Welcome to another chapter! Hope you guys enjoy!

"The fuck do you mean 'hunt down a werewolf'?!" A disconcerted Theo ploughed through Helena Ravenclaw's portrait.

Draco ignored him, too occupied in his head with covering any potential holes to his plan. He almost didn't register Crookshanks perched on the sofa's armrest like a modern day grotesque, glaring at him as if to say, "Where was my steak dinner?"

Behind Draco, the otter made a noise and Theo gently put it down.

It hurried past his legs towards the bigger, much more menacing predator who hopped off his throne. Even at full height, it didn't reach the level of the cat's head.

Although, what was most peculiar was that Crookshanks did not attack on sight. He instead approached cautiously, unsure, and took two, short whiffs before bumping his head against the otter's neck. It lost its balance from the gesture but Crookshanks only purred louder, eventually laying on his new friend.

Grappling out under him, the otter chittered and weaved its puny arms through the heavily-saturated fur in big ovals as he played dead.

"Fuckin' hell," Theo cursed. "I thought Crooky despised strangers."

Draco rolled his eyes and sprinted to his room. On a good day he would've been equally dumbfounded.

"Wha—hey! Wait!" Fretful stomps shadowed stubborn ones up the stairs.

Theo watched restlessly as his housemate tore open the silver trunk at the foot of his bed. He had never been in Draco's den before, and it felt…agonising. His bed was made, not a ridge to be seen, and his furnishings were deprived of any dust or grime.

Then there was the chilling element: Clean as it may have been, it was arctic in temperature, like an abandoned prison cell. Theo thought going under the covers would be no better either. And it was dim. Gloomily so. Fitting for a ghost in lieu of a person.

Snapped awake by a sudden stillness in the air, he looked back to where Draco was hunched over, unmoving with the exception of his heavy breaths, and clearly staring at something in his hand. Stalking closer to see, he studied the shape of what seemed to be an elongated tooth. An animal's tooth. Possibly a dog's.

"Mate…" Theo's tone was wary. "What is that?

"Something I need for the plan," Draco said, grey eyes meeting his brown. He did not look the least bit happy.

"You're actually going through with this?" he whispered.

"What, you thought I was kidding?" Draco encased the object in a silver bond and shoved it in his trouser pocket.

"You want to look for a stinking werewolf right now?"

"I'm doing this for Granger, Theo. And of course not now. Preparations would take me a day and a half if I stop wasting time."

"You've gone mad." Theo shook his head, a disappointed frown to boot. "How does a werewolf even relate to Hermione? I thought you said they haven't found any clues!"

"Because it's fucking Greyback!"

Theo's brows furrowed further, as though trying to place where he had heard the name before, and Draco treated his silence as an opportunity to continue rummaging for the next materials.

He knew it was Greyback who'd done it. The whole thing reeked of unstable lycanthropy regardless of him not usually leaving a spotless trail. Maybe he finally learned. So, no. Draco hadn't gone mad. What was 'mad' was not assuming it was the filthy dog in the first place.

'He'll see,' he thought. 'I just need to find him and they'll all see.'

Draco had likely flipped his room over and sideways since around the time Theo left—he wasn't sure when. All he was missing at the end were Shredded Boomslang Skins. And it appeared that he'd run out of other, unnecessary ingredients as well.

'No matter. Maybe Lovegood has some,' he decided, cracking his shoulders and the sting of his wound resurfaced tenfold. Right. He was still supposed to be recovering. Tragically for his body, Hermione was priority number one. Always.

Just as long as he was able to move, there would be no problem. Granger was probably in worse shape, anyway—the little bookworm just had to beat him at everything.

'Don't even think about it,' Draco reprimanded himself, pushing the image away. 'Focus.'

Jogging down to the common room, he was blocked by Theo sauntering out of the kitchen. He held a platter containing a tea set with two cups full of steaming liquid.

"What the are you still doing here?" Draco asked.

"You said you wanted my help." Theo placed the plate on the miniature table near the lit fireplace. "And I'll consider, if you sit down and tell me what it is exactly that I'm signing up for."

"I have no time—"

"Hermione's my friend too, you know."

"Then that should be enough reason for you to help me."

"I don't even know what you're doing! How am I supposed to—" Theo pursed his lips, breathing in and out to calm himself. This was Luna's influence, no doubt.

He never was this controlled in times of crisis. If anything, he was usually the first one to act on outlandish impulses. It was why he secretly apologised to his now-girlfriend back in fifth year for stealing her things and blaming it on her housemates.

The awestruck look on his face when he returned to the dungeons was still vivid in Draco's retinas.

"Just…tell me," Theo said, arm pointed to the velvet sofa. "It won't take you the whole day."

Draco massaged his forehead and reluctantly sat down. On the opposite side, he could see Crookshanks and the otter cuddled up in a comfortable circle.

Theo offered him one of the porcelain crockeries. He was about to refuse when his friend insisted, "I figured you'd need to calm down to get your words right."

Annoyed, Draco snatched the drink and gulped it down in one go before slamming it back on the wooden decor. The heat and taste barely affected his gums.

"So, why Greyback?" Theo took a sip of his own tea, eyeing him intently behind the cup's adorned lip.

"You know him, then?" The blonde met his gaze.

"Luna mentioned him at some point," Theo stated. "But other than what he is, I have no idea."

Draco wasn't privy to the whole picture either, albeit being somewhat personally acquainted with him; but he provided more details as best he could from all that he had seen under Voldemort's side of the war.

He began with the missions—when he had to accompany the werewolf in order to prove himself a worthy Death Eater. He withheld nothing of what Greyback did during those occasions to wizards, children, and Muggle-borns alike; as well as when he waltzed into the manor detaining three people that matched those descriptions and more.

Draco remembered the fantasies he disclosed pertaining to Hermione in the midsts of her torture, and even after she and her comrades had apparated elsewhere. How disgustingly obsessed he's been since.

Fenrir's calibre, his advice, his metallic breath, his choice of appearance—each part of him was anything but human.

"He's a sick fuck. That's all there is to it," Draco concluded.

Theo tapped his foot on the matted floor. "So you think it's him based on his weird fixation on Hermione?"

"Part of it," Draco admitted, rubbing his eyes with the pads of his fingers to erase a looming fatigue. "Granger told me she dealt with him…near the end, after they caught him munching up Brown. So if there's a list of people who have it out for her after everything, he's at the top of it."

"And he's not dead?"

He shook his head as the room grew hotter. "No body, no evidence. I reckon he's just been hiding."

Theo nodded, puffing a defeated sigh. "Okay. I get it now. I'll help. But first, you need to rest for a bit."

Denial forced its way on the tip of Draco's tongue once again when his breath hitched at the sudden awareness of his developing symptoms.

"Nott?" he seethed at the man who had the gall to respond with an innocent hum. "Did you fucking drug me?"

"It's for your own good."

Draco lunged at him, aiming for his throat, but the sleeping draught had already invaded too much of his system as Theo avoided his attempts effortlessly. He stayed slumped on the side of the wing chair, fighting grogginess and leadened eyelids.

"I thought you said you'd help me," Draco slurred.

"I did," Theo agreed. "But I need you to think properly—"

"Yeah? And who's fault is that?!"

"—If not that, then healthy! You don't even know you're bleeding right now, you git!"

Was he? He couldn't look. He couldn't see. He tried focusing on the small, blurry figure that appeared in between him and Theo.

'Is that the otter?' It sounded like it. In his mind, he chuckled wryly. This was to be the second day in a row that he was going to faint while having the animal scream in his ear. Maybe Ginny was right and it did, in fact, attach itself to him.

Granger would just love that.

'Granger?' Draco mused, returning to life in his room. Didn't he doze off on the carpet a minute ago, and why was everything so tidy? Theo couldn't have done it. 'Theo...'

The useless arsewipe had drugged him. But he also mentioned bleeding.

Looking down, Draco palmed his chest, searching for a scarlet stain on his dress-shirt. Oddly enough, he was wearing a different outfit, absent of a supposedly-reopened injury.

"What the fuck?" he whispered. He threw his sheets to the side and ran out, successfully tripping over Crookshanks in the hall.

The feline released a strangled yowl, smacking his aggressor on the leg as much as he could.

"Not now, Crooks," Draco hissed and limped down the stairs. Where the hell was Theodore?

Adrenaline balled his hands, though the second he discovered a bush of atrocious hair in the kitchen, he felt every bit of it boil into shock and hope.

"Granger?" She had her back to him, cooking while her limbs tilted left to right rhythmically. Her mane bounced with each swing and she waved the spatula in delight.

Something about the scene was intimately recognisable to Draco. It could have been her plain clothes, or the way she had her guard down. Then she turned around.

Hermione had a thick, black line curved around the top of her head. Both ends broadened into flattened circles that concealed her ears and Draco was showered with abject despair.

It wasn't real. He knew, because this was a record of one of the most significant moments of his life—October 18, 1998. And like clockwork, he felt the cords of the memory guide him to move.

Hermione then noticed him on the casing and jumped, as expected, almost dropping her breakfast.

"Malfoy! You seriously need to wear a bell." Reality or not, he was glad to hear her voice.

"What's that on your head, Granger?" Draco drew his face back. He'd seen her wear it several times around the school—in their tower, the library, by the lake—whenever she was alone but never in classes. He suspected it was a muggle thing.

"Oh! It's an MP3 player," Hermione divulged with sparkling eyes, ever so happy to enlighten.

She removed the strange contraption from her ears and his eyes trailed the long wire connected to a rectangular box that was no bigger than her hand. She shook it to view. "See?"

Draco was still lost, rooted at the spot and debating whether he should leave or finally feed into his curiosity.

"It's a new muggle accessory that allows me to listen to music whenever and wherever I want," Hermione added as he strolled over to take a peep. Which was closer than normal, considering he could smell her shampoo…and her food. "Harry got it for me before I left for Hogwarts."

How odd—'carrying music with you'. Maybe it was an instrument of some kind.

"I had a walkman before, and Harry and I used it so much that we ran out of space for all the cassettes," the witch rambled. Draco tried to keep up with the influx of alien words. "It…I lost it during the war, so it was very thoughtful of him to get me this. It was just released last year, actually. It must've cost him a fortune."

Wasn't Harry Potter rich and famous now?

"What sound does it make?" The boy inquired, poking the corner of the blue shape experimentally.

Hermione chortled. "I mean it stores songs, not makes them. This one has about a hundred!" She proceeded to tap at the buttons and Draco caught faint strings of letters on the screen.

"Here." She raised the weird headband. He unconsciously bent down to receive it. The squeeze felt unusual yet comfortable nonetheless. It was no different from winter earmuffs, if he was being honest; only a bit smaller, and warm from Granger's recent use. There was no sound, however. "Comfy?"

He crimped his brows at Hermione.

"I don't hear anything," Draco announced. Were muggles the only ones that could?

His dormmate smirked.

"That's because I haven't played it," she teased. "Look. The middle one is for playing and pausing, the ones on the sides enable you to choose which song you want, and the one above and under are for the volume."

To prove it, she pressed the largest option and a loud and steady noise assaulted his ears, going forth to the core. He sprung in the air, startled. He couldn't hear Hermione now, but he knew she enjoyed that.

The mixture was a style he didn't recognise. The drums were distinct, and there was a constant string instrument—it tickled his brain—interrupted by a trumpet that made him jolt again. It was electric and fast paced. What he didn't anticipate was the melodic voice of a man.

"We're no strangers to love. You know the rules and so do I!"

Draco jerked the earmuff off, throwing it on the island and he could still perceive the man on the other end.

"What the fuck!" he yelled. Hermione laughed.

"Relax," she said, grabbing the discarded item. "That's just Rick Astley, one of many muggle artists. Maybe I picked the wrong one for you."

His nose scrunched. He'd prefer not experience that again.

"Here. Theo loves this one so I guess you can try it out. Unless Rick was traumatising enough to put you off of muggle music forever." Hermione grinned. Draco yanked the muffs back on, grumbling about Theo, and she hit the button at his confirmation.

It was the same onslaught of hard beats; though with a series of claps, including a vocalising man—or a group of men. The bloke's pitch was higher than Rick's, and unlike him, this one started singing instantaneously.

"Uptown girl. She's been living in her uptown world."

Were all of these artists American? Draco was not impressed. Even so, he listened attentively to the new track. If Theo liked it as Granger had affirmed, there must be a reason why.

"And when she knows what she wants from her type;

And when she wakes up and makes up her mind—"

Bafflingly, in such short notice, he found himself quite immersed in the buoyant composition. It made him feel…free. Like it was just him and Hermione in the world. But there was something so intrusive about the phrases of the song.

"—She'll see I'm not so tough, just because I'm in love with an uptown girl."

Draco looked at the Head Girl who observed him through doe, almond eyes as she ate. He noted the date: October 18, 1998. The day muggle music made him realise he felt more for Hermione Granger than he thought.

We're no strangers to loooove~

There are more songs coming but which ones do you think fit the story?

Thank you guys for reading and see you soon!