Mon ange gardien

by virgules

We all know what Harry went through during his years at Hogwarts. But what happened where he wasn't looking? A love affair between his best friend and his nemesis...? Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy, from first to seventh year, gradually fall in love during the real books. Chapter every Sunday evening!

95. 95 : asphyxiated

Hello! Sorry for the delay, I'm so swamped at the moment that I didn't even have time to post last night... I'm in the same state as Hermione in this chapter at the moment, I can't wait for the break so I can rest and get back into a decent writing rhythm! I'd heard that the first years as a school teacher could be tough, but this is even worse than I imagined...

We're moving slowly towards the end of the fifth year with a canon event expected in this chapter... I won't tell you any more, see you later for the debrief, and have a great week everyone! 3

tw: brief mention of alcohol/alcoholism

.

.

---

Hermione

---

.

.

Pansy made her uncomfortable.

Yet this was the first time since they were eleven that she hadn't laughed at her, at her hair, her teeth, her blood. There was no malice in her expression, no mockery, no looking up and down to judge her outfit. She hadn't accompanied her question with a mocking sneer. She didn't feign disgust by holding her arm.

No, for the first time since they met, Pansy wasn't being mean. She was worried.

And that shocked Hermione even more.

Her icy black gaze was filled with the same concern Hermione had seen in Ron's eyes when Harry was in danger. She could feel the considerable weight of Pansy's panic in the way her fingers clutched at her sleeve, as if she feared she would leave before answering, that she would be condemned to wait, that she would never know what Hermione had seen in that crystal ball two years earlier. She was pale, her mouth half open, her eyes fixed on Hermione with terror, fear, impatience and torment.

Hermione was suddenly ashamed to explain what she had seen. It seemed so pointless now that she thought about it. But even though she'd tried to convince herself that she'd been dreaming several times since then, Hermione was firmly convinced that she had indeed seen something in the crystal ball. She didn't know if it was Trelawney who enjoyed tampering with one of them in every class to make her students think her subject was real, but in any case, the image she'd seen seemed to have been imprinted on her retinas ever since that day. She'd seen Draco, she was sure of it. Why, she had no idea.

Her reservations about telling such a secret vanished when she met Pansy's gaze. Hermione realized that she was, in fact, the only person in the entire Castle who could believe her without the slightest doubt about what she was about to say. It was this last certainty that made her reveal what she had seen:

"I saw Draco over a sink. He... he was crying." Hermione admitted in a broken whisper. "But he wasn't just crying out of sadness, he was crying as if all the unhappiness in the world had come upon him at once. He was crying out of despair."

Parkinson swallowed hard, as if Hermione's words were struggling to get through her throat. Still, Hermione felt she wasn't describing the pain Draco seemed to be in well enough. Just thinking about it made her sick.

"When?" asked Parkinson in a small voice.

She had not the slightest doubt that this vision would come true.

"I... I'm not sure, he looked older." Hermione replied. "Maybe seventeen, eighteen?"

"Was he at Hogwarts?"

Hermione closed her eyes for a moment, trying to detail the image in her mind.

"Yes, I think so." she replied.

Pansy took a small panicked breath. She was still holding Hermione's arm, her nails lightly piercing her skin through her sweater.

"What did you see after that? Do you know why he was crying?"

"No, it barely lasted a second. The next thing I knew, he was gone, like a mirage."

"Because you don't believe it." Pansy murmured, deep in thought.

"What?"

She let go of Hermione's arm and looked at a point over her shoulder:

"You don't believe in Divination, at least on the surface." she explained slowly. "Your vision couldn't consolidate because you didn't want to believe in it so much that you closed your Third Eye without even realizing it."

Hermione had never heard such a list of nonsense before, but she held back from disagreeing with all her might. Parkinson began to walk down the corridor again, and Hermione immediately followed.

"Do you have a Third Eye?" she asked.

"Everyone has a Third Eye, Granger." Parkinson replied in a monotone voice.

"But yours... I mean... has it ever, you know, opened?"

She had no idea how to phrase her question. Everything felt so fragile, she could hardly realize she was actually having this conversation.

"No, never." Parkinson replied matter-of-factly. "Still, it's not for lack of trying. I've been working on it relentlessly for three years, practicing a little every day, but I've never had a vision or prophecy to speak of."

"How come I can have one if I don't believe in it, when you practice every day and have never had one?" asked Hermione incredulously.

Parkinson shrugged in a gesture far too graceful to be natural.

"That's the beauty of Divination. It's not something you have to work at, it's innate. Everything happens for a reason." she recited. "Maybe I haven't had a vision yet because the Universe doesn't want to show me anything in particular. But that's okay, I'll wait my turn and practice opening it manually while I wait. I think Occlumency can help soften the mind."

Hermione's breath caught.

"What?" she asked as innocently as she could.

Parkinson rolled her eyes, suddenly annoyed:

"Oh, stop it, Granger. You can't tell me you don't know what Occlumency is. You've read every book in the Hogwarts Library, and you're dating Draco."

Hermione didn't answer. She didn't really know if she was "dating" Draco, they'd never really defined the bond between them, but if his best friend thought she was, then he must have thought so too. The thought warmed her heart, which needed it after the intense moment they'd just shared.

They reached the portrait of the Fat Lady. It took Hermione some time to realize that the round was over, and that Pansy had actually escorted her out before heading back to the dungeons herself.

She suddenly leaned over to whisper in Hermione's ear, probably to avoid being overheard by the Fat Lady standing right next to them:

"I'm going to do some research in my Divination textbooks to try and understand a little bit of what you saw, maybe talk to Trelawney about it when she's... recovered from her emotions. I'll keep you posted."

"Oh, uh... very well, thank you." Hermione stammered.

"Thank you for telling me." Parkinson replied sincerely. "It couldn't have been easy to confide in someone who gave you such a hard time. I want you to know that I'm touched by your gesture." She stepped back a little and seemed to remember one last thing, which she struggled to say: "And... I'm sorry for being a bitch to you all this time. You probably didn't deserve it."

Hermione's eyes widened. She never thought she'd hear such an apology from Pansy Parkinson's black-painted mouth.

"I..." she began.

"I told you, I'll do anything for Draco." Parkinson interrupted in a whisper. "I'll protect him with my own life without the slightest hesitation, because he's part of my family. And if that means allying myself with you, I'll do it. I put Draco on my list of priorities, and if he chose you, I trust him."

Hermione couldn't help but smile at those words.

"Thank you, Parkinson."

She grimaced slightly as she shook her head:

"You know what? Let's start over."

And against all odds, she held out her hand.

Hermione looked at her for a long time, then cautiously raised her right hand and shook it. She was afraid it was a trick, that something would explode in the hollow of her palm and Parkinson would burst into her infuriating laughter and ask her how she ever thought they could get along.

But Parkinson's hand was soft against hers.

"Pansy Parkinson." she introduced herself. "But you can call me Pansy."

Hermione was speechless. It took her several seconds to realize that she was waiting for an answer, their hands still intertwined in one of the longest handshakes Hermione had ever known.

"Hermione." she said in an automatic voice.

Pansy wrinkled her nose slightly without letting go of her hand:

"Do you mind if I stay with Granger for now? I'm not ready to break the first name barrier yet."

"All right."

Pansy let go of her hand gently and gave her a small smile:

"Nice to officially meet you, Granger. I'll head back. Good night."

And she left without another word.

Hermione stood there, wondering if she'd just hallucinated.

When she turned to face the painting of her House, she must have shown the same surprise as the Fat Lady.

"What was that about?" the painting asked, exaggerating her fake Italian accent.

"Mind your own business." Hermione replied, feeling her cheeks burn.

The painting spun around and the Fat Lady glared at her as she rushed in.

.

.

---

Draco

---

.

.

Draco's Wednesday afternoons began with the most boring class at Hogwarts: History of Magic. It was the perfect opportunity for all the students present to take a post-digestive nap, as it had been every Wednesday since September.

The only advantage of this class was that this year it was shared with the Gryffindors. Draco therefore chose a strategically well-placed spot to watch Hermione without getting too close, so as not to be suspected of getting too close to his supposed enemy.

Draco, Theo, Hermione and Professor Binns were the only people in the room awake after ten minutes of class. Draco usually sat next to Pansy, but on this day she'd moved next to Blaise, so he shared his desk with Theo.

Having Theo as a classmate hadn't bothered him before, but Draco quickly remembered why he preferred Pansy in History of Magic.

"What did he just say?" whispered Theo, taking notes quickly. "1313 or 1373?"

"I don't know, I haven't heard a single sentence from that teacher since September 2nd, 1991." Draco replied in a jaded voice.

Theo rolled his eyes as he continued to write, which was quite remarkable.

"You know you're going to need these notes for the O.W.L.?" commented Theo disapprovingly.

"Oh, I know."

He glanced sideways at Granger, who was writing with the same frenzy as the boy next to him. It was as if they were competing to see who would have the most notes at the end of class, and Draco wouldn't be surprised if they did.

"Ah, I see." Theo said, catching his eye. He lowered his voice so that only Draco could hear: "Is that why you're dating her? To take her class notes?"

"Oh, Teddybear, if I wanted to go out with someone to steal her notes, I would have chosen you." Draco replied smoothly, irony piercing his tone.

Theo's cheekbones rose slightly in the candlelight.

"I told you to stop talking to me like that." he grumbled.

"Like what, Teddybear?"

He grunted and started writing again.

When Draco was sure everyone was asleep, including Potter and Weasley at the back of the classroom, he took a piece of parchment, wrote "Library tonight?", folded it into a small airplane and sent it discreetly towards Granger's desk. It might have been completely invisible to everyone, but she jumped as if someone had just thrown a Dungbomb at her desk. Fortunately, only Longbottom next to her noticed her surprise, but he put his head back on his arms without question.

"Well, that was discreet." Theo remarked sarcastically next to him. "Have I been blind for months, or has it been gouging out my eyes all along?"

"First option." Draco muttered.

Granger unfolded the plane under her pile of notes and pursed her lips. She picked up her quill to reply quickly.

"Tantum oculi tui legere possunt." muttered Theo to Draco's right.

Draco turned to him without understanding. He was still taking notes, his head so bent over his parchment that his forehead brushed the paper.

"Uh... Excuse me?"

"It's the spell to make a message invisible, you idiot." Theo snapped. "If you only want her to be able to read it, cast this spell on the paper while thinking of her. Tantum oculi tui legere possunt."

Draco had never thought of putting a password on the contents of his message. It was a brilliant idea, though: even if someone stumbled upon it, they'd never be able to read what he'd written. Draco would just have to pretend it was a message to make fun of her.

"Oh, Teddybear, I could kiss you right now." he said, pretending to stretch out his arms towards his best friend.

"Yuck! You're in an awfully good mood." Theo commented as he shifted in disgust. "You know, maybe I could have been useful if you'd shared your secret with me earlier. It might have saved you a lot of trouble."

Draco didn't answer, but he secretly agreed. Since Theo had known about Hermione, he'd been much calmer and more at peace. The plane tickled his ankle gently and Draco picked it up from the floor, checking that no one had noticed the exchange, but the whole class continued to doze. Binns' stream of words had become background noise in his ears.

He unfolded the plane, but his heart churned with disappointment as he read Hermione's sentence in her large, round handwriting:

"I can't tonight. Tomorrow?"

He lifted his head to meet her gaze. He nodded once and Hermione went back to writing.

"Oh." Theo said, reading the message over Draco's shoulder. "Ouch. Something tells me your suddenly beaming good mood is gone, am I wrong?"

Draco replied with a telling grumble.

He spent the rest of the class wondering why Granger couldn't make it to the Library. "I can't tonight." He reread the sentence several times, surprised that she hadn't given a reason. Usually when she didn't come, she explained why. In fact, he realized that there were many evenings when she "couldn't" come, and that she had never given a specific reason since the beginning of the school year.

It wasn't a Hogwarts club she had joined, she would have told him. When she studied with Potter or Weasley, she always managed to come to the bench afterwards. But sometimes she'd tell him she couldn't and deftly change the subject as soon as he tried to find out what she was doing with her evenings.

Hermione was writing her notes, a curtain of curls hiding her profile, and Draco watched her, trying to guess what she was up to. She had promised him no more secrets... Had she lied?

.
.

To continue this afternoon of disastrous classes, the Gryffindors and Slytherins headed to their last class of the day: Care of Magical Creatures. And the question Draco had asked himself in the History of Magic class continued to haunt him. Where was Granger going if she couldn't come to the Library?

Draco had this... feeling. He was missing something. Hermione was up to something. He always had a good instinct when it came to her: the Time Turner, Sirius Black, Skeeter... He could tell when she was keeping information from him. He could see it in her face, in the way she'd looked away when he'd sent her the paper plane, in her hasty handwriting, in her vague answers. He didn't know what yet, but now he was determined to find out. Because if she didn't tell him what she was doing with her evenings, it was either dangerous, or it was going to hurt him, and he wasn't sure which alternative was worse in his eyes.

Hagrid introduced them to the Knarls, a small brown creature with spikes along its carapace. Apparently they looked exactly like hedgehogs, a Muggle animal, and when Hagrid asked them how to tell them apart, no one was surprised when Granger split the air with her hand:

"Yes, Hermione?" asked Hagrid in his gruff voice.

She began to recite in her usual nerdy tone:

"Hedgehogs don't really have a fearful nature and will accept any food offered to them, Knarls, on the other hand, will see it as a trap and will then ransack the person's garden."

"Absolutely! Ten points for Gryffindor!"

The Slytherins exchanged exasperated sighs and Draco imitated them out of habit. Granger blushed with delight.

"I hope you all listened to Hermione's explanation, because the activity I'm inviting you to do is to recognize the three Knarls in this group of hedgehogs." Hagrid explained, pointing to an enclosure behind him.

A dozen small animals were frolicking inside, and several buckets of food were placed beside them.

"Mm-hmm."

Everyone turned to Umbridge. She had slipped to the back of the group and was writing in a clipboard, a large pink quill brushing against her chin. Draco Occluded so as not to linger too long over that quill.

"Yes, Professor Umbridge?" asked Hagrid in a tone he tried to make as polite as possible, without much success.

"I was just wondering if it was really wise to expose the students to such dangerous creatures?"

As she always did when addressing the half-giant, Umbridge exaggerated each letter and ended her sentence with a broad, wry smile. Draco heard Theo chuckle at such a term for such harmless beasts.

"Knarls are in the Fifth Year Care of Magical Creatures program."

Granger challenged Umbridge with her eyes and Draco wondered why on earth he'd fallen for the most stubborn girl in existence. How could she answer so brazenly to the woman who had tortured her two weeks earlier? It was beyond comprehension.

"Just because it's on the syllabus doesn't mean it's worth studying, Miss Granger." Umbridge replied in a voice that was as honeyed as it was unbearable.

"Well, you don't seem very interested in the syllabus, that's for sure." Theo commented, half-voiced but loud enough for Hermione to hear.

"Hagrid is just following the end of year O.W.L. requirements..." Hermione began.

"Miss Granger, as far as I know, you're not a teacher at Hogwarts." Umbridge cut in more coldly. "My question is directed to Hagrid, and certainly not to you. Ten points off for Gryffindor."

Good thing Draco was Occluding, because he was this close to pushing Umbridge into the Knarls pen. With a bit of luck, they'd be able to gouge out her eyes before she could get to her feet?

Potter and Weasley had the intelligence to restrain Granger before she could react and collect an hour's detention. However, when Weasley put his hand on her shoulder, urging her to back away towards him, Draco saw red. Maybe there would be room to throw him in the pen, too?

"Well..." Hagrid began hesitantly. "Knarls aren't considered dangerous creatures. Once everyone understands how to deal with them, they won't hurt you."

The professor arched a narrow eyebrow in Hagrid's direction, feigning indignation:

"So you're saying that if a student was unfortunate enough not to listen to one of your explanations, they deserve to be hurt?"

Draco caught a glimpse of the blush on Hagrid's cheeks, hidden by his overly thick beard.

"Uh..."

Umbridge clicked her tongue against her palate and began writing on her clipboard. Judging by her expression, it wasn't a positive one. Draco didn't like Hagrid, but he hated Umbridge even more after what she had done to Granger, so this was one of the first times he felt sympathy for the half-giant.

"Please, Hagrid, continue with your lesson as if I weren't here." she crooned when she had finished writing her notes.

"Very well, uh... then, class, the activity begins! Here we go!"

Potter was the first to grab a bucket to distribute food to the Knarls. Draco painfully followed, trying to avoid Umbridge at all costs, at the risk of her asking him questions to incriminate Hagrid. He was in no mood to pretend he didn't want to kill the woman all day.

Granger found the three Knarls in less than five minutes and the activity came to an end. Umbridge spent the rest of the hour asking Hagrid highly technical questions about Knarls, who stammered out more or less coherent answers. The misery ended when the bell rang and Umbridge returned to the Castle, followed by most of the Slytherins. The Gryffindors stayed behind to help Hagrid clean up. Potter approached him to reassure him and put a hand on his shoulder.

When he saw Hermione picking up the buckets, Draco called to her:

"Careful, Granger, there's still a Knarl in your hair."

Crabbe and Goyle laughed, Weasley took up a defensive position beside her. Hermione looked at him and, as always, Draco felt a jolt of electricity run down his arms as he saw the flame of provocation glow in her pretty eyes.

"Very funny, Malfoy." she grumbled. "But I guess you should know, ferret and hedgehog, they're kind of the same family, aren't they?"

She was the most beautiful girl he knew, but it was probably her wit that attracted him most. He lived for her jabs. No one but her could retort so quickly, so cruelly. Draco could hardly pretend to be offended.

In fact, his favorite part of their spontaneous exchanges was when she looked at him. It was as if everyone around them disappeared, he no longer heard the loud laughter of Crabbe and Goyle, he no longer saw Weasley and Potter clinging to Granger to "protect" her. Couldn't they see that she didn't need it? She was glowing. She had that proud little smile that lit up her perfect face, she radiated that fever that had infected him for years. And most of all, she looked at him. No one else. They were connected, and Draco would have gladly drowned in her eyes, just to keep contact, just a little longer, a few seconds.

"Come on Mione, he's not worth it." Potter advised from the height of his immense wisdom.

He pulled her forward to take the path to the Castle and she was forced to look away, but as she passed close to him, he brushed her hand, just for a second. Her skin was warm against his knuckles. No one could have seen what he'd done.

Yet Draco's hand burned long after she'd gone.

.
.

That night, Draco found it hard to enjoy the Slytherin party. Hermione's suspicious absence lingered in the back of his mind, and it quickly became his only thought: where could she be? With Longbottom? With the Weasley twins? Why hadn't she told him? Why did he feel like he was missing something so obvious?

"I can't tonight." That was what she'd written. No explanation. But she had to suspect that he would do anything to find out; he'd already proven to her several times that whenever she kept something from him, he always found out what she was up to in the end.

Draco scanned his surroundings and suddenly noticed that someone was missing.

"Theo's not here." he stated. It was the first time he'd spoken in hours.

Pansy was sitting on the sofa next to him. She'd swapped her classic vanilla whiskey for a cherry sherry and watched the fruit float to the top of her glass without speaking.

"It's strange, isn't it?" insisted Draco. "He's usually always here."

"Not always." she noted wearily. "Sometimes he prefers to work in your dormitory, or read a book in his chair... maybe he's in the Library..."

"It's closed." Draco interrupted a little curtly. Without knowing why, the fact that Pansy called their dormitory "your" and not "our" made his heart ache a little.

"Blaise isn't here either." Pansy remarked without looking up to check.

"He must be hitting on another Merlin-knows-who girl." he replied. "Which is certainly not the case with Theo."

Pansy took a sip of sherry to avoid answering.

Draco didn't know how he knew, but he suspected that Theo was with Hermione. When the Library was closed, he always stayed in the Common Room or the dormitory. He hated staying out past curfew. And the fact that Granger hadn't come to the Library at the same time Theo was gone was too much of a coincidence. The two of them were together, but Draco had no idea what they could possibly be doing or why they were so desperate to keep it from him.

Of course, his drunken mind immediately turned to the obvious, but he Occluded and carefully dismissed his jealousy-based theories. He trusted Hermione and Theo, deep down he knew that neither of them would be capable of betraying him like that.

But what could they be doing so late on a Wednesday night?

Pansy yawned into her drink. She was eyeing her friends dancing in front of the huge fireplace.

"Why don't you go dance with them?" asked Draco, pointing at the girls with a jerk of his chin.

She shrugged vaguely. Draco noticed that the makeup she'd applied hadn't managed to completely hide the dark circles under her bloodshot eyes.

"You look like hell." Draco commented, inspecting his best friend.

"Thanks." she replied with a bitter chuckle.

"Can't sleep?" he asked.

She nodded and turned her glass mechanically. Draco refrained from asking why, since Pansy rarely talked about her nightmares and the fears that kept her awake on nights when she slept alone.

"Why don't you come and sleep in the dormitory like you used to?" he asked instead. "I told you you could come anytime."

Pansy turned her head toward him, her eyebrows raised as if to determine if he was playing a joke on her or not.

"I can't do that anymore." she said as a matter of course.

"And why is that?" asked Draco.

"You know very well why." she said firmly. "It would be disrespectful to her."

Draco was so used to Pansy's vehemence when talking about Granger that it took him several seconds to realize she was talking about her.

"What are you talking about? I'm not asking about sex, just sleeping, like when we were kids."

"But it wouldn't be like before." Pansy disagreed gently. "It would have to be uncomfortable now."

"Since when do you think sharing a bed with me is uncomfortable?" asked Draco, taken aback.

He and Pansy had slept together hundreds of times without the slightest ambiguity.

"How would your Granger react if she found out that your best friend came to bed with you every night?" asked Pansy, who had become an expert at asking questions instead of answering them.

Draco frowned. He had never quite realized that sleeping with Pansy could be a source of jealousy for Granger.

"She doesn't..."

"Then let me rephrase that." Pansy cut in. "How would you react if you found out that Weasley joined Granger in bed and fell asleep next to her every night?"

The thought alone made Draco clench his fist, almost making his glass explode. A shiver of rage ran down his spine and he had the reflex to Occlude before the thought parasitized his mind all evening.

"That's different." he hissed through clenched teeth. "Weasley's been in love with Hermione forever."

"And I've been in love with you for most of my life." Pansy argued.

Draco closed his mouth abruptly. He'd never looked at the situation from this perspective before. He had always separated his friendship with Pansy from the phase when they had become physically close. To him, sleeping with her and having sex with her were two completely different acts, and the former was far too innocent for Granger to hold against him.

Pansy, on the other hand, seemed to have given it a lot of thought. Draco hadn't even noticed that she hadn't slept in his bed since the day he told her that he was officially in love with Hermione and that it was mutual. She hated Granger, but she was respectful enough not to make her jealous.

Draco was impressed by the maturity of his best friend. He would never have had the presence of mind to do this: he usually did what he liked, whether it hurt others or not.

"I can explain to Granger if you want. She'll understand. If you need to sleep with me, she..."

"No need." Pansy said with a faint smile. "I'd feel bad doing that now. Taking advantage of you to successfully put me to sleep. You're in love with someone else, and I'm happy for you, but I have to learn to move on. And that includes sleeping alone."

Draco understood Pansy's tiredness better now. She hadn't spent several nights in a row in her own bed without company for years, and he knew she had night terrors far worse than his own.

"You can ask Theo or Blaise." he offered.

He hated knowing that she was suffering just a few steps away from him and that there was nothing he could do to help. He hadn't even noticed that she was sleeping alone. What a terrible friend he was.

"No, that would just postpone the problem." Pansy said with a confidence that impressed Draco. "Don't worry about me, I'll survive."

"I'll always worry about you, Pans'." he replied sincerely.

They exchanged small smiles and she clinked her goblet against his, inviting him to take a sip, which he did.

"Ah, the man of all mysteries has arrived."

Draco turned in the direction Pansy was looking and saw Theo enter the Common Room. He had his bag slung over his shoulder and a wary expression on his face.

"He was with Hermione." Draco muttered.

Pansy's head swung to the side, twirling her black hair.

"Was he? How could you know?"

"I guessed." Draco said, still watching Theo, trying to find the slightest clue about him that would prove what he was suggesting.

Just then, Theo spotted them and snuck between the partying Slytherins to approach them. When she saw him do so, Pansy stood up hastily and joined the crowd. Theo watched her go with a reproving sigh:

"She's running away because she hasn't finished her Transfiguration essay, I'm sure." he said in a reproachful tone.

He took the place Pansy had occupied a few seconds earlier and dropped his bag, which was overflowing with rolled-up parchments.

"Where have you been?" asked Draco without further ado.

"Studying for my O.W.L.s." Theo replied without looking at him, too busy scanning the dancers to catch a glimpse of Pansy.

Draco pursed his lips but said nothing. The Occlumency prevented him from fully feeling the fear that twisted his stomach.

"Where's Blaise?" asked Theo.

"No idea."

"Hm. I'm going to finish my homework over there." he said, pointing to his favorite study table on the other side of the room. "If Pansy comes back, could you tell her that I'm looking for her and that she really needs to finish her essay, please?"

Draco replied with an unintelligible sound.

"Seriously, Draco, tell her." Theo insisted, rising to his feet. "And most importantly, tell her that I won't do it for her, even if she begs me to."

Where were you? Were you with Hermione? Is she in danger? Why are you keeping me in the dark? What are you two doing together?

"All right." he replied without looking at him.

Theo walked away, and Pansy returned a minute later, taking her seat again.

"If he sees me, he'll tell me about my fucking Transfiguration essay." she said by way of explanation. "And there's no way I'm going to do that. I'm just waiting for the moment when he gets too anxious and does it for me."

She finished her glass of sherry in one gulp as she tried to find Theo over the edge of the sofa. Draco tore the threads from the cushion, his mind elsewhere. What if Granger was caught by Umbridge again after curfew? Had Theo at least seen her off outside the Common Room? Maybe she was back in Umbridge's office right now and he couldn't even tell because she hid from him where she spent her evenings once a week. He could still hear her screams of pain...

"Why are you Occluding?" asked Pansy.

Draco met her worried gaze and pulled himself together:

"Sorry."

He didn't stop completely so as not to be overwhelmed by a torrent of emotions, but he raised the walls of his mind high enough so as not to appear too closed. It was a new technique he'd discovered during the sessions with Snape, and it worked quite well to dampen his overly vivid emotions without completely barricading them.

"I wish I could do that." Pansy complained as she sank into the sofa, probably to hide from Theo.

"You can do that." Draco said.

"I can put my memories away, I just can't turn off my emotions so I don't feel anything." she countered. "How do you do that?"

Draco tried to remember the advice Snape had given him, but there was so much he didn't know that he had learned from himself and the Potions Professor.

"I'm not sure." he confessed. "As soon as I close my mind, it filters my emotions. I guess it's from doing it so much, now I can do it in seconds."

As she did every time she thought, Pansy unconsciously wrinkled her nose. Draco secretly loved it when she did that, because it was the only time she wasn't aware of her own appearance, an uncontrolled mimic. The real Pansy.

"So you meditate?"

"Not really." Draco replied. "I meditate when I want to sort out my memories, or when I want to calm down after feeling too much anger. I Occlude to protect myself, like putting up a shield."

"Show me."

Draco obeyed. In pure reflex, he imagined the walls falling in his mind. He imagined the key turning in the lock of his mental library, and he made the door disappear so that no one could enter.

"Wow." Pansy gasped. "Your eyes went gray in just five seconds."

"I've had a lot of practice." Draco said with a hint of pride. "You try it."

Pansy laid her head back on the sofa cushion and closed her eyes. She stayed in that position for a long time, but when she opened them again, Draco had no idea if it had worked or not, because her eyes were naturally too dark to notice any difference.

"Well? Do you feel that your mind is protected?" he asked.

"I don't know." Pansy complained. "Test your Legamancy on me."

"Legilimency." Draco corrected with a chuckle. "And if I try and you don't succeed, you won't be able to push me away."

Pansy shrugged:

"That's fine. I'd rather have you get inside my head than someone else practicing Legilimency, like my father."

She straightened up as if preparing for a duel.

"What, right now?" asked Draco in surprise. "In the middle of all these people?"

"Everyone's drunk, no one will see anything." Pansy assured him.

Draco waited a few seconds in case she changed her mind, but when she didn't, he picked up his wand and pointed it in her direction.

"Ready?" When Pansy nodded, he called out in a low voice: "Legilimens."

Draco was immediately projected into Pansy's head.

It was much easier to access than Snape's mind. He passed through the weak barriers she had tried to put up to protect herself and found himself in the middle of his best friend's mind. It wasn't as dark as Snape's, and it was much less cold. In fact, the place was strangely familiar. Draco knew Pansy so well that he felt like he'd been here before. It was a strange feeling, like returning to a place from his childhood years later.

He didn't know where Pansy kept her memories, so he followed his intuition, which told him to go left. He wasn't sure if Pansy was really trying to push him away or if she had given up and let him wander as he wished, but Draco felt no obstacles as he walked.

He followed a long path that led to a door with a golden glow, and he knew immediately that this was the place he'd been looking for, like Snape's Restricted Section or his own mental library. He could feel the energy of Occlumency warming his cheeks.

He approached and opened the door without the slightest resistance.

It was a circular room, similar to Trelawney's classroom. There were many small round tables scattered about, with dozens and dozens of crystal balls on them. It didn't have the foul smell of the Divination class, but the same atmosphere prevailed, like a veil of mystery over the room. Draco was sure that if he leaned over one of the crystal balls, he would see a hidden memory, but he didn't dare for fear that Pansy wasn't ready to reveal it to him yet.

"Well?" Pansy's voice echoed behind him.

He turned around, expecting to see her, just like Snape had a few weeks before, but she wasn't there. Draco guessed that she was still too inexperienced to materialize in her own mind.

"Pansy, it's..." he began, turning to analyze his surroundings.

"I couldn't keep you out." she said, a little disappointed. "I tried, but it was too tiring. And I think I know you so well that my body doesn't really protest the intrusion. So, what do you think?"

Draco admired the hundreds of crystal balls, the small tables, the thick carpet beneath his feet.

"I think I'm very proud of you, Pans'." Draco admitted.

"Really?" the voice asked with a note of hope.

"You've managed to create all this in such a short time and without the help of anyone experienced." Draco said. "That's fucking impressive, Pans'."

"Thank you. I'd invite you to stay longer, but I feel like this is wearing me out."

"Oh, sorry."

When Draco returned to his normal self on the couch in the Common Room, Blaise was next to them. His short curls were all disheveled, as if he'd come from outside, and he looked like he was out of breath. He swung his head between Pansy and Draco a few times:

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked, stunned by the scene before him.

"Draco was training me in Occlumency." Pansy replied. "And you, where have you been?"

"Outside." Blaise said evasively.

"With who?"

Blaise winked and Pansy rolled her eyes. He sat down in his favorite chair and Pansy stood up at the same time.

"Well, I'm off to bed, all this mental work has exhausted me." she confessed.

"Well done, Pans', you've come a long way." Draco said. "Now we'll train you to ward off unwanted intruders."

"Maybe this will help me sleep." she said before yawning. "Good night, boys."

"Good night Pans'." Draco and Blaise replied in unison.

Pansy retreated to the dormitories, and the moment she left the room, several groups of Slytherins split up, wandering aimlessly like zombies. Pansy's effect on the parties was phenomenal, almost frightening.

"Has Theo gone to bed?" asked Blaise.

Draco looked at the study table, which was empty.

"I guess so. Probably reading in the dormitory."

"Hm."

Crabbe and Goyle passed them with unhappy faces, obviously disappointed that the party was over. Most of the Slytherins were already heading back to their dormitories for bed, and the gramophone music had suddenly gone haywire, discouraging the few dancers still on the dance floor from continuing.

"Hey, do you want to try Occlumency?" offered Draco, turning to Blaise. "Pansy tried to keep me back, but she didn't, and I got to see the room where she keeps all her memories. Maybe you'll have more success than she did?"

"I'm not advanced enough to do that." he replied humbly.

"Exactly. It's for training."

Blaise grinned at him, but it was an odd, forced smile.

"Thanks, Dray. I'm going to do some more training first. It's getting late, I'm going to bed too. Good night!"

And he was gone before Draco could put his wand away.

He stayed on the sofa for a long time, watching the last students leave the party one by one and wondering what secrets his friends could keep these days.

.
.

"Why couldn't you come last night?"

Draco was proud of himself: he'd managed to last forty-seven minutes. Forty-seven minutes of scrutinizing Granger, who was studying across from him in the quiet of their Library bubble. Forty-seven minutes of containing the question that had been circling in his head since the night before. Where had she spent the evening? Who had she been with? Why was he so convinced that she had been lying to him for weeks?

She barely raised her head to answer him:

"Studying."

Either she'd gotten extremely good at lying to him, or she really had spent her evening studying. Draco's curiosity, which had almost become a psychosis by this point, was intensified when he heard this all too vague reason.

"Why didn't you come and do it here?" he asked. "I could have helped you recite your lessons."

Granger used the tip of her quill to absentmindedly scratch her temple, a gesture she often made when searching for an answer to a class question.

"The rune of friendship... of solidarity..." she murmured, caught up in her assignment.

"Granger."

She lifted her head sharply at his blunt pronunciation of her name, her eyes slit:

"You said you'd call me Hermione." she pointed out, offended.

"No, I said I'd call you Hermione occasionally." Draco corrected. "I call you Granger when you don't listen to me. Why didn't you come to the Library yesterday?" Then, realizing that he was perhaps being a little too intrusive in his questioning, he added: "I missed you."

Hermione's gaze softened and she gave a faint smile.

"I was studying." she repeated. "And I missed you too."

"With Theo?"

He saw her take in the question, but she showed nothing in her features to indicate that it had affected her.

"Yes." she answered frankly.

Draco would have thought that this revelation would hurt him, but he was actually pleased to see that she wasn't lying to him. So his hunch had been right, Theo had indeed accompanied her, but he had no idea where, or why.

"Does it have anything to do with the moment I saw you coming out of the bathroom on the seventh floor?"

Draco avoided thinking about that memory at all costs, and was almost tempted to Occlude so that his face wouldn't betray the resentment he'd felt at the time. To Hermione's credit, she wasn't impressed: she almost smiled.

"You mean the part where you accused me of sleeping with him?" she asked teasingly.

"Is that what you two did?"

The question flew out without him being able to control it. Hermione rolled her eyes sternly as if he were a particularly childish boy, and he certainly was.

"Of course not, Draco, you know I'd never do that."

"But does it have anything to do with what you did yesterday?" he asked, getting the impression that she was trying to distract him so that he would forget his real request.

She pretended to think for a few seconds, then nodded.

"What are you two up to? Are you up to something?" asked Draco, not even hiding the concern in his voice.

If Theodore Nott Jr. and Hermione Granger were joining forces to plot together, the war could undoubtedly take another turn that Dumbledore himself couldn't have foreseen.

"You said I had every right to be friends with Theo." Hermione reminded him in her high-pitched voice.

"I'm not questioning your friendship, I'm just asking what the hell you were doing with him last night." Draco retorted.

He could feel his patience wearing thin. He gripped the edge of the small table with his fingers to calm himself.

"I don't have to tell you everything." Granger pointed out, returning to her runes. "You don't tell me everything either, do you?"

"I don't? What do you..."

"Parties, for example." she interrupted abruptly.

He remained silent.

He knew that ever since she'd seen the remains of the abandoned party the day after her detention with Umbridge, she'd been waiting to talk to him about it without seeming too inquisitive. He knew her by heart. He'd guessed it just by watching her eyes roam over the bottles of alcohol and the sleeping bodies of the still-drunk students.

"What do you want to know?" asked Draco, a question that should never be asked of the girl in front of him.

She crossed her arms over her runes textbook, her wide eyes focused on him so intently that he could almost feel his cheeks tingle. He loved it when she looked at him like that, as if he was the object of all her questioning, as if all her attention was focused on him alone. Having Hermione's attention on him was more satisfying than that of any teacher in this Castle, or even his own parents.

Hermione was slow to ask a question. Draco could almost see her brain heating up from where he was. But when she did, she caught him off guard:

"Are you putting yourself in danger?"

His first instinct was to lie, but it wasn't very fair to ask her the truth when he wasn't doing it himself. So Draco took a deep breath and said quietly:

"It might have happened to me some time ago, but not for a few months now."

Hermione quickly licked her lips as she analyzed this explanation and Draco suddenly forgot why he'd been so worried since the day before. All his questions about Hermione's absence vanished when he looked at her lips. He couldn't remember why he'd been so upset. He suspected she knew exactly what she was doing, and he didn't even blame her. She was good at it.

"What's changed?" she asked.

Draco pointed to the small round table, on which Hermione's textbooks were spread out, her cinnamon tea, her hair clip she'd removed earlier.

"This." he said simply.

"We've been sharing this table for a year and a half now." she commented, and Draco was completely taken aback by the realization. It seemed so much longer, and at the same time, he still found it hard to realize that he spent his evenings in the company of Hermione Granger in the Hogwarts Library. "Why has it only been a few months since that changed?"

Draco massaged the bridge of his nose, working out a mental defense. He didn't feel like talking about this, not tonight, not to Hermione. He didn't really want to hide it from her, but this part of his existence was far from the most glamorous. He couldn't imagine describing to her what he did on those evenings. He knew she'd disapprove, and lowering in her esteem was one of his greatest fears.

He didn't need to put into words what he was feeling, though, because she asked him:

"You take refuge in alcohol, don't you? When you're not feeling well?"

He unintentionally contracted his features. To hear her talk like that, he sounded like an alcoholic. He wasn't, he was far too young to be an alcoholic.

Wasn't he?

"Not to that extent." said Draco, because Pansy was far worse than he was in that department. "But I do drink sometimes, yes."

She widened her eyes in shock, an expression of pure innocence on her face that made Draco look like a criminal.

"Often?" she asked, her voice now all squeaky.

"Less." he replied. "Occlumency helps me vent my emotions in a different, healthier way. And, you, too."

"Me?" she repeated without understanding.

How this girl could have the answer to every syllabus question up to seventh year but not realize how much he loved her was driving him crazy.

"Yes, you. You're the person who calms me down the most, Hermione." Draco said as seriously as he could. "When I'm with you, my anger dissipates much faster than when I'm alone, and the night you slept in my bed was the most restful of my entire life. You manage to temper my negative emotions far more effectively than any Occlumency, but the positive ones are amplified, so much so that I've become addicted to you, like an adrenaline junkie. Where were you last night?" he asked softly.

His confession made her smile. With her loose hair falling over her shoulders and her slightly dilated pupils, she was so beautiful that Draco could have admired her for hours without getting tired, like the paintings in Muggle museums.

"I can't tell you." she whispered, as if anyone could hear their exchange if they were completely isolated. "It's not my secret. It's Harry's."

She'd told him that before and Draco hated to hear it over and over again.

"Potter? What does this have to do with Theo? What are you hiding, Granger?"

"I can't tell you..."

"Why?" he asked sharply.

Hermione's eyes filled with pity, and Draco knew in advance that he wasn't going to like the answer at all.

"Because I haven't forgiven you yet."

His heart rose in his throat.

"You said you trusted me." he said in an almost accusatory tone.

He remembered it perfectly, it was one of his favorite memories to consult before falling asleep. "And I trust you, Draco." She'd told him. Word for word. Granger smiled a sad little smile.

"I do trust you, but not with the others. Harry, Ron, Neville, Fred, George... I know you could hurt them. And that scares me, because if you can hurt them, what's to stop you from hurting me?"

"You know very well that everything changes when you're involved." he assured her without blinking. "I will do everything to protect you. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes, and that's what scares me. Your hatred of others is so destructive that you could take me with you and then regret it. That's why I still have some reservations. In order to have access to all the secrets of my close friends, you have to prove to me that you won't blow it all up at the slightest disagreement."

Draco knew she remembered the blows, the blood, his suffocation, and Snape's last-minute rescue from the disastrous Quidditch match against Gryffindor. No matter how much time had passed, the memory was still there. And maybe she remembered it as well as he did their first kiss after that, the tension they'd unleashed together in a burst of passion and desire that had been suppressed for months. And all because of his impulsiveness.

She was right, about everything. He didn't deserve to know because she was afraid of what he would do if he had all the information. It was a painful truth to accept, one that reminded him of the famous blood clot in his throat after Potter's punch.

Draco leaned back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair. He understood why she hadn't wanted to tell him. He probably wouldn't have either if he'd been in her place. But to know that she was hiding something from him, without knowing what it was, was a punishment he could hardly bear.

"Are you putting yourself in danger?" he murmured.

She didn't answer immediately, and her silence frightened him even more.

"I know how to defend myself." she replied, which wasn't reassuring at all.

Draco sighed. He'd learned a long time ago that there was no point in trying to stop her anyway. Once Granger made up her mind, all he could do was watch the consequences of her actions.

"You always say I should trust you, Draco, but I think you need to learn to do that too." she continued.

Draco closed his eyes in pain:

"I do trust you, Hermione. But, fuck, sometimes it's hard." he admitted.

.

.

"I'm not going."

It was Monday morning and the four Slytherins were having breakfast in the Great Hall. Blaise was reading the paper, Pansy was spreading thick honey on her toast, Theo was rereading his lessons for the day, Eris was sleeping on Pansy's lap, and Draco was watching his group of friends with a smile on his lips. He loved this routine that had been established over the years: no matter what kind of night they'd had, what a miserable day they'd had the day before, or how much alcohol they'd consumed in the evening, they always met for breakfast together.

"Maybe it will make you look at Divination differently, Pans'." Blaise insisted, reading the Prophet. "Maybe it could be interesting."

"He's a half-horse doing riddles, I don't see what's interesting about that." Pansy pointed out as she cut her bread to give a piece to Eris.

Theo almost dropped his pear slice into his bowl of milk.

"Pans'!" he shouted in disgust. "You can't say that!"

"And why is that?" she demanded tartly.

Theo took the Prophet from Blaise's hands, turned a few pages, then spread it out on the table so they could all see what he wanted to show. On page twelve, there was a large photo of Umbridge, wearing a particularly ugly hat, on the white steps of the Ministry of Magic Hall. She was waving her hand at the cameras, smiling. Theo placed his finger on the headline just above it:

"A look back at the legislation passed by Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic, Dolores Umbridge, to reduce the territory occupied by a tribe of Centaurs in the north of England."

"Because you sound like her." he replied in a tone of disgust.

Pansy shot him a glare.

"It's true, though, isn't it?" she grumbled. "The new Divination teacher is a Centaur, and they are, technically, half-horses."

Blaise picked up his paper again to continue reading, and Theo dipped his spoon into his bowl of cereal: "Well, try telling him that later." he suggested ironically. "You'll see the hoof kick you get."

"I won't see anything, because I'm not going to that class." Pansy retorted firmly.

"Pansy Parkinson missing a Divination class, we've seen it all." commented Draco, who was sipping his coffee without really taking part in the conversation.

Pansy turned her head to face him. Despite the hour, she was already wearing makeup, her eyes accentuated by a long line of black eyeliner that brought out the darkness of her pupils.

"If Trelawney is no longer teaching, I refuse to go." she declared, for the tenth time during the meal. "I will not listen to a single word from this impostor who dares to take the place of the great-great-granddaughter of the most famous Seer in the wizarding world, the inventor of horoscopes and tea-leaf reading, Cassandra Trelawney."

"Wasn't it your mother who said your Third Eye was more like the Centaur's than in occidental Divination?" Theo asked Blaise in a low voice.

Blaise shrugged vaguely, far more fascinated by the article about the friendly match between Italy and Slovenia from the previous week.

"I don't care about his opinion on Divination." Pansy snapped. "I'm not going. I refuse to betray Trelawney like that. She still hasn't come out of her tower since the day she was banished, poor thing..."

"That's not so different from usual, is it?" chimed in Draco, who had never seen the professor sit down in the Great Hall before.

Pansy gave him another warning look, and Draco decided not to bring up the sensitive subject again at the risk of being forked in the face.

"I'm going to take advantage of my free period to go and see her." Pansy said, stroking Eris' head under her cloak. "Ask her how she feels. Do you want to come with me Blaise?"

"No, thank you." he replied politely.

"Don't tell me you're going to that class?" asked Pansy, horrified at the prospect.

Draco wondered what she would do if he said yes. Would she be able to put aside her love for Trelawney to please Blaise?

"I've been skipping Divination classes for two years, why Merlin would I go to this one?" asked Blaise in a mocking tone.

Pansy looked around to make sure no Slytherins were around to hear her whisper:

"Well, if you have any questions for him, you know, about your visions..."

"I have a stack of letters as high as a house-elf from my mother begging me to ask her any question I want." Blaise cut in, suddenly jaded. "I don't need this Firante."

"Firenze." Theo hastily corrected.

"How do you know his name?" asked Pansy, sizing up Theo from top to bottom.

"I'm interested in school events, you see." he replied.

But his cheekbones had turned pink for a reason Draco was completely unaware of.

"Oh, Theo, do you want to go pony trekking later instead of Arithmancy?" asked Pansy in a falsely cajoling voice.

Theo and Pansy spent the rest of the meal arguing about discrimination against centaurs.

Just another Monday morning.

.

.

---

Hermione

---

.

.

Hermione usually loved April. It was early spring, the weather was warming up, big bumblebees were dancing around the flowers in Hogwarts Park, and the path to Hagrid's was littered with pretty pink flowers. The professors were delving into the details of the curriculum, making the lessons much more interesting and in-depth, and the sun was setting late enough for Hermione to read a few pages in the Common Room before going to bed, surrounded by her closest friends.

But that April, nothing was right.

It rained every day from morning to night, and the park was so muddy that Herbology had to be cancelled because none of the students could get into the greenhouses. Inside the Castle, it was constantly damp, so much so that Hermione's hair was bloated and looked like a bird's nest on her head.

In every subject they were told that the O.W.L.s were fast approaching and that they had to work harder than ever. Hermione took these threats very seriously. She felt trapped in her chair in the Library, spending all her free time there. Whenever she could, she would rush over there to reread a definition or practice a spell.

Hermione had been stressing about these exams since her first year, but she really started to feel the anxiety creeping up on her as the days went by. Every night she fell asleep with a textbook on her chest and woke up several times during the night after dreaming that she didn't know the answer to an exam question.

Harry, Ron, Ginny, Theo, her parents and Danny all tried to reassure her that she would get good grades and that she didn't have to work so hard, but nothing helped. Every minute of her day was spent studying for the O.W.L.

It wasn't just her she was worried about. Neville was still struggling to understand some of the lessons, and their Saturday working session had tended to spill over into the early afternoon in recent weeks. Harry and Ron were still not getting down to work, and their pile of homework was growing without them realizing how far behind they were. Fred and George were even worse, getting detentions every night for not turning in their homework, and even their mother's incessant Howlers didn't seem to worry them at all.

In the midst of this hectic time, each of the Gryffindors had found a comforting place to clear their heads.

Ginny and Ron practiced Quidditch whenever they could, despite the strong wind that threatened to blow them off their broomsticks. They'd come back aching, drenched and exhausted, but with a recognizably satisfied smile on their lips that Hermione could never understand.

Fred and George took refuge in pranks, coming up with new prototypes every week and presenting them to the other students.

Neville rediscovered his joy as they searched for plants to add to Hermione's herbarium. They went every Saturday, whatever the weather, even when they were knee-deep in mud. When Neville found a particularly rare flower, he seemed to forget for a few seconds the monstrous pressure on their shoulders.

Harry was completely invested in the DA sessions, to the point where they had become even more interesting than half of the current classes, but of course, Hermione would never have admitted that out loud. The moments in the Room of Requirement were the only ones Ron and Hermione ever saw Harry smile for real.

Everyone was striving to improve, not only for the O.W.L., but for the war that awaited them behind these walls. Despite this grim reason, the DA meetings were always synonymous with good times. Students helped each other, discussed current events or Umbridge's repressive new decrees, and practiced magic over and over again. Hermione tried to include Theo whenever the opportunity arose, and he seemed to enjoy the involvement as well.

And for Hermione, her comfort was Draco.

He was a breath of fresh air in a world where she was suffocating. No matter how bad a day she'd had, he was always waiting for her at the Library table with a smile. He was the only person who could soothe her. Unlike the people closest to her, he didn't tell her that she didn't have to work so hard, or that everything was going to be all right, or that she was stressing over nothing. He listened to her ramble on for hours about her classes, making her study the concepts she didn't understand, even when the subject didn't interest him at all. When she confided in him that she was afraid, he didn't make fun of her like Ron would have done, but quizzed her until she was reassured.

Sometimes Hermione felt that Draco was the only one who really knew her. He understood how important the O.W.L. were to her, and not just because she wanted to be the best: she wanted to prove that she deserved her place here. That her blood didn't question her aptitude for magic. Draco, who had played a large part in this determination by reminding her that she was inferior to him during their first years at Hogwarts, now reminded her every day how brilliant she was. He congratulated her, complimented her, encouraged her, and never tired of doing so. Hermione didn't know how she would have gotten through the month without him.

He hadn't asked again where she spent her evenings when she couldn't come to the Library, but she could see that he refrained from doing so every time she mentioned an upcoming absence. He would run a hand through his perfectly combed hair and nod, jaw clenched, eyes stormy. She was tempted to tell him each time, but always held back at the last moment, imagining how he'd react if he found out Harry was organizing this in secret. The memory of Umbridge's restraint was still too painful for her to confess everything to him. And if he found out that Theo was involved... Hermione didn't even dare to imagine his reaction.

One Wednesday in mid-April, while Hermione was having lunch with some Gryffindors, her pocket began to warm. She understood why when everyone around her pulled coins out of their pockets: Harry had just called another meeting.

Inspecting the inscription around the fake Galleon, she was surprised to see that the DA meeting was scheduled for that very evening.

"That must be because the training session was canceled due to the rain." Ginny said as she put her coin away.

"Seriously?" interjected George. "A little rain never killed anyone, let alone a decent Quidditch player! In our day, Angelina would never have cancelled a practice for such a lame reason."

Ginny gave her brother a blank stare and, without a word, pointed her finger at the ceiling. Above their heads, in the replica sky of the Great Hall, roared one of the fiercest storms Hermione had ever seen. The windows of the room shook with the force of the wind and flashes of lightning illuminated the walls every ten seconds, but George had been too focused on his plate to notice. When he saw the weather report, he pursed his lips and nodded.

"Storm or no storm, what I wouldn't give to ride a broom..." Fred lamented, his cheek resting against his fist as he wearily crushed his piece of ham with his fork.

Just then, Harry arrived, drenched from the rain. He'd come from Hagrid's, with a grumpy Ron at his heels.

"I can't give you a Quidditch practice..." he said to Fred, stepping over the bench at the Gryffindors table. "...But I can promise you an awesome D.A. session." he finished proudly.

Ron sat down grumbling. Fred looked up with a gleam of interest in his blue eyes.

"Oh, yeah? What's it going to be about?" asked Neville.

"We're going to see the Patronus Charm again." Harry said.

Several Gryffindors cheered, but luckily Umbridge didn't notice.

"What a good idea, Harry!" exclaimed Ginny, who had regained her high spirits. "A little light in these dark times!"

Harry gave her a grateful little smile and Hermione was surprised to see that Ginny didn't even blush. Maybe she had moved on after all.

"Oh no... Tonight's going to be complicated..." said Lavender to their right at Harry's address.

"Oh, so you can't make it?" asked Hermione, trying to sound sympathetic as she was already thinking about the dose of Polyjuice Potion she had prepared in her dormitory for the occasion.

"I don't know, I'd love to practice making a Patronus, but I've got a lot of homework to do..."

"We have homework tomorrow?" asked Neville in a shrill voice.

"No, it's homework for Firenze." Lavender explained.

Harry and Ron frowned at the same time.

"Firenze didn't give us any homework."

"I know he didn't, but I'd like to get ahead." she said dreamily. "What he said last time about Mars' influence made me want to delve into the subject, you know?"

"No, not really." Ron replied sarcastically.

"I thought you felt sorry for Trelawney, Lavender?" asked Hermione.

"Oh, I do feel sorry for her, of course, but... I have to admit, I'm enjoying Firenze's lessons more and more. He's so... mysterious."

"And handsome." Parvati added beside her.

Ron shuddered:

"Yuck! Merlin!" he exclaimed. "How can you say that, Parvati? He's a Centaur!"

"So what? I can't say he's beautiful just because he has four legs?" she asked coldly.

"... It's precisely because he has four legs that you can't say that." Ron replied indignantly.

"Anyway, I find him fascinating." Lavender continued. "He could talk to me for hours about stars and planets."

Ginny, who was sitting across from Hermione, widened her eyes and tapped her forefinger on her temple, and Hermione had to stop herself from bursting out laughing. Ron pushed away his plate, which he hadn't touched, as if the prospect of girls finding a Centaur handsome was too disgusting for him to swallow anything.

Dean, who was eating next to Neville, used his height to lean over to Harry:

"By the way, Harry, I was wondering... do you think I could bring Seamus, tonight?"

Harry raised his eyebrows from behind the lenses of his round glasses. Seamus had apologized to Harry the day the article appeared in the Quibbler, saying he regretted not believing him, and Harry had obviously forgiven him on the spot.

"Why not?" he said with a shrug. "Do you think he'd be up for it?"

"I think so, yes. He told me the other day that he missed Lupin's classes. I think he's had enough of Umbridge."

"He's not the only one." Fred growled, glaring hatefully at the woman in question. Hermione could make out the words written on the back of his hand.

Harry turned to her with a silent question and Hermione nodded:

"I'll take care of it." she said. She didn't really feel like explaining to them that if any of them revealed the secret group to Seamus, he would end up with the word "SNEAK" written on his face. "I'll give him a fake Galleon if he agrees to join us."

"Oh, well, if Seamus is coming, so am I!" declared Lavender.

She shared an awful giggle with Parvati. Ginny swapped her index finger for her wand and pretended to blow her head off with it. It was common knowledge by now that Lavender had had her eye on Seamus since the beginning of the year. Hermione tried to hide her disappointment at the announcement. Everyone would want to come to the Patronus meeting, so she wouldn't be able to find anyone for Theo to impersonate on such short notice.

.
.

During History of Magic, Harry and Ron broke their record by falling asleep at their desks before Binns had even entered the classroom. Hermione was tempted to throw her study schedule at their heads to wake them up.

Soon the whole class was following suit, and Hermione wondered how so many students could not care less about one of the most important subjects for the O.W.L. The only person who was as studious as she was, as usual, was Theo. He sat on a desk in the row to Hermione's right, next to Draco, who wasn't asleep but wasn't really listening to the lesson either. He was making little drawings on a piece of parchment with his magnificent peacock feather.

When she received a small paper airplane on her desk, Hermione couldn't help but jump, which was stupid, because she knew exactly who it was from.

"I have a round with Pansy tonight, would you like to take her place?"

Hermione's heart did a little leap in her chest. Spending the evening with Draco after the stressful day she'd had was a tantalizing prospect, until she remembered the DA session Harry had scheduled over lunch. She replied just below his message, the taste of bitter disappointment on her tongue:

"I'd love to, but I can't tonight."

When he received the plane, she could almost see his pupils turn gray from where she was sitting. He answered in one word, and something about the way the ink was crudely embedded on the paper told her he didn't like her answer:

"Why?"

Hermione wrote down Binns' line about Gwendoline the Whimsical, then wrote her reply on the back of the plane:

"Top secret. Now stop sending messages in class, it's risky."

She sent the plane away, but wasn't surprised to see it again a few seconds later. It wasn't like Draco to take advice.

"I put a spell on the parchment so that only you and I can read what we write to each other. That way, if anyone stumbles across it, all they'll see is a blank piece of paper."

Hermione raised her eyebrows in amazement. This kind of magic reminded her of the Marauder's Map; she was amazed that Draco knew such a spell.

"Oh. And where did you find this spell?"

She thought she heard Draco scoff to his right, but when she turned her head to him, he was impassive.

"Theo found it, obviously."

Of course. That was much more logical. She picked up her quill again and checked that no one in the class had noticed their exchange, but everyone was asleep. Usually Neville sat next to her, but this time he'd moved to Dean's side, probably to enjoy a little catch-up nap. That left Hermione alone at her desk, which allowed her to answer Draco more freely.

"Obviously."

As she folded the plane, it took off on its own and landed in Draco's lap. A few seconds later she picked it up again:

"Where are you going tonight?"

Hermione rolled her eyes and replied quickly:

"Concentrate on the lesson."

This time, she was sure of it: he'd definitely laughed when he'd read her order.

"That's what I'm doing."

Hermione could hear his tone of insolence in her head as she read his message.

"No, you're drawing the Sorting Hat on one corner of your paper and you haven't taken a single note."

She sent it back and distinctly heard Theo click his tongue in disapproval. Only he could see that they were sending messages to each other, because he was right in the plane's flight path. Draco didn't care; he ignored his best friend and shamelessly unfolded the paper.

When he sent it back, he had a small smile on his lips.

"Are you watching me, Granger?"

Hermione would have blushed at this message a few months ago, but that was no longer the case. He knew full well that she was looking at him all the time.

"I'm trying to keep up with Binns' exciting class, but I keep getting interrupted by some rude boy who is sending me a paper airplane."

There was hardly any room left on the piece of parchment, but Draco managed to find some space to reply:

"You look so beautiful today."

Hermione had to put her hand over her mouth to keep from giggling. She was no better than Lavender.

She kept the plane in her pocket and smiled until the end of the lesson.

.

.

In less than an hour, a dozen Patronus whizzed through the air, filling the foggy Room of Requirement with a cozy atmosphere. Hermione could feel the warm magic warming her skin, and the laughter mixed with shouts of joy was highly contagious.

She reunited with her otter and watched it swim for long minutes, mesmerized. It was truly the most beautiful magic there was. Her Patronus was not just an extension of her to protect her, it was almost a projection of her soul. She bitterly regretted that Theo wasn't here to experiment with it too, she was sure he would have managed to create one tonight.

"I still can't do it!" chirped Lavender angrily, waving her wand back and forth.

Hermione glanced at Ron, who was staring at the thick, opaque smoke coming out of his wand with a look of deep concentration. Fred and George stood back to back, wearing the same expression as their brother. They'd made a bet earlier in the evening that the first of them to produce a Patronus would win fifteen Sickles, but they were both on the same level, their identical faces almost purple with effort.

Hermione was looking for Ginny to see if she'd made it when the door to the Room of Requirement opened and Dobby walked in. He was wearing the small knitted waistcoat Hermione had made him for Christmas, and an impressive pile of woolly hats on his head. He approached Harry, oblivious to the puzzled stares of the other DA members, and shyly tugged at a flap of his robe.

"Oh, good evening, Dobby." Harry greeted politely. "What are you...? What's going on?"

"Harry Potter, sir..." the elf squealed, trembling from head to toe. "Harry Potter, sir... Dobby has come to warn you... But the house elves have been ordered to say nothing..."

The few Patronus floating around disappeared at the same time, spreading their mist around the room. When Hermione dropped her wand at her side, her otter dissipated at the same time, and she felt a strange emptiness. It was as if the room had lost a few degrees of temperature.

"What is it, Dobby?" repeated Harry, growing increasingly worried.

"Harry Potter, she, she..."

A chill of horror ran down Hermione's spine and she turned her head mechanically towards Ron, who had stopped and was listening to Dobby with a frown on his face.

She didn't know anyone who could inspire so much fear.

No one but Umbridge.

"Who?" Harry pressed.

But Hermione could see he'd come to the same conclusion she had.

"Umbridge?" he breathed.

Dobby nodded slowly, as if the movement had taken some surreal effort, and it certainly had if he'd disobeyed a direct order.

"She hasn't discovered the D.A., has she, Dobby?" asked Harry in horror.

The elf didn't reply, but the answer could be read in his big, glassy eyes, wide with terror. He tried to hurt himself by slamming into Harry's lap, but Harry restrained him.

"Is she coming?" asked Harry in a low voice, although the entire group could hear him in the icy silence of the room.

"Yes, Harry Potter, yes!" yelled Dobby.

Just then, a loud bang rattled the stone walls and the chandelier above them flickered. In the same movement, Ginny rushed to Hermione's side, and Fred and George stood in front of them, facing the front door, wands held high.

Another bang rattled the walls and the chandelier flickered once more. Hermione could hear her heartbeat echoing against her temples and her hands grew clammy against the wood of her wand. Umbridge was here, she had discovered the D.A.. If she entered, she could incriminate every person in this room. Hermione didn't even know how many people there were that night.

The chandelier flickered on and off as a third explosion shook the stone walls. Several people approached the main group and the ranks tightened, forming a single block behind Harry. Ron slipped between her and Neville, and Hermione felt his forearm brush against hers. She counted the heads around them. There were more than twenty-five of them, and they all seemed to be feeling the same thing she was: a mixture of fear and determination. They all held their wands straight in front of them, just as Harry had taught them.

Harry grabbed Dobby's arm and hurriedly instructed him:

"Dobby, this is an order: go find the other elves in the kitchen immediately. If she asks you if you told me, don't hesitate to lie and tell her you didn't! And I forbid you to hurt yourself!"

"Thank you, Harry Potter." Dobby squealed.

He snapped his fingers and was gone. An even more violent tremor than the last three shook the Room of Requirement, and the mirror that covered the entire left wall exploded into a thousand pieces. Nigel Wolpert, a second-year Gryffindor who was closest, gasped so hard he almost fell backwards.

"Someone ratted us out." Ginny whispered, her eyes filled with rage and her mouth turned up in resentment. She sounded like Molly when one of her children did something naughty.

"But who?" muttered Hermione, looking around frantically. "Isn't everyone here?"

She hadn't even been able to find a replacement for Theo. As soon as the DA members had heard that Harry wanted them to try the Patronus Charm again, they'd all rushed over.

Ginny turned her head, one eyebrow arched, and Hermione hiccuped in surprise as she took in her hint:

"No!" Hermione protested quietly. "No, he'd never do that..."

Ginny didn't sound convinced. Yet Hermione could have easily bet her life that Theo would never have betrayed her like that. She was sure of it.

During this whispered discussion, Nigel had cautiously approached the wall hit by the explosion, followed by Harry, who analyzed it with equal suspicion. Shards of mirror creaked beneath their feet. Behind them stood all the DA students, ready to retaliate if an attack came.

There was no sound in the Room.

Harry and Nigel had almost reached the wall. They both lowered their heads, trying to catch a glimpse of something in a crack the size of Hermione's palm.

"Found them."

The voice was honeyed, almost crooning, but it had the effect of an ice-cold shower on Hermione.

Umbridge.

There she was, behind the wall.

Everything happened in a second.

"Bombarda Maxima."

Harry pulled Nigel back just as the wall exploded. Huge chunks of stone flew everywhere, and thank goodness Fred and George had stood in front of them, because Ginny and Hermione would have been unable to defend themselves in the chaos that followed. Thick black smoke billowed into the Room of Requirement from the debris, and through it Hermione saw Umbridge and Filch enter the room.

Hermione realized she was frozen in terror before Ron grabbed her arm and snapped her out of her trance. She grasped Ginny's hand and, without consulting each other, the three of them ran for the exit. Hermione's eyes stung from the smoke and several times she almost tripped over the stones on the floor, but Ron's grip was firm and he managed to guide her to the corridor. She could hear Umbridge's spells behind her, shrill and repetitive:

"Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy!"

"Hermione, come on!" yelled Ron, pulling her forward.

"Harry! Where's Harry?!"

She had dust in her throat, preventing her from breathing, let alone speaking. Her question was drowned out by a violent cough and the shattering of spells around them.

"Come on, we have to get out of here!" shouted Ron, running down the corridor.

"Where's Harry?" called Ginny to her brother.

"I don't know, I think he got caught..." he began without stopping.

"Ron!" yelled Hermione, trying to turn around. "We have to go and help him!"

"No!" he shouted. When Ron turned to her, his face was grayish and his blue eyes were all red. "Harry would resent me for the rest of my life if I tried to get him out of there, and even more if he found out I got you into this! We have to hide!"

"You're not dragging us anywhere, we're the ones who want to help him!" retorted Ginny coldly.

"Malfoy, he's here!" a voice shouted from behind them.

Hermione whipped her head around so quickly that her neck cracked. The pain that spread up her back was so intense that her breath immediately stopped and her entire spine stiffened. She screamed in pain before she could stop herself.

"What, what, what?" shouted Ron, startled by her screams. "Hermione, what is it?"

They stopped at the end of the corridor and Ron let go of Hermione's arm, who hastily put her palm to the back of her neck:

"I hurt my neck..." she said.

"Hide in there." Ron ordered as he opened the door to the girls' bathroom. "I'm going into the boys'. With any luck, we'll be able to escape when the coast is clear. Lock yourself in a stall and wait for me to come back for you. Hurry!"

He threw the girls inside and shut the door. They found themselves in the middle of the seventh floor bathroom, cut off from the explosive noise of the corridor. Hermione's neck hurt so badly she could see stars behind her eyelids. They entered the first stall and Hermione closed the lock with a quick spell.

"What right does he have to give us orders?" fumed Ginny. "Are you all right, Mione?"

"I'm fine." she lied. "And you?"

Ginny nodded, but had swallowed so much smoke that she spent a good minute coughing into her elbow, trying to disguise the sound as best she could at the risk of being discovered. They could hear hurried footsteps outside the door, but no one entered the bathroom.

"This isn't right." Ginny said when she could finally speak. "We shouldn't be hiding in here, we should be helping others, fighting!"

"No one was fighting." Hermione countered, despite feeling particularly useless in that isolated bathroom stall. "Umbridge was stunning everyone when Ron got us out of there. And I think she recruited some Slytherins to catch us, too."

"What? How do you know that?" asked Ginny in surprise.

"I heard someone calling for Draco." Hermione reluctantly confided.

Ginny furrowed her russet eyebrows before widening her eyes sharply as she realized something:

"Hermione, they're after Harry!" she exclaimed, scandalized. "Umbridge recruited them to target Harry, she's been trying to nail him for weeks! She's going to torture him for information!"

Hermione felt like she'd swallowed gray smoke again.

"We have to go and help him." Hermione decided.

Ginny didn't hesitate. She unlocked the cabin door and rushed out.

"Wait for me!" pleaded Hermione.

"Stay there and don't move your neck." Ginny ordered before leaving the bathroom.

Hermione could have laughed if her throat wasn't so swollen. It wasn't a stiff neck that was going to stop her from helping her best friend, there was no way she was going to stay out of the action while everyone else got caught: the DA members had trusted her when they signed up, she wasn't going to let them down at such a crucial time.

So Hermione wiped her watery eyes, took a deep breath of fresh air and, ignoring the pain in her neck, raised her arm to push open the bathroom door, but at the same moment someone from outside pushed her back and Hermione was thrown sideways between the door and the tiled wall.

"There, I've got one!" a familiar voice shouted.

Hermione pointed her wand in front of her, opened her mouth to cast a curse, any curse, but choked when she realized who was standing in front of her.

Pansy Parkinson.

They shared the same look of shock. Neither had expected to see the other at this moment. Pansy raised her wand in front of her, and despite the fact that Hermione clearly had the advantage, with a perfect field of aim, right at her throat, that she could immobilize her, stun her, throw her backwards, she did nothing.

Her brain had shut down.

She couldn't remember any of the spells she'd learned in her five years at Hogwarts.

She could have been holding a stick and still had the same use for it.

Hermione was incapable of hurting Draco's best friend. She could never look him in the eye again. She couldn't do it.

Pansy seemed to feel the same reluctance. They stared into each other's eyes for a long second, their wands pointed at each other. Hermione's arm trembled.

"Parkinson?" someone called from the corridor.

Pansy didn't look away.

"Was Theo with you?" she whispered abruptly.

"Wh-what?" asked Hermione, her voice quavering.

"Granger, concentrate. Was Theo with you tonight?" asked Pansy again urgently.

Hermione couldn't understand how she could ask her that question. How had she known that Theo had already been here? Had she guessed on her own?

"N-no, no." Hermione stammered. "No, he hasn't...come."

"Parkinson, have you found anyone? Do you want help?" the person in the corridor continued.

Hermione risked a glance at the door.

"Sorry, Granger." Pansy said, sounding sincere. "It's for him."

A spell burst from her wand and hit Hermione with full force.

The next moment, everything went black.

.

.

---

"How this girl could have the answer to every syllabus question up to seventh year but not realize how much he loved her was driving him crazy."

DA's shattering discovery omg! I went for the canon of the movie for this scene because I didn't really like the one in the book, I hope it was easy to visualize!

I'd also like to take this opportunity to invite you to listen to the brand new album by one of my best friends, thelyam_ on insta and tiktok. He's been working hard for years and he's very proud of his music, but he doesn't get the attention he deserves, so I'd like to recommend it to you (many people have said that he has the same voice as Conan Gray, if that works in his favor!), so don't hesitate to give it a listen and leave a positive review on his networks :)) thanks to everyone who will!

thelyam_/

/thelyam?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAacEGlc8n6r6hdSt6cTZWYlZ1n3hOoTWcTmHn5hynwLWPzskMUzh2Ca2scECCw_aem_bzrbUzFD3NHRpuCFMQfhag

And lastly, has anyone here read/is reading the latest Hunger Games novel and would like to share their dismay with me?