Hermione could never have foreseen Draco's reaction. The sound he let out was more like a howl than anything else, a broken cry of fear that sent Hermione's blood cold. Something had gone very, very wrong, and it meant far more than she could comprehend in that moment. Draco buckled like he'd been gutted, and she didn't know what else to do but guide him to the ground as he heaved and sobbed.

She heard herself whisper soothing nonsense as she stroked his hair and rubbed his back, desperate to coax his breathing back to something less erratic and terrified. She was vaguely aware of the room shifting around her, but it was all irrelevant. What mattered was helping him, dragging him away from whatever terror currently assaulted him. It was unlike anything Hermione had seen. It went beyond fear; it was primal. It was the animalistic need to survive, and it was roaring.

The heavy scent of lavender brought her back to Earth and she looked up to find herself in a modest, cosy sitting room. The hard flagstones had been replaced by a plush rug while a fire danced in a hearth, sending gentle heat towards them in waves. A welcoming-looking sofa sat nearby, and Hermione made it her mission to bring him to it. He was still choked by his own panic, but she got him there and when he curled up in her lap, clinging to her robes so tightly it hurt, she let him.

Maybe it was the lavender or the heat or the comfort or just time, but his shaking eventually turned into a milder tremoring and his breaths became less shallow. All the while, she brushed her hands across his hair, his cheeks, his back, murmuring bland reassurance and comfort.

How long had they been like this? The room had provided no windows or clocks. If it hadn't been for their dress robes, she might have forgotten they'd been to a party at all. Her hopes of returning at all were irrelevant now. Even if she tried, the party had probably broken up ages ago. Hopefully her friends had assumed she'd gone to bed early. And if not, if Harry checked his map and saw her missing, she could easily fabricate something. That she'd gone for a walk to clear her head of the party's noise and gone to the Room of Requirement, where she'd lost track of time reading. They'd believe that, wouldn't they?

It didn't matter. Draco was nearly still, now, and she wondered if he'd fall asleep. She didn't think about the tiara or the cabinet or any of it. There was no point. She couldn't fathom what had just happened and the memory of it only brought up a queasy sort of panic that she hadn't felt since that night at the Ministry. Her scar agreed; it ached and stung stronger than it had since she'd left St Mungo's, like it was hungry. She imagined it was probably a dark, shimmering purple and green. Ugly. Foreign. In her mind, she saw herself trying to claw it out of her skin.

Stop. Enough.

If she continued on like this, she would make herself mad, and she could not afford to lose control of herself right now. He needed her.

So, she breathed and kept up the even rhythm of her hand along his spine. He was quiet now, though his breaths still hitched, and his body was tightly wound. She could see marks on his palms where he squeezed his fists. She gently tried to pry them open. He flinched when her fingers bumped his wrist, so she hastily retreated to the safe territory of his back and head.

You're safe now. I think. And tomorrow you'll tell me what the hell just happened, and we'll figure it out together. If I have to read every book on Vanishing Cabinets, I'll do it. But you can't keep this from me anymore, Draco Malfoy. Not when you just put me through that. I know something horrible is happening to you. I deserve to know what it is.

She kept her internal speech going like a meditative chant, grounding her in the world of pragmatic logic and problem-solving. There was nothing that couldn't be fixed by some good old-fashioned planning, after all.

The magical fire never burned low, so when Draco finally slipped into sleep, she had no idea how much time had passed. Perhaps none at all. Could the Room of Requirement keep them in stasis? The thought was as attractive as it was unnerving.

But she couldn't stay, and if she didn't leave now, she never would. So she held her breath and carefully extracted herself from Draco's grasp, gently moving his head from her lap to a suddenly and conveniently placed cushion behind her. Likewise, she draped the heavy blanket on the edge of the sofa (now much longer than when it had first appeared) across his body, securing it around his shoulders.

He looked safe and very, very small.

The scent of lavender grew heavier as she slipped out the door.

She fell into bed in a trance-like state and it did not take long before she was dragged down to the deepest depths of sleep. Nightmares found her there, disturbing images she couldn't remember when she woke up, bleary and confused. She felt an unnatural heaviness in her heart and, for a horrifying moment, felt she was not alone in her four-poster.

But then the bright winter sun burst through the curtains and she realised that whatever dark, horrible thing had invaded her head would be gone soon enough. There were things to be done, after all, and she had better get up and get dressed.

Gryffindor Tower had an unnatural tidiness to it. Hermione's own trunk sat by her bed, ready for the elves to fetch when the students made their way to the train. Leaving Hogwarts had never felt stranger, and she wondered if it was more reckless to leave one's children at school amidst a war, or to bring them home? She'd heard murmurs of students afraid to leave the castle's protection behind. Perhaps this year, Christmas at Hogwarts wouldn't be as lonely as she'd heard.

Not that she would know, of course. Whilst Harry and the Weasleys went to the Burrow tonight, Hermione would be spending rare time at home with her own family. The idea made her more uncomfortable than she'd care to admit, and if she were being quite honest, she'd been trying not to think about it for some time.

But first, breakfast.

"There you are!" declared Ron as she dropped into the seat beside him. The Great Hall hummed with more energy than usual. She reached for a Prophet and toast.

"Morning, Hermione."

"Hi, Harry."

"So. Party. What did you think?"

Hermione raised her eyebrow over the newspaper while her heart tripped over itself. "Nothing we didn't expect, I suppose. Though I thought the raspberry mousse was quite nice."

"Mm," agreed Harry. "You left early didn't you? I mean, we didn't want to leave without you, but we hadn't seen you in ages and we couldn't ask Ginny to check if you were asleep, so…"

"Oh — yes. Sorry. It's just — well, it was a bit boring, wasn't it? And the music was quite loud, and after exams and everything, I really needed the sleep…"

Ron snorted. "You sure? You look even more knackered than when we had O.W.L.s."

"Ron!" hissed Harry urgently, but Hermione only held up her newspaper to hide her sigh of relief.

"Do I?" she asked absently. "Maybe it's the headlines. It's hard to feel rested these days, isn't it?"

"Yeah… At least there's Christmas, though," thought Ron as he poured himself another goblet. "Though mum's gonna have to do some serious work on her trifle if she wants to match that fruity one we had last night."

Whilst Ron carried on with his report of the evening's festivities, Hermione retreated farther behind her newspaper. There was no new information, save for another handful of missing persons and bogus protection advice. She blinked slowly, her eyes still weighted with sleep, and watched the pictures move on the page before folding it up and tossing it aside. Waste of time.

Across the hall, a thin figure stood from the Slytherin table and strode in the direction of the door. If he was trying to look arrogant, it was lost in the ashen colour of his skin and the soft curve in his shoulders. His eyes darted to hers, but he only held her gaze for a heartbeat before he turned and departed the Great Hall.

"Harry, what time is it?"

"Oh, er, bit past nine, I think? Where are you going?"

She was already halfway out of her seat. "There's something I wanted to check in the library before we leave."

"Oh. But we'll see you later, right?"

"Of course. Save me a spot in your train compartment?"

Harry scoffed, "As if you need to ask."

Hermione glanced at the clock. Time was not on her side today. Every step she climbed to the seventh floor felt wrong, rushed, but if she waited, who knew when she would ever have another chance?

The corridor was mercifully clear; her footsteps echoed as she paced.

I need to see him.

She turned on her heel.

If he's in there, I need to see him. Please.

The door appeared and she rushed inside before she could think any further. She found herself exactly where she had been before, in a comfortable sitting room. The lavender scent was mild now, and a window in the wall bid entry to the winter sunshine that gave the space a lighter feel than before.

For a moment, she wondered if the Room had got it wrong. Maybe she'd been stupid, and he was never going to come here at all, and really why should he? If she were in his place, she might not ever want to see herself again —

But none of that mattered. The sound of her entry had startled him into standing and she saw him now, where he'd been hidden by the sofa's back. Draco looked at her, surprise written across his hollow features.

"You're okay," she breathed. And then she launched herself at him. "I was so worried! I couldn't stay last night — I barely got away with it as it was — but you looked awful and I didn't — I thought maybe the magic — what had happened — hurt you somehow but —"

"Hey — hey!" If he'd been surprised to find her wrapped around his torso, he recovered quickly. "I'm fine. See? It didn't… hurt me. I just — I'm fine."

The irony in his voice was not lost on her; he was nothing near fine, and they both knew it. But he was not curled up in a ball, screaming, and Hermione was taken aback by just how much that relieved her.

There were mere hours until the train would take her away. Her arms tightened around him and his forehead sought hers, surrounding her with the heat of him. Her lips tilted to his like it was a foregone conclusion, and maybe it was.

Her hands came up to his shoulders, holding him near lest he try to escape the desperation of her feelings, but he only leaned in closer. She felt the moment that thing inside him, the frightened animal, finally uncoiled, leaking all the tension from his muscles, and leaving him entirely at her mercy.

Her hands wandered down his arms, gripped his left wrist, and shoved up his sleeve to his elbow.

He hissed and flinched and tried to wrench it away, but even he knew there was no use. Nothing could undo what she had done. Not once she'd seen it, stared at it head-on while it looked back, mocking her with its slithering against his blackened flesh.

"I knew it." It came out lighter than a whisper. And she had, she realised. Deep down, she'd known.

"What do you mean you knew?" spluttered Draco as he yanked his arm away and quickly redid his cuff. She let him move away.

"You're not very discreet, you know. You never roll up your sleeves."

He looked ready to argue but realised it would go nowhere. Gone was the easy, languid posture he adopted around her. Here was a cornered animal unsure of whether to fight or flee; his shoulders hunched and he still held onto his left forearm. Hermione wondered if he even realised it. He eyed her, measuring how much of a threat she might pose, and Hermione wondered what she would do if he drew his wand against her.

Instead, he asked her very softly, "What are you going to do?"

What am I going to do?

Death Eater in the castle.

Death Eater.

"I'm — I'm going to listen." She swallowed, her voice wavering. "You promised you would tell me everything I want to know," she reminded him.

"And then what?"

"That depends on what you have to say."

He opened his mouth. Closed it again. Still wouldn't let go of his left arm. "I don't know where to start," he admitted.

Neither do I.

What do I even want to know?

Her eyes flickered to his left wrist, now covered by his shirt. She imagined she could see through the material where it waited, omnipresent. "When?"

"Summer. After my birthday."

Birthday. Sixteen. Was I still in hospital? Where were you? "Why?"

His jaw worked for a second, then he sighed. "Complicated… situation. Lots of changing factors."

She seized onto that. Not a choice? Is it really not so simple? Did it hurt you?

Was it my fault, somehow?

Her mind galloped ahead, picking and discarding little pieces of information that didn't quite fit. It was useless, she realised. She could not understand this part, not without knowing more and they simply did not have the time.

"Where is the other Vanishing Cabinet?"

His eyes flashed. "I never said anything about a second cabinet —"

"Please," she scoffed, "did you really think you could put me through that and I wouldn't do some basic research? I went to the library before breakfast. Vanishing Cabinets come in pairs. They aren't used just to make things disappear. It's effectively a form of transport, and a dodgy one at that. So, where is the other one?"

Draco moved to the sofa and dropped himself on it, all the resistance evaporating in a trembling slouch of his shoulders. "Borgin and Burke's."

"The shop?"

He nodded but did not offer any more information. Alright, thought Hermione. If you need to do it this way, question-and-answer, then that's what we'll do.

It was easier like this, anyway. She could already feel herself unravelling at the edges; if she had to keep still and listen to him explain all this, she'd surely disintegrate.

"The other one is in Knockturn Alley, then… It works properly, I assume? And you want to fix this one because…"

Draco let out a long breath and squeezed his eyes shut as though in pain. "I have an… assignment. A task."

Right. An assignment. He's been assigned something by Voldemort. For Voldemort.

Her heart charged again, thumping so hard it almost hurt.

"An assignment to repair a Vanishing Cabinet at Hogwarts… to connect with Knockturn Alley…" Hermione began to pace. Maybe that would expel some of the energy that made her hands tremor. "So you're meant to — he wants you to — to smuggle something out of Hogwarts."

Draco shook his head.

"No? Not something… someone? Harry?"

"No, not — not like that."

"Not Harry?"

Draco merely propped his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands.

Who else would Voldemort want kidnapped from Hogwarts that he can't just abduct now, over the holidays? Or maybe that's not it — maybe he just wants a conduit to the castle… for surveillance…

"…or to smuggle something in."

Draco flinched.

"So I'm right? Is that it?" Silence. "You promised to tell me!"

"N-not something — he wants — it's meant to be like a door! A passageway."

Hermione's breath turned to ice. "He means to come himself."

Draco shook his head again; it looked like a shiver. "No," he said firmly. "Not himself. Just… others."

Others.

Faces she'd seen in the Department of Mysteries, smug and sadistic, appeared in her mind. She saw them in the corridors of Hogwarts, saw the crowds of defenceless students fleeing —

Death Eaters in the castle.

"But it doesn't matter now. It's broken. Whatever happened last night — it's destroyed it now. There's nothing I can do to fix it. He's going to kill me."

He said it so plainly that for a second Hermione didn't even register its meaning. Then all that terror which had frozen her veins turned into a raging fury that cleared her head and sent her striding to Draco's side. "That's ridiculous," she declared as she sat beside him. "It's not your fault it's broken."

"Don't be so naïve," he snapped, not without malice. "You're better than that."

She hardly heard him. Didn't he realise the situation was not so hopeless? Perhaps destroying the cabinet had been a blessing in disguise. After all, now she could work on devising a plausible alternative. Not, of course, to admit Death Eaters into the school, but to get close enough to spare Draco's life as well as the castle.

It could be done! It really wasn't that bad, was it?

"We can fix this. I'll help you."

"What? No! No, you can't."

"Why not?"

"Because —" He looked anywhere but her eyes as he ground his teeth. "Because it's my problem. There's no reason for you to be involved."

"Well, as far as I see it, there's no reason for you to be, either!"

"You don't know that! And it doesn't matter, does it? It's too late. You saw it" — Hermione resisted the urge to glance at his forearm — "I can't just ignore it until it goes away! So just — just let me deal with it. On my own."

She wanted to fight. If he were Harry or Ron, she'd be on her feet, hands on her hips, scolding his short-sightedness and general idiocy. But Draco wasn't like either of them. She watched him curl in on himself like a cowering animal. She wondered if she could touch him, if he would shatter.

He let out a long, shaking breath, and she saw his shoulders relax a little. "Aren't you going to run to McGonagall?"

Was she? Everything had changed so abruptly and then changed again and somewhere along the way she'd lost sight of why she'd come here in the first place.

Did she want to tell? Yes. More than anything. But what that would mean for Draco, she couldn't imagine, to say nothing of what Voldemort would do if he thought Draco had failed.

But what if she didn't tell, and something terrible happened because of it? What if Draco no longer trusted her enough to tell her anything and he fixed the cabinet and Hogwarts was lost, all because of her?

"I won't tell anyone. At least not for now. And I'm not going to abandon you, either —"

"Oh, come off it! Do you even hear yourself? Stop deluding yourself into thinking this is some — some equationthat can be solved!"

"Well if you would pull your head out of your own arse for five minutes, maybe you'd see that feeling sorry for yourself isn't the only way to handle this —"

"Don't you dare tell me how to 'handle' this! You've no idea!" His voice broke painfully. "No idea… This is hell. And I thought you'd understand because I thought you knew what it was like, but clearly I was wrong." He laughed to himself in a way that made Hermione long to strike him again. "Is this what it feels like to be Potter? Can't live his bloody life without you charging in —"

"My 'charging in' is what keeps Harry alive and you know it, Malfoy," she snarled, cold and even. "And if you think this is frightening, I invite you to meet the eyes of a Basilisk, or confront a werewolf, or — or run blindly through the Department of Mysteries with a dozen older, smarter wizards hunting you, firing off lethal curses you've never even heard of! So if you really don't want to face Death, then pull yourself together and do something."

"Like what?"

She threw her hands up. "Find an alternative and sabotage it! I'll help! Or get Snape to help, since he's apparently in on it! There are loads of ways to fake some sort of portal into the school. Honestly, Draco, this could be so much worse — it's not like Voldemort's asked you to kill someone!"

Perhaps the Room knew she needed to hear it again; her words echoed unnaturally.

Any warmth left in the room dissipated into a frosty, Death-like stillness as Draco all but crumpled in on himself. Empty. She looked at him the way one might observe a wounded bird found on a roadside.

"Is it Harry?" She could barely hear her own voice. Was there even anything left in her anymore?

Draco gave a minute shake of his head. His long, pale fingers clenched in his hair. Back to question-and-answer.

Who would Voldemort want dead at Hogwarts, if not Harry?

"It's me."

"What? No —"

"It's me, isn't it?" she gasped. "That's why — is that why you agreed to brew this year. You don't need the private mentoring, after all, and you don't care about Lupin — and why else would you be so nice to me so suddenly?"

"No — stop — STOP!" Then he rushed at her with the same desperate panic she'd seen the night before. "That's not true. None of it. I promise. I — I'd never do anything like that to you. Please! I don't — I don't want to do it, any of it —"

"Alright," she conceded, "alright. But if not Harry, and if not me… Who else is here that Voldemort would want…?"

Draco looked at her and Hermione thought she could see right through him. He was so hollow, emptied out by all that had been asked of him. He sank back down on the plush-looking sofa and Hermione wondered if he'd ever get back up again.

"Please don't make me say it," he breathed. "You'll never forgive me… And it's impossible, either way, so does it matter? I — I'm not clever enough — brave enough. I can't do it… It doesn't make a difference if you know or not, and i-if you do know, you'll never look at me again… You'll turn me in and then everything will be finished. You'd be in the right, of course — I want to turn myself in, but I'm too bloody chicken, aren't I? And I don't even care anymore how it ends for me… but I'm selfish, and I want you with me… So please, don't make me say it, Hermione…"

Could it really be that easy? To just take his word and move on? Did he know her at all? Already, it was making her restless, desperate to work it out and fix it.

Not Harry, and not her. Could it be another student, like Cedric? To make a point? But that would be relatively easy, and it seemed his target was more complicated.

So, not a student. But which of the staff would Voldemort want dead? And at the hands of a pupil? Presumably, Voldemort was against all the teachers (save Snape) and attacking any of them would be a simple matter of asking for extra help after a lesson, or getting a detention.

But that, of course, assumed that the act itself would need to be done in private.

None of it felt right. And still: Which teacher? I'm not clever enough. None of them was so elusive to make something like this particularly difficult if you had the nerve. In fact, the only adult in the castle whom Hermione had never been alone with, even briefly, was Headmaster Dumbledore.

"Oh, God."

"What? What is it?"

"Dumbledore."

Draco opened his mouth and she wondered if he would start begging again, but even that seemed beyond him. She watched with cool detachment as he went paler, sitting with an unnatural stillness.

"Are you going to tell McGonagall now?"

Could she? Professor, Draco Malfoy is a Marked Death Eater, and he's going to assassinate the headmaster. What can you do? Expel him? Arrest him? Perhaps some points and a detention will correct everything. Isn't that what school discipline is for?

"I won't blame you, you know," he said. "I meant what I said."

Suddenly, a clock chimed, low and resonant, indicating the end of an hour. The Room had never given them a clock before. She was very glad it had provided one now.

The numbness began to clear, leaving her with a narrow path ahead. "I have to go." There wasn't much time, and she had things to do before the train left. "I have to go now," she said again.

"Oh — right."

"But I'll be back later —"

"Right, of course. H-happy New Year —"

She was already out the door, rushing through the corridors whilst golden light from the setting sun refracted through the windows. Hopefully, Professor McGonagall hadn't left her office for Hogsmeade yet. They were all in danger, perhaps more than even Draco realised, and Hermione needed to speak with her Head of House.