A/N: Here's a big shout out to all of you who so kindly volunteered your services for the role of Beta. I am so appreciative of your generosity and enthusiasm for the story! I'd like to give a resounding thank you and welcome to my new Beta, Jesusfreak100percent. I think she will do an awesome job, and I'm looking forward to working with her in the future!
Fallout
The moment Hermione set foot inside the Great Hall for dinner the next evening, any outside observer would have thought she was a war hero from the way that students old enough to have been privy to the previous night's activities greeted her.
Colin, with typical starstruck Creevey enthusiasm: "You were bewitching, Lady Evans, simply bewitching! Your odds were twenty to one; Weasley didn't stand a chance!"
Ernie Macmillan, with a smirk and a once-over that suspiciously resembled a leer: "Well played last night, Evans; well played."
Padma Patil, with a surprisingly disgusted glance toward a sulking Ronáld: "Good on you; he deserved it."
Lavender: Nothing but a ha-rumph and a glare.
Among others.
With a smug smile, a blasé toss of her hand and an airy declaration of, "Oh, child's play," Hermione gratefully accepted the adulation and the worshipful entourage that accompanied it… mostly because it formed a blockade between her and Ronáld.
Aside from Lavender, he and the other seventh- and eighth-year boys surrounding him seemed to be among the few who didn't seem halfway entertained by their late-night face-off. In the eight minutes it took her to pile a heap of food on her plate, and then subtly transfer most of it into a container in her robe pocket, Ville, Seamus, Dean, and a few others continued to shoot expressions ranging from vexation to resignation in her direction from the other end of the long Gryffindor table.
Oh, poor things, now they'll be reduced to practicing the Dark Arts on someone who'll actually be able to fire back; whatever shall they do? she thought contemptuously.
That morning, as soon as she had finished doctoring Draco, they had both collapsed into much-needed unconsciousness: she on a small mattress the Room of Requirement had conjured for her, Draco on the hospital bed. When she'd woken eight hours later - he was still asleep - she'd left him a note in case he woke up and slipped out to the Great Hall to steal them dinner. (She refused to use the side Kitchen entrance for takeaway anymore, even though she supposed House-Witches/Wizards were forced to prepare the Great Hall meals as well.)
She had been prepared for a full-out battle with Ronáld the moment she encountered him, if his reaction that morning had been any indication of what was to come, but to her immense surprise, except for an occasional glower at any burst of laughter in the vicinity - clearly, he thought it was aimed at him - Hermione had actually caught the youngest male Weasley glancing at her once or twice with a - dare she say it - dazed amazement that made him almost resemble the Ron of Universe A.
As if he really did think she was a love goddess, or whatever rubbish the Fantasy Gel had coined.
An actual, spontaneous smile slipped across her face while Colin and Parvati and some seventh-year girls chattered around her.
Fred and George Weasley, you wily geniuses.
Perhaps this would be easier than she'd thought…
Hermione eventually managed to disentangle herself from her fan base and exited the Great Hall, taking the shrunken receptacle of pilfered dinner along with her. The arrival of October had brought with it the beginnings of brilliant autumn colors and shortening days, and the waning natural light cast dark shadows on the vestibule and hallways in the dusky medium between daylight and torchlight.
Harry had not been at dinner, she'd noticed, and the observation set her nerves on edge. As soon as she'd agreed to the even-exchange wager of Pansy for Draco, she knew he would be angry...
But anger couldn't even begin to to describe the expression she'd seen in his eyes yesterday night before she departed for the eighth-year boys' dorm.
He hadn't been present for her conversation with Pansy yesterday morning, when the blue-eyed woman had grabbed Hermione's arm, looked resolutely into her eyes, and said, "Hermione… I want you to do whatever it takes to get Draco out of there. Whatever it takes. Even if it takes me."
It took Hermione a second to realize what she was implying.
"Pansy, it shouldn't—"
"I know it shouldn't, Hermione, and I know Harry said to call the whole thing off if it does. But don't — I don't — I want you to go forward with it. They don't hate me quite as much as they did Draco. I'll be safer there than he is."
Hermione didn't at all agree with Pansy's line of reasoning, not after having seen both Ronáld and Ginevra in action on multiple occasions. But she also know how she would feel if the worlds had been flipped: if she was standing in Pansy's position in Universe A, and she had no choice but to sit and wait while Pansy Parkinson tried to save Harry Potter from a vicious Bellatrix Lestrange or Lucius Malfoy.
Hermione would have done anything to help.
But she suspected that Harry Evans would not be quite so understanding. He certainly wouldn't forgive her for gambling with Pansy's life, of that much she was sure. For the hundredth time, she wished they didn't share a common room—
"Expulso!"
Adrenaline exploded through her chest. Instinctively, she flung herself into a crouch as the Dark Curse smashed into the wall overhead - exactly where her torso had been a moment before. Blue sparks rained down around her, and before she could stop herself or think of what "My" would do, Hermione spun on one knee, wand outstretched.
Ginevra Weasley advanced on her out of the shadows, her eyes spitting fire.
"How dare you!"
"Ginny—?" Hermione choked out before she added a hasty "-evra." She scrambled backward as Ginevra stalked toward her, and jumped to her feet when the youngest Weasley pointed her wand at her face. Though she was will aware of the answer, she shrilled, "Are you mad? What in Merlin's name has gotten into you?"
"Really? What's gotten into me?" Ginevra snarled. "How dare you embarrass my family like you did!"
She fired a jet of purple light at Hermione, who ducked; the spell hit the gilded statue of Merlin towering some feet behind her instead, and a thick sheath of ice crusted over its golden surface.
Before the redhead could cast another curse, Hermione was moving. She dodged behind the statue, gritting her teeth as she forcibly held down her wand arm, struggled to leash the nearly overpowering impulses in her body to automatically defend herself. She absolutely could not duel with Ginevra, couldn't risk the questions that would most certainly be asked when Hermione demonstrated a proficiency that My clearly lacked.
"Well, what did you expect me to do, hm?" she shouted from behind the statue, trying desperately to stay in character. "I couldn't just let him break up with me without a fight!"
Ginevra let out a screechy laugh. "Oh, that's rich. You, fight for something? Look at you, hiding behind Merlin. You couldn't even disarm a first year. But it's always all about you, isn't it? You didn't have to steal our House-Wizard while you were at it!"
Oh bloody Nora, her former friend sounded legitimately unhinged, and Hermione saw the possibility of ending the standoff diplomatically slipping like water through her fingers. Disarm and Obliviate, she decided - she'd just have to take the risk that erasing Ginevra's memory of her un-My-like dueling ability wouldn't cause a bigger problem than the one she was facing right now.
The torchlights lining the hallway flickered to life as night fell, and Hermione chanced a glance through the gap in Merlin's crooked elbow to evaluate Ginevra's position. "Everyone there knows it was an even deal; I didn't steal him!"
The redhead was prowling back and forth several feet away, wand dangling, poised, at her side. "Oh no, that's right, you just shagged my brother for him," she retorted sarcastically.
"It isn't my fault he was stupid enough to take the bet in the first place," Hermione snapped.
She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth. But it was too late.
For a moment, there was only silence, and Hermione used it to suck in a breath, grip her wand and mentally and physically prepare herself for what she knew was coming.
Then, Ginevra's face morphed into an expression of almost crazed fury. "You - You—" she spluttered. Her mouth pulled back in a snarl. "Crucio!"
Hermione yanked her wand upward to cast the Shield Charm. Before she could, however, a blue shield that was not hers burst out in front of her, followed in quick succession by a red jet of light - not another Cruciatus Curse, but instead a Disarming Charm that yanked Ginevra's wand from her hands. Hermione jerked in surprise as the Shield shimmered, sending Ginevra's curse harmlessly bouncing off it into the wall.
Morgana... who had unexpectedly come to her rescue? Harry?
Hope blossomed in her heart, and she swiftly spun to look behind her.
She could not have been more shocked to see Professor Snape easily catch Ginevra's wand in one hand.
"One hundred points from Gryffindor and detention to you both for dueling in the hallways," he drawled, stepping in front of the Merlin statue, his back to Hermione. Hermione spluttered at the unfair punishment as he continued to directly address Ginevra, "If it's a full-out catfight you wanted, you should have dragged her into an abandoned classroom and locked the door."
"What? She goaded me into it!" Ginevra spat. "She's the only one who deserves detention; d'you have any idea what she's done?"
"I'm sorry, you seem to be confusing me with someone who actually gives a whit about your frivolous student drama. Now if you question my discernment again, it'll be, oh… five hundred points, one month's detention, and no wand." As if to make his point, he waggled hers in the air.
She scowled at him for longer than Hermione thought was appropriate for a student to glare at a professor before she bit out, "Fine." She held out her hand. "Can I go, then?"
After a minute, Snape tossed her her wand. She snatched it out of the air and, with one last, murderous look at Hermione, stalked away and out of sight.
From behind the statue, Hermione swiftly debated how to most effectively slip away as quickly as the redhead had. Pansy had told her that, as far as she knew, Snape had never played sides like he had in Universe A, and was in fact the only Slytherin she could name who not only wasn't serving some kind of sentence, but who the Sovereignty actually seemed to favor. Based on the reactions of her classmates, Hermione assumed she made a fairly convincing My, and she been practicing Occlumency religiously since she'd arrived, but she certainly wouldn't put it past this Snape - or the Snape from her own universe, for that matter - to use Legilimency on her if she slipped up in the slightest.
Unfortunately, the still bizarrely well-attired professor turned back toward her before she could escape, the gleaming chain of a silver pocketwatch hanging from a debonair suit vest just visible beneath his dark robes. "Evans. Dissent in the ranks?"
Damn. What use were eight hundred galleon shoes when they made this much bloody noise?!
"Why do I deserve detention? I didn't do anything," she whined, partly for the stated reason, but mostly because the prospect of spending more time with the extremely perceptive - and apparently well-connected - Sovereignty professor than she had to could potentially lead to disaster.
He rolled his eyes. "Hm, let's see, do you think she would want to kill you more, or less, if I gave only her detention, and not you?"
Hermione's lips parted in surprise. She hastily shut her mouth as soon as she realized they had. "I - er -"
"I - er," he mimicked before crossing his arms. "You've been a busy girl, I hear."
"I thought you didn't give a whit about frivolous student drama," she retorted snottily.
Snape straightened from his previously relaxed stance and eyed her appraisingly. "I do when it involves sudden ownership transfers of very notable House-Wizards."
The hair on the back of her neck rose, and a horrified realization washed over her.
Oh Godric, he's going to use Legilimency right now!
Her heart struggled to pound rapidly while her mind struggled to keep it from doing just that. If Snape saw anything, any memory she didn't want him to, which was virtually 99.9% of them, then it - everything - was over.
No, don't think like that! Right, stay calm, stay calm…
Hermione focused on inhaling and exhaling very evenly through her nose. On the surface, she shrugged carelessly. "Oh, that." She smirked and casually stuck a hand in her robe pocket. "I knew taking that Fusty out from under his nose would wind up my filthy, cheating ex-boyfriend." She raised her eyebrows, casually studying the manicured nails of her free hand. "And it certainly did."
"Please. You and your little boy toy have had lovers spats for years. Yet you went for the jugular now." Snape cocked his head at her, his gaze probing hers. "Why?"
In her pocket, her fingers fumbled to open the shrunken bag of Wizard Wheezes (after she'd used the Nose-Bleed Nougat to escape her second Dark Arts class, she never went anywhere without them). Desperately she wandlessly summoned an item she feared she might soon need.
"No, he hasn't broken up with me in years," she corrected, reciting the story she'd practiced with Pansy enough times that weekend she could say it in her sleep. "And for an ill-bred, pigeon-headed Old-Blood?" She sniffed. "It's insulting."
She felt the exact moment Snape subtly began to enter her mind.
Immediately, she dropped the Decoy Detonator, and could only hope it would begin to scamper down the hall. Then she forced herself to relax, to appear like she hadn't the slightest idea of what he was doing, while focusing on any memories of Ronáld - and Ron - snogging Lavender —
Where was it, where was it…?!
BANG!
"Oh!" Immediately, Hermione jerked away from the Potions professor's piercing dark eyes and placed a hand over her heart. Theatrically, she widened her eyes and spun toward the sound. "What was that?"
A puff of dark smoke belched out from around the corner. Snape blinked and furrowed his brow for a moment before he drew his wand. "That's strange." Hermione didn't look him in the face as he stepped past her. "Stay here," he ordered, one Hermione immediately knew she would not be following.
"Why? To watch you chase after Peeves?" she scoffed, already backing up down the hallway in the opposite direction. "Hardly; I have more important things to do with my time."
In a blink, he turned back around and pointed his wand at her, his gaze deadly serious.
Hermione's feet, and heart, stopped moving.
"You still have detention."
She let out a breath of relief, and clenched her hands to keep them from shaking. "Whatever," she said irreverently, spinning on her heel and marching away without a second glance.
As soon as she turned the corner, she transfigured her shoes into flats and began to run.
Adrenaline saturated her system; at once, after frantically doing all she could to shield her thoughts from Snape's percipient gaze, every doubt and fear she'd had since she'd started taking more risks in this Universe, every ounce of the constant, lurking terror of potentially being found out, or losing Pansy or Draco or both in her gamble last night, surged through her like a bursting dam.
Truly, Hermione hadn't the slightest idea of how she'd managed to remain undetected for as long as she had; it wasn't as though she was a brilliant actress. Sure, she'd become more more comfortable feigning vacuousness in relatively controlled situations, and had even begun to snap out My-like, attitude-filled remarks when she didn't mean to, like around Pansy or Harry, or that final, fatal comment to Ginevra. But when her life, or someone else's life, was in jeopardy, pretending to be insouciant, unconcerned My while trying to reign in Hermione Granger's knee-jerk survival responses and data-fueled actions was an entirely different story.
Bloody Morgana, what if Snape had seen something? Hermione didn't think he'd had the chance to get past her chosen memories before the Decoy exploded, but… what if he had? Would he report his suspicions to a higher authority?
And, perhaps not as pressing of a question but certainly as important: why, why was she making long-term moves like bloody stealing a highly visible Sovereignty prisoner like Draco Malfoy when she wasn't even certain of how long she was going to be in this Universe?
With every bone in her body, Hermione refused to regret removing Draco from the torturous conditions in which he'd been held captive, but it was clear now that she had severely miscalculated how upset the Weasleys who weren't under the lingering effects of Night-Long Fantasy Gel would be about it. As she sprinted up the final four sets of staircases to the seventh floor, Hermione didn't need a reading from Trelawney's tea leaves to foresee that having Dark Arts-loving Universe B Ginevra as an enemy was going to be an absolute nightmare, and yet another tangible threat to look out for that she absolutely did not need.
The sliver of jubilance at successfully extracting Draco that she had allowed herself at dinner was long extinguished as, like poison, a better understanding of the new and different forms of danger the action could have very well put them all in seeped through her.
What would happen to Draco and Pansy if, Merlin forbid, someone finally did see through her charade? Or when she finally discovered how to return home to Universe A and did so, whichever came first? (Silently, Hermione swore she'd be damned if it was the former.)
There was still so much she didn't know about the Sovereignty's legal system, something she needed to rectify immediately. What were her rights if she was accused of misdoing? As an Elite, she suspected she was entitled to some benefit of the doubt or due process at the very least... but then, as it always did, her memory flashed back to the mysterious Sovereignty official she'd seen on the night of the Hogwarts Express, and the woman's demand that any misconduct be reported for skilled interrogation.
After her own 'interrogation' at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange, Hermione was prepared to do whatever it took to avoid being subjected to another like it, in any universe.
With each turn of the staircase she took, she told herself that if Snape had managed to see a suspicious memory in her mind, if he'd suspected anything in the least, he wouldn't have simply allowed her to waltz away while he chased after some noise and a little smoke. Surely he would have presumed that the smoke had been part of the ruse, and stopped her on the spot.
...wouldn't he have?
Winded, sweaty and emotionally spent, she all but staggered to a stop outside the Room of Requirement door, cagily doing a security sweep of the empty hallway before giving herself a moment to catch her breath and pull herself together. In the last few minutes, her anxiety had faded to a mixture of knackered numbness and impending dread. It was never a good sign when curling into a ball under the duvet atop the mattress from which she'd roused herself only two hours earlier abruptly seemed like an appropriate course of action. Given her current condition, she hoped to goodness Draco would still be asleep.
Of course, it was just her luck he wasn't.
Instead, the platinum-haired Slytherin was standing with his back to her, rummaging through the medical supplies in the Eighteenth Century-era bureau beside his bed. Between the time she'd left and now, he had changed from the filth-covered rags she'd unhappily become used to seeing on him to a fresh set of clothes she assumed the Room of Requirement had provided: a pale gray, hooded sweatshirt that matched the color of his eyes, darker gray slacks, and trainers that looked like they fit him.
He'd stiffened when she entered; in the dresser's ovoid mirror she could see his gaze instantly jump to the reflection of the Room's entranceway behind him. When he saw her, he visibly relaxed, his wary expression softening. With unevenly shorn hair that fell slightly past his shoulders, casual clothing and tired but now faintly sparkling eyes, he continued his pattern of neither looking nor acting like the Draco Malfoy of her world when he said brightly in greeting, "Hermione, did you know this room can actually…"
Abruptly, he trailed off. She supposed he must have gotten a good look at her, because he turned around entirely, leaning back against the cabinet to close the drawer he'd been poking through.
"Something's wrong," he noted, his eyes perspicaciously scanning her face from beneath the fringe of blond messily cascading over his forehead, as if he possessed the ability read the answer to his own inquiry there.
Yes, something very much was, but Hermione wasn't prepared to discuss it with him - not after giving him so much hope this morning that he was finally free of that hell.
Even so, she found she no longer had the energy to devise a decent excuse, or to meet his banter, or to pretend that everything was perfectly alright. She so was tired of running. She was so tired of fighting, especially in yet another war in a dark world that did not belong to her.
She was just… tired.
"Nothing's wrong," she said hollowly. Her tongue felt numb in her mouth; the words sounded like someone else was speaking them. Before he could pursue the blatant falsity of that statement, she removed the container of pilfered Great Hall refreshments from her pocket and enlarged it, limply holding it out to him. "Here. Baked pumpkin and Yorkshire Pudding tonight, if you can stomach it. It was either that or black pudding, which I thought might be a bit much."
Draco didn't even reach for it, though he must have been starving. Instead, he crossed his arms and laced her with the same doubtful, concerned expression he used whenever she lied to him and he didn't buy it. Bizarrely enough, it was identical to the look Harry Potter also gave her whenever she would push herself too far past her limits and then tell him she was fine, like Draco knew her as well as Harry did when he didn't, he couldn't possibly.
For some reason, that single look lit a fuse to Hermione's frayed emotions.
"Oh, don't look at me like that, Draco, like you have some idea of what I'm thinking!" she exclaimed, meeting his gaze forcefully. "Honestly, it's nothing I want to talk about, so just leave it be!"
When she caught her breath, his open expression had shuttered.
Her stomach clenched in guilt. Yes, she was on edge, but Draco wasn't at fault. She knew what it was like to accidentally be on the exploding end of someone's temper, and he hadn't deserved that.
She bit her lip and stepped forward without looking at him, all but shoving the boxy package into his hands. "You should eat this so we can go. It's getting late," she muttered.
He accepted it without a word.
"Who's Head Boy?" he asked after several painfully long minutes of silence.
Hermione paused, her hand inside one of the medical cabinet's drawers, where she'd obstinately busied herself adding any supplies she thought might be useful to her bag of Wizard Wheezes. She almost asked how he knew she was Head Girl at all, before she remembered the Head Girl badge that was usually pinned to her robes.
"Harry Evans," she said. She hesitated before adding, "He helped with this entire thing, actually. Getting you out." If Draco didn't find out then, she reasoned, he would in less than an hour.
"Evans is helping you? Help me?"
At the incredulousness in his voice, Hermione dropped one last container of burn cream into her bag and shut the drawer. When she turned toward Draco, he had set the half-empty container down on the bed and shifted to focus entirely on her, his expression astonished.
"No, I suppose you wouldn't know, would you? That he apparently isn't entirely loyal to the Sovereignty," she hypothesized. She expected the government would have Ordered Draco to provide the names of any traitors in their midst as soon as he'd been captured, so Harry certainly would have been caught by now if he had.
But Draco surprised her when his brow burrowed, and he shook his head. "No," his gray gaze became distant, "I did." After a few seconds, he gingerly pulled his knees to his chest with the smallest of winces, wrapping his arms around them. "Well, I was never told of any formal arrangement, but I always strongly suspected."
Hermione frowned, cautiously sitting down in the chair beside the bed. "Then wouldn't the Sovereignty have, erm... been able to learn that information from you?" she asked delicately, unsure of the best way to phrase that question, if there even was one.
After a moment, Draco blinked, his eyes thoughtful. "Evans must have gotten hold of my lead somehow, right after it happened, and Ordered me not to say anything before I was even conscious. I wasn't… compelled to say his name, like I was others, when the time came." He bowed his head, looking away. "I actually felt like I couldn't say his name. So I chose not to."
"Protecting his own skin instead of yours. Typical," she muttered.
He glanced back at her. "That's what I meant before. Evans is a lone wolf. Even I was surprised when he occasionally came through for us, before… everything just went to complete and utter hell." He shook his head with a faraway expression, as if he were reliving a memory, before he refocused on her. His sombre expression became curious. "How in Merlin's name did you convince him to participate in a plan that relied on something with the words 'fantasy gel?' "
A short, mirthless laugh escaped her, both at her memory of Harry's original reaction and the reminder of the strong likelihood that he, like Ginevra, would try to curse her - or worse - as soon as she stepped into the Head Common Room. "I didn't. I believe his exact words were, 'You can't be serious. This is your brilliant idea?'"
Draco chuckled at that, causing Hermione to relax slightly — he mustn't've still been too terribly upset with her for exploding on him earlier. A tentative smile briefly tugged at her lips before she continued, "No, it was all Pansy, of course."
He stilled. For a moment, she could have sworn his eyes shone with tears before he blinked rapidly and looked away. "What do you mean by that?" he asked, his voice unexpectedly rough.
Hermione frowned at his reaction; she distinctly remembered Pansy saying that Draco had been one of the few who'd known she and Harry were dating. "I mean, she insisted he help me. He actually listens to her; it's shocking."
For a moment, Draco's brow furrowed deeply. Then he turned his head back toward her, profound bewilderment etched into every corner of his face. "She… insisted?" he echoed, sounding thunderstruck. When Hermione nodded, his pale face turned nearly translucent before her eyes. "You mean, she's… she isn't—?"
As he uncharacteristically grasped for words, Hermione suddenly realized what he was trying to say.
She felt the blood drain from her own face. Sweet Merlin… in all of their conversations, had neither she - nor Draco - really never mentioned Pansy? And had he… in that time, had he always believed—?!
Hermione sat up quickly. "Draco," she said softly, certain the horror and apology she felt was clearly reflected in her eyes, "She's alive."
His eyes widened, something in his expression collapsing; he gripped the sheets beside him and choked in a breath, his jaw set. For several long seconds, he didn't speak, his shoulders heaving with far too even of breaths, and Hermione suddenly guessed that this was why he had never once spoken about or asked after his Hogwarts friends: because he must have believed them to be dead, or to be suffering a terrible fate similar to his that he couldn't help or change.
She was on her feet before her mind had even registered that she'd stood. She'd been utterly devastated the countless times she had nearly lost Harry and Ron, even now - though she didn't think she'd lost them fully yet; she still reserved hope that this was just a temporary stop, and she would find a way back to Universe A.
But she couldn't even begin to imagine how awful it would be to believe with finality for years that her closest friends were dead.
Slowly, tentatively, Hermione extended her hand, resting it on Draco's tense arm, if only to remind him that he wasn't alone. He shuddered once and looked over at her in surprise, visibly fighting to restrain the myriad of emotions rapidly crossing his face. She gave him a weak, wavering smile of reassurance, tears pricking at her own eyes.
Briefly, the taut muscles in his face softened. Reaching across his torso, he placed his own hand atop hers, holding it tightly, and inhaled a deep breath. Something warm pulled at her chest as his head turned back forward, gaze distant - haunted.
"They told me," he whispered, voice choked, "They told me… she was dead. I've thought…" He squeezed his eyes shut and sucked in a breath, shaking his head, "All this time, I've thought…"
Hermione at once hated 'them' with every breath in her being.
Moments like this jarred her from her almost-constant anxiety over being discovered or never returning home. Her heart broke for him, for Pansy, for the lives of so many decent human beings in this universe that had been so cruelly, so senselessly ripped apart.
"Draco..." she began softly, then stopped. She wanted to offer words of comfort, but she didn't think anything she could say could ease the pain of the egregious injustice he'd experienced. So she simply continued to stand alongside him, hand on his arm.
"Is… Is she alright?" Draco asked hoarsely after a minute. "Is she... How is she with you?"
"She's fine." Hermione gave his arm a gentle squeeze before she pulled back her hand and sat down across from him on the bed, curling a leg beneath her. "She's been My's House-Witch, since the Intervention - er, war - ended."
As his expression transfigured into one of utmost horror, she added reassuringly, "She was never treated like you were. From what she's told me, I think her situation was comparatively much better than most of the others. Certainly she isn't treated like a House-Witch at all, now that I'm here." She let out a frustrated breath, shoving her fingers through her hair. "Merlin, Draco, I could've sworn I'd mentioned her before! I - I had no idea, or I would have said something sooner..."
He shook his head. "It's alright. I didn't mention her, either."
For a moment, he stared ahead at nothing at all. Then, he abruptly stood. "Can we go?" His voice was quiet, the words more a statement than a question. He walked unevenly to the base of the bed, his limp from the badly healed leg injury the Gryffindors had inflicted on him weeks ago painfully obvious. His trembling fingers lifted the discarded Invisibility Cloak. "I'd like to go now."
With an understanding deeper than he perhaps realized, Hermione achingly watched him hurry toward the door. He paused in his donning of the Cloak to wait for her as she grasped her things and accompanied him out.
Draco didn't say a single word in the ten minutes it took them to to reach the landscape painting behind which the Head Commons were located. A moment before she spoke the password, his hand emerged out from the folds of the Invisibility Cloak, lightly resting on her arm to stop her.
"Does Pansy know about… how I was — kept?" he asked haltingly.
Hermione looked toward his voice, but her eyes only met an empty hallway. She shook her head. "I didn't want to worry her more than she already was. I asked Peia not to say too much, but, well - you know Peia. I can only hope she didn't. I would think all Pansy knows is whatever she assumed from my desperation to get you out and simply knowing the Weasleys had you."
For several seconds, only silence met her words. "I'd be very — grateful, if you didn't tell her," he eventually said quietly. "Or… anyone, who might not know."
Though Draco clearly wasn't Harry Potter — their personalities were very different — it was in moments like this that he reminded Hermione of him so much. But this man had experienced horrors that even Harry hadn't known, and the fact that he was handling every awful thing that had happened to him with such mental soundness, with so much dignity was truly nothing short of remarkable.
"Of course. You have my word," she said.
When he murmured a thank you, Hermione turned back toward the portrait, bidding it open.
Pansy and Harry were sitting together on the sofa facing the portrait hole. Pansy looked to be asleep, curled up against Harry's chest dressed in a pair of My's designer jeans and a pale blue sweater. Harry was staring broodingly off into space, rolling the end of a small lock of her hair between his fingers.
As soon as Hermione stepped into the common room, he stiffened. Pansy must have felt him move, because she immediately twitched and then sat upright, twisting toward the portrait hole.
Her blue eyes widened. She stood quickly.
Draco stepped up beside Hermione, holding the Invisibility Cloak limply at his side. For a moment, he and Pansy simply stared at each other, both rigidly motionless, before Pansy choked back a small laugh that could have also been a cry, clapped her hands over her month, and burst into tears.
Draco had hardly taken another uneven step forward when she dashed across the common room and into his arms.
He hugged her fiercely, his eyes squeezed shut. "I've missed you, Pans," he whispered hoarsely.
She only began to weep harder.
Watching the two best friends reunite, a thousand emotions suddenly, unexpectedly welled behind Hermione's own eyes.
For a moment, she found she couldn't breathe.
Swiftly, anguish and misery and the worst kind of longing penetrated her chest like a knife. She gasped in a soft, surprised breath and took several steps away from the Slytherins, gripping the banister of the stairs up to her quarters while she fought to send air to her lungs. Tendrils of despair scrabbled at the edges of her mind; her body desperately wanted to panic, and she fought to rationalize back the nearly overpowering urge.
Usually, Hermione was able to stop herself before her thoughts went too far down this dark path. There was no reason for this to be happening now. She'd been able to keep it together this long. She was fine. She was fine. She was-
But she wasn't. She wasn't fine at all. Nothing about any of this was fine, and while she was deeply grateful for Draco and Pansy's reunion, it only served to remind her of how very far away she was from having any of her own.
For all intents and purposes, she was still very much on her own in this foreign, hostile world. There was no Harry or Ron or even fellow DA or Order of the Phoenix members at her back who she could count on for support should the countless threats swirling around her materialize. Instead, she was stuck, and for all the reading and research, she still didn't know how to fix it.
The loneliness and powerlessness of that hurt almost as much as she remembered the first moments of the Cruciatus Curse.
Before Hermione could beat the hastiest of retreats to her bedroom, she sensed a looming presence behind her.
Her throat choked with dread.
She knew exactly who it was, but she didn't want to fight anymore, didn't want to be here at all anymore. She just wanted to get out, to go home.
But she couldn't avoid him.
Blinking rapidly, she steeled her jaw and fiercely swallowed back her emotions before turning around.
Harry Evans was standing a few feet away, his eyes dark.
"Jumpy," he noted in a low voice. "So you know what you did."
A wave of panic and hopelessness even stronger than the first surged through her mind. This callous, cold man wearing the skin of her very best friend embodied everything that was wrong with this world, and oh, this was not what she needed...
Desperately, she used all the acting skills she'd acquired in the past month to will away any sign of what she was very afraid could be an impending breakdown. Lifting her chin, she crossed her arms and met his own hard gaze with one of her own.
"I knew I'd win," she replied just as lowly.
He stepped closer to her, his expression taut with anger. "I don't care. You don't gamble when people's lives are at stake!"
"In case you didn't notice, someone's life was already at stake," she hissed, glancing back at Pansy and Draco; they had pulled back from the hug, but only slightly, and Pansy's tear-stained face was beaming with joy as she placed her hands on both sides of his face. Hermione's temples began to throb, and she erected a sound barrier between them to ensure they didn't hear the conversation before focusing back on Harry.
He was studying her calculatingly. "Then his life is more valuable to you than hers, is it."
Hermione's mouth flopped open. "Now you're putting words in my mouth! That isn't true at all! Pansy wanted—"
"Don't you dare bring her into this!" he snapped. "She has a big heart; people like her will willingly sacrifice themselves for the good of others without a second thought. But from what she's said of you, I hadn't expected you to take advantage of that." His eyes narrowed. "Apparently, I was wrong."
"Oh, and you would have never done the same," she shot back. "If Pansy had been sitting where Draco was and it was the only option you had, you wouldn't have hesitated a second to sacrifice me or any one of your so-called friends, for that matter!"
Harry's jaw tightened.
She knew he would. He did, too.
He took another step toward her, so close now he was directly in her personal space, his eyes icy, and why was this conversation still going on? As the walls of her mind swiftly began to close in on her, she stepped backward, away from him, frantically forcing herself to breathe. She couldn't lose control in front of Harry Evans, couldn't lose control at all, but she doubted the only course of action her mind wanted to take — tearing away from him and sprinting from the common room to somewhere, anywhere without people — wouldn't arouse suspicion.
Focus on breathing. Focus on breathing-
"Let's be clear on one thing," he growled. "Whatever I was to you in your other world, be assured that we will not be friends in this one."
Oh, she was only too aware that he wasn't her beloved Harry, but his words still stabbed her straight through the heart.
"I'm trying to help!" Hermione cried, the pain of the stress and fear she'd been trying to bottle ever since she'd been flung into this twisted universe ripping through her. "Why are you determined to hate me?"
His eyes flicked up and down her once before they frigidly returned to her gaze. "Because you never know who's going to decide to betray you."
With that, he brushed past her, completely unaware of the emotional train wreck gathering momentum inside her. With a wave of his wand, he removed the sound ward he must have noticed her erect.
Hermione continued to stare blindly at the spot where he'd stood, the mahogany wall across from her wavering and then blurring.
Her eyes burned. Something wet dripped down her cheek. It jarred her from her stupor; blinking rapidly, she swiped the back of her hand across her face and turned around, and then she was in her bedroom, though she didn't remember climbing the stairs to get there.
Without a clear thought directing her actions, she dropped to her knees beside the bed and pulled the shrunken knapsack holding her most precious things from her pocket. Enlarging it, she flung it down on the Gryffindor red duvet and began to paw through it frantically. Distantly, she was aware tears were streaming down her face, but she didn't care. She flung aside Wheeze after Wheeze in her desperation to find —
A sweater.
Her fingers closed around the starchy material, and she closed her eyes in relief. Gripping it like a lifeline, she pulled it from the bag. It was blue and tweedy and well-worn now, with a big gold H woven onto the front. Even though it was Harry's, Ron had occasionally borrowed it as well during the Horcrux search, and it smelled like the both of them, with the faintest remnants of a home-cooked meal from the Burrow.
She clutched it to her chest as if it was the most valuable jewel on earth.
To her, it was.
Holding it to her face, she breathed in its scent, remembering Ron's laugh, and how whenever her temper snapped around him his immediate cringe would be swiftly followed by a puppy-dog expression that always melted her, and Harry's understanding smile, and how he'd tried to make her dance and laugh again when Ron had temporarily left them. She remembered Ginny's playful teasing, and the Weasleys' warm faces and the happy, oblivious chatter of her parents as they talked away on their couch right before she'd Obliviated every single memory they had of her and sent them away on a plane to Australia where she didn't even know if they would be safe, and oh god —
She gasped sharply, choking back more tears. She missed them, she missed them so bloody much that her soul ached. She hadn't asked for this. She hadn't wanted this. She didn't want to be afraid anymore, didn't want to sneak and lie and fight anymore — not when the war against Voldemort that she had, for all intents and purposes, been fighting since she was eleven had finally just ended, for Godric's sake.
What had she done in a past life or lives for some cruel force to see it fit to send her into a world perhaps darker than the one from which she'd originated, at the very moment when she would have finally found some relief in her own?
Breathing rapidly, she hunched over herself and the sweater, gripping it so tightly her nails dug through the weave and into the skin of her palm. Desperately, she resisted giving herself over entirely to the frighteningly powerful pull of the frantic despair that threatened to unhinge the precious rationality of her mind, and the firmly composed grasp over her own destiny that she had been so very careful to sustain through even her darkest days…
Behind her, the bedroom door quietly opened with a click.
It sounded like a thunderclap.
Hermione sucked in a soft breath and roughly scrubbed at her tear-soaked eyes, her reactions sluggish. Certainly it couldn't have been Pansy or even Draco, not so soon after their reunion, so it must have been Harry, the heartless toad. Whatever else he wanted to rub in her face, she couldn't face him again, not now, not like this —
"Hermione."
The voice was gentle; it sounded concerned.
It wasn't Harry's.
For a moment, Hermione froze, before she began to move again, more quickly. If Harry was bad, this was worse. She wouldn't let him see her falling apart, not when his very life now depended on her keeping herself very, very put together. Her fingers clumsily scrambled to open the knapsack, but her vision blurred in front of her. She couldn't - she couldn't find the right folds —
"Hermione, please stop."
As if he'd crouched down next to her, she suddenly sensed his presence beside her, that and the crisp scent of pine from the Room of Requirement's washbasin soap. She didn't look at him, didn't want to face that inexplicable, knowing look that would almost certainly be in his eyes, and she blinked back another hot wave of tears.
"Hermione…"
He sounded almost as pained as she felt, though she didn't see how that could be possible. Why should he care what happened to her when he'd just found one of his closest friends again? Why was he here at all?
A hand tentatively touched her wrist, sending warmth through her entire icy arm.
"Just go away, Draco!" she cried, jerking away from him. Ripping open the knapsack, she hastily shoved the sweater back into it... and accidentally sent a half-filled phial of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder inside it tumbling to the floor.
When it hit the wood, the small bottle shattered, plunging Hermione into a darkness so complete it matched the one that had soundly severed the pathway to her logical mind.
She cursed, stumbling to her feet even though she couldn't see a bloody thing. With a sweaty hand she reached out blindly. Her enormous mattress was hard to miss; gripping her bed for orientation, she tried and failed to deduce the most effective way to get her chaotic thoughts under control quickly, before the refuge that the pitch blackness thankfully provided was gone.
Blood pounded through her head. Her heart was racing too fast, too fast—
"Hermione—" Draco's voice was slow, cautious, "Hermione, please — I just want to help you. Please let me."
Emotions swirled around her like a mighty whirlpool that threatened to sweep away everything that made her Hermione Granger, to haul her down to the depths of some dark, unstable chasm she'd never known was inside her, and she scrabbled frantically against the overpowering pull.
"I don't need help!" she cried, but her voice sounded distant to her ears, like she was listening to herself shout from the end of a very long tunnel.
Somehow, his hand found hers in the darkness, sending a jolt through her entire arm. She jerked away; when he only caught it again, she stubbornly yanked backward with her whole body, though the action caused her to lose her hold on the bed. "I said I'm fine—"
The back of her legs ran into something big and bulky sitting low to the ground.
She was falling through empty air before she could try to grab hold of anything to catch herself.
Hermione yelped, bracing herself for a painful impact - but then her left arm jerked forward as Draco, who must have never lost his grip on her hand, pulled her up again, and she collided with something broad and solid and warm. Gulping in a breath of relief, she grabbed the thick material of his sweatshirt to steady herself, and she felt firm hands on her shoulders doing the same.
For several seconds, they both breathed raggedly, clinging blindly to each other, and Hermione suddenly felt foolish that her stubborn scrabbling had nearly been the cause of injury to them both.
Before she could say anything, Draco spoke, his voice directly in front of her now.
"Hermione, I know you want to keep it together for all of us, and - and you have been. For a very long time," he said quietly. "But sometimes you reach a point where you simply can't."
His words sent a sharp crack through the fine veneer that was barely holding her together. Her eyes again began to burn, but she bit her lip and sniffed back tears and shook her head frantically. "You and Pansy — you're both — you need me to be—"
"All we need you to be is human," he interrupted, his earnest voice urgent. "Not perfect. Human." As the Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder's potency began to fade, his tall, thin form materialized in front of her, hardly visible in the opaque light. "What did you tell me once? People feel. Even when it hurts more than the worst pain imaginable. But I've learnt that sometimes, when it becomes too much, when it hurts too much… sometimes the only thing we have the power to do is to just let go." She could barely make out his eyes, but she could feel his gaze boring into hers. "Let it go, Hermione."
Something inside her physically shattered.
She gasped back a pained cry as her legs gave way beneath her. Draco pulled her against him before she could fall to the ground completely, and she began to sob as if her very soul was breaking.
A/N: Do you think it was about time Hermione had a breakdown of sorts given everything that's been thrown at her? A lot of her thoughts filled this chapter (as we all know, she tends to think quite a bit); more action next chapter!