The weather disappointed her. Throughout the morning and afternoon, the sun had beamed down on the windows, brightening the inside of the castle with its glow. Now, standing in the bleachers at the Quidditch Pitch, Hermione could feel the thick droplets of pouring rain on her face. The rain came down so unexpectedly, she hadn't had the time to cast Impervius on her robes before they got completely soaked.

She came to cheer for Ginny, leading the Gryffindors in the game, but her stomach was tied in knots as she watched them play against the Slytherins. Since her last conversation with Theo, the weeks had rolled out and she was not a step closer to figuring out what was affecting her classmates' behavior. And it had been getting worse. Even some teachers began to act irrational and agitated. It was chaos all around and no one seemed to be able to explain the reasoning behind their mood swings.

Hermione had tried to gain as much information as she could from Ginny, without hinting at anything beyond natural factors, but her friend had been just as befuddled at herself as everyone else when her anger spiked at random.

She observed as Ginny swerved on her broom swiftly, chasing after the Snitch. Soon enough, Malfoy materialized right behind her at a breakneck speed. He was catching up fast and Hermione had an inexplicable feeling something horrible was about to happen.

And it did—a calamity unfolded before her eyes.

Malfoy flew past Ginny, closing in on the Snitch when suddenly, Blaise Zabini, emerged out of nowhere. He swirled in the air, then went straight after Malfoy for reasons no one could comprehend. The Snitch forgotten, Malfoy took off at an even faster pace with his friend on his tail. She heard an indistinguishable yell from Ginny, who decided to chase after the two boys. The rest of the players floated in the air, unmoving, watching the baffling chase. Blaise eventually caught up to Malfoy and crushed into him, inadvertently bringing Ginny down with them as she couldn't fly away in time to avoid getting hit—then they were all falling towards the ground. The rest was all but a blur to Hermione and horrified screams ringing in her ears.

Later that day, Hermione found herself sitting at the foot of Ginny's bed in the Hospital Wing. Her face was marred with cuts and bruises and her ribs were broken.

Squeezing her friend's hand tightly, she bitterly recalled that the current situation was the best she could have hoped for—the sentiment extended as well to Malfoy and Zabini, whose injuries weren't life threatening either. In spite of her racing heart and hazed thoughts, she had mustered enough presence of mind to use the Cushioning Charm on all three of the falling bodies before they had hit the ground.

She dragged her feet away from Ginny's bed, walking slowly towards Malfoy's, peeking over her shoulder to make sure there was no one else here. Neville, Luna, Padma, Parvati had left hours ago, while Pansy Parkinson and Theo hadn't stuck around for long. Hermione suspected her presence unnerved them. Or at least had made Pansy uneasy.

She could still feel the burn of Theo's gaze on her that she had refused to meet during his short visit.

She looked at Malfoy's face, devoid of any sneers and grimaces, colored black and blue and so… calm. Despite sustaining so many injures, he seemed more at peace now than she had seen him in a long time—or maybe ever.

The look of serenity on his countenance made her wonder if the war had impacted him in any way. Everyone knew that his father barely escaped Azkaban by selling out some of the Death Eaters—the ones who were more sought after than Lucius Malfoy was, and who subsequently faced much worse fate than Lucius Malfoy did. She had noticed some Slytherins sneering at Malfoy, but it seemed there wasn't any bad blood between him and the rest of his House. She didn't know if it was because those students were the lucky ones with their fathers escaping fate at prison, or they were mature enough to understand that their parents had made decisions they needed to face the consequences of.

Or—it was the loyalty of Slytherins that ran way deeper she would expect.

Did he still hate her, her kind?

She imagined anyone would have a hard time moving on if their perfect world was crushed by having the bases it was built on removed, leaving you with an empty space to create a new one—only you had no idea where to start, because you didn't know any other way to live.

She stared at him for what felt like hours, somehow hoping his unconscious form would present her with answers. She didn't want a situation like one that happened today to happen again. But Malfoy was in no condition to speak and she had no clue how to fix it. She felt like she was about to lose her mind. She entertained the idea of trying her new skill at Legilimency for a brief second, but she knew it was highly unethical and wrong—and besides, she was still not very good at it.

She reached into her pocket, searching for a piece of parchment to scribble down a note for Ginny in case her friend woke up when Hermione wasn't around. She found one filled with flawlessly penned writing that wasn't her own.

Meet me tonight, eleven o'clock, at the library. –TN

She carefully folded the parchment and tucked it into her jeans, wondering what it was that Theo wanted from her. They had tried to find a schedule for their lessons together, but it was hard to find a place to practice something like that, so they usually met on Fridays and weekend evenings in the far back of the Library when it was usually deserted.

Eleven o'clock, on the dot, she was tucked away behind a bookshelf, awaiting Theo's arrival. She made it to the library fairly easily, evading any prefects and teachers and ensuring she didn't score herself a detention. Her heart was thumping in her chest and anticipation ran through her veins.

She paced restlessly, unable to stand still while her mind ran a mile a minute. She had pondered over countless of possibilities, yet she was still unable to find a plausible explanation to this mess. Her friend could have died today. No one was safe.

"I'm glad you came," Theo's voice broke her out of her reverie unexpectedly.

"Merlin, Theo," she said. "Don't sneak up on me like that."

"I'm a Slytherin," he simply said with a shrug.

She rolled her eyes at that. "So, what is it that you wanted to talk about?"

"Who said I wanted to talk?" he asked her, taking a step closer, while his eyes flickered with something dark and sinister.

Hermione swallowed at his low tone of voice, alone in the quiet library, after curfew, with an attractive guy who she happened to know liked to tease her. It wasn't the first time they were alone, but he had never looked at her this way, and surely, under these circumstances, he wasn't thinking about—

"Our friends are laying in an Infirmary as we speak, so I'm sure you didn't drag me here for… whatever it is you're thinking now," she told him defiantly and took a step back, hoping it would deter him from coming any closer.

He didn't seem deterred.

"Maybe it just made me realize how fleeting life is and motivated me to start living in the moment," he closed the gap between them, leaving her trapped against the shelf behind her and his body closely in front of her. His hands clutched the ledges on either side of her head, creating an intimate proximity without actual physical contact.

The words were stuck in her throat, but her body had a lot to say instead. Her breath was coming out in short puffs, her heart pounded against her ribs, her mind swirled in a haze, and as she stared at that devilish smile and piercing blue eyes, a scorching sensation surged through her veins, setting her entire bloodstream ablaze.

She closed her eyes, recalling the image of her friend in a hospital bed and holding onto it as long as it took her to calm down her hormones. Once she got a grasp on herself, she looked at Theo, who must have seen the look of determination on her face, because he backed out.

"Right," he said. "We have a problem here."

She cursed him in her mind, then herself for forgetting for a moment the whole reason why she was meeting him in the first place.

"Follow me," he told her and took off without a second glance.

She didn't know what she had done wrong to deserve such an insufferable partner in crime.

She could barely keep up with his long strides as he maneuvered through a maze of stairs and corridors with a clear intention in his mind. She had whispered frantically on their way, demanding answers to which he only explained he was taking her to a place away from prying eyes. He didn't offer more than that and she didn't press, deciding she would take whatever he was willing to give her without fussing.

Not wanting to attract any unwanted attention, they had to navigate the castle in the darkness, although Theo didn't seem to have any problems with it as he confidently lead the way. That didn't surprise her—she could sense that there was a flicker of darkness in him that he couldn't completely mask behind charming smiles and teasing words. She could see it in his eyes and feel it around him. She supposed that being raised as a child of a Death Eater left an impact on a person.

She thought that she wasn't a Gryffindor for nothing as she followed him into the night.

When they rounded another corner, she heard a soft Lumos and light sprung out of Theo's wand. The scenery ahead was a lot different than the rest of the castle—the corridor was in a worse for wear state with cracked walls and scattered debris strewn about. The signs of destruction were evident, and as they ventured further, the extent of devastation became increasingly pronounced.

Theo had led her to the part of the castle that hadn't been yet rebuilt and was out of bounds.

"Wouldn't it be easier to just talk in the library?" she asked him when he came to a halt in the middle of a ruined corridor.

Theo shot her a dark look. "No one comes here. There are no portraits, no operating classrooms, prefects don't patrol here, teachers don't have the time to fix it with how little stuff is available, so they have no reason to be here. Quit whining," he told her, then walked away, leaving her in the dark.

Hermione contemplated throwing a hex at his back, or at least in the direction where she believed he had disappeared off to. Instead, disregarding her frustration, she cast Lumos herself to illuminate her path. She could hardly label asking a simple question as whining, but if Theo did know something, then her need for that information outweighed her pride.

She went deeper into the corridor, coming across a collapsed classroom, where Theo was already vanishing some of the debris laying around. She set to help him, restoring whatever desks and chairs could be salvaged to their original states and conjuring some lanterns to provide some light that didn't come from their wands. Their efforts were not so much focused on fixing what was broken, since it was beyond their skill, but on making the whole scene a touch less depressing, alleviating heavy weight of emotions stirred by the remnants of the battle that had taken place here.

They sat down once they did as much as they could, and Hermione waited patiently for Theo to speak, raising a brow at him.

He fixed her with a steady stare, and she could tell he was coolly calculating.

"Is there something you want?" was all he said.

Her brow rose higher at the question, not understanding the meaning behind his words. He was the one who asked her to meet, what could she possibly want? Was he playing her? Taunting? An anger spiked inside her, her magic bubbling and if he wasn't going to tell her, she was going to rip it out from his mind. She lashed out, latching onto his thoughts, memories, and emotions. She felt he was glad—she couldn't understand why—and she drifted through his brain, looking for something. He was putting up a good resistance, but she held his gaze and fought hard. She saw a memory that was fueled by pure rage and she went straight into it, rippling through his shield that protected it. There was an envelope with a Malfoy insignia and she scanned through the note before he pushed her out of her mind.

"Theo, I'm angry. So fucking angry. You know me—but this is worse. What kind of fucking curse is this? Your father is a piece of shit. I'll keep you posted—DM"

She emerged from his mind, breathing heavily, feeling her knees buckle.

"What was that?" she asked calmly, having no strength left for anger.

How did she get a hold of this memory? She was sure Theo didn't let it just slip up to the surface, serving it to her on a silver plate. She had to use all of her magic just to grab it, fighting for it. For some reason though, seeing him run a hand through his already tousled hair, disheveling it even more, with a dark, indescribable look in his eyes, she just knew he wanted her to see it.

"You're a smart girl, Hermione," he said and the usage of her first name caught her by surprise. She'd always been Granger before now. She found she liked the sound of her name on his lips, devoid of any underlying emotions. It lacked the worry that accompanied Harry's voice when she invested too much time in striving for perfection, the whine that tinged Ron's tone when he sought her assistance with his essays, and the admonishment in Ginny's voice whenever she decided that Hermione was engaging in something she deemed reckless. "Figure it out."