwise the Death Eater's will catch on." Aberforth grumbled and ushered them all through the hole, Draco at the back of the line.

"So what's been happening?" George asked Hermione with a twinkle in his eye. Both of the twins glanced up and down at the girl, the dress being enough to waver their opinions that it was Hermione, the best friend to their brother and therefore off limits.

"You know death, torture and running for our lives," Draco droned sarcastically, Hermione hung back enough to slap his chest. His hiss of pain went ignored amongst the group and Ginny would have sworn she could see her mother smirking from her position at the front of the line.

"No one asked you ferret," Fred asked as they travelled further down the passageway. Soon there would be a corner and only a set of steps would separate them from the Room of Requirement.

"Draco saved my life, I think he deserves some pleasantries at least," Hermione muttered, "What has been happening here?"

"Snape's the headmaster, the Carrow's have taken over torturing first years and the three unforgivable curses are a part of the curriculum," Ginny interrupted her brother's and turned her head to face Hermione, "We formed Dumbledore's Army again, it's who we're going to in the Room of Requirement."

Hermione and Draco allowed the others to go through the hole first and they didn't recognise the room when they entered it. For Hermione she knew that the room had many forms, but she had never saw it as enormous as it was then. Draco had only saw one version of the room, the one with the Vanishing Cabinet and revulsion crawled up his spine. Multi-coloured hammocks hung from the ceiling and the walls were windowless, bodies packed into every orifice. This was their hope, this was the reprieve from the horror their school had turned into and Harry Potter was stood a few paces away from the hole, his back to them.

"Aberforth's getting ratty," said Fred and Harry turned, smiling as he saw the Weasley's and then Cho Chang and Lee Jordan. He didn't recognise Hermione at first, her fingers panicking around the clasps of the earrings and dropping them into Draco's open palm. Then he froze, Ron beside him coming to the same conclusion as their eyes swept from one body to another.

"Hermione?" Harry said, disbelief in his voice and soon she was being engulfed by her best friend and Ron was joining them. "I thought…" he couldn't finish the sentence, much like Ginny couldn't and Harry's mouth dropped open as they drew back.

"What are you doing with Malfoy?" Ron asked as they were finished hugging, his eyes drawn suspiciously to Draco who now lingered. Draco felt uncomfortable, here he was surrounded by classmates that hated him after all he had done to them. He may have been kind to Hermione in the last weeks but he couldn't say that to the rest of them, especially with his Dark Mark on show. When Ron looked back at Hermione, he tugged down his sleeves in an attempt to hide it.

"That's what you say to me upon realising I'm alive?" she joked, slapping Ron's arm lightly, "It's a long story, have you got a plan Harry?" she asked and Harry's eyes widened.

"Why don't we sit down instead and you can tell us what's been going on?" that meant that he didn't have a plan, he very much didn't and she had to roll her eyes fondly.

"I want to know why Malfoy is here first," Seamus hissed, and drew his wand against Draco, others followed in his actions, faces twisted against the sight of a Death Eater in their safe space. Hermione tried to get to him but Ron pulled her back.

"You know Finnegan, now that I've been to Ireland your accent doesn't bother me anymore," Draco mused and this time the wand was pressed to his chest. This was the second time that a wand had been placed on him in the last hour and he sighed. "Hermione was held in Malfoy Manor, that isn't a good place for anyone so I helped her escape and ran from the Dark Lord's minions, me and Hermione have been in Ireland for the last couple of days tracking down possible weapons against the Dark Lord. And all the while both of our lives were risked might I add."

"Then why do you still call him the 'Dark Lord'?" Dean Thomas questioned, stepping closer.

"Because he has a tracking spell on the name starting with V and calling him You-Know-bloody-Who sounds stupid," Draco didn't know why he had to reason with these people. They wouldn't like him no matter what he did, that was very clear.

Hermione stepped on Ron's toe with one of her heels and he squawked as she shook out of his hold and made her way towards Draco. "I, Ron and Harry have been searching for a weapon to defeat You-Know-Who, things called Horcruxes where–" In the background Harry and Ron cursed under their breath, Mrs. Weasley chastising them on their language.

"You weren't going to tell them about Horcruxes were you?" Draco said to Harry, stepping back to avoid Seamus's wand as he pressed closer.

"He knows about Horcruxes?!" Ron asked disbelievingly at Hermione.

"Yes Ron because he's been looking with me and before you ask why that is, it's because I didn't want to sit around doing nothing while you were out there risking your lives. I couldn't just sit there and let You-Know-Who get away with what he's done! Draco saved me from the torture and from bloody Greyback fondling me, he's even sworn an Unbreakable Vow to help me so he deserved to know about bloody Horcruxes!" Her chest heaved and she snatched her way to Draco, pulling him away from Seamus as the boys looked on at her in horror. The word bloody had hardly left Hermione's lips before so she knew it must have been a shock to them. "Like I was saying… Horcruxes where You-Know-Who has placed half of his soul. We think he has six and unless we destroy them all then You-Know-Who will be immortal. I and Draco hunted down Slytherin's daggers, imbued with basilisk venom which will destroy these Horcruxes." She pulled out the daggers from her bag and held them up.

"We found them in Riddle Manor, it's why we are dressed like we are," Draco huffed, crossing his arms and watching as the daggers were placed back in Hermione's bag.

"Right," Harry coughed and looked down, "We think one of these Horcruxes is here at Hogwarts, maybe something that used to belong to Ravenclaw?"

"There's Ravenclaw's lost diadem?" Luna inputted and the room dissolved into theories about where this diadem could be.

"God I wish I had something else to wear?" Hermione gritted as she looked around her beaded bag. As she was searching Draco placed a hand on her chin and forced her to look up. He directed her to a new wardrobe and screen in the corner of the room.

"If you want something from the room all you have to do is ask," he smiled at her and she totted off to the screen, pulling out trousers and a jumper from the bag as she did so. She whispered her gratitude over her shoulder.

"You would know everything about this room," Ron sneered as Harry and Luna further discussed the diadem, "After all you let all those Death Eaters into Hogwarts in Sixth Year. I don't trust you not to betray us again for your Dark Lord."

"Look Weasley," Draco turned to him and soon they were chest to chest, conversations pausing as they waited with baited breath for the fight that was sure to come about, "Don't dare try to understand me. Until you've heard your mother's screams and your father's screams and her screams from torture then you may understand some things I've done. I don't forgive myself so I don't expect you forgive me but the least thing you could do was try and hide that edge of jealousy in your tone." He very well knew that Weasley had feelings for Hermione, feelings that hadn't been replicated by the girl on the travels Draco had had with her. It was in his nature to tease and use his knowledge to his advantage, and it only helped when Weasley was easy to wind up.

"Is that a threat?" Weasley gritted.

"Nothing of the sort," Draco replied and Mrs. Weasley dragged Ron away towards Harry, looking at him with a fleeting grimace as she did so. He knew that look since it seemed to be universal to all mothers.

Hermione emerged feeling better with less skin on display, she had heard everything Draco had said and yet she didn't feel anything towards it. Every single person in that room had been through a lot.

"I have to see this statue," Harry was saying, "I know it's not much of a plan but it's something."

"Then I'm coming with you," Hermione inputted, "I may have been away on the rest of your Horcrux search but I'm here now."

"Fine, but Malfoy stays here," Harry sighed and a squawk came from Draco.

"I can't protect you if I stay here," he offered to Hermione, not caring that everyone else saw his concern.

"And we both know that if you do go the first Death Eater we come across with kill you on the spot. We know what Du Lac was trained to do, we don't want to bet that the Carrow's won't do the same." He huffed at that but sat down heavily in a hammock, pouting but understanding where she was coming from. "I'll be fine, and you're trained well enough to defend any attacks these Gryffindor's will hurl your way," she joked and she was out of the door with Harry and Ron and Luna. It felt like the old days, the days where she didn't have to worry about being tortured by You-Know-Who.

Draco looked at the people surrounding him, sneers on their faces as they tried to ignore him and he turned away, fumbling with the crystal balls in his pockets. Maybe they would offer some information.