"So, Theo, huh?" Terry says after an extended silence that begins to turn awkward. "Is that… official?"

Awkward or not, Hermione would rather this not be the topic he chooses. But she supposes the whole thing is new enough to justify asking about, and she sighs. "Yes, I think it is."

"Well, if you don't know, it might not be," he teases lightly. The tips of his ears show through his shaggy hair and look a little pink. Hermione is beginning to dread where this is going.

"I would like it to be," she replies in a firm voice. The least she can do is try and head this off at the pass.

The corridors really are empty. They've only passed one other person, heading the other way. Hermione starts to feel a little uncomfortable and shoves it down. She's known Terry for six years.

Her attempt at stopping this line of conversation fails miserably.

"If you decide otherwise, I'd like the chance to take you out sometime," he coughs out. He rubs his hand through his brown hair as they walk, making it stand on end. It doesn't do his pink ears any favours by exposing them.

Time to be more direct. She did it with Seamus; she can do it here, too. Hermione takes a deep breath. "Terry, I'm really flattered. But I do fancy Theo, and -"

"Why, though?" he bursts out. Suddenly affronted, he stops walking. The slight flush to his skin takes on a different hue. "He's a Slytherin. His dad's a Death Eater and you know their ideology."

"Theo isn't like that."

Terry begins to get riled. His dark eyes flash something dangerous and he points his index finger at her chest. "He and his lot bullied you for years. So just because he - he says something nice for a change, you go dropping your knickers for him, and -"

"Excuse me?!" Forget the Grey Lady. Hermione goes to turn back and he grabs her arm.

She stares back and forth between Terry's hand and his face until he releases her. He looks away first, humiliated and red.

"I'm sorry." Terry balls his hand into a tight fist and drops it to his side. "I'm sorry. Come on, I know where she usually stays. I'll just - introduce you and leave you to it, shall I?"

"I would appreciate that," Hermione says in a frosty voice.

He leads her down another dark, empty hallway and his resolve breaks. "You know, you could have the Pureblood vault without the blood supremacy. Not all of us are like that."

She's too stunned at the first sentence to interrupt before he's done. Her jaw is on the floor. "What did you say to me?"

He grows defensive. "I said, I could give you the name to belong, and the wealth without all the 'Mudblood' bullshit you've heard from them."

The fact that Terry still considers this an acceptable angle to pursue has her paralysed with verbal indecision. She wants to shout fourteen different things in his face at once, and the requirement to choose one over the rest has her stumped.

She kicks him in the shin instead, inordinately pleased that the shoes she's wearing are a pair of Draco's favourites, nice and pointy. "Arsehole!"

He recovers quicker than she did, yanking her arm and pinning her to the wall. It happens so fast, Hermione hardly has time to realise the change. His fingers are pinching into her skin hard enough to feel the prick of his nails. The stone is rough and cold at her back.

"Stop fighting it," he hisses in her face, squeezing tighter. Her breath escapes her in a wheeze. "If you'll go with them, you should go with me. You should consider yourself lucky that I still want you after who you've been with. So stop being a bitch, Hermione."

"Let go of me!"

Terry's other hand now has her wrist, the one that could reach for her wand. His grip feels like iron but she tries to yank it away. The only thing she feels is his thumbnail puncturing her skin and her stomach twists with the beginnings of fear.

"Let go!"

Left to other devices, Hermione moves to knee him in the groyne but he's too quick for her. He twists to the side, taking her wrist with him. She yelps in pain, nerves shooting up her arm.

Terry's blasted off her so fast, she doesn't know where he went. Her gaze follows him instinctively and she sees his body land hard, thrown clear across the hall. He's slumped and unconscious with one shoulder almost touching the floor. His jaw slackens and she can see his white teeth - an odd thing for her to notice.

Eyes wide and mouth agape, she turns to see Draco. His wand is out and quivering slightly at the tip. She's never seen him so livid and it sends chills rippling across her skin.

The rage radiates off him. She feels the change in the air, his magic crackling through the corridor. He moves towards Terry's prone figure, but changes course when Hermione cradles her wrist.

"Are you alright? Did he hurt you?" His hand shoots out as if to grab her himself, if only to inspect her arm, and her forearm flinches back slightly. Draco's jaw sets and he sends a stinging hex at Terry's body without looking over at it. It jerks against the stone.

"Let me see," he says, much more gently, and she holds it out.

"It's just bruised. It's fine. He just - he startled me, more than anything."

That's not entirely true, either the injury or the sentiment. He had drawn blood with his nails. What she wanted to say is that Terry had scared her, but somehow that felt stupid to say out loud. Had she been scared for her physical wellbeing? She hadn't had very long to consider it, but yes. He had her overpowered there, against the wall. She starts to tremble: a little at first, then a bit more.

Draco wraps her up without a word. He puts his wand between his teeth and holds her to his chest, strong arms clutching her shoulders.

Her trembling intensifies and her voice comes out wobbly. "We can't - if someone comes along and sees…"

"Let them see."

She knows he doesn't really mean this, but she thinks he can sense how deserted this tower is. It's half the reason Terry led her up here, isn't it? She starts to shake a little harder.

Draco shifts them a little to the side and Hermione sees Terry's body jerk with another stinging hex. Her gaze flies to his face, where his wand is trapped tightly between his teeth.

"How -"

"I don't need my hands." Draco grinds this out between his teeth but she can understand easily enough. He sends another jinx for good measure and she's too stunned to reply.

He may not need his hands to shoot hexes, but he does need his mouth to talk and he has more to say. He removes the wand, shaking his hair out of his eyes. They're steely grey and glinting in the dim light. "You have no idea what I can do - what I will do."

Keeping her tight to him with one arm, he traces down her cheek with the fingers not holding his wand. "I will do anything. No one touches what's mine."

Coming from his clenched jaw, his twitching nerves, his gritted words mesh with her adrenaline, sending a swirling hurricane of heat to her stomach.

If asked (anytime before March of this year, really), Hermione would have said she was far too independent and progressive a witch to allow such proprietary declarations. And she could never tolerate Draco acting this way to every wizard who wanders along - she'd stormed out on him when he said those same words about Seamus a few weeks ago.

But she was just assaulted in an empty corner of the castle, by someone she's known since they were eleven and who was still making derogatory assumptions about her character. Someone who seemed capable of far worse if Draco hadn't stopped him. Hermione can't deny that Draco's defence of her is making her heart do odd, uneven things. She'd said it to him in the hospital wing - she's not some goblet he can lock away, no, but his possessiveness is… endearing, in an unexpected way. She's valuable to him. She's something special.

Terry thinks of her as some dirty slag (but not too dirty for Terry to stoop to, and shouldn't Hermione be grateful?) content to stay for the money and validation he could provide her. Yes, Terry would have considered her 'his' in a different sense, she's quite sure. To Draco, she's precious; to Terry, she'd be the dirty witch he expected, but his to do with what he liked.

As if he can read her mind, Draco lip curls. He hexes Terry's unconscious body a fourth time.

"Stop," she manages, fisting his shirt in her fingers and willing them to stop trembling. Her adrenaline can slow back down now, anytime it likes. "Stop doing that. We have to Obliviate him."

This plainly hadn't occurred to Draco, who looks disappointed.

"We can't just send him on his way," Hermione states, feeling a bit more in control of things in a verbal sense, if nothing else. "He can't tell everyone about this. Rennervate him after I take care of those stinging hexes."

"Must you?" he whinges, crossing his arms petulantly.

"We can't very well send him off covered in marks."

Draco plainly disagrees, letting out a single huff before speaking up again. "Don't heal all of them. I want him to suspect he did something stupid and pissed somebody off, and wonder what the hell he did. I want him to worry."

This seems somewhat diabolical, but as Terry just had her pushed against a wall, twisting her wrist to the point of pain and calling her a bitch, Hermione can't be too fussed to protest much.

As Draco prepares to Rennervate him, Hermione steadies herself for the memory charm. Just the last twenty minutes would do. Maybe not even that much.

"I'd still much rather he remembered all of this," Draco grumbles. "Lessen the chances of having to do it again. But if you insist, I'd rather do it. Here goes."

He awakens Terry, whose eyes flash from fury to fear. He begins to scramble along the wall, hands and arse sliding backwards. As Draco casts the spell, she focuses on Terry's face and sees it drift into a blank nothingness. The stream of silvery mist has only just cut off when Draco steps directly in front of her, blocking her line of sight to Terry - or maybe the other way around.

She'd been prepared to present him with an alternative fiction while he's still dazed, but Draco takes over, voice cold enough to raise the flesh on her arms. "You don't like Hermione Granger. You don't dislike her. You don't think about her at all, ever. She makes no impression on you. Now go back to your tower, and you feel like staying there all night."

That's an interesting tactic. She waits for Terry to wander off, somewhat off balance and trailing one hand along the stone wall for stability. "Will that work?" she asks when he's out of sight.

"What part?"

"Can it change feelings or thoughts he might have had of me in the past? I've never seen one used like that."

"Seen many used, have you?" he smirks at her, and gets more serious. "That was… slightly modified. Don't tell anyone."

No, she hasn't seen many used. Not enough to compare. "That wasn't a straight Obliviate?"

"Not exactly," he says, a little cagey about it, "but like I said, I'd rather not have to do it again. We'll just say I did it for efficiency. Come on, let's get down to the lake."

They shouldn't walk down together. They both know it. But Hermione is more rattled than she'd like to vocalise, and now that she has a few quiet minutes to ruminate as they walk, she can't deny it. Draco's presence is welcome. He stays close enough that she draws comfort from it, and slowly allows her to outpace him as they reach more populated areas of the castle.

By the time they get outdoors, she's well ahead of him but can feel his gaze at her back. Maybe it's the sun on her skin warming her, putting a final stop to the last small trembles in her hands, or maybe it's his attention.

It makes her feel safe.

Pansy and Theo are already down there, a large chequered blanket spread on the lush grass. Hermione's now grateful that Blaise is there, too. It makes the pairing look far less suspicious.

This small flash of awareness is useful, because she remembers just in time to gravitate specifically to Theo. From the corner of her eye, Hermione sees Draco swoop down towards Pansy and without thinking any further about it, she leans in to let Theo kiss the corner of her mouth. Simultaneous timing is the best they can hope for, she thinks wryly, and plops down so her hip brushes Theo's.

"You look weird, Granger," Pansy throws out blandly, as if it couldn't possibly matter, and inspects her fingernails. Holding a buffer, she goes to work with rapid efficiency.

Hermione isn't sure how to phrase it, or if to say anything at all. 'Terry Boot got fresh?' She finally settles on, "Some wizards have a hard time hearing 'no.'"

Pansy's interest is piqued and she abandons the fingernail focus, brows disappearing under her neat fringe. Blaise and Theo are both staring at Draco, and Hermione blurts out, "Not him!"

"Yes, thank you," Draco says dryly. "But I did get to have some fun of my own."

Pansy ignores this as Theo elbows Blaise, staring only at Hermione with curious intensity. "It was either… no, let me guess. It was either Anthony Goldstein, Cormac McLaggen, Patrick Bagby -"

"He's a Hufflepuff!" Theo blurts out.

Pansy levels him with a condescending glare. "You think that matters?" She focuses on Hermione again, a perceptive look in her eye. "Bagby, or Terry Boot." Hardly a second passes before she barks out, "Ha! Terry Boot, was it?"

"How did you know?" Draco asks, bewildered, looking back and forth between the two witches.

"Granger's left eye twitched. What did he do?"

"Told me he'd introduce me to the Grey Lady, but of course she'd be in Ravenclaw Tower. Then once we were nearly there, he came onto me. I don't know if the Grey Lady offer was just a ruse or if he seized an opportunity, but -"

Pansy shakes her head, looking superior. "He's the sort that doesn't think he needs to plan a whole situation to take advantage of. He just can't conceive that when prompted, a witch might not be interested."

All three wizards look fascinated by this. Neither witch pays them any mind.

"You haven't dated much, Granger, but -"

"What does that have to do with anything?" Draco contests hotly. Pansy deigns to acknowledge him, keeping her eyes on Hermione.

"If you'd let me finish, I was going to say that Granger probably hasn't had a chance to hear the rumours about Boot. He's arrogant. He can't understand why witches don't fall at his feet."

"Being arrogant doesn't automatically equal -"

"I know that, you wanker," Pansy snaps irritably.

Hermione cuts in before this can go sideways. "He implied that he could give me the Pureblood name and money without having to 'sully' myself with the Slytherins."

This was probably more detail than she needed to add as the four in front of her exchange highly offended looks, and now they risk going sideways in the other direction. But this is the first time they've all been involved in one, singular conversation. At long last it feels organic, like it ought to, and she can't help leaning into a little.

"Of course he thinks he's better than we are," Pansy sniffs, chin raised. "But that aside, there are a handful of wizards in this castle who get offended when a witch says 'no.' There must be something wrong with us, for not wanting them, and they get… mad."

Hermione thinks this is putting it rather mildly. "He said I should consider myself lucky that he still wanted me after who I've been with."

Pansy and Theo are both trying to catch her eye, shaking their heads urgently, but she doesn't notice until after she concludes, "Then he told me to stop being such a bitch."

Expression thunderous, Draco's up and stalking back towards the castle by the time she's finished talking. Blaise and Theo leap to their feet. "Malfoy, Malfoy…"

Pansy gives Hermione a patronising look. "You had to know he wouldn't take that well."

If she's perfectly honest about it, Hermione is still surprised by the depth of Draco's reactions. Justin and Seamus, yes, but despite what Theo had said, he's been handling the playacting so well. Something in her face makes Pansy pause again.

"What did he do, when Terry Boot tried what he did?"

"I haven't even said what he tried. He got offended, like you said, and he grabbed me. Pushed me up against the wall and wouldn't let me go for my wand. And then… Draco was there."

Pansy's dark eyebrows are lost under her fringe. "And… what did he do?"

"Blasted Terry off me, and then we - we Obliviated him, and sent him on his way." Hermione leaves off the odd memory charm.

They both watch Theo and Blaise argue with Draco from a distance.

"You like it, don't you?"

Hermione's eyes fly back to Pansy, who is watching her with shrewd scrutiny. She doesn't need to ask what Pansy means. For some reason, her heart's beating a wild gallop.

"You could go over there and tell him to calm down," Pansy continues. "You could tell him to stop it, that you're fine, to come back here and sit. But you haven't, because some part of you likes it."

She's right, Hermione must admit, but she can admit something else, too. "I feel like I shouldn't."

Pansy shrugs at this, watching the trio of wizards with mild interest. "Who cares if you do? You already know you both have a jealous streak."

"His is more than a streak."

"Yes, we talked about that when he was in the hospital wing. But this is a little different. Seamus didn't threaten you. Terry did, and Draco defended you. There's nothing wrong with liking it."

"I've never been that witch who needs someone to defend her."

Pansy's eyebrows shoot up again. "Or is it just that no one else ever has?"

"I -" she stops, struggling a little and trying to think. "Well, there haven't been very many opportunities. Like you said, I haven't dated a lot."

"It doesn't have to be about dating, you know. But now that it has, how does it make you feel?"

Hermione watches Draco rip his arm away from Blaise and all three turn back to where she and Pansy are still sitting. She tries to pin down how she feels about the whole thing. "I've never felt… threatened like that, before this. It was scary. First I was more mad than scared, but there was no one around. I couldn't get to my wand and he was angry, and stronger than me. Then Draco was there, and I felt… safe."

"Oh, he can keep you safe, alright." Something ominous in Pansy's voice makes Hermione look at her closely, but Pansy's rustling around in her bag. "Draco's powerful. I don't mean his magic, which is. I'm talking about him. I mean, you know. He can keep you safe."

This phrasing is similarly odd and Hermione's brow furrows in concentration. What does she mean?

"On a related note, if there was no one around, how did Draco know about it?" Pansy's eyes are sharp, holding something back.

"Terry and I passed him outside the library. I told him I'd be down here soon, and I knew he wasn't happy about it, but I wasn't worried at the time."

"He followed you," Pansy states as the wizards get back.

"Yes, I followed her," Draco says irritably, rearranging himself on the blanket. "I follow her everywhere, if I have the opportunity to."

"You… do?" Hermione doesn't know why this surprises her.

Pansy rolls her eyes. Done with the buffer, she blows on her nails. "Yes, it's a nuisance. It means I end up dragged to all corners of the castle at random times, while he looks for you under random pretences."

"No one tells you to come, Parkinson."

"And yet, I do," she retorts. "Because I can't be with Theo over this rubbish, and I'm not having that effort go to waste. So you follow her and I follow you, and I try to distract you. It's ridiculous!"

"Good thing I did today!" he bellows and Theo and Blaise exchange a look. Pansy and Draco begin bickering afresh and Blaise leans on one elbow, sticking his feet out in the grass. He has to raise his voice to be heard.

"Granger, what do your parents do?"

Thrown completely for a loop, Hermione tried to re-centre. "Ah, they're dentists. They're Healers for people's teeth."

"Is that a lucrative profession?" For a moment, Hermione thinks he's angling towards a similar argument that Terry had tried, and Blaise lifts a hand to stop her. "I only ask because I'm curious."

She squints at him, still unsure. "Yes. Yes, it is. They've owned their own practice for years and have been talking about buying a second clinic."

Blaise gives her hip an encouraging nudge with one shoe. "Now, if more people understood that, Boot's hints that you're after us for our money might not hold so much weight."

"Do they hold weight?" she confronts him, appalled. Do other people think this about her? That hadn't even occurred to her. Do people think she's choosing boyfriends for their vault size?

"Ah, Granger," Pansy chides, pulling mint green nail polish from her handbag, "there's always an argument to be had somewhere. For you, it'll be whether you just wanted to shag the 'Chosen One,' or needed our gold or the power behind the name so people forget you're a M- Muggle-born."

Pansy flinches a little at the lapse and says, "Sorry. Bad habit. Anyway, for us it's assumptions like 'their parents arranged this shit when they were both six months old, they don't actually love each other,' etc etc."

That hadn't occurred to Hermione, either. But all three wizards are nodding absently as if this is completely familiar, predictable, and even expected. That lends credence to Narcissa's statement that plenty of Purebloods have 'dalliances' before settling down - whether with a Muggle-born or someone else. It might be their only chance to be with someone they actually favour before getting married to someone on command.

"Are - are any of you in an arrangement, then?" Hermione has no idea if this is gauche to ask, but Pansy brought it up. She's too curious to hold it in. "I don't mean you and Theo, obviously," she hurries to add. "But have any of you ever been, at some point?"

Blaise snorts. "Not me. My mum is on her seventh husband, and fully believes in the right to change her mind."

"Mine used to make noise about it," says Theo, "but he never actually brokered an agreement. Now, I've gotten a Howler a day since he found out about this, and I'm sure he's trying to arrange anything he can - but now I'm of age and it doesn't work the same. I'm positive he wishes he had now, though. Even if he were to try, I doubt many witches' parents are clamouring for the Nott heir who's publicly dating a Muggle-born."

He looks supremely pleased by this, as does Pansy - much to Hermione's amusement. She has no idea how the pair of them are planning to reconcile their relationship with their parents (or the general Pureblood public that feels they have a right to opinions about it), but it's not really her business.

She turns to Draco. "What about you? Any arranged marriages I should know about?"

He shifts his weight, leaning on his other hand. "They were always pleased about Pansy."

Pansy simpers and tosses her shorter hair behind her shoulder. Theo rolls his eyes.

"But no, nothing was ever formalised. This generation relies on it less - although after the shockwaves we're going to send through everything, that might change again."

Blanching dramatically, Pansy says, "Oh, yeah? When? When do you plan on announcing her, exactly?" She juts her chin at Hermione, who feels put on the spot.

"I don't know about anything, yet," Draco growls, defensive. "And you two won't have to worry about it, anyway."

An uncomfortable silence falls, one Hermione would desperately like to break. What did he mean by that? It's so clear they all have their own secrets, things she's still an outsider to and doesn't feel she has the right to ask about.

Blaise ends the silence for her, earning him another point in Hermione's book. "Granger, what hobbies did you have growing up? Don't say 'reading.'"

She flushes, knowing this is swotty without having to be told. "I, er, liked studying my parents' patient files. Early on, they thought I might want to follow in their footsteps. Well, I guess most parents do, don't they?"

All three wizards' heads bob up and down.

"My dad showed me one of his patient x-rays one time. That's a kind of - of picture taken to show the bones of a person, what's under their skin. It can show what's wrong, what's causing pain. He had one of his patient's jaws and mouth, and he wanted me to point out what was abnormal. Could I do it?"

Four mouths are open and goggling at her. Blaise looks the most confused, followed by Pansy. Theo's hard to read, and Draco appears to know exactly what she means, even though he couldn't possibly. She has to respect the posturing, though.

"It took a while at first, but then he let me see an x-ray of a patient with nothing wrong at all, and then it was easy to spot the difference."

"How old were you?" Theo asks.

Hermione tries to recall. "Four? Five? It became a puzzle. Every time a patient came in with something painful and they'd take those x-rays, my parents would let me see them later at home to try and find what was wrong."

After a long moment of contemplation, Blaise pipes up again. "I'm going to assume you were in a niche group with that hobby. So what do other Muggle children do for fun? I mean, if there's no magic around?"

Hermione gives a single, low chuckle. "Play sports, a lot of the time. Muggles have far more sports than just Quidditch. There are loads of options. Some go to lessons for drawing or painting, or learn to play musical instruments. Some just play with the neighbourhood kids, building forts in the backyard or riding bicycles. Everything is completely normal to them."

"'Bicycles'?" Blaise repeats dubiously, as if afraid he's pronouncing it wrong. Hermione has no good way to describe it to him without a picture to support it. 'Two wheels, a skinny seat, and a mythical level of balance is required to start'?"

She tilts her head as something strikes her. All four of them are enraptured by this little sociology lesson. "Do any of you know how many people there are in the world?"

No one does.

"More than seven billion. The vast majority are Muggles. Wizarding society is a small, insulated little pocket, and it wars among itself for magical supremacy."

They're clearly floored by this and Hermione fights a sharp, stabby urge to go professorial on them. She doesn't need to pontificate about how isolated and naive Pureblood society is, how expansive Muggle medicine and technology has become without the use of magic. Blaise has been asking curious questions today and they're all listening, without her hammering points home.

Let them ask, if they want to know more. Hermione wants to foster curiosity without smothering it.

Pansy steps up. "How much… education did your parents need to become… what was it? Densits?

"Dentists," she corrects with a smile. "And loads. We graduate after seventh year and extra school is… extra. Most professions outside Healers or Aurors don't carry on with more. In the Muggle world, lots of people go for another four years of education, at a minimum. They call it university. For the Muggle equivalent of Healers, it's more than those four years."

And on it goes.

A/N: With FFN's increasing quirks and unreliability (not to mention complete breakage of the stats module for a month now), I may begin only updating on AO3 and Wattpad. For now, I'll keep posting here, but if things don't get fixed or get much worse, I just can't use this platform anymore.