From the door to the white room, Draco watched his memory-self tilt Hermione's face up to his and murmur the spell, and then they all landed on their knees in Hermione's mind.

"What the hell is this?" Potter asked quietly as they looked around, taking in the ruins of the library, the books burned and scattered and the walls splashed and dripping with blood that seeped from the gaping chasms and cracks between the shelves. All around them was the sound of screaming, Hermione's voice over and over in a choir, begging for mercy, begging for death, or just screaming, the way you did when there was nothing else to do but scream.

"This is Hermione's library," Draco said quietly. "Her…it's complicated to explain, but this isn't what it's supposed to look like." He looked up at his memory-self, who was staring at the destruction with a horror-struck expression. A moment later the memory-Draco set off for the opposite end of the massive room, running through piles of books and sending puddles of blood splashing as he ran.

"It's bloody macabre," Ginny said quietly as they followed, but before he could reach the gaping, howling chasm that was the far wall of the library they were forcibly ejected, and found themselves sitting around the Penseive in Grimmauld Place again.

Potter and Ginny were pale and shaking, and Draco wasn't exactly on top form himself, but he'd at least been somewhat prepared this time.

"So explain the library," Ginny said. "I assume she used the method of loci to organise her memories?"

"Yes," Draco said. "And that's not what it looked like three years ago." He caught a sharp look from Potter about that, but Potter didn't say anything, for which Draco was infinitely grateful. Later, there would be time to explain why he knew what the inside of Hermione Granger's mind looked like. Much, much later.

"I should hope not," Ginny said. "It looks like it's been destroyed. Could a Legilimens do that?"

"I think she did it herself," Draco said softly. "There's a way…if you have important information that absolutely cannot be discovered…you can bring down your shields and crush everything. Professor Snape called imploding. I think that's what she did."

"So you think that that woman is the real Hermione," Potter said, sitting back with an exceedingly grim expression on his face. "And the person who's six months pregnant with Ron's baby is…who, exactly? A Polyjuiced imposter?"

"If I were going to kidnap a war heroine, Potter," Draco said, "I'd make pretty damn sure that I couldn't get caught. And what better way to do that than to make sure she's never even missed?"

"Are you thinking doppelganger?" Ginny asked, looking at Draco.

He nodded.

"It makes the most sense. An imposter couldn't maintain the façade that long. But a doppelganger, imbued with her own memories and experiences? The woman who's married to your brother probably really believes she is Hermione Granger."

"But why?" Ginny asked plaintively. "Why take her? What do they want from her?"

"If I had to take a wild guess," Potter said, "I think they want Professor Snape."

"But he really is dead, Potter, she's not lying about that. You saw it, after all," Draco said, but it felt as though a light had gone on inside him, because if Professor Snape was alive, then…then anything was possible. Even saving Hermione, even restoring the ruined library of her mind.

"Hermione was the last person to see his body. And she said he's with her parents."

"Who are dead, right?"

Potter shook his head slowly, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Before we left to go hunting Horcruxes, Hermione told me that she'd modified her parents' memories and sent them to Australia. She only changed her story to them being dead after the war."

Draco sat back in his chair.

"Well that changes everything. If they're alive, she'd have sent Severus to them."

Ginny called for more tea, and they all jumped as Kreacher appeared with a crack.

"Why would she have done that?"

"It's a long story, Potter, and not really important right now. Right now, we have two main problems. First problem, we need to get Hermione out of there. You saw how thin she is – I wouldn't be surprised if she's been Vanishing her food instead of eating it, she doesn't have a wand but she always could manage that one wandless. She's not going to last much longer."

"I agree. We definitely need to get her out of there as soon as possible," Ginny said. "What's the second problem?"

"The second problem is that she's fractured her mindscape," Draco said. "At the moment, she's insane. And if we're going to get her back, we're going to need someone who is an expert Legilimens, and who knows her mind inside and out."

Potter groaned and closed his eyes.

"You're going to say we need Snape, aren't you," he muttered.

"Got it in one," Draco said. "If we want to get her mind back the way it's supposed to be, we're definitely going to need Snape."