It had been two weeks.

Two exhausting, painstaking, glorious weeks.

Hermione felt as though she had never been so tired or fulfilled as she had been in the past fortnight working at Hogwarts. Her days were filled with work that ranged from back-breaking to leisurely and her nights were filled with dreamless sleep, as the work left her brain too tired to conjure up the usual sounds of screams and scent of blood.

She had never felt so accomplished and independent in her life, and spent a good majority of her time brainstorming ideas on how to repay George for what seemed like life-saving advice.

Her first few days amongst the prisoners had been a bit touch and go as she tried to lord over men, some of whom were twice her size, who saw her as nothing more than dirt. She had hoped more of the workers would be like Theo, who was always up for an amiable conversation, but the majority of the laborers were not on the chain gang because they were related to Death Eaters.

None of the workers had killed (or at least, they hadn't been caught). Kingsley would never have let murderers out of their cells no matter how much help was needed at Hogwarts; but they had tortured, planned, and run rampant with those who had, and they were more than offended that the person left in charge of them was the very kind of person they had wanted exterminated: muggle-borns.

Hermione had expected the backlash. She had enough common sense to know that the stares she got on her first day and in the days since were not those of admiration, but of disgust. However, she wasn't called the brightest witch of her age for nothing, and she was ready to prove her prowess with a wand the second one of the prisoners stepped out of line.

The moment came three days into her new assignment. Hermione had skipped breakfast that morning to get an early start with her team, and was a little bit more than grumpy after she was kept up all night by Peeves doing an impression of Celestina Warbeck directly outside her quarters.

It had rained the night before and the area in which the team was working was slippery. Hermione had resigned herself to simply watching over the team, not wanting to overwork herself when she was so very tired. She was standing on a slight incline, attempting to keep everyone in her sight line when her roaming eyes locked onto those of the walking ghost that was Draco Malfoy.

She had taken to watching over Malfoy particularly closely since she had seen his furious look in her direction on her first say, although this was the first time they had made eye contact since. The ire in his eyes caught her so off guard that she took a quick step back, losing her balance on the loose soil and landing hard in a small mud puddle behind her. After expelling a few choice curse words, Hermione pulled her wand out of her pocket with the intention of removing the mud that now covered the entire bottom half of her body and most of her arms. Before she could speak the incantation, however, a prisoner whose name she didn't know let out a cackle, pointing in her direction and yelling, "Too bad magic can't clean your blood as effectively, eh?" The stinging hex Hermione had hurled at him was so intense she had to summon Hagrid to take the prisoner to the hospital wing … his groin was much too swollen for him to walk on his own.

Hermione had faced quite a dressing down from McGonagall when she learned what had happened to the prisoner. While she agreed the man had been out of line, she couldn't believe that the young woman who had fought so hard for the rights of these men would be the first to attempt harming them.

She had spent the rest of that evening brooding in her room. It was total hypocrisy for her to have injured a prisoner when she had lost her mind in front of the Minister of Magic attempting to defend their rights. She resolved herself to apologize to the prisoner the next day, and ensure the others that she would not let her temper get the best of her again.

When she got out on the field the next day, however, her plan changed. While previously the prisoners had talked and loitered at times when they thought she wasn't looking, they now kept their heads down, getting more work done in that one day than in all the time she had been their leader. When she realized the change in her men, she wandered in Theo's direction, hoping he could give her some insight into the change.

"Their bloody scared of you!" he had laughed, before lowering his voice to a whisper. "And for good reason, too. Stubbins needed about four different potions to get that swelling down."

The man Theo had referred to as Stubbins was working the farthest from her spot and, interestingly enough, seemed to remain that way through the say no matter where Hermione stood on the field. Hermione justified his fear of her by saying that if it would get the school open sooner, her hex was absolutely worth it.

Yet, there was still the issue of Draco Malfoy. She had no idea what she had done to make him so angry with her, and when she mentioned her worries to Theo, it was the familiar boy next to him who answered her.

"He's like that with everyone," said Blaise Zabini, speaking with her for the first time. "He won't to talk to anyone, he barely eats, and when he pays any attention to anyone he just stares."

Hermione, who was temporarily taken aback by Zabini's sudden decision to get chatty, could see a hint of fear in his dark eyes.

"Are you worried about him?" she asked, hoping she wasn't pushing the boundaries of a non-existent relationship.

"He's my best mate," Zabini replied, his eyes unconsciously finding Malfoy's head a short distance away. "I don't know what happened to him towards the end of …well … everything, but he was never like this. Not much I can do about it from a cell, though."

Hermione felt a pang of guilt as she thought about these men, boys really, some younger than her, whose only time to interact with others was a few hours a day during which they slaved away in the sun. She suddenly understood Theo's and Blaise's desire to talk to her; besides the other inmates, they had no opportunity to communicate with anyone at all. She made a mental note to look into that as soon as possible.

Needless to say, the past two weeks had been non-stop for Hermione, and she couldn't be happier. As she strolled out to the west side of the castle, where her team would be removing debris that day, she decided that she was going to make at least some headway with Malfoy before the day was out.

By lunchtime, her plan seemed like a bust. Every time she drifted in Malfoy's general direction, he would shadow her, almost like he was purposefully leaving space between them.

She was getting very frustrated not only by Malfoy's evasiveness, but by Theo and Blaise, as well, who took every chance they could to laugh at her as she danced around the group.

When she saw that the sun was starting to fall in the sky, she realized if she didn't make a move soon, she would miss her opportunity and have to wait until tomorrow to confront him. She found her opening when Malfoy knelt down with another prisoner, attempting to leverage out a particularly stubborn piece of stone. For the first time all day, Malfoy had his back turned to her. She was a little disappointed in him, he should have known better.

When she was within a few feet of Malfoy and his working buddy, she subconsciously began treading more lightly on the ground, expecting Malfoy to hear her coming and run in the opposite direction. What happened instead was that she tripped on her own feet, and landed on his back.

Malfoy's face missing the piece of stone he was working on by inches, although it made quite an impact on the ground when he couldn't get his hands up in time to protect himself. As soon as Hermione realized what had happened, she rushed over to Malfoy, grabbing his arm to help him up. He was having none of it, however, as he ripped his arm from her grasp to wipe the dirt off of his face.

"I'm so sorry, Malfoy!" she screeched, sounding more like a distressed owl than a person. "I-I tripped and then … well … you were there and-and … "

She couldn't seem to get the words out. She suddenly found herself under that intense glare of his, although being this close to it made it feel enormously different.

She could see the flecks of blue in his grey eyes, make out the lines of his eyelashes, but other than the anger she had been faced with everyday, there was no emotion to be seen there.

It scared her. Something was severely wrong with this man, no boy, who stood before her. He was broken beyond recognition, to the point where it seemed as though anger was the only emotion he was capable of feeling. This was a boy who was indoctrinated by his family and forced to do horrible things in his mission to keep them safe. She felt like she was looking at the human incarnation of a house elf, a frightened being who knew no better than to serve who he was told to serve.

In that moment, as she stared into his eyes, she made a terrible mistake. She looked at Malfoy and assumed that his anger was the way he masked his pain, and that he just needed someone to break through, someone to prove to him that not everyone wanted him working on a chain gang and living in a cell. She thought he just wanted help, and in doing so, she underestimated him.

She never saw his arm grab her wand from her pocket.

Everything that happened next was a blur. Suddenly she was being spun around, her own wand being held to her temple as Malfoy began shouting to the other prisoners.

"WHO IS READY FOR A SHOW?" His voice was scratchy from being silent for so long, but the workers heard him fine and suddenly rushed over, although whether or not the intended to help her or Malfoy, Hermione didn't know.

She was trying to wiggle from his grasp, but he had a bruising hold on her shoulder and the point of her wand was pressing so hard into the side of her head, that she wondered how she wasn't bleeding.

"Draco, mate, no," Hermione heard a familiar voice say to her left. As she tilted her head slightly she could see Blaise and Theo standing together with matching visages of shock.

"Stay out of this Blaise," Malfoy retorted quickly, but Hermione felt as though his grasp on her had slightly lessened; she had a bit more room to move about, and she could see the side of Malfoy's face.

His sharp profile was pointed towards his two friends as they tried to reason with him. Hermione barely heard the conversation as her eyes were fixated on the hand which was holding her wand. She felt as though she might be able to grab it from him if she moved quickly enough. But it felt wrong. Malfoy was smart; he wouldn't make it so easy for her to escape from him moments after he attacked her.
She had to try, though. Hermione quickly lunged to the side, grasping for Malfoy's wrist as he realized what was happening. But he was just too strong. He threw her to the ground, making sure to keep Hermione's wand trained on her. Hermione go up to dodge left, only to see a green flash of light erupt a few feet in front of her. She dropped to the ground in shock; Malfoy was trying to kill her.

But, wait, was he really? He was the only one of the field with a wand that did anything more that lift heavy rocks. The other prisoners seemed too dumbstruck by what was happening to attempt disarming him, not that they would have much of a change with only their bare hands. He was unopposed, had a clear shot, and had missed Hermione by almost two yards. She couldn't help but to think that he had missed her on purpose.

As she scrambled back to her feet, she noticed that Malfoy had used her wand to unlock his chains, and he was pursuing her across the grounds. Realizing that none of the other workers were at risk, Hermione ran for it. By the time she reached the lake, she had a stitch in her side and tears running down her face.

She had failed. She had run up and down the halls of Hogwarts screaming like a banshee that she could take care of the prisoners by herself, and with one lapse of judgment, she had proven herself wrong.

Once she reached the edge of the lake, Hermione turned around to face Malfoy. Her decision was made, if she was going to die, she wasn't going to be hit by a spell while she was running away. She was Hermione Bloody Granger, and she was not a coward.

As Malfoy approached she saw that his eyes had changed in the few minutes since she had first fallen on him; they were almost relaxed. As though Hermione couldn't get any more confused, when he approached her, he tossed her wand on the ground by her feet.

Hermione looked frantically between the wand and the enigma of a man standing in front of her, trying to figure out what the trick was here. Did he someone switch her wand with a fake one? No, that was impossible. Her wand was intricately carved, there was no way he could find one so convincing, not to mention he would have had to plan this bizarre turn of events.

"Pick it up, Granger," Malfoy growled as he switched his weight between his feet. He was nervous, she could tell, but she had no idea why. She'd never felt so confused in her life.

"What are you doing?" she asked, trying to keep her voice level. Her mind was racing and her hand itched for the comforting presence of her wand, but she needed to know what he was doing.

"Just pick up the bloody wand, Granger! I just attacked you! I tried to kill you! Surely you must know how to protect yourself," he replied, although his voice was losing some of its resolve. That was when Hermione realized he wasn't nervous at all, he was scared.

"Why did you miss me on purpose?" she asked without thinking. "Why would you give me my wand back? Malfoy … Draco …"

Hermione's use of his name seemed to make him snap.

"JUST KILL ME DAMMIT!"

Hermione felt like she had stopped breathing. He had put on a show for the other prisoners, making them watch as he threw a killing curse far enough from her so that he wouldn't mistakenly kill her. Then, he had chased her away and given her an opening. The prisoners couldn't follow them, not in those chains, and there were no other workers on the grounds. Draco Malfoy had worked out the perfect set up for his own murder.

Too bad he could never have predicted the reaction of the one he expected to relish in the death blow.

Hermione sank to her knees and cried. She cried because she hadn't in two weeks, and sometimes, when terrible things like war and death happen, you just need to cry. She cried because she knew she was in over her head with the prisoners, because she didn't know how she could possibly admit that to the people she had assured of her prowess; but most of all, she cried because Malfoy was standing in front of her asking to die. The little boy who had once relished in taunts and barbs and Quidditch rivalries had been left an empty shell, one that had plotted out its own demise.

Hermione barely heard the commotion that followed. It seemed as though someone had sent for help following Malfoy's escape, and soon, dozens of people were streaming out of the castle towards the lake where Malfoy and Hermione were clearly visible.

No one bothered to question why Malfoy wasn't putting up a fight, but in the quickly moment when Hermione looked up, she locked eyes with him once again. His eyes were no longer angry or relieved, there was nothing there. It was like her first day all over again. Whatever hope Malfoy had found in his plot to die, it was completely dashed now.

Hermione just continued to cry; she cried for the boy who had no choice.