A/N: To (vaguely) answer a question that has been raised in many, many reviews — Believe me, I have considered every inch of this story, every detail you might notice and question and wonder about. So if you notice anything obvious that hasn't been explored or answered yet, there's a very, very good chance it will be addressed somewhere down the road. And I won't get into anymore depth than that because that would be no fun! :)

Between Two Worlds

"So you're telling me this witch is a different version of herself from another universe, pretending to be a different version of herself from another universe? While different versions of each one of us are running around the same universe she came from?" The sound of a spark wheel striking flint echoed through the war room as Bella lit up her third cigarette since she'd crawled out of bed half as many hours ago, then casually reclined in her chair. "Did you check her for drugs? I'd check her for drugs."

Lucius's usually pleasant face stretched into a strained grimace; the bright midday sun gave his already white skin an especially pale gleam. "Must you really smoke those carcinogenic Muggle contraptions? We're inside, Bellatrix."

"Yes, I must really. These non-magic magic sticks, and the thought of finally seeing my daughter and my nephew again over the course of the next twelve hours, are the only things currently keeping me sane. And you—" she brandished her lighter like a wand across the table at Tom as he began to open his mouth, "Will never convert me to magical light-up means. The sound of this is innately more satisfying."

She snapped the spark wheel loudly several times to make her point.

He rolled his eyes. "Conditioning. You can always enchant your wand to make the same noi—"

"No! Stop it now! My emotion-based vices have no time for your detached logic!"

Tom sat back and crossed his arms, shaking his head with a slight upward curl of his lips. Bella grinned broadly and leaned over, throwing her free arm around the thin shoulders of the blond man sitting beside her. "Oh, Lucie, I still can't believe you're really here," she said happily, squeezing him tightly.

He patted her gingerly, wincing, and looked like he was desperately trying not to inhale. "Yes, and vice versa." Across the table, Riddle waved his wand, and Lucius shifted his gaze toward the other man gratefully when the smell of smoke disappeared. 'Thank you,' he mouthed.

Bella finally released him and leaned back in her chair. "Somewhere on the other side of the Veil, Cissy's preparing her rant at me for getting to hug you again first." She shook her head. "Merlin, and for the last two years one of the greatest comforts I had was that you and she could at least be reunited in the afterlife so she didn't have to live without you anymore." Sighing, she exhaled a cloud of smoke, which hit an invisible wall as soon as it neared Lucius. "Suppose this blows that idea."

Silence met her comment.

Abruptly, Bella sat straight up and looked back over at her brother-in-law; his lips had parted, tears visibly shining in his eyes. "Erm— I mean— Well, of course Cissy was probably quite glad to discover you weren't dead as well…"

When Lucius still looked upset, she swivelled her head toward Tom, shifting uncomfortably, and desperately exclaimed, "The — The prophecy! You were talking about the prophecy… Go on then!"

Tom glanced regretfully between Lucius's recovering and Bella's guilty expressions and shook his head with a small sigh before continuing. "And you were asking if the prophecy's possible subject did drugs. That answer is no: Her claim is legitimate, and the connection between her world and ours is deeper and far more complex than one mere transfer." His gaze shifted back to Lucius briefly before he said carefully, "I suspect the potential for her appearance here has been woven into the fabric of existence from this binary system's very beginning, by an omnipotence far beyond anything within our limited comprehension."

Bella's brows knit together. "For someone without the complete picture to go on, you seem awfully convinced it's her." She glanced over at Lucius. "Don't get me wrong, Luc, I'm thrilled to death you're alright, but you haven't exactly been very helpful where unmuddling this…" she waved her hand vaguely, "this fortune-telling mess is concerned."

Lucius shook his head, visibly frustrated. "I've said so already, Bella. I truly wish I could remember that week — that year. It is coming back, slowly; I'm quite certain it'll only be a matter of time before—"

"It doesn't matter."

Bella and Lucius looked over at Tom quickly. After a moment, his ruminative dark eyes flicked up to theirs. "I know exactly who it's about."

For a moment, both simply stared at him, open-mouthed.

"What— For how long?" Lucius burst out, sounding flabbergasted.

Tom shook his head. "I wasn't certain until a few nights ago. But the coincidence is too strong and the astral magic required too immense for it to be anything else."

"The wormhole-travelling witch?" Bella asked eagerly at the same time that Lucius said sadly, "It is Hermione, isn't it?"

Tom gazed at him for a long moment before he said slowly, "Yes. Hermione is part of it."

Bella conjured an ashtray and hastily tapped her cigarette over it before she gripped the table and leaned toward him, her chest twisted in knots. "Not…" she glanced toward Lucius briefly before she said vaguely, "any other candidates we once believed it to be?"

Tom met her gaze. "It seems not."

Her shoulders slumped as relief flooded every pore of her being. A heavy weight that she had carried with her for over a decade lifted ever so tentatively off her chest, as if it wasn't quite sure abandonment of such long-standing remorse was even possible.

"Does she know?" Lucius asked, his grey eyes filled with concern.

"She may have her own suspicions, but from my lips? No."

After a second, Tom's fingers pulsed outward; a cigarette jumped across the table from Bella's cigarette pack into his hand. He lifted and lit it with a twitch of his fingers, easily flicking aside the quill thrown at him from across the table and Bella's irate screech of, "Go grow your own pack out the back, Farmer Tom!"

He took a long draw on it, staring pensively down at the table. He didn't smoke often, but now seemed as appropriate (or inappropriate) a time as any.

Lucius studied him closely. "Are you going to share with us why you've delayed telling her your conclusions?"

Slowly, Tom exhaled the smoke through his nose, concentrating on the accompanying burn in his nasal passages, then looked back at them. "Because I'm still working out how to handle one significant problem."

When he didn't continue immediately, Bella blew out a breath. "Oh, for the love of your illustrious ancestor, Riddle, stop stewing in your cloud of melodramatic smoke! What impossible odds are against us now?"

"Not odds. Facts." The gaze that bore into hers then was dramatic only in its seriousness. "We need to keep her here, at a minimum, through the solstice. But the source that triggered her transfer here may very well have the power to return her to her own universe at any time. And from my interactions with her, I cannot be certain she will not choose to run from this world the moment she learns the truth of it."

Lucius immediately shook his head. "Oh no, you don't really think — I certainly can't imagine — I haven't known Hermione long, but even I've noticed she has a good heart. It was only last week she told me she's always adopted causes that those with a lesser moral backbone would surely eschew. Abandon us if she's our only hope? It doesn't seem to fit her character."

Tom glanced toward Lucius, the cigarette burning down between his fingers. "I've seen even the strongest hearts collapse in the face of the power and the terror of the Sovereignty, my friend," he said evenly. "And if this prophecy is accurate, she is fated to stare into the very heart of it. We must hope for the best but plan for the worst. I'll be frank: she cares for your son. But beyond that, what profound stake does she have here to risk her very existence for us? Hermione has lived here three, dare I say it, largely unpleasant months. Her home, nineteen years, and it's quite evident she misses it deeply. If faced with this choice, where would your loyalty lie?"

Bella sat back. A moment later, with a frustrated wave of her wand, she abruptly shoved several books off the curved desk lining the room's far edge; with loud cracks, they smacked against the floor. "It's never bloody straightforward, is it?" she snapped angrily. For a moment, the Occlumency around her gaze dropped; as she stared at Tom, her thoughts were clear:

'This girl's departure would leave the responsibility of the prophecy to very possibly fall back on our daughter.'

Tom's expression was grave, and for one rare, precious moment, his mind opened enough for her to see his direct thoughts as well.

'Perhaps it could. But it won't…

'Because I will not let that happen.'

Bella's eyes widened in shock. At first she'd been absolutely incensed that Tom would be the first of them to reunite with Peia, especially when his fondness for their daughter typically manifested itself in an aloof distance at best. Bella had no doubt Peia had missed her mother much more between the two of them.

But could it be that six weeks as the sole parent had helped his doggedly unfaltering mind shift away from its infuriating tendency to see Peia as simply another potential tool for the destruction of the Sovereignty?

Buoyed by his unexpected protectiveness, she asked intently, "What about the Imperius Curse? One quick zap to the head and she's ours for as long as we need her."

"Goodness me, don't be ghastly; she isn't one of them, she's one of us!" Lucius exclaimed, looking horrified. "Draco's told me of her immense mental fortitude, and she'd need it to face down Lily Evans and the rest of them every day she walks the ground above. If she fought it off — which she could; it's been known to happen when even the most powerful of wizards have cast it," he added, cutting off Bella's protestation, "—she would never trust us again. Then she would be likely to return to her world." He sat back and removed his glasses, shaking his head as he cleaned the lenses with a handkerchief. "Ruddy unethical, Bellatrix, the entire idea of it. Only those of the purest intention—"

Abruptly, he sucked in a sharp breath and lurched forward, grabbing the edge of the table as if it was the only stable mast in a ship pitching to and fro in full gale on the high seas.

As Tom swiftly vanished his cigarette and sat up straight, Bella hunched down over the table and tilted her head so her face was level with her brother-in-law's, trying to read his expression: his face had turned green, and he looked nauseated. "What? Lucius, what?" she exclaimed. "Blasted bollocks, say something! What is it?"

His gaze blindly searched the table in front of him for some seconds before he gasped, "Good… Good lord. I remember."

Bella swore, then hastily swivelled around to the long desk behind them and fumbled with the solid walnut quill holder to pull a single feather from it; finally, she simply seized a handful of quills and threw them at him. "Here — for the love of Merlin, write it down before someone else comes along and Obliviates you again!"

Hermione had always been a terrible artist, but at least in Potions she could put it to good use. Snape was reviewing — for the tenth time — a Cough Potion, which she had officially learned in fifth year Potions but had memorized years before then. Instead of notes, she had filled her parchment with a (poorly drawn) image of Snape's head growing out of a steaming cauldron. On afterthought, she added horns.

Lavender took one look the drawing and sniggered, slapping a hand over her mouth. It was too late; Snape noticed them and swooped over, snatching the parchment off Hermione's desk.

"Well, well, well. What sort of rubbish have you dreamed up for us now, Ms. Evans?" He tilted his head and the paper, as if turning it sideways could somehow improve it, frowning down at it critically. "Class, I think it's safe to say your fearless leader doesn't have a future in fashion art."

"That's rather rude of you, professor. I'd like to see you do any better," Hermione said insouciantly; Snape's was one class in which she certainly never had to feign disinterest or disrespect. "I think it's quite an accurate likeness, myself."

"Do you?" Snape's right eyebrow arched. Abruptly, he held out his arm, and the parchment. "Mr. Thaxted, tell me, does this resemble anyone we know? Consider your marks very carefully before you choose your response."

Titters broke out within the remedial class as the mix of students in it tried to lean over to get a glimpse of the drawing. Meanwhile, the seventh-year Hufflepuff sitting on the other side of the aisle looked nervously between Snape and Hermione before he studied the picture carefully. Then he smiled and shook his head.

"Not in the least, professor," he said confidently. "It appears to be the boiling head of a bloated goat."

The chatter hushed.

Hermione strongly resisted burying her face in her hands and releasing a groan.

Oblivious, Alistair continued to smiled broadly, nodding… until he caught sight of Snape's soured expression. His mouth opened and closed. "Erm, I, er, I mean… doesn't it?"

Snape's lip curled in disgust. With a flick of his wand, he incinerated the parchment. "Mr. Thaxted, fifty points from Hufflepuff for pure stupidity. And to any other budding Dalís who draw perverse enjoyment from blinding our eyes with non-existent talent during class time, take note: Ms. Evans, detention. One week. Seven days. Starting Monday."

Hermione gaped at him in disbelief. "You're joking."

"Detention!" he echoed in exclamation, spinning on his heel and thundering back up to the front of the class.

She finished the remaining five minutes of class fuming. Assuaging his surely bruised pride was one thing, but as if she had the spare time for an entire week of mindless detention, and Snape bloody well knew it!

After the no longer greasy-haired wanker reminded her in a sing-song tone that he would be seeing her next week during lunch, she stormed past a handful of student sympathisers and out of the room, angrily muttering something about Snape's abusing his 'relationship' with her mother to insult her. Perhaps her reaction was a bit over the top, but it wouldn't be for My, and Hermione was still very much irked that more hours of her precious little time were being stolen once again.

So blinded was she by her irritation that when she found herself already two floors above the dungeons with no recollection of how she got there, she stopped walking abruptly, and forced herself to take a breath.

Riddle would have no doubt admonished her for letting any true anger slip through while in character. She was simply lucky My had a temper to match hers.

And though she couldn't slip away to the Chamber of Secrets, not during the day… she knew the perfect place to go to calm down.

Within only a matter of minutes, she was standing beneath her Invisibility Cloak in the middle of the library. She inhaled deeply, and felt the contentedness associated with the smell of worn leather, silence and just the right amount of must seep through her veins.

Slowly, her irritation began to ebb.

Rapidly approaching footsteps startled her from her meditation. Silencing the creak in the floor she knew was to her right, she hurtled herself out of the way a moment before Madam Pince waltzed by with a stack of books in hand. The middle-aged witch was humming and twirled once as she turned the corner toward her desk.

"Oh, do be careful with that, dearie; that's a second-edition van Riemsdijk!" Hermione heard her exclaim cheerfully to a student that must have been standing along the next aisle — an offence for which the other Madam Pince would have surely verbally crucified him or her.

Months later, Hermione still found the librarian's shift to a buoyant personality rather jarring, particularly given the distinctly dark undertones of the Sovereignty 'utopia.' She still wasn't entirely sure if Pince's cheeriest exclamations were feigned or genuine, though she supposed fortunate subgroups like Half-Bloods and Muggleborns who didn't experience any persecution directly wouldn't necessarily see the Sovereignty as a hostile place to them.

Shaking her head, Hermione turned and took up her regular path through the library. Every few meters, she found herself automatically muttering detection charms beneath her breath like a mantra. Since Percy's arrival, she'd taken greater care than ever to always cast them ahead of herself before venturing anywhere My wouldn't normally; more often than not, the checks had revealed new bugs and other surveillance devices that had recently been dropped.

Such as the 'beetle' that was now clinging to the side of a shelf along the Restricted Section.

Using Riddle's undetectable charm, she temporarily disabled it to allow herself to pass unnoticed…

But then she slowed.

Recalling her conversation with Blaise the night before, she back-pedalled to the third stack, where he'd mentioned hiding some of his best Defence Against the Dark Arts texts. As long as his books were indeed personal and didn't have the library's stamp on them, she could easily remove them without discovery. At this point, any valuable defence information certainly wouldn't hurt to have, even if she couldn't directly deliver them to Blaise immediately.

Behind the sheer mesh of Invisibility fabric, her fingers lightly grazed the length of the shelves as she searched for the appropriate section. The air here was stale, the bookcases covered with dust and cobwebs; indeed, the great majority of books here appeared as if they had not been touched for decades.

RS 412.75… RS 420.35… RS 425.02.

Hermione dropped to her haunches, tilting her head so she could better survey the titles lining the bottom shelf.

'Historical Wizarding Traditions: A Study in Olde English Customs and Practices'… 'European Wizarding Society: 1800 – Present'… 'The Customs of Courting: From Foundational Covenants to Sacred Ceremonies'…

She sat back, frowning. Either Blaise's hidden items had already been discovered, or he had enchanted them to appear as boring as possible to the outside, progressive Sovereign eye.

But a muttered, "Specialis Revelio," showed nothing out of place.

Hermione was halfway to her feet when she saw the book.

At first glance, its spine, too, appeared to be labelled exactly like those around it, the top just as dust-covered, but she abruptly noticed that the flowery cursive markings amounted to nothing but gibberish, its size nearly half that of the thick textbooks surrounding it.

She paused briefly, listening closely. When the only sound she heard was the faint echoes of Madam Pince humming at the other end of the wing, she carefully pulled the book from the shelf. A displaced cloud of dust followed its removal; with a muttered spell, Hermione guided it back into place as if the shelf had never been touched.

The book's front was unmarked — it lacked the stamp of the Hogwarts library— and a quick flip through it revealed only blank pages.

Its contents had clearly been hidden.

Voilà.

Only after Hermione was in the Head common room's safe room (she had stopped feeling secure in her bedroom soon after Percy Weasley and her mother both had barged into it) did she pull out the book again.

She settled down on Draco's old bed, wrapping herself in the quilt at the foot of it that smelled faintly of him, and after smiling slightly at the memory of the night before, she returned her attention to what she assumed was one of the items Blaise had hidden. Her curiosity far outweighed the need to make a public appearance for lunch. What type of defence book would he would have felt the need to tuck away so securely?

Returning her attention to the unmarked first page, she whispered, "Aparecium."

However, like Tom Riddle's diary… the Revealing Charm had no impact.

Her shoulders dropped slightly in disappointment, and she reached for her bag to look for her Revealer —

But then a single line of elegant script materialized on the paper:

Let what be your guiding star always?

Hermione stared at the question for a moment. It was clearly a riddle, perhaps that prompted a password to unlock the journal. While sensate books didn't rank terribly highly on her 'trustworthy' list, and memories of the awful incidents with Ginny and Tom Riddle's diary briefly flashed through her mind, this time she had to assume this book didn't belong to a dark wizard, but to Blaise — and a 15-year-old Blaise at that, given the year the conservative students had last been at Hogwarts.

She gnawed at her lip. Then, simply to see what might happen, she summoned her quill and wrote,

Your conscience.

The ink disappeared. A moment later, the book repeated, Twice more. Let what always be your guiding star?

Bugger. She had two chances left to get it right.

Hermione sighed in frustration, frowning hard at it. Having just met Blaise, she wagered it could have been strength, determination… anger, even.

But which would he have been most likely to use?

The longer she stared at the question, a firm, rhythmic beat began to echo in her head.

Keep right on to the end of the road,

Keep right on to the end,

Tho' the way be long, let your heart be strong,

Keep right on round the bend…

There was more to the song, but her mind jumped to the verse that said,

So let courage ev'ry day

Be your guiding star alway…

She couldn't help but smile at the fond memory the words conjured. Though her father had never cared for football — or any sport except golf, for that matter — her grandfather had been a Birmingham FC fan through and through, and had apparently been in the stadium during a particularly important FA Cup match almost a half-century before, where dedicated Blues supporters had first used the same song as a rallying call for the squad.

Granda had, of course, found it his solemn duty to teach it to her when she was very young, bouncing her on his knee to hold the beat as he sang it and she giggled madly. During every match she watched with him afterwards, they would both belt it out in (rather poor) harmony, while her parents, if they had stayed for the visit as well, cringed.

The entire song, for all its early 20th Century quaintness, was actually very heartening — it had to have been; it was written to encourage British troops during World War I — and Hermione sometimes found herself singing it to herself while trying to fall asleep in tents and on ridges during the Second Wizarding War.

She supposed she could always ask Blaise for the password the next time she saw him, and, purely for her own amusement, she wrote,

Courage every day.

Like before, the words vanished, but this time a different question emerged.

Which campaign?

The amusement froze on her lips.

In the context of the first prompt, that question could only mean one thing.

After a second, she hesitantly wrote the information she knew by heart from the story Granda had never failed to dramatise.

The 1956 FA Cup.

She held her breath…

And watched as the nature of the book shifted entirely.

White paper turned a lovely shade of parchment-taupe that appeared as though it had been turned and handled many times. In the upper right-hand corner of the page, meanwhile, an elegantly scripted, hand-written note materialized.

For several seconds, Hermione couldn't focus enough to read it. How could this book's apparent built-in security involve a password so intimately close to her own personal knowledge? It could have simply been coincidence, surely, but based on what Draco had told her, he and many of the Old-Bloods, Blaise included, had been raised in cloistered conservative wizarding communities. How would he have known anything about a decades-old, rather obscure Muggle football ritual?

Partially afraid to consider the reasons — any mystery she'd discovered here often didn't end well for her — she decided firmly it was another question best answered by Blaise himself, and turned her attention to the note at the page's top.

A chuisle mo chroí,

You've done so splendidly with your first journal — here's the next for your collection. You can set the password however you like to keep it — and you — safe from even the friendliest of prying eyes. Never fear your dreams nor your future, my darling — But do leave them here so you can immerse yourself in your waking moments with your friends. I wish you as much fun and as many adventures in the halls of Hogwarts as your father and I had!

xoxo Mum

Her eyes widened guiltily. This wasn't a defence book she'd cracked, but one of Blaise's 'personal items'— and, from this note, it was obviously very personal.

Distinct discomfort that she'd even broken into it in the first place crawled into her stomach, and she sincerely hoped the reverse password to hide the journal's contents was simpler than the elaborate system to unlock it.

As she moved to close the book, though…

She paused.

Guilt prickled through her at the hesitation, but then again, she supposed… it might not hurt terribly to leaf through it briefly. Simply to see if it held any valuable information about how My had interacted with any of the Slytherins, or others, even. Blaise had seemed to be quite interested in her; who knows, he might have noticed such things.

And, well, she certainly wanted to know if My and he had had a fling, or if his fixation on her had been merely a (relatively) innocent lust…

Ignoring the protesting clench in her gut, she thumbed curiously through the journal, now completely filled with rather neat, hand-printed text. The entries were dated from Hermione's own first day at Hogwarts, September 1, 1991, all the way until —

Suddenly, she lurched forward, grabbing the pages to stop them from flipping forward.

Her heart leapt to her throat.

She—

She thought she had seen…

Hermione shook her head, frantically turning the pages back until she found herself staring down at…

Her name.

Not My's.

Hers.

'Hermione.'

Hermione had no idea how long she gawked, unblinking, at the familiar letters, before her gaze jumped to the beginning of the paragraph which held it.

November 24, 1994-

Hermione's teaching Potter how to summon things for the Triwizard Tournament. Funny, how it's Evans — Potter — who's been stuck with the underage entry in this strange, idyllic world that my sleeping mind seems to be so fond of, but in reality it's me – must be my brain's way of going into denial about the whole thing. I wonder if our first challenge will be dragons as well. If it is, the broom's a brilliant idea…

The entry went on, but Hermione couldn't read it. Blood pounded through her forehead; her heart was beating so hard she felt dizzy, and her vision darkened and narrowed.

Not My — Hermione.

Not daft — brilliant.

Not Evans — Potter.

It wasn't talking about this world… it was talking about hers.

Hermione remembered to breathe then and gasped in a deep lungful of air. Her hands shaking, she all but ripped through the pages again, this time more deliberately scanning the print, the quality of which improved immensely over the arc of the journal — a clear sign its author was maturing as it was written.

Her name, her experiences, her life blurred before her eyes, repeated over and over and over.

May 28, 1993-

Something must have happened. I haven't had any dreams for weeks and weeks, not since Hermione found out about that… basilisk, did the book call it? But the Chamber of Secrets… that's only a myth, isn't it? And I can't believe it would ever be used to hurt anyone…

Still, I'm… worried. It seems so silly to say that. I know they're just dreams, I know, but I've never gone this long a stretch without one. What if the basilisk got her? No, no, what am I thinking? She doesn't actually exist, so she can't die…

-c-

September 21, 1993-

Hermione's been using a Time Turner to take more classes, the mad, brilliant girl, but it's rather clear she's becoming exhausted. Muggle Studies seems to be an immense waste of her time… I can tell she knows it as well, but I hope she actually lets herself admit it.

Time Turners. Is that option even available to students in real life? I've never heard of anyone using one. Then again, I suppose that choice wouldn't be extended to us, anyway. This year we weren't even allowed to sit in the main train compartments on the way here. B is fuming, but I'm simply… sad. Why are they letting us attend Hogwarts at all if we aren't wanted here? I'm sure everyone would be happier, and on some days that certainly includes me, if we were allowed to go somewhere else instead. Only I don't know where that would be. Mum says its nearly impossible to get a travel visa these days or she would have sent me to Durmstrang in a heartbeat…

-c-

October 31, 1993-

Possibly the most baffling one yet: Sirius Black is a wanted murderer. Yes, the legendary Sirius Black — who is currently on the cover of my best friend's Witches' Weekly Top Ten Sovereignty of the Phoenix Bachelors — escaped from Azkaban with the sole purpose of killing Potter, because of course any person's first clear thought upon freedom from twelve years' imprisonment would be to risk imprisonment again to murder a thirteen-year-old boy. (Quite frankly, I'd fancy a long stay in the most comfortable inn in the country, myself.) Merlin's ghost, sometimes my subconscious really quite outdoes itself…

With a trembling hand, Hermione covered her gaping mouth, unable to tear her stunned eyes away from the neatly scrawled, seemingly innocent words. Then, with a low, strangled sound in her throat, she desperately turned to the journal's start, hoping for some logical explanation, any kind of explanation—

Sept. 2, 1991

Hermione's here, but she… isn't. She doesn't act like herself at all, or look like she normally does. She actually seems… rather mean. It isn't like her at all.

The dream last night was the longest I've ever had. Hermione in that dream — that's the Hermione I know. And she's at Hogwarts now as well, of course —So is everyone. But they… aren't themselves. They aren't anything like themselves. The Sovereign is in them — Merlin's ghost, I can hardly write that with a steady hand — and, do you know, I think he's supposed to be Hogwarts Headmaster? Ha, right — The King of the Sovereignty, as a wizened Headmaster with plain-clothed robes and a beard as long as I am tall. And Harry Evans is called Harry Potter, and he's famous for defeating some evil bloke called Voldywort, and Weasley and Longbottom almost seem poor, and I'm… For some reason, I'm acting like they normally do. I'm… awful.

I don't understand. I don't know what to do. It's as batty as a bowtruckle, I know, as if the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs need anymore reason to have a go at me. I don't want to worry mum, but this is different. If these aren't visions, what are they? Am I mad? I just want to be normal. Just a normal wizard, with creative dreams about a person who exists but doesn't exist, in a world completely opposite from reality.

… Yep. Barking mad. If I don't keep laughing at myself I'm afraid I'll start taking all of this seriously…

-c-

Sept. 27, 1992

The utter peculiarity continues. Learned that in her world, conservatives — "Purebloods" — consider themselves the superior ones, and Muggleborns are looked down upon like conservatives are here. Except the word Purebloods use to refer to them is… Mudblood. I feel terrible simply writing it. I don't ever want to say it.

But today — he called her that. Merlin, I'm still sick thinking about it. She didn't know what it meant, either, at first. When she found out, she cried in the loo after Potter and Weasley left and I — I understand. I understand what it's like to be treated like you're nothing, when you aren't, when she — we all — are just as human as the people who call us that. I wish it would end here, but I know it won't, and I understand what she's going to start going through now as well.

A part of me wishes I could tell her that — That I know it's hard, but she has friends who'll stand by her. That she isn't alone in this, and for that I'm glad.

This is the part where I tell myself again they're only just dreams.

The journal fell, open, to her lap. Hermione stared at the words, her eyes blurring with tears.

'She isn't alone.'

Despite the blanket she was buried beneath, her entire body shook.

Somehow, across the universe, this person, as harmless and well-intentioned as they seemed, knew everything about her. Everything. Through dreams, apparently, they had seen her daily life. They had seen her world. They had seen her most private moments — crying alone in the loo, for Merlin's sake! — and they had watched her, observed her — quite frequently, it seemed — for years. For years.

She didn't know if her uncontrollable trembling stemmed from a feeling of violation or simply from pure shock. Great Godric, the thought that anyone could dream so vividly and accurately about a real person in a different dimension of the universe sounded so sodding implausible it could have been something out of a science fiction novel. Then again, here she was, sitting in a world opposite her own, supposedly, because ancient magic brought her here.

She couldn't say with certainty that anything was implausible anymore.

Throwing every exercise Riddle had taught her into an effort to control her shallow breaths, she forced her hysteric energy into solving the mystery of this – this bloody inter-universe spy on her life to stop herself from panicking completely.

The writer was clearly a conservative in her year — which, for all intents and purposes, narrowed it down to a Slytherin. It could have been Blaise, she supposed, but something about the writer's turn of phrase didn't quite sound like the Blaise she had met this week. It was… It was an air of compassion, of sensitivity, she realized, that made it different.

Who did that leave — Crabbe? Goyle? Nott? Daphne Greengrass, Tracey Davis, Millicent Bulstrode? It couldn't have been Draco or Pansy; of course they would have told her immediately, or Riddle at least, about as unbelievable a connection to her universe as this—

Her breath caught.

Abruptly, an echo of Draco's soothing voice from nearly a month earlier, spoken from the very spot she was sitting now, whispered in her mind.

'Close your eyes. It's a beautiful August day, the warmest yet of the summer. You're on the beach…'

In dread, Hermione's head jerked up to stare blindly at the wall across from her. Hot panic again surged through her system.

This time, she didn't have the will to stop it.

'You're devouring a tin of Bourbon biscuits your mum brought, even though she normally frowns upon sweets, because she knows you love them more than any other biscuit… Your father offered you a worn green quilt your grandmum made that's so horrendously ugly your family only uses it to sit on outdoors…'

She gripped the book so tightly the pages began to crease. At once, memories — some only seemingly minor details, really — swept through her that had become lost in the sea of confusion and the jumble of improbable, opposite- world experiences she'd had in the weeks she arrived:

How, from the very day she had arrived, Draco had looked at her so… so deeply, as if he knew her, could actually see her, not simply as My, but… but as herself.

How he had accepted her so bloody quickly compared to virtually everyone else who knew the truth about her — even before she had told him it.

How he'd been able to recount every detail of a day she'd spent with her family at Druridge Bay.

How he'd instantly guessed that Kendra Selveretnam Dumbledore must have had a Time Turner because she was taking so many classes alongside playing professional Quidditch.

Why Protean charmed galleons that Draco himself had suggested had made an appearance in this universe, right around the time she'd invented them in hers.

The faster Hermione's thoughts whirled, the more powerfully her eyes began to burn.

Oh please goddess, no…

She didn't want this to be Draco. This couldn't be Draco.

Because if it was…

It would mean that, even when she'd talked about how much she missed her friends, her family, he had chosen not to tell her any of this.

He'd dodged her question about Druridge Bay. He had knowingly lied to her, and it wasn't the first time he'd been evasive. The night she'd broken down in her bedroom and then told him everything about her world, he had pretended he didn't know a bloody thing about it, when he was clearly an expert! Why? Why? He knew how desperately she was searching for any kind of link, any kind of connection back to her home!

A deep pain wrenched at her chest, crushing her heart and lungs. She swallowed back a wave of panicked bile and again fought to breathe. Her tears fell readily now; she scrabbled at her cheeks, choking in air.

Many times in her life, her heart had felt like it'd been wrenched from her chest and stomped upon, from personally Obliviating her parents, to Ron abandoning her and Harry on the hunt for Horcruxes, to the atrocious events in the Hanger, to watching Draco and others here being tortured and Lily Evans's appearances in many forms.

This — this cut her as deeply as the very worst of them.

With Draco she had… felt something. Something she had never experienced before: an immediate affinity with another human being at the very deepest level. She'd felt happy, and alive, and herself, and contented and safe and trusting and Sweet Merlin, she cared about him, she cared about him so bloody much it tore her apart inside. While all this time…

He had deliberately kept this from her. This thing that could quite possibly be the key to everything, from the prophecy to perhaps even why she was here at all.

It made Harry Evans' minor betrayals of her seem minuscule in comparison.

Just how much of her life — her silent moments, her alone moments, her embarrassing and envious and terrified and broken moments — had Draco seen?

Hermione hadn't even realized she'd moved until she was halfway across the common room toward the portrait hole, the blanket lying somewhere on the floor behind her, the journal clutched numbly in her hand.

Draco was doing his best to force concentration with a frown, scribbling notes to himself as he attempted to finish memorizing his lists of the specific environmental conditions in which a variety of healing herbs best thrived. Following his and Pansy's falling out with Blaise, lunch had become a more dispersed rather than a community affair, so he had hunkered down alone in the most comfortable armchair in Tribute CV's sitting room that had the clearest view of the door, a now crumb-covered plate sitting, empty, beside him.

The going today was abysmally slow.

Every few minutes, his mind would dart between two things: the weight of his situation — his recount to Riddle of the blueprints in Viceroy Weasley's study early that morning when Hermione had left for classes, panicked flashbacks of his time in captivity that he desperately tried to suppress as soon as they began to bubble up and out — and Hermione: falling asleep beside her, waking up beside her, the beautiful sound of her laugh and her taste and, above all, how he had voluntarily broken off the first intimate closeness he had ever had with a human being he cared about more deeply than he could ever express, all because of one week.

One week.

He should have asked for less time, he thought heavily, gripping his quill tightly as he remembered the promise he'd made that had only extended an agonizing wait.

"I need to tell her," he had whispered — voicing aloud the single thought that had been choking his brain from the moment discussion of Hermione's presence in this universe had begun during the Group of Seven summit that morning. No longer content to simply sit, he sprang to his feet and began to pace. Merlin's beard, he was a bloody coward, and he hated himself for it. "It's already too late, but she deserves to know the truth—!"

"Draco… Draco, take a breath. Be calm," Tom said firmly, holding up a hand. "Before you rush off hastily and burden her with a piece of information that none of us yet understand, I request you allow me time to further consider it. I filtered so much data while I was employed at the Sovereignty… there may very well be something I missed that could give us some indication of how to proceed with Hermione — something I simply haven't been able to recall immediately."

He shoved his hands through his hair, his voice anguished. "But I know she's looked tirelessly, sir, and so did I… for years. Neither of us have been able to find a single logical explanation for it!"

"Your resources were limited to the Hogwarts library; mine are slightly more extensive. Give me a fortnight. I shall do everything in my power to find an answer for the both of you. Either way, two Sundays from now, you would be free to speak the truth." Though Tom framed it as a statement, Draco knew he was asking for his permission.

He hesitated for a very long moment, considering it. Until that morning, two weeks would have likely seemed like no time at all. But since he had made up his mind to confess it to her after the meeting… two weeks seemed like a lifetime.

"Draco, look at me," Tom said after he didn't respond. Draco did, reluctantly. "I want you to feel comfortable with this. When it comes to revealing delayed truth, timing is everything. Hermione finds stability in logic and organization. The more factually you can present this to her, the better it will go over. Not only that, she'll panic less; believe me, my wife was similar. Indeed, if she hears about this now, she may very well come to fear that she is the prophecy's subject, and that is an additional burden I do not want to place on her shoulders so early in this campaign. She is already a spy, and for now, that is enough."

That, honestly, was the first thing Draco'd heard that truly reassured him. If he told Hermione now… Merlin, he didn't want to imagine it. But if he could offer her more structure, more of a rational basis and explanation for what he had experienced…

She would feel more reassured and accepting.

She wouldn't think he was just a Seerish freak, like the rest of the Divination Arts she scorned.

She might not be quite as furious for quite as long.

It would be more useful to her, rather than a blurted confession that would alleviate the guilt from his chest but only give her one more thing to worry about.

He felt a rush of relief, and nodded, more resolutely. "Two weeks," he echoed.

Tom stood and placed his hand on Draco's shoulder. "Go easy on yourself, Draco. You are trying to assist her, not deceive her. I know how much you care for her… Don't allow this to shadow your interactions with her until then. I've only seen you together twice and I can already tell you she looks to you to provide her light… as do you of her." His gaze became heavy. "You can never tell how much time you have left with the ones you love… enjoy every moment with her that you have—"

The sound of the sitting room door creaking open interrupted his memory. Caught off guard, Draco's head automatically jerked up in a mix of panic and dread.

His eyes widened in surprise.

Hermione was standing at the door. The Invisibility Cloak was draped over her arm, and though she was in her uniform, she looked slightly rumpled, her eyes red-rimmed and face pale.

For a moment, he thought he was only imagining her. Neither she nor Evans ever visited the Chamber of Secrets during class hours in the middle of the week; they had all concluded that the risk of someone or something entering the second floor lavatory despite the precautions they took was too great.

But then Hermione took one small step forward, and Draco realized she really was there, and that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

Throwing aside his notes and Riddle's journal, he jumped to his feet, his heart pounding. "Hermione? What—"

"Is this yours?" she interrupted stiffly, reaching beneath the cloak to hold out a book between them.

Draco's gaze darted to the black volume.

He froze.

For a moment, all he could do was stare at it in disbelief. He literally felt the blood drain from his face.

Then shock and panic exploded through his body.

He couldn't breathe, couldn't fathom how something he'd carefully hidden away to be long forgotten until he had the chance to retrieve it had come to be in her hands in this very moment. "H… How—?"

Unshed tears had filled her eyes. "Is it?" she cried, white knuckles shaking the book at him in a vehement gesture that spoke to every dreaded fear coiling in his body.

No, no, no…

She wasn't meant to find out this way. For the longest time no one was meant to ever find out, in this way or any other; Tom had nearly had to wrench it out of him in the minutes after he'd pulled Draco away from nearly confessing it to Hermione a week ago.

"What were you planning to tell her, Draco?" he asked quietly, his voice coaxing, gentle. The resistance leader was sitting in one of the armchairs in Tribute A's study, surveying him closely. "I can see how it taxes you. Even now, it terrifies you to speak it aloud. Whatever it is, I will not judge you for it. But I may be able to help you. In order to do that, however, you must tell me."

Draco's hands still shook slightly at the thought of what he had nearly just admitted. For a moment he was afraid Tom was going to interrogate it out of him, even though that was absurd — this was not the Sovereignty, and he was not a prisoner. Still, he clasped his trembling hands more tightly and stared at the ground rather than Tom's penetrating gaze. He had forced himself to learn a bit of Occlumency for this reason alone, though he'd never been terribly good at it otherwise.

Nearly a decade later, his mother's warning still haunted him.

"Draco, these are innocent dreams, I'm sure of it," she had told him after the frequency of their occurrence had expanded significantly when he — and Hermione — had begun at Hogwarts. "But they involve the Sovereign… Lily Evans's son… the children of all the Elite. I am… I am so afraid they would commit you if they knew, study you for as long as the dreams go on, which I expect may be your entire life. For your own safety, you cannot — you cannot — ever tell anyone about them, not even your closest friends. Do you understand?"

"Mum…" his chin trembled, "Is there… is there something wrong with me?"

Narcissa let out a small breath, pulling him to her chest. "No, my darling boy. These dreams are nothing to be frightened of, and there is nothing wrong about them — they simply are a part of you, and you are perfect as you are, dreams and all! But you are experiencing something that is different, and you know the risks of being perceived as different here…"

Draco gripped the chair, briefly closing his eyes as he steeled himself to speak.

Finally, he looked up at Tom. "I… I've dreamt of her, sir," he croaked out. Briefly, he closed his eyes, his stomach gripped by nerves. "Since I was… very young."

There it was.

The secret only his mother, and probably Peia, had ever known.

And his mother couldn't have possibly understood the significance of it like he did now.

Tom didn't say anything immediately, and Draco couldn't bring himself to look at him. "I know it sounds barking mad," he said roughly.

He heard the other man sigh. "In my lifetime, I have learned the only truly mad things are the ones that initially sound sane."

Draco looked up at him, hardly daring to hope that Tom hadn't simply written him off as mentally unsound.

For a long moment, the older man studied Draco carefully. "When did they begin?"

"I… don't know. I've had them almost as long as… as I can remember. Around six, I think." Draco felt a strange mix of anxiety and relief sharing such details to another human being. "They were only occasional at first — usually she'd accidentally use magic in them, and didn't understand what it was — but once she got her Hogwarts letter and learned about the wizarding world, they increased."

"And once that happened… You had them often?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes I wouldn't have them for months. In second year she was Petrified by a Basilisk — I didn't dream of her at all then. But sometimes…" Knowing that Hermione was real and not some figment of a very vivid imagination made Draco ashamed to say it aloud, as if he was an unintentional serial interloper or voyeur, "Sometimes I'd have them every day."

Tom's expression was deeply pensive. "Was there a theme to the dreams?" he asked. At Draco's furrowed brow, he expanded, "Did you only see her in certain situations? When her emotions were heightened, only when she used magic, etcetera?"

"No… No. I don't think so," Draco said uneasily. "They were very diverse in that respect." After a moment's further thought, he admitted, "Situations in which her emotions or adrenaline were heightened did tend to result in longer dreams."

He paused, forcing himself to string together a jumble of confused thoughts he had never once placed into words. "It was almost as if… as if I was standing in a pensieve, sir. With scenes from her life. At our youngest, I called her 'my imaginary Muggle friend.'" He smiled weakly. "Mum thought it was sweet; it took her awhile to understand that I only saw her when I was asleep. Then, when she got her Hogwarts letter, I thought they were visions, but, well — as soon as she arrived in the wizarding world, that theory was crushed. Nothing about them made sense… everything was backward."

Draco hoped that the better he could describe it, the more Riddle might be able to offer some kind of sensible explanation for it, but he felt profoundly uncomfortable analyisng the hundreds of memories he had of a woman who was completely unaware of his knowledge of them. How violated, how confused and upset would he feel if he'd discovered that someone who was essentially a complete stranger had seen the same of his life, even during his darkest, most traumatic hours?

Staring at Hermione now, where he could, even from across the room, sense her rage, her confusion and fear and hurt, Draco knew she felt exactly what he had been so, so afraid she would. Gripping his cane so tightly his knuckles ached, he took a step toward her—

Immediately, she took a step backward.

He literally felt something crack inside his chest.

"Please," he finally managed to croak hoarsely, "please let me explain…"

Her eyes flashed. "What? That you've lied to me since nearly the first day we've met?"

"What? No! I haven't!" he exclaimed desperately. "Hermione, please — I haven't!"

"Well, you sure as bloody hell haven't gone out of your way to tell me the truth! That you — you know everything about me? About my universe, my life? For Merlin's sake, Draco — the sodding password! My granda died when I was nine! How many of our moments together did you see?"

Draco's eyes began to burn as he realized no answer he gave her would make this better for her… or him. "Only… a few," he whispered honestly. He didn't dare add that one of the times had been the day of her grandfather's funeral, where she had bravely gotten up before an entire crowd of weeping people and, fighting back tears, sang the song that had been so beloved to both Grangers.

"Oh my god." A single tear slipped from her eye; several others quickly followed. "Tell me you weren't going to keep this from me forever. Tell me you've had a legitimate reason to stay silent!"

Draco found himself again paralysed so deeply with horror he was abruptly afraid someone had Ordered him motionless. His heart, his mind desperately clambered to say so many things…

I didn't intend to lie to you.

I never meant to hurt you.

I would never mean to hurt you.

I was afraid you'd think I was mad if I tried to explain.

I didn't want to lose you.

I… I love you, Hermione.

His mouth was unable to speak any of them.

After a moment, the one person he had known longer and more deeply than anyone but his mother choked back a sob and turned away, shaking her head in bitter disappointment.

It jarred him into motion like a punch to the gut.

"Hermione, wait. Please."

He moved toward her again but didn't dare reach for her, his leg aching with every step he took. He would have fallen to his knees then and there and begged for her to stop if he thought it would have worked, and he nearly collapsed in relief when she looked back at him and didn't retreat further, her gaze desperately boring into his as if searching for any sort of truth he could give. "I—I've tried to tell you… so many times," he said sincerely. "Last week, after Riddle's meeting… that was the closest I've come, and I would have gone through with it, I promise you I would have, but Tom—"

He halted abruptly. Blaming someone else for his own inability to speak seemed so cowardly, but before he could sort out a better way to explain it, fury burned through Hermione's expression.

"Oh! So Riddle's been long informed of this, has he? And he hasn't taken it upon himself to let me know, either?" She stepped back and let out a dry laugh, shaking her head in disbelief. "No, of course he hasn't. He only goes and asks if I've had any dreams of this universe, and then suggests how very much I must miss home." Before Draco could get in a word edgewise, she spun back toward him. "This isn't some small secret, Draco! I trusted you. You were the only person here I believed in — the only one. And you deliberately—"

"I know!" he burst out. "I know, Hermione! Why do you think I was so afraid to say anything? Even after all these years, I-I don't even understand it myself, not well enough to explain it without sounding like some creep or intergalactic voyeur. You've scorned Divination and every related art form from the day you've stepped into Trelawney's attic! I thought… if you knew, I thought—"

"What? That if you had psychic tendencies it would somehow lessen my view of you? I may not care for Divination and thought the Trelawney of my world was a fraud, but I love Peia, and I — You—" Hermione shoved a hand through her hair, her face twisted with the same pain Draco was certain was on his own. "You didn't have to worry about how I would handle the information," she finally said, her voice a mite's breath more composed but no less cold. "All you had to worry about was being honest with me when it came to something that very much concerns me!"

Draco's body felt as though Weasley had gotten a hold of it and was ripping him apart, limb by limb, but he choked in a breath, forcing himself to get out what he needed to for her to at least understand. "Hermione — I — I didn't think you were real."

She went silent, looking up at him in surprise.

His face burned. If she hadn't thought he was mad before, she surely would after this, but he didn't allow himself to stop; no matter how he came across, she deserved to know, and always had.

"If you read that journal, then you know. To me, y-you were always only — only a figment of my imagination. When I saw you here, for the first time, I… I thought I was only hallucinating. That after an endless stream of agony and torture I was finally losing my mind, and even when you healed me and talked to me and took me to the Room of Requirements, even when I saw you with Peia, I thought that I was just making it all up, to cope with the pain."

Draco's throat went dry at the memories, as the words tripped out over his lips in his haste to say them while she was still standing here and listening. He shrugged once, weakly. "Of course, some part of me hoped… maybe it was real, but who in their right mind would believe that could happen? It wasn't until you freed me, and I saw Pansy and Evans believed you were solid and alive as well, that I realized this wasn't just another dream… that you've actually existed, this entire time. And now you were here."

For a moment, Hermione simply stared at him, her expression clouded and unreadable, even to him. "So why didn't you tell me then?" she asked in a low, quiet voice.

Draco averted his eyes so she couldn't see the shame in them. "Because we'd become actual friends, and I — I—"-relied on your presence more than you may ever fully understand, "—didn't see how I could, not without the risk of… losing you."

The silence was damning and he had no doubts about what it meant, but that didn't matter now. He had to make this right, had to tell her everything, for her.

"And you thought delaying it would— what, make it better? Go away?" she asked then.

He released a weary breath, shaking his head. "No. Nothing was ever going to make it go away. I know that. But we — Riddle and I — we thought it might help make it better if we could give you some definite answers when I told you."

Hermione's brows knit. "Answers… for what? Your psychic connection with me? You were looking into whether something like this has happened before?"

Draco swallowed hard and nodded. For as much as he wanted to run away, to hide the truth of any of this like he had the truth of her for twelve years, he forced himself to hold her stare. "Yes. That… and why that connection may have brought you here."

He saw the moment astonished realization entered her eyes. "You think your dreams of me caused Source magic to transfer me here?" she breathed.

For a moment, Draco's eyebrows lifted in confusion — she thought Source magic was the catalyst?

He shook his head. "Not… quite. In a sense, perhaps." It took him longer than he wanted to admit to find the courage to go on, and wrapped his arms around himself tightly, retreating into the shell of safety the stance provided — or at least the illusion of it. "I… I brought you here," he at last confessed, reminding himself to breathe. "Not my dreams."

A flurry of emotions danced across her face, each one too fast for him to name except the tension radiating off her body as a whole. "What? How?"

"I didn't mean to," he said helplessly. "I just…" His fingers dug into his arms as he choked in a breath, trying to detach himself from the darkness of yet another memory he had once hoped to never recall — certainly not with the frequency he had in the past week and a half. "It's… a bit like I told you last night. One night, I… saw the stars. For the first time in months." He smiled limply. "For some reason, I remembered some old Muggle fairy tale about stars, and I just… wished for help from someone. Anyone." After a moment, he shook his head. "The next day… you were here."

In the silence that followed, Draco swallowed hard and kept his eyes locked on the floor. Merlin, he sounded insane. Legitimately batty.

"So you're saying the stars decided to bring me here?" Hermione asked in disbelief.

He mentally flinched; when his eyes lifted to hers, he couldn't hide the hurt in them. "Don't mock me, Hermione."

"I'm not mocking you. I'm just saying, people wish on stars all the time. Some of them, I imagine, have been quite desperate." Her every word was careful and distant; the beautiful openness they had shared these past many weeks was gone, and he felt something inside himself slowly dying along with it. "What makes us so special?"

A week ago, Tom had asked exactly the very same thing. Even Draco had never considered whether his actions that night could possibly be the direct reason why Hermione had been exiled here to begin with… at least, not until he'd learned about the prophecies, and the mention of the Ancient One's celestial nature, and knew he had to come clean about everything if it was her only hope of returning home.

"I don't know," he muttered. "That's what Tom and I were trying to understand — How I was able to trigger a form of celestial magic. And if I'd be able to do it again, deliberately."

"Tom and you," Hermione echoed, her voice raising sharply; he looked up at her fearfully. "Tom and you! Draco, you know I've been searching for the spell that brought me here for – for months!" she exploded. "It wasn't your and Riddle's right to keep it from me because you didn't think I'd understand it, or it'd be too much for me, or whatever you believed! If anything, the least you could have done was tell me for my own bloody peace of mind!"

Draco raked a hand through his hair, gripping it so tightly his scalp ached. "I know, and I am sorry," he said fervently, gulping in a breath. "But I — I want you to know that if I really can send you back home as easily as I brought you here… I will."

The anger on her face evaporated abruptly. "What? Just like that, you want me to leave?"

He stared at her, gripped by confusion. "Of course I don't want you to leave! But it's — all I'm trying to say is — when you ask me to, I'll stand by your wishes!"

Even though the idea of her not being here hurt as much as the most nightmarish things the Weasleys had ever dreamed up for him.

Her eyes again shone with tears. "When," she repeated, her voice so deeply hurt that Draco frantically tried to understand what he'd said that could have caused it. "What makes you and Riddle so certain I'll just zip on back to my world the second I found out how I got here?"

His eyes widened. "Because it's what any sane person would do! You aren't happy here! You aren't safe here! I know everything you've left behind in that world, every happy, loving, wonderful thing, and voluntarily walking away from it on what could very well amount to a suicide mission in a foreign land full of hatred and violence is more than any one person should ever have to bear!"

"Well then, apparently you don't know me as well as you think you do!" Hermione had begun crying again but her speech didn't slow, nor did the determination in her eyes fade. "Are you honestly trying to push me back there without asking my opinion about any of this? Without giving me the benefit of the doubt? I'm here to help! If this prophecy really is about me, I'm not going to abandon all of you to — to hell!"

Astonishment and conflicted anguish ripped at his chest. "I do know you, Hermione, and I know you drive yourself well beyond your breaking point over and over again — always!" He reached for her face; had to stop himself before his hand lifted more than a few inches. "You're tired, a chuisle, you've told me yourself many, many times. You've already fought a war and it nearly destroyed you; you have no reason to fight this one as well!"

Her eyes flashed again. "I have every reason!" she exclaimed. "I may not have lived here long, but I'm very involved now! I certainly won't simply turn away from the suffering that you and everyone else you know are experiencing!"

Draco knew one day the very things that lit this rare and beautiful, indefatigable fire inside her could very well see her dead, and he felt the same panicked dread he had when she'd thrown herself over top of him to block Weasley's curse on the day she'd taken custody of him.

"You know what they'll do to you if this goes wrong. You've seen what they've done to me!" he said desperately. "Why would you search so tirelessly for a way home every chance you had if you weren't planning on going there?"

She threw up her hands. "Yes, I might not intend to flee immediately, but you're right, I would like some sort of control over this, just like you would with your Pacemaker Charm! If things suddenly went bottom up here, if Lily Evans was pointing a wand at my head about to cast the Killing Curse, of course I wanted to know I could get out if I could!" Draco slumped slightly in relief at this admittance, but tensed again when she let out a sharp groan of frustration, wrenching at her hair. "Since the beginning, Draco, this — this has torn me apart. I care, more than all of you might ever guess! But I didn't ask to come here! I didn't ask to die here!"

Draco had been very aware of how conflicted Hermione had seemed in the weeks she'd first arrived, but she'd never laid out her dilemma so clearly for him before. Suddenly, her initial reluctance to help his father — and her swift change of mind after what awful things she'd seen in the Hangar — made sense.

"Then you understand everything that I have felt," he replied, his voice raw. "I didn't ask to be one of the few born with a conscience in this cursed mess of a world. I didn't ask for a war or for my mother to die, I didn't ask for those visions of you, and I didn't ask to be made someone's slave, but in spite of that it all happened anyway. On the night before the Hogwarts Express left, the night the youngest Weasleys decided they wanted to torture me to the brink of death, I - I didn't ask for - that, either..."

With a brutal immediacy, his vision narrowed and blackened. He struggled to swallow, to breathe, but his throat tightened to a choke. As the room began to spin around him and whip lashes tore at his exposed back like he was still dangling limply from chains in the dungeon's darkest cell, his hand swiftly flailed outward to try to find the wall-

Hermione grasped his other arm before he did, gently but firmly steadying him. "Draco! Draco, it's alright… it's alright."

He gulped in several breaths, clenching his hands to stifle the sudden tremors that wracked them. The corners of his eyes began to burn in a mixture of gratitude and shame. After what felt like an eternity, he felt stable enough to lift his gaze to her concerned expression, desperately trying not to betray the depth of his feelings for her with a single glance, nor feel the slightest shard of hope that their friendship hadn't been irreparably destroyed by his mistakes.

"That… wasn't a new experience by any means, but it was – simply one too much," he continued hoarsely, his voice low and earnest. "The pain I experienced is something I pray you will never have to, Hermione. I thought I surely couldn't withstand another day, another hour, another minute - not with my sanity, nor my life. So, yeah, finally, I got a little selfish. I did ask for something, something I never expected would actually happen. But it did, and now you're here, and if I could take it back, believe me, I would!"

Draco watched in bewildered horror as her entire expression collapsed and then swiftly molded into a self-protective fury.

"Well, then, why don't you wish on another star and try?" she hissed, yanking away from him, spinning on her heel and storming from the room.

His lips parted in shock.

Far, far too late, his eyes widened as he realized that his expression of regret at Hermione's own suffering could have been construed very, very differently from how he'd intended it.

And it had been.

The air around Draco abruptly became as cold as ice in her wake. He didn't know how long he stared at the spot from which she'd disappeared before he slowly closed the distance between himself and the nearest wall. He leaned against it, sliding to the ground with a pained wince, and dropped his head into shaking hands, his hair drenched in a cold sweat. He simultaneously felt empty and ill, but doubted he had the energy to even make it to a loo, let alone vomit.

In less than fifteen minutes, his entire world had once again fallen apart.

But what was even worse…

So too, he feared, had hers.

A/N: Ah. I know this chapter was probably a tough read, guys. Honestly, how many of you saw that coming? Some of you have come awfully darn close, but I am pretty sure I've had only one reviewer in the entire history of reviewers hit every nail right on the head when it came to these two. Sound off below!