Disclaimer: These characters are not mine. I just wanted to borrow them for a little bit.

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Hermione Granger threw the last couple of items into her charmed bag, tucked her wand into her robe, and said good-bye to her friends as she made her way out of Gryffindor tower.

It was the middle of March, and she was bubbling with excitement. It wasn't because the weather had taken a turn and begun to warm up a bit, or that apparition lessons were going well … Her parents were celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary on Sunday, and she had big plans to surprise them by showing up to their Hampstead home unannounced.

Although the visit would seem spontaneous to her parents, her little trip was anything but. Hermione had spent the better part of a week working out all the little details, including obtaining permission from Professor Dumbledore so that she could leave school grounds.

She couldn't wait to see the look on her mum and dad's faces.

"Hermione! Wait!" A voice called out from behind her, breaking into her thoughts. It was Harry. "So, you'll be gone all weekend?" He asked.

"Yes," Hermione smiled brightly. "The plan is to spend as much time with my parents as possible. I may possibly forgo returning on Sunday night, and make my way back on Monday morning … In time for classes, of course."

Harry nodded. "We'll miss you," he said. "But have fun. And tell your parents 'Happy Anniversary' for me."

"I will! And don't you get into too much trouble."

Harry shrugged and they embraced briefly, then Hermione turned and continued on her way.

We'll miss you.

She wondered if Ron even cared that she was going to be gone all weekend. It would certainly free up some time for him and Lavender Brown to be as uninhibited as they pleased in the Gryffindor common room. Ugh. The thought made her sick.

Hermione turned her attention back to her surprise visit home.

She had one final stop on her agenda before she exited Hogwarts for the weekend … A brief trip to the Potions classroom to prepare some ingredients for an upcoming class assignment. Sixth year studies had been particularly demanding, and knowing that she'd be gone for the span of two full days, she wanted to get a jump on things in order to be fully prepared the Monday she returned (while still being able to really enjoy herself during her weekend at home).

Heading downstairs towards the dungeons, Hermione passed some stray fourth years traveling in the opposite direction and knew that Professor Slughorn's final class of the day had already ended. Since she was part of his "Slug Club," she had been given special permission to use the room and ingredients after hours. She would have to remind herself to thank him the next time she saw him.

Approaching the Potions classroom, the number of students began to dissipate until hers were the only footsteps echoing along the dark corridor. She hummed to herself as she hurried along.

When finally arriving at her destination, all was quiet and there was no one inside. She placed her charmed bag on one of the student tables toward the front of the classroom and draped her robe over the back of a chair. Heading toward the workroom, she noticed a handwritten note on the Professor's desk which read:

Miss Granger,

Take as much time as you need this afternoon.

The workroom and classroom doors have been charmed to lock behind you when you are finished.

Just keep them open in the meantime.

Professor Slughorn

Hermione picked up the parchment, folded it twice, and stuffed it into the back pocket of her jeans. Then she made her way through the large door to the separate room where a majority of the Potions ingredients and supplies were kept. It was already cracked open, and not wanting the door to "lock behind her" as Professor Slughorn had charmed it to do, Hermione swung it into the main classroom as far as it would go. She picked up a heavy iron cauldron from a nearby desk and placed it on the ground in front of it. Satisfied that it would hold, she entered the interior room.

Since it had been fashioned from an old cell within the dungeons, the Potions workroom was quite a bit larger than a typical closet. There was a large sink for washing glassware in one corner, next to a wooden preparation table cluttered with opened and dirty containers of all shapes and sizes. Wooden shelves hung above it on the wall, overflowing with more bits and bobs along its dusty length. The longest wall of the room across from the door was lined floor to ceiling with large cabinets and bookcases that held various laboratory notebooks and other potion-making supplies, as well as meticulously labeled ingredients in a range of containers. In the far corner of the room opposite the sink, there was an open drain that, in earlier years when the room was used for its intended purpose, would have been hooked up to a prisoner's toilet. In its current state, however, it was better suited for disposing of the unused potions that were made during class (rather than dumping everything down the sink).

Even though there was plenty of room for a single person to walk around within the space, Hermione felt a bit claustrophobic as she crossed the threshold. Since it was an interior room within the castle, the space did not have any windows or natural light of its own, just some torches that were currently burning on either side of the doorway, making the room more dim than she would have liked.

Wanting to be on her way home as soon as possible, she set to her task of preparing her ingredients ahead of Monday's class. Locating the three things that she needed from the bookshelves (Graphorn horn, Billywig stings, and Chizpurfle carapaces), she gathered the containers in her arms and carried them over to the wooden table next to the sink. She pushed some of the dirty bottles out of the way, moved some into the basin of the sink, and located a couple clean ones so that she had somewhere to store her progress. Turning toward the row of bookcases once more, Hermione located a mortar and pestle so that she could grind everything according to the instructions that she had already memorized and carried them to where she had placed the three ingredients.

She pushed a strand of brown hair behind her ear and diligently got to work.

Hopefully, she'd be on her way home in the next hour or so.

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Draco Malfoy let out an exasperated sigh. He had been spending countless hours in the Room of Requirement, trying to fix the Vanishing Cabinet inside—to no avail. He was making progress, but the spells and charms he'd tried so far did not seem to be enough.

"For Merlin's sake!" He exclaimed in frustration. It felt good to break the silence of the room. The walls had been creeping in on him, lately.

Spending too much time alone could do that to a person.

He sat down on the floor next to the cabinet, resting his back against it, and set his wand down on the ground next to him. Holding his face in his hands, he massaged his temples with his slender fingers and tried to think.

He'd been at it for what felt like forever, and his current incantations just weren't working.

Maybe he was missing something?

Maybe he needed something more?

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the cabinet with a thump. Think, Draco, think he urged himself.

Then an idea hit him …

If potions could grow bones and heal burns on human flesh, perhaps they could also repair cabinets … It certainly would be worth a try, considering what was on the line.

He ran a hand through his white-blond hair, his gray eyes snapping open to scan the room as a jumble of thoughts rattled around in his brain. He had originally been so excited to take on this very important mission for Lord Voldemort, but now he wasn't so sure. Fixing the cabinet was difficult by its own right, but he was also contending with the notion that maybe he didn't want to fix it at all … Especially since the task that came after seemed more and more unpleasant as the time ticked by. It was all starting to eat at him, slowly from the inside out, and he didn't like the way it made him feel.

Pulling himself to his feet, Draco straightened his Slytherin necktie, smoothed his crumpled vest and shirt, and prepared to head to the Potions classroom. He knew that he'd been letting himself go a bit lately, and that his appearance was suffering. He wanted to appear as normal as possible in case he ran into someone that he knew along the way ... It would be easier to divert their attention if he didn't look a bloody mess.

Exiting the room, Draco made his way down the hall and toward the dungeons. Classes would be over for the day, he knew, and things were fairly quiet already—he'd only spotted a handful of other students along his route. He grinned knowing that he could probably sneak in and out without going noticed.

The trend of sparse students continued the closer he got, until it was just him walking alone through the dungeon. As he neared the Potions classroom, he noticed that the door was already open and he slowed his approach. Quietly creeping up, he listened for any errant noises and peered through the doorframe.

He released a relieved breath.

The room was empty.

Stepping inside, he slowly and carefully pulled the large door closed behind him, feeling a greater sense of privacy by doing so. He moved stealthily through the space—his eyes trained on the open workroom door at the opposite side of the classroom. He was so focused on his target that he didn't even notice the small bag or wizard's robes on the desk to his right as he passed.

Draco's eye caught a cauldron on the floor in front of the large door and he scooped it up, deciding to use it as a container for the ingredients he was about to borrow, since he'd left his robes at the Vanishing Cabinet and didn't have many pockets to fill.

He was about two feet into the small interior room when he nearly bumped into her. Back turned to him and rifling through some bottles on a bookshelf, he knew by the frizzy brown hair that it was Hermione Granger.

Still looking down at the container in her hand, she turned in his direction and took a step towards him. She was obviously engrossed in whatever she was working on, because she still didn't notice him until she had physically collided into his figure.

Taking a puzzled step back and finally looking up at him, recognition spread across her face in an instant. "Malfoy?!"

Draco clutched the cauldron to his chest and narrowed his eyes at her. "What of it, Granger? Can't another student rummage around the Potions classroom after hours?"

Still eying him suspiciously, she didn't notice that the door was slowly working its way closed behind him. "I have special permission from Professor Slughorn," she said in a haughty tone. "I highly doubt that you've received the same clearance. You shouldn't be here."

"Why are you always so insistent on following the rules?" Draco hissed. "And, besides, I'll be out of your hair in a …"

WHOMP!

The heavy door closed behind them, cutting him off before he could finish his sentence.

Hermione dropped the vial that she had been holding, the glass shattering as it hit the floor. She shoved Draco aside and lunged toward the door. "You idiot! It's charmed to lock once it's closed!" She exclaimed, reaching for the doorknob with both hands. She twisted it and gave the door a strong push by leaning into it with her shoulder, but, as she had anticipated, it didn't budge. She pounded against the wood a couple of times with her fists before turning back around to face Draco, an angry glare in her eyes. "Now look what you've done! We're stuck in here!"

"Bloody hell, Granger," he drawled, putting the cauldron down next to the sink. "Don't get your knickers in a twist. A simple counter spell will open it right up. All I've got to do is …" He shoved a hand into his trouser pocket where he expected his wand to be, but it wasn't there. "Shit."

Hermione's eyes grew large and round as the reality of their situation fully dawned on her. "I don't have my wand either," she muttered quietly. "I left it out there in my robes since I thought I wouldn't be needing it."

"I must have set mine down before I headed over here," Draco replied, as he fished through his pockets again, hoping that his wand would just materialize. "I've been a bit … preoccupied lately."

"Wonderful!" Hermione shouted, throwing her hands up in the air. "We truly are stuck in here!"

"Let me try something." Draco used a hand to roughly nudge her away from the closed door and approached it himself. He placed his palms against its surface, closed his eyes in concentration, and recited a few spells, but the door held steady. Wandless magic was useless on whatever charm the Professor had used.

"You said your wand is in the classroom," he stated after a moment. "Summon it to yourself."

Hermione's brown eyes lit up for a second as she crouched down to survey the space between the stone floor and the bottom of the door. It didn't look big enough for a wand to pass under, but it was worth a try. "Accio wand!" She called out.

In an instant, there were two distinct tapping sounds, presumably her wand hitting against the other side of the door and then clattering off the stone floor. She bent down farther to try and look through the crack. "Accio wand!" She called out again, watching as she could make out the grip of her wand mere inches from her nose. "It's right there, but there is no way to grab it," she stated matter-of-factly. "The space under the door is just too narrow. I can't squeeze my fingers far enough!"

Draco crossed his arms over his chest and let out a snorting sound. "I don't know why you're so worried," he muttered. "Potter and Weasley will come looking for you soon enough, and we'll be able to go our separate ways."

Hermione looked up at him from her position on the ground and shook her head slowly. "I was going home to surprise my parents this weekend. Everyone is expecting me to be gone …" She thought for a moment. "Will anyone come looking for you when you don't show up to the Great Hall for dinner tonight?"

He knew she didn't mean it as an insult, but her pointed question hit him in the gut anyway. He'd been keeping strange hours for the better part of the school year and pushing himself away from anyone that could have even remotely been considered his friend. "Probably not," he replied.

"So, that settles it then. We're stuck in here," Hermione sighed.

"Bloody figures," Draco muttered under his breath. "Of all the people to be stuck with."

"Well, I don't like it any more than you do!" Hermione shouted up at him. "If you wouldn't have been sneaking around behind my back, this wouldn't have happened … Just what were you coming in here for, anyway?"

"As if I'd answer your questions, Mudblood," Draco spat. "It's none of your fucking business."

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him but held her tongue. There was no use in provoking Draco Malfoy. They were literally trapped in a large closet together with no way of knowing how long they'd be imprisoned. It would likely be until Monday, she wagered, when Professor Slughorn opened everything up for his first period class, unless by some miracle he needed to stop by sooner than that.

Ignoring the seething blond in the corner, Hermione got to her feet and looked through the cabinets for some sort of broom and pan so that she could clean up the glass from the container she had dropped. She could feel his stony eyes on her, but she proceeded in her task anyway … Better to keep busy and, hopefully, make the time go by faster.

"Just what were you doing in here?" Draco's voice cut the silence as she found what she was looking for and attended to the broken glass.

"I was getting a jump on Monday's assignment," she replied, focused on sweeping up the glass and not even glancing in his direction.

"Typical," he snorted.

Again, Hermione ignored him as she finished cleaning the mess she had made.

"Just think," Draco continued, goading her, "if you weren't so bloody bookish, we wouldn't even be in this situation."

"That's enough of that," Hermione snapped back, making eye contact with him again. "As I said before, I had permission to be here … You're the one that's gotten us into this mess!"

Draco held her gaze as he crossed to the far end of the room and sat down, leaning his back against the wall. He pulled his knees up to this chest, crossed his arms over them, and rested his chin on his arms, studying her coolly. "Then I suggest you stay on your side of the room—over there—and I'll stay on mine. I wouldn't want to cause you any more trouble."

"That sounds just fine to me!" Hermione chirped, turning her back to him and heading back to the wooden table to complete her work.

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Hours later, Hermione and Draco were both seated on their opposite sides of the room. The lighting from the torches on the wall hadn't changed, but the watch on Hermione's wrist told her that it was now half past seven. She wished she had a book to read or something productive to do (she'd finished her Potions preparations long ago) because her present company was not making the time pass with any sort of speed.

She looked across the room at Draco. He was in the same sitting position as before, but now, his eyes were closed. The features of his face did not seem as hard as usual, so she concluded that he must have dozed off in his boredom.

Being careful not to disturb him, Hermione stood up from her position near the wooden work table and took a few steps toward the bookcases of supplies. Earlier in the day, she had noticed a large box on one of the bottom shelves closest to him that appeared to contain cleaning cloths and blankets of some sort. If she was going to have to sleep on the floor, most likely for the next few nights, she wanted to at least try and be somewhat comfortable. She bent down to look through the box and its contents and pulled out what appeared to be a tablecloth. The fabric was thin, and it wasn't soft or cozy in any way, but at least it would block the cold chill that radiated from the dungeon's stone floor. As she was bringing it back to the opposite side of the room, Draco's voice startled her.

"I thought I told you to stay on your side of the room, Granger."

Hermione turned to look at him. His position still hadn't changed, but his gray eyes were now open and fixed on her. "I am on my side," she said firmly.

"You are now," he countered. "But you weren't a moment ago."

Hermione folded the tablecloth longways and laid it along the wall underneath the wooden preparation table to shield her a bit from the torch light. "Sod off, Malfoy. I was just grabbing something to sleep on," she replied, climbing under the table to fix her makeshift bed. "I won't cross into your territory any more tonight."

"All the better," he huffed.

Hermione settled in under the table and lay down on her right side. She pulled her knitted jumper around her face and looked toward the other wall where Draco was sitting. He had closed his eyes again, presumably settling in for the night like she was.

Of all the people to be stuck with ...

For as long as she'd known him, Malfoy had always been an arsehole, but something was a little different—a little off—about him this year. She remembered thinking he looked ill earlier in the term. Harry didn't see it and shrugged her off when she expressed her concern, but it was pretty obvious. The skin around Draco's eyes had seemed darker and more sunken than usual, and he looked exhausted. Not just physically exhausted, but mentally exhausted as well. Like something was slowly eating away at his psyche.

He had always been a talented wizard and Quidditch player, but he wasn't performing at the same level this year and she couldn't remember the last time she'd seen him out on the Quidditch pitch. He was distracted and almost certainly consumed by something else … But, what?

Maybe she could figure it out by the end of the weekend.

She knew it would be difficult because he was still as argumentative as ever—the circumstances that were affecting him hadn't softened that aspect of his personality—but she could try. At the very least, it would provide her with a mystery to pass the time.

Although she wasn't particularly tired, Hermione sighed and closed her eyes. She had been trapped in the room with Draco Malfoy for less than half of a day, and he was already grating on her nerves.

She wondered how they would both survive the entire weekend.

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a/n: Okay, okay ... I know this is a commonly used Dramione trope (being stuck together in a confined space), but I just had to give it a try! As a science teacher, I have often used a little "prep room" to get things ready for lab classes. It just makes sense to me that Potions would hava similar set-up.

This is my first ever attempt at a Dramione fic, so reviews and feedback are encouraged! As much as I ship these two forever and always, I'm going to try really hard to keep this one canon compliant, including that blasted epilogue … So, their relationship (if you want to call it that) will be short-lived, but still, hopefully a fun read!