"My... my glamour? Draco... they've kidnapped and brainwashed us and you're choosing that to focus on?"

"Would you take it off now?" he asked softly.

She stared at him. There was something sad about his expression which made her drag Snape's wand across her face, pulling the glamour off with it. Her features remained much the same but the rosy glow in her cheeks faded and her expression became more pronounced.

"Ah, there she is." he smiled, seeing the face he loved so dearly reappear. "Her, my only."

She shook her head in disbelief and helped him to sit up on the threadbare sofa. "I don't know how you realised I was wearing it-" she muttered, getting to her feet.

She approached where Snape lay on the cold flagstones. She intended to remobilise his body from the neck up so as to question him.

"Hermione! What are you doing?" Draco shouted.

She turned to look at him. "I'm finding out what the hell is going on here!"

"You mean... you don't know?"

Hermione struggled to keep her temper under control. She hated it when she failed to understand something.

"Clearly." she snapped.

The sadness in Draco's expression was fast becoming a look of sheer agony. "Hermione... Tell me what you remember."

She thought for a moment. "I remember... talking to Harry about you coming on the mission... And then Snape asked to talk to me in the garden... and you wont believe what the git asked me to do-"

Draco sighed, stopping Hermione mid-flow. "What?" she asked.

"Just a guess Jane," he replied, "but did he ask you to leave me alone?"

"How did you know?"

"And- wild stab in the dark here - did you just wake up to find Snape in your memories?"

"The sick bastard was altering them!" she replied, pointing her wand at Snape's throat. The prostrate wizards eyes widened. "Draco, tell me what is going on!"

Draco expression became one of absolute sorrow. "I thought that you understood." he murmured. "That you realised we... don't have very long... Oh Jane."

"What? You're not making any sense!"

He did not answer her. He was hunched over his knees; cradling his head in his hands. She had never seen him look so defeated. Even when they were in the ministry... he'd had an air of contempt for the world, preventing him from ever being completely beaten by it. Hermione got slowly to her feet and returned to sit beside him. She was so confused she moved as if on autopilot.

"Draco?" she whispered, cautiously running a hand down his arm. The movement seemed to pull his posture down further. She did not try it again.

"Hermione," he spoke gravely, "you are going to have to let Snape finish what he was doing."

***

Snape closed the door behind him gently. A moment later he cast a silencing charm upon it; the thick oak apparently not beng thick enough to block the sound of Grangers sobs.

Ginny's voice was barely audible when she spoke.

"How long are you going to give them?" she murmured.

Snape just sighed and shook his head.

"Oh." her voice caught and she did not trust herself to speak again. She turned her gaze to the floor and hoped Snape had not noticed her tears.

"Miss Weasley, they both understand it is the only option."

Ginny nodded but could not look up. She kept her attention on a crack in the flagstone beneath her feet. Snape trying to sound reassuring was not the most comforting of things. A tear rolled off the end of her nose and landed just adjascent to the crack that she focused on so intently. Snape sighed again and Ginny, quite unexpectedly, found herself being pulled into an awkward embrace.