It was a testament to the strength of their friendship that Ginny followed Hermione through the mess without question. The piles of old, unloved things were unsettling enough. It was so much worse to be so far in that the door — or even the walls — were no longer visible. But Ginny didn't argue as they ran deeper into the endless stuff, or complain when Hermione recklessly led them over precarious, sharp, or cursed items in a frantic effort to save time.

Instinct guided her through the haphazard pathways. She had only been here once before and remembered very little of the path they'd taken but, somehow, she brought them to that same little clearing where the cabinet stood. It looked exactly as it had that day, as though time had frozen it.

Behind her, Ginny hunched over, panting. Hermione's own lungs were burning and there was a sharp pain in her side, but it was nothing compared to the desperate need she felt. The door of the cabinet still dangled open on its hinge, exactly as they'd left it all those months ago. Hermione approached it with the same caution she'd felt then, too, after it had screamed so wickedly she'd thought it would echo in her nightmares forever.

She approached the diadem the way one might a cowering animal, cautious of unknown danger. She had the absurd thought that she might provoke it somehow, but it remained exactly as it was at the bottom of the wardrobe. Broken from the inside out, defeated. It was humiliating, too, Hermione thought, though she couldn't place how. The indignity of it only saddened her, when she thought of Rowena's ancient treasure, defiled for a young man's pleasure.

The metal was brittle as she took it into her hands, and a few crumb-like pieces of charred bronze fell between Hermione's fingers. She held her breath, overwhelmed by the knowledge of what she held.

"What is that?" wondered Ginny, still hoarse.

"Can you help me?" Hermione pleaded desperately. "I need to take it to Harry — do you have a scarf or something I can wrap it in?"

Ginny transfigured a discarded handkerchief into an adequate square of linen. Together, ever so gently, they wrapped the crumbling remains of Ravenclaw's diadem into a little parcel. Hermione held it close to her chest. The ominous feeling it had provoked in her last time she'd seen it was gone; instead, she felt protective, almost maternal.

Hermione started off down the path they'd come, already composing a thorough lie for how she'd come upon a Horcrux and destroyed it without even realising.

"Hermione? What's going on?" Ginny swore; it sounded like she'd tripped on something.

"I can't tell you the details right now," Hermione called over her shoulder. Whilst Ginny had overheard enough of the trio's conversations to understand the basics of the Horcruxes, Hermione felt no need to offer any more information than was strictly necessary. Plus, she hadn't worked out what that information would be yet. "It's really important and I have to show Harry straight away."

"Alright, alright. I trust you. But in the name of Merlin's arsehole I am never coming back here."

Hermione privately agreed and, when the door came into view and led them back to Hogwarts, she broke into a run, the bundled remains of the Horcrux held tightly to her chest.

When they arrived at Gryffindor Tower, Hermione went straight to the boys' dormitory. She heard footsteps behind her; Ron was following her, calling questions up the stairwell. Hermione didn't stop, however, until she was stood at the side of Harry's bed. No-one else was around, which saved Hermione the unpleasant task of ordering Neville or Dean to leave their own bedroom, and Harry was lying on his back, holding up the locket and glaring at it. He sat up when she stormed in and tucked the locket in his bedside table in a manner that suggested it was habitual at this point. Hermione wondered how much time he spent analysing it. She couldn't wait to see the look on his face when she told him what she'd done — what she'd found.

"Hey, Hermione — are you here to give the Cloak back?"

For a second, Hermione hadn't a clue what he was talking about. Everything else felt so irrelevant.

"You could've just given it to me," grumbled Ron. "You don't have to come charging up here like that. Do we do that in your dorm? Well, we can't, but you get the point —"

"Harry — look. Look what I found." And she gently deposited the bundle onto Harry's bed, unwrapping it until the charred semi-circle of metal was fully revealed. Ron came up beside her, curious, though neither of their expressions suggested they knew what it was.

Harry had seen a destroyed Horcrux before, though, and she waited for him to confirm her hypothesis.

"Is that —?"

"A Horcrux? Yes."

"A what?" cried Ron. Harry seemed paralysed where he sat on his bed. Hermione couldn't stop grinning.

"I was doing some reading about what you said Dumbledore told you, Harry, remember? About the Horcruxes being related to the founders somehow, and — well, I was walking past the Room of Requirement and — I was thinking about Ravenclaw, I suppose, because Luna had told me about how she'd had a tiara that was lost for centuries —"

"And the Room just gave it to you?" said Ron in disbelief.

"Well, no — not exactly. The thing is, I'd seen it before, when I'd gone there just — just to get away, you know, to think. There's a room where people hide things, I think, and it's sort of — relaxing for me to go there." The thought was laughable, but Hermine valiantly went on. "You know, to look at all the old books and everything, since some are out of print now —"

"Right, right —"

"— and when I saw a picture of the diadem in a book, I realised I'd seen it before — the real thing — in the room. I mean," she gestured to the warped remains on the bed, "I suppose maybe Tom Riddle hid it there, and then it got destroyed somehow? But it's definitely the diadem and — and it's definitely a Horcrux, right, Harry? Or it was one."

Harry poked it gently with his wandtip. "I — I think so. It looks like the others did and… it does feel a bit spooky, doesn't it…"

Hermione couldn't stop smiling. "Let me show you what it looked like — wait here!" And she was nearly tripping down the stairs as she hurried to the girl's dorm. That, too, was empty, and Hermione wasted no time picking her schoolbag up and upending it over her bed. An implausible number of books tumbled out, bouncing off each other, as well as reams of parchment, ink bottles, quills, and other odds and ends she liked to carry. She shook the bag until it was empty and then rifled through the pile to find the title she wanted, the one on the founders —

She found it in seconds and then ran back to where Harry and Ron were both sitting on Harry's mattress, staring at the diadem as though they expected it to perform a trick.

"Here." She breathlessly opened the book to the chapter on Ravenclaw and flipped through the pages until she found the small illustration. Now that she knew what the real thing looked like, she realised why she hadn't recognised it earlier: the drawing and description was inaccurate at best. Even now, holding it up beside what was left of the real diadem, it was clear it had never quite looked like the picture. The author had no right to call themselves an expert; anyone who had ever seen the replica in Ravenclaw Tower knew more about the relic than this book did. Hermione sniffed, offended that she'd wasted so much time on someone so unworthy, and hoped Harry and Ron wouldn't point out how improbable it was that this description had led her to identify the warped metal circlet in front of them.

They squinted at it, then at the remnants of the bed, and Ron let out a low whistle.

"Yeah, that's… I think that's it, Hermione," breathed Harry. "Shit. I can't believe it. You really did it."

Hermione couldn't stop smiling, even as they discussed the possible origin of the Horcrux, when and how Tom Riddle had created and then hidden it. She was just so proud, and she could have sworn Harry had not seemed so light in weeks, not since the discovery of R.A.B.'s betrayal.

She went back to her dormitory ecstatic, and not even the mess on her bed could bring down her mood. Hermione tidied away her books without her wand, preferring instead to securely pack them in her enlarged bag one by one. She stopped, however, when she found one near the bottom of the pile, open, its pages covered in ink. It was the charmed diary, she realised. The one she hadn't opened since the day McGonagall had told her she was not invited to join the Order, when she'd left Draco in the lab in an impulsive act of anger.

They had spoken since then, of course, perfunctorily. It was impossible to go nearly three weeks without talking at all, not when the recipe they brewed was so demanding. And it wasn't like she never wanted to speak to him again, either. The wound had just been so deep that she hadn't known how to recover, not without embarrassing herself.

The diary was open near the back, nearly a hundred pages past their most recent conversation. The spread was covered in his handwriting and doodles. Hermione traced them all, trying to follow the path his thoughts had taken across the paper.

I can't sleep, was scribbled in the upper right-hand corner, like a secret. There was a cloud-like shape encased in a circle; an arrow labelled it as her hair, struggling to fit inside a Bubble-Head Charm. There was an animal that might have been a Hippogriff, and a Flobberworm, and various plants they'd worked with in Herbology, like the shrivelled body of a Mandrake in a pot.

Do you remember how ugly these were? he'd written beside it.

There was a Snitch, a Quaffle and Bludgers, and a bouquet of different brooms. Hermione wouldn't have called any of the drawings particularly good, and she doubted Draco would ever consider himself an artist, just someone with too many thoughts in his head.

Still can't sleep, she found in near the far-left edge.

Then, in tiny letters, I miss you.

Please don't hate me.

Against her fingers, the binding turned shimmering gold. She pushed back the pages to the front, where there was fresh writing.

Are you there?

Hermione scrambled for a quill and ink, nearly spilling it across her mattress in the process. I'm here, she scribbled.

Is everything okay?

She wondered what he must think of her, to suddenly call him like this after being so aloof for so long.

I'm fine, she wrote. I was just looking at your drawings.

There was a long pause. She wondered if he was blushing. I must've fallen asleep before I could erase them.

Good. I'm glad. If you're having trouble sleeping, maybe you should ask Madame Pomfrey for a potion.

Maybe, he wrote, and she got the feeling that if he were in front of her, he would be avoiding her eyes. I think I just miss you.

Hermione's heart swelled, the combined joy and relief from realising they had one less Horcrux to hunt now compounding with her feelings for Draco, how much she wanted him. I miss you too. She couldn't write it fast enough.

Are you still angry with me?

Was she? No.

I'm sorry I shouted at you.

You were right, though.

Of course I was.

Hermione snorted. Don't be a prat about it or I might change my mind.

Fine, but if you're done being angry at me, I'm free and I know an empty room on the seventh floor.

Hermione sighed. Did she want to? Yes. But it was well past curfew and, as Ginny had correctly pointed out, Hogwarts' restrictions were serious things these days. She'd already risked enough going out with Ginny earlier.

I would, but it's too late, she finally conceded. But I'll see you tomorrow? To brew?

Of course.

Good night, Draco. Please sleep well.

Good night, Hermione.

Before she closed the diary, she caught the little shapes of the Full Moon and a cauldron draw themselves beneath her name.