The last remnants of winter finally thawed into a warm spring, and with it came more of the same. Despite the growing reports of disappearances and terror, Hermione felt as close to normal as she had in years. End-of-year exams were rising on the horizon, her last before her N.E.W.T.s, and she felt the need to savour this small window into normalcy before war or adulthood stole the possibility forever.
True to his word, Harry reverted to his usual mediocrity in Potions. Hermione made only a half-hearted attempt at hiding her smugness as Professor Slughorn peered into Harry's cauldron, bewildered at the off-colour sludge bubbling within. Dismayed by his favourite pupil's sudden fall from stardom, Slughorn spent the next several lessons hovering by Harry's cauldron, offering anxious encouragement, to which Harry only answered with a helpless shrug when his final product turned out adequate, yet distinctly subpar.
Hermione had no idea where or how Harry had rid himself of the Prince's book, and frankly she didn't care. She accepted Professor Slughorn's resigned praise and assumed her spot as top of the class with quiet pride.
With nothing but school to worry about, she could almost pretend things were normal. That the darkening gloom on Harry and Draco's faces was exam stress and nothing more, that students who disappeared overnight were merely called home for a surprise holiday. Somewhere, she thought, there was a version of her life where all these things were true.
Her books dropped into her bag with a heavier thud than they ought, betraying the unseen depth of her schoolbag. She surveyed the assortment of textbooks remaining on the table, wondering which ones she ought to bring. It wouldn't do to be stuck in the laboratory, beholden to a potion hell bent on taking hours of her carefully structured revision time, and without a necessary title. Perhaps she'd best take all of them, just to be sure.
The portrait swung open, and Hermione sensed the change in gravity immediately. "Harry?"
He eyed her seriously, eyes bright. "Where's Ron?"
"Over here." Ron stood from where he'd been obscured by the armchair and came over to the table Hermione was clearing.
"I just had a message from Dumbledore," Harry said lowly, and Hermione knew that this was not like any of the other summons. She was right. "He's taking me away tonight."
"What — leaving Hogwarts?" asked Ron.
Harry nodded whilst Hermione remained in petrified silence. "He knows where a Horcrux is. We're going to go destroy it."
"Wicked," grinned Ron. "Where are you going?"
"Dunno, but I'm to meet him soon. I've got to grab my Cloak —"
"Take the Felix Felicis, too," Hermione blurted, seizing Harry's arm in a sudden rush, "and the galleon. Please, Harry, you must."
"Alright, yeah, good idea. I'll do that." And he slid out of her grip and strode to the dormitory staircase with purpose.
Hermione watched him go, dread settling heavily in her stomach. Bright oranges and pinks shone through the common room's high windows, signalling impending darkness, and Hermione was suddenly grateful the Wolfsbane would keep her so long. She wouldn't sleep before Harry returned and she knew he was okay. She swore it.
"He'll be fine." Ron nudged her. "Don't you have a potion to brew? Can't keep Malfoy waiting."
Ron was right; the next procedure needed to start before night-time. She couldn't afford to wait to see Harry off. She settled for securing her own galleon in her pocket, tight against her body where she would feel its temperature change. She desperately hoped it would, and soon, if only to confirm that Harry and the headmaster had returned home safely. Long hours of anxious worrying were in her future tonight.
Draco must have noticed her distractedness, but he didn't comment on it. They studied in comfortable silence between stirring; only the simmering of the potion and the soft scratching of quill on parchment marked the passing of time. Hermione noted each passing hour with forced calm. Harry and Headmaster Dumbledore could be anywhere in the country — or the world! There was no reason to fear anything was amiss just because she'd not yet heard from him.
But that didn't stop her imagination. The Horcruxes she knew of had been horrific to encounter and hidden in dangerous and cruel ways. Who knew what the two of them could be enduring? Torture of the worst kind — physical or psychological — or arduous tests of magic. Harry was only sixteen, and Headmaster Dumbledore was a shadow of the wizard he had once been. To blindly think they would be infallible simply by virtue of who they were was utter foolishness.
Draco was watching her, frowning. She let go of the strand of hair she'd been tightly twisting and re-twisting around her finger. "Sorry."
They resumed their work until the potion had cycled through several variations of purple and looked as it should. Hermione wiped the tools clean and put them away with deliberate slowness, both to steady her rising fear and to delay the inevitable wait in her dormitory, where she would lie restlessly in wait of a sign from Harry that he was okay. Had Ron gone to bed? She couldn't imagine how. If she could sit up with him in the common room, at least, that might make it more bearable.
"Hey."
Hands came to her shoulders and gently ran down her arms. Hermione leaned backwards against Draco's chest, letting the warmth and solidness of him take some of the fear which had made her stiff and clammy.
"Relax," he instructed softly, and his long fingers traced back up her arms and then slid down her back, encouraging everything to unwind just a little. Hermione wondered what he thought; if it was ordinary exam stress which had put her in such a state, or something more sinister. She was grateful he didn't ask. Perhaps he knew there was nothing he could do, and that it would be better for all of them if he never found out.
It was funny, she thought as her pocket suddenly burned, how it seemed Fate would not spare him from these things. By merely being around her, Draco was involved, and there was nothing anybody could do to undo that now.
She numbly pried her galleon from her trouser pocket and nearly dropped it into the cauldron in her frantic desperation. The gold burned her fingers fiercely, far more than it ever had when they'd used it to communicate mundane meeting times.
There were too many letters to neatly fit on the coin; she had to squint and tilt it in the light to make them all out.
Hog's Head now. RoR.
There was little else to do, and Hermione's thoughts suddenly came in perfect clarity. "Hog's Head now," she repeated, an order to herself, and put the galleon back into her pocket, ready to receive new instruction. "I have to go."
"Go?" repeated Draco, a statue in contrast to Hermione's swift movements through the lab — shoving her bag in the corner where she could come back for it later — grabbing her cloak from the hook — thank goodness she'd thought to bring it, despite the mild spring temperature — "You can't go to Hogsmeade now!"
"I have to." Hermione secured her cloak around her and left the lab in one motion, Draco stumbling behind her. "Finite incantatem!" The fresh air cooled her face and toyed with her hair as she set off down the corridor.
"Not on your own. I'm coming with you."
Hermione didn't argue against it. She found herself running without deciding to, and when they arrived at the seventh floor, panting, her hairline was damp with sweat. The castle was dark, but she heard Draco's heavy breaths beside her.
I need to get to the Hog's Head — I don't know why Harry told me to come here — I should've just gone to the One-Eyed Witch statue to get to Honeydukes — but he said to come here, so please, I need to get to the Hog's Head —
She wrenched open the door the second it appeared and found herself facing a large portrait of a young girl. Hermione's lungs burned and her sides spasmed with such sharp pains that, for a moment, she didn't realise the girl was moving until the portrait swung forwards, revealing a dark tunnel.
"Thank you," she breathed, to the castle or to Harry or to the painted witch, and heaved herself inside. The tunnel was infinitely long and dark, the light of her wand barely illuminating more than a few paces ahead. The slash across her chest spasmed and twinged, nearly ecstatic in her fear. It faltered, though, when Draco's clammy hand wrapped around hers, both of them wordlessly stumbling into the nothingness.
It took entirely too long. The passageway only seemed to grow narrower and bendier, suffocating her when she was already starved for air. She didn't know what Harry needed or why, but he would not have called her if it weren't urgent, and the Room of Requirement would not have aided her if there had been no need.
Running headfirst into unknown danger was either courageous or foolhardy, and while she had years of practice of both, she felt in Draco's tight fingers that he wasn't used to this kind of blindness that left your senses in disarray and fear tightly wrapped around your throat. But here he was, rushing into strange darkness only so she wouldn't have to do it alone.
Hermione sensed the end of the tunnel before she saw it, a slight shift in front of her, about the size of a coin held at arm's length. It gradually grew from a shadowy, ill-defined shape into the silhouette of a doorway. Draco's hand clenched even tighter around her fingers, and they gradually slowed their pace as they neared the exit. There was no sign of who or what awaited them, but Hermione could sense they were no longer quite alone, and as they neared, she caught the tell-tale flickering shadows of candlelight.
And then, voices. Or rather, one voice. It was gruff and old, worn around the edges. Then, the scraping of furniture against a stone floor.
"Thank you, Ariana," she heard, and suddenly found herself at the lip of a hole in the wall of the Hog's Head. Below her was a table, conveniently placed to aid her descent from the portrait behind which she'd appeared. And there, looking as unkempt as ever, was the barman, watching her in expectation, as though people emerged from his walls every night. Perhaps they did.
"Welcome, Miss Granger," he said with a mocking little bow, and Hermione rather thought he was enjoying this a little too much. Any observational thought deserted her entirely, however, when she heard Harry's voice.
"Hermione?"
She jumped down onto the table and then to the floor, legs wobbling painfully after so long in the tunnel. Draco grunted as he did the same, and she heard curiosity in the barman's voice as he observed, "Ah, I see you've brought company. I'll get the drinks, shall I?"
Hermione paid no attention to the wizard; nothing mattered at all, not until she knew Harry was safe, and what was needed of her. As it was, he was sat at a table, a mug of something in front of him, as though he'd merely fancied a butterbeer in the middle of the night. But his eyes were empty and wide, unseeing from behind his glasses despite the fact he was looking at her. Hermione had the feeling he was desperate to look at anything except the table beside him, or rather several tables pushed together.
For there, laid across the top of the crooked, dirty bar tables, was the silent and still body of Albus Dumbledore.
