NOTE: This is a completed oneshot rework/restructuring of what used to be an unfinished five chapter story. I realized the story came to a natural coda in chapter four and deleted everything afterward, but otherwise there haven't been many edits, basically just tweaks to the end to make it feel more complete. Hope you like it. :)

Speechwriter

Dear Mum,

I

Hermione stopped. She pressed the crisp quill tip once more to the parchment, leaving a bead of jet-black ink, but she only found herself putting down the tawny feather again.

She was dry of words. What was there to write? She couldn't put the feeling down on parchment, not in a way that her parents could understand.

It was just strange being back after all that had happened, that was all.

For the first months of her seventh year, Hermione had sometimes thought she saw bloodstains on the floors of Hogwarts. But she always shook away the inclination before it could ruffle her, and she buried herself back in her books. The imaginary crimson splotches faded, after a while. And along with them, the ache in her chest eased slightly, her tongue loosened, and her stride grew more confident.

Writing the letters had been easier before that fade, when everything had been fresh and raw. Mum, she'd write, with tears ripping their way down her cheeks. Mum, I'm angry all the time, about nothing at all. Mum, I'm scared for Ron, for Harry, out trying to track down the Death Eaters. I want to be with them, but part of me is glad I'm here and safe instead, and I feel selfish for feeling that way.

Mum, I'm lonely. And still afraid.

But there was none of that now. Now she was the cool and sensible Hermione Granger, known to throw only the occasional stress-induced fit or make the perhaps-more-than-occasional snide remark. Now she was expected to be herself, and it took so much effort she almost couldn't bear it.

Hogwarts's current seventh year was a conglomerate of her own year and the year below hers. She still felt strange sitting in classes with Ginny, but stranger was the number of students missing from Hogwarts altogether. Many families considered the ex-battlefield unsafe; as a result, the enrollment numbers at Hogwarts had plummeted. Those at Beauxbatons and Durmstrang had skyrocketed.

Hermione thought that was absurd. Though Karkaroff had gone, anyone who refused to admit Durmstrang's lasting inclination toward the Dark Arts was either delusional or highly creative with the information they chose to absorb. Then again, mostly Slytherins had gone to the Scandinavian school. Hermione couldn't say she was surprised.

But she felt the result of the transfers in the empty halls and the clear grounds, the lonely smattering of students in the Great Hall at mealtime. Worse, Hogsmeade had been declared off-limits for students while crews of wizards rebuilt its damaged buildings. In fact, parts of Hogwarts itself were still undergoing reparation, though the New Year rapidly approached.

And with it, midterm exams marched forward. Hermione worried loudly, outwardly, and frequently, bringing stacks of books to the dinner table. But she could hardly focus with all the empty space around her, because it reflected what she couldn't admit to herself.

She didn't care anymore.

She wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to. She would have killed to be the girl who wasn't stuck in the rut. Over the summer, Hermione had pulled Ginny Weasley out of that rut. And in doing so, she had buried herself.

She had needed so much force to help Ginny face her losses. But it wasn't loss that consumed Hermione; it was something less concrete. She didn't even know, really, what it was. What if the thing she had to overcome had changed her too much for her to return to who she had been?

In short, what if the rut was too deep?

What if she was inextricable?

Hermione sank in the seat at her desk, her sharp brown eyes staring at the wall before her. Her nerveless hands smoothed her uniform; her lips pursed and frowned without her full consent.

She realized what she wanted to write. But she couldn't ask it of her parents, who were still so disoriented, who were still adjusting to the truth.

Mum, what do I do now?

#

"That exam was awful," Ginny said. Her voice rang off the Owlery's icy windowpanes. "I bet you made full marks on everything, though."

Hermione folded her arms. "I wouldn't make that assumption so quickly."

"I would."

"Oh, honestly," said Hermione, a bit half-heartedly. She's probably right, said the voice in the back of her head. Not that it matters.

A pint-sized owl hooted at the window. Ginny lunged for the latch and snatched Pig out of the air. As he wriggled, the oversized letter flopping around on his leg, Ginny let out an exasperated sigh. "Hold still, Pig – let go, it's our damn letter – I swear, once Hedwig gets back –"

With an indignant squawk, Pig flopped onto the windowsill and held out his leg. Ginny wrestled the cumbersome load of parchment from his talons and ripped the string off, scanning Ron's endless scrawl.

"Macnair!" she said. "They've got Macnair, that bastard." A pause. "And someone named Thorfinn Rowle. Never heard of him."

Hermione frowned. "I think he was one of the ones who attacked Ron, Harry, and me at Tottenham Court Road."

"Oh, well." Ginny shrugged. "He's in Azkaban now. Looks like the hunt's going well." She peeled Harry's letter off the back of Ron's and tucked it into her pocket. "Here, for you," she said, shoving Ron's letter at Hermione. "I'm off to read in peace. Don't send Pig off without telling me – I'll have a reply for Harry sometime tomorrow."

As Ginny clambered down the stairs, Hermione perched herself on the windowsill, which was somewhat clearer of droppings than the floor. She unfolded the parchment.

Dear Hermione,

Harry, the others, and I are in some town in Germany. I'm not going to bother trying to write the name, it's ridiculous and you'll probably tell me I'm spelling it wrong.

A few days ago we were in Berlin and we heard of a few Death Eaters hiding in this town. So we went in, looked around, and I thought to ask the bartender if he'd seen anyone dodgy, because when the Dark Lord's defeated and you're on the run, why not have a few drinks, right? In any case, we caught two out of three. Macnair, for one. The git was screaming and crying for mercy when we found him. The other was that bloke Thorfinn Rowle. He had his wand to his head – about to knock himself off, probably – but we disarmed him first.

Wish you were here, Hermione. We could use you – I swear you'd be more help in a pinch than some of these Aurors. Some of them are still in a state about Tonks, and it reminds me of Fred.

Dunno, it's hard for me to talk about Fred, still. Even write about him, really.

Harry won't shut up about Ginny, of course. It's not that I'm not all right with him being with her, but I just wouldn't mind if he were a little more … I don't know, quiet about it, especially when we're tramping around these damn woods all day and that's all I've got to listen to. The other Aurors don't talk much. Figures, doesn't it?

I wish I could hear your voice. It'd be a right sight better than these Wailing Polyglot Blackbirds they've got around here. Can't do anything without hearing the damn things yelling curse words in Arabic and Vietnamese and Russian. It's not even fun, because I don't speak any of the languages they do.

And I thought we'd be done with forests after last year. So much for that.

I don't know, though, things might still get interesting. I've heard there's a vampire around here. Hopefully we'll go check up on him, make sure he's not eating any Muggles, before trying to find the Death Eater who got away.

I'm sick of Death Eaters – I only realized the other day it's been seven bloody months. Can't believe it's taken this long, with the entire Wizarding World looking out for them and all. Come to think of it, we haven't caught Yaxley, and we haven't heard word from anyone else where he could be, so it might be him that escaped. I'll keep you posted.

I hope your exams went well. Give my love to Ginny and Luna and the others.

All my love,

Ron

Hermione folded the letter back up, feeling a flash of an urge to Apparate to Berlin and find him. Get out of these stifling walls.

But the instinct faded almost immediately. She slipped the parchment into her pocket and hurried down the stairs, emerging into a deserted stone hallway. As she turned the corner, she smacked right into Professor Flitwick.

Her hip collided with his face, which cracked unpleasantly upon impact. He squeaked and fixed his nose with a flick of his wand, turning his eyes up to her. "Ms. Granger!" he said, straightening his robes with a wince. "I'm so very sorry; I should have been watching my step, I suppose –"

"No, no. I'm sorry, Professor," Hermione said. But as he headed up to the Owlery, Hermione realized she wasn't sorry at all, or even surprised, really. When they'd collided, she'd felt as blank as if she'd been expecting it, and she felt as blank now as if it hadn't happened at all. As if she hadn't just broken her teacher's nose.

It unsettled her, the automatic lie, the automatic cover-up. Of course she'd lied before, but never so instinctively. And the nature of it was so foreign. She'd lied to conceal her feelings before - but this was the opposite. Pretending to care, especially when it came to teachers, was something Hermione had never even had to conceive of.

She tried to rationalize it away for a heartbeat. She tried to tell herself that this was inconsequential. But it had been a pattern for a while now, and Hermione knew it, and if she was going to lie to others, then she supposed she might as well be truthful to herself.

She had turned into one of those people who said "I'm fine" when anyone asked if they were all right. But she wasn't fine at all, was she?

She turned the paper in her pocket over. Why didn't she miss Ron more? She wanted to miss Ron. She wanted to feel the constriction around her heart when she saw his handwriting; she wanted to long for his hands and his lips and his touch. But she didn't long for anything except a respite.

Respite from what?

Biting her lip, frowning slightly, she swept down the hall.

"Hermione!" called a voice from the top of the Grand Staircase.

She caught Seamus Finnegan's eye and approached him. "Seamus. How are –"

"Did you hear?"

"Hear what?"

"Who's come back to Hogwarts," he said darkly.

Hermione sighed. "Oh, Merlin. Who?"

"Malfoy."

She slumped over the edge of the staircase. "You've got to be joking."

"No. I heard his father knows some of the N.E.W.T. administrators, so apparently he thought he'd just show back up here for the spring term so he could take the finals. Don't know why we have friends of Death Eaters administering our exams, but there you are."

"Pity," Hermione said, raising one eyebrow. "I was rather enjoying the idea of the ferret freezing slowly in an icy wasteland."

Seamus chuckled. "Well, you know, I can't say I'm too happy to see him come back either. He's made a lot of –" His eyes fell to the bottom of the staircase, where the doors were opening, and Hermione's gaze followed.

When she saw him walk inside, she couldn't help it.

The feeling built up between her ribs, racking and coiling inside her chest. A sweeping feeling that tingled from nose-tip to the soles of her feet; a feeling she hadn't experienced for a long time. She stared, trying to hold it back, but in the end, it proved too strong.

She exploded into laughter. "What is he wearing?" Her mouth hung open, and she wheezed helplessly. "Oh, my God! What is that? What is that?"

The object on his head was roughly the size, color, and texture of a dead raccoon, and draped over his Hogwarts robes was a white fur coat that made him look like a shrunken, half-starved polar bear. His tie hung lamely over its front, the green and silver sticking out from the snowy fluff like he'd painted it on.

Malfoy must have noticed the strange looks people were giving him, because he hurriedly removed the raccoon hat and shuffled out of his polar bear coat, draping them over the back of his trunk.

As he returned to his natural state, Hermione managed to rope in her laughter. "Oh, oh goodness, oh, Merlin. I wish Harry and Ron could see that. Brilliant."

"It is pretty awful, isn't it?" Seamus stared, fascinated, at the pile of fur. "I wonder if that's normal for Durmstrang."

Hermione straightened up. "Furs are, but that isn't. Viktor always used to –"

"Viktor?" said Seamus, and then blinked. "Oh, right. You and Krum."

"Yes. Viktor told me that –"

A choking noise came from behind Hermione. She turned.

"Malfoy's here?" Ginny spluttered, frozen a few steps away. "Why? What on earth?"

Luna, standing next to Ginny, peered down at Malfoy. Interest glowed in her protuberant grey eyes. "Oh, look, he's got a hat made out of Num-Num hair."

"What's a Num –" Seamus started, but Hermione hastily interrupted:

"He's come back for this term, Ginny."

As Malfoy started tugging his trunk up the stairs, Ginny scowled. "Damn. Here I was thinking we were well shot of that whole … lot."

Hermione sighed. "I know. The break was nice, at least."

With a jolt, she realized what she was feeling: childish dislike.

There was a certain connotation to the emotion, a young feeling, a feeling remembered from the first-year midnight duel incident and the second-year slug incident and the third-year Buckbeak incident. For a moment, Hermione was lost in a whirlwind of her own recollections, and the disdain she felt for all that was Malfoy was perfect and pristine, and for those scant seconds she was a girl who hadn't seen battle, and she was once again hopeful and impassioned, pure and unadulterated.

But then Malfoy passed her, and his grey eyes flickered up and took her in.

And without even a falter in his calm stride, his eyes turned back to the stone floor, and he kept moving without a word. Without a spiteful comment. Without anything.

And as she watched him go, the feeling faded.

Everything had changed.

#

Hermione flicked her wand. The desk turned into a pig.

"Well done," said Professor Larvel, the new Transfiguration teacher. He was a short, slender man, one who gave out praise with as much frugality as Professor McGonagall. He continued on, correcting people's wand movements, as Seamus's half-pig half-desk dragged itself across the floor with its front feet.

Hermione sat in her chair and stared at her own pig. It snuffled around her, its bristly skin rubbing at her socks.

"Here, piggy," she sighed, holding out a hand. It deposited its snout obligingly in her palm. Wasn't this the spell Professor McGonagall had done their first year, their very first Transfiguration class? Goodness, but that was a hazy memory.

"Ah, good," Professor Larvel said as he passed Malfoy, two desks over, whose pig snorted and curled up on the floor.

Hermione glanced over at Malfoy and found herself hoping that he would shoot a sneer her way. Hoping that he would give her a look of disgust, a look that read, how inferior you are, so she could feel that flare of righteous anger. So she could feel like herself, feel like that girl rebelling against Draco Malfoy's pathetic schoolboy reign again.

But he stared at his wand, held firmly in his pale fingers, and his grey eyes held no malice.

It irritated her more than it should have.

Hermione pursed her lips and tapped her pig. It swelled back into a desk, its last snort turning into the groan of hardwood. She pushed her chair back in and sat down, flipping through the pages of her book, Advanced Transfiguration for the Capable Spellmaster. It wasn't a sanctioned textbook by any means, but Larvel held them to a rather higher standard than N.E.W.T. administrators would. It started at difficult and progressed into experimental regions.

Hermione liked that.

She drew a finger down the table of contents, considering an attempt at something else while the rest of the class fumbled with snouts and curly tails. Transfiguration of chair into hawk. Too elementary. Transfiguration of tree into miniature sun. Too dangerous. Transfiguration of glass vial into diamond. Too illegal.

She sighed, snapping the book shut with an audible clap.

Malfoy looked up at her. Their eyes met.

"What are you looking at?" she sniffed, tucking her book away.

He didn't respond, not even with a simple change in expression. Instead, he transformed his pig back into a desk and faced away from her.

She stared at the back of his blond hair, which came to a perfect tip at the nape of his neck. Frustration rose in her stomach, throttling and knotting her insides. So I'm not even worth his attention? After all he's done, he won't spare a single glance?

Hermione let out a long, slow exhalation, deadening irrational anger. As glad as she was to feel something – anything – this wasn't productive.

But she couldn't help wondering: What was the matter with him? When the Prophet had interviewed him scarcely six months ago, he had seemed his usual snotty, arrogant self. Had someone at Durmstrang made him see the error of his ways, or was it simply an independent transformation, something he'd discovered inside himself?

Why had her words not affected him? He would have been outraged at the snippy attitude before.

And the obvious question: Why did she care?

Hermione's mind raced and raced until it caught up with the solution. And when she finally did realize why she cared, it doused her with such immediate fear that she hugged her arms to her stomach right there in the middle of the class, nestling the emptiness in a cushion of her own limbs, containing the worry like it had a physical weight.

Draco Malfoy had been incomparably idiosyncratic; he had been himself to the tiniest point. He may not have been pleasant, but he had been realized and whole and clearly defined. Seemingly immutable. In contrast to his permanent alteration – something she never would have thought possible – Hermione's transformation seemed plausible.

In short, if he could change, anyone could. She could.

She might never feel like herself again.

No, no, no. Hermione turned fierce eyes on his narrow back. He had to be hiding in there somewhere. The Draco of before couldn't just vanish, could he?

"Malfoy," she blurted, before she could stop herself.

He turned. "Yes?"

Again they locked eyes, and she found herself hunting in his steel gaze for a shred of who he'd been. Praying there was some hatred, some cowardice, some pettiness in there. But she saw only resignation, and it disturbed her beyond all reason. Angered her beyond all reason.

"Why did you come back?" she snapped.

His pointed features registered slight surprise at the rage in her words. But she had the right to be angry, didn't she? She had the right to hate him, to detest him, to want to destroy him for all he'd done. The coward. The bastard. She drew herself up and spat fire. "Well?"

"Because, Granger. Everyone who would have administered N.E.W.T.s at Durmstrang is dead."

The words punched. Hermione recoiled. "I … what?"

"You heard me. All the seventh years had to leave for second term. Most still hate Hogwarts for the Triwizard disaster, so they went to Arsvardh in Iceland, or Dorentoshe, that Albanian place. But I came back here." He exhaled slowly. "Mother insisted, so."

Some portion of her brain realized how different his voice sounded. More worn. All the simpering had been sucked out of it; the lazy drawl had diminished to a shade of its former self. All that was left was a languid, tired stream of fatigue.

Draco Malfoy looked so, so exhausted.

Hermione shook her head, still trying to dislodge his words. "I don't …"

"Dementors tend to breed in pockets," he said, "and there was a pocket rather near Durmstrang. A lot of the teachers fell under the … they …" He made half a motion. "You understand I'd rather not speak about this."

And with that, he turned around.

She stared.

Had he matured? No, no, no. The notion of his maturity was detestable. The notion of his maturity repulsed her. He had to be young; he had to be cruel; he had to be himself.

"I suppose you feel wonderful about your choices now, Malfoy," she said, in her loftiest, cattiest tone. She hated herself for saying the words. She hated herself for driving this railroad spike into his conscience, but she needed to do it. She needed him to rise to her bait.

She could see the muscles of his back tighten even through his robes, but he didn't say a thing.

She leaned forward, speaking more quietly. "Do you realize what you supported yet, Malfoy? Do you realize what your choices cost the world? Do you understand what you've …" A haze descended upon her mind, and she vented. She didn't know if she would have let it all out under normal circumstances, but wasn't she justified? She'd lost friends, mentors, loved ones in the battle he'd helped start. And when they'd saved him in the Room of Lost Things – God knew why they'd done it in the first place – had he been grateful? No. He'd taken it for granted.

By the time she stopped speaking, he was coiled as tense as a spring.

"You disgust me," she hissed. Her final blow.

But he didn't lash out at her. He broke. His head hit his arms on his desk, and she saw his fists tighten, and she tasted hot defeat at the back of her throat.

She stared, her fierce brown eyes boring into his back.

Someone nudged Hermione's shoulder, knocking her from her focus like a bucketful of water to the face. She looked up. Ginny's eyes were filled with bewilderment. "What's with Ferret?" Ginny asked.

Hermione shook her head, but she couldn't quite bring herself to the outright lie of a shrug.

As the booming bell echoed into the room, Ginny abandoned Hermione to chase after Luna, yelling something about her pig having eaten something that looked suspiciously like a radish earring.

Hermione bit her lip and looked back to Malfoy, who pulled himself to his feet, his entire body stiff, his every movement strained. When he passed Hermione, he stopped for a split second as if to say something. But nothing came out of his mouth. His eyes looked dull and guarded and full of something inexpressible.

"Not so self-important now, are you?" Hermione said, standing in one sharp motion. "What have you got to say for yourself?"

He shut his mouth. Took a deep breath through his nose.

Then, "Nothing at all," he said.

She wanted to beat him as he walked away from her.

#

Hermione drew a line under the words Draco Malfoy and started writing a list.

Being mean

Bragging

Talking about his father

After a moment of consideration, she added Quidditch.

What else had he been interested in? What else had he really liked, besides – ah, there was another one: Ordering people around. And she wasn't soon to forget Endorsing cruelty to House Elves, either. Being jealous of Harry Potter; making fun of the Weasleys; blaming his shortcomings on others –

Hermione slapped down her quill and massaged her eyes with the heels of her hands. This was hopeless. How could she even think of restoring what was once Draco? How in hell's name could she resurrect that person, that horrid traitorous little rat?

But, Merlin, for that rush she had felt atop the Grand Staircase, for all the emotions her hatred of him had returned to her. She had been healed, for that one moment.

Fix him, fix me. It was a long shot, perhaps, to assume that a single moment of satisfaction in recollection would imply this plan's success. Could a common enemy between her new self and her old self really reconcile the two?

Hermione glanced at the stack of books she didn't care about. Her gaze brushed over the half-finished letters she hadn't sent. The mechanically written essays. Even the untucked bed spoke of the new and unsure Hermione – the Hermione she really couldn't stand, if she were to be honest with herself. The way she saw it, she was too strong for this. She was too rational, too driven, too herself for this to happen.

But could she have expected herself not to care? People are made to care when their worlds are shaken. Human beings hold their humanity in their compassion, and all that death – all that misery – if it hadn't pressed a pockmark deep into her sanity, she might have been more scared for herself than she was now.

Even so, it was not her. The fundamental change of Hermione Granger had to be eradicated. And whatever method that took was good enough.

#

As the Christmas ornaments hung themselves from tree and enchanted ceiling alike, Hermione claimed Neville's queen. "And that, I believe, is checkmate."

"Ron taught you all his strategies," Neville said gloomily.

She gave him a smile that only felt slightly false. "He could have. You'll never know, I suppose."

Neville scooped up his remaining pieces and deposited them in the board's container. "How's everything going, Hermione?"

"Oh, I don't know. It's … going."

"You look a little under the weather, to be honest."

"Do I?"

"Only sometimes," he said quickly. "Not in a bad way."

"Well. That's … it's … exams went quite well, so there's no reason I should look under the weather."

Neville frowned. "If … er, if you still need to talk about anything that happened …"

"Don't be silly, Neville," she said, perhaps a little more sharply than necessary. "It's nothing to do with that." Nothing to do with the empty hallways. Nothing to do with the people who never went home, who never lived to see this Christmas. Nothing to do with the funerals and the hollow look in George's eyes and the orphaned Teddy and the part of me I left hidden in those trees, nothing to do with missing Harry and Ron and missing the feeling of gratitude, nothing to do with having suffered so much and agonized over so much there's nothing left to care about anymore.

Nothing to do with any of that.

She stood and swept out of the Great Hall, leaving a bewildered Neville behind her.

Her breath puffed out in the freezing air, trailing cotton down the path to Hagrid's hut. She rapped on his door and tugged her hat further down over her ears. "Hagrid? Are you in there?"

After a second without response, she leaned back, gazing up at the pearl-gray flood of sky hovering above Hagrid's roof. A telltale wisp of smoke rose from the chimney, but perhaps he wasn't in the mood for entertaining guests. It wasn't an uncommon occurrence for certain members of the staff to turn a bit morose at times – especially now, around Christmastime, when the lack of Dumbledore was ever more apparent.

But then the door creaked open. Hagrid's beetle-black eyes twinkled down at her, two dark spots of warmth in the frost. "Come in, come in, ye'll freeze to death."

Hermione gladly obliged, sitting at the large table as Hagrid worried over some tea. She still remembered how the table had dwarfed her the first time she'd entered the hut, how huge everything had seemed, not the least of which had been Hagrid himself. She knew Hagrid's size hadn't diminished, but something in her perception had skewed to allow him, become less astounded by his sheer magnitude.

And so it was with all in her world.

She supposed it ought to be a state of contentment, really. No astonishment meant no shock, no horror, no being aghast. At the same time, though – no awe, no wonder, no being swept away. Everything free of magic.

Hermione drew her wand and raised the lights. "Why on earth do you keep it so dark in here, Hagrid?"

"No need ter act like me mum," Hagrid chuckled, handing her a steaming mug. She cooled it before sipping gingerly. "I'm keepin' it dark because the Germanium Geraniums don' react well wi' light."

"Oh! I'm sorry." Hermione hurriedly dimmed the lights again. Her gaze followed his pointed finger to a flowerbed in the corner, which was filled with what looked like metallic flowers. "Er. Those look … lovely," she said, but frankly, they looked dismal. They didn't have anywhere near the splendor of the flowers Ron had sent her from Paris, which had been crafted of a delicate hammered silver ("goblin-made, these – the Bureau of Magic over here said Harry and me could pick something out of their vault 'in exchange for services rendered'…"). Hagrid's flowers looked sickly, as if caged by the chrome filigree trailing over their graying leaves and petals.

"What are they for?" she asked.

"Thought I'd sow 'em 'round me cabin ter restore the soil. It's been ruined since las' year – the Death Eaters ordered the Care of Magical Creatures teacher ter cover folk like centaurs an' goblins an' House Elves, see. No natural life or gardenin' allowed; leastwise, nothin' that mighta kept the dirt fresh." He scoffed, taking a slurp of his own tea. "If Dumbledore had …"

His words trailed off, and after a painful second, he gave Hermione a weak smile that wouldn't have convinced the most foolish of witches.

Hermione fidgeted, pulling at the edge of her sleeve. "It's all right to miss Dumbledore, Hagrid," she said quietly.

"I know, yer right." Hagrid gave a mighty sniff and got to his feet in a rush of air, placing his cup back on the counter. "No use mopin' about, though." He eyed her. "Yeh seem ter be doin' all righ', in any case."

"I am," she said. "I'm doing fine."

"That's somethin', then. Yer stronger than most, Hermione Granger." Fondness in every crinkle on his face, he clapped her hard on the back. A mouthful of tea splattered across the table.

"Sorry," she squeaked. "Evanesco." The amber drops vanished.

"Anyways, I was thinkin' how Professor Dumbledore woulda gone out and planted these things 'imself. They suck up acids, yeh know, make the soil nice and rich, an' he used to love a good pumpkin patch, Albus."

Hermione nodded.

"I do miss 'im."

A silence drooped over them, hanging its hooded head.

She hadn't heard the likes of this quiet in a long time. So full of thick grieving she could slice it and liquid misery would pour out.

Hermione got to her feet. "I should … I'm going to go."

"Oh?" Hagrid said, raising his bushy eyebrows. "Well ... all righ', then. Take care."

"You too."

And then she was running up the grounds, through the snowflakes that were beginning to spiral down to dust the grass; she was passing the occasional clump of students who had emerged to laud the much-delayed first snow of the year; she was attracting the looks of friends, acquaintances, and baffled first-years alike.

She didn't care.

Hermione barreled into the Entrance Hall, up the Grand Staircase, up step after step. She pushed through tapestries and forged down side corridors. She sprinted up a set of spiral stairs past the Arithmancy classroom, down a last hall. The door at the end was still singed and didn't quite fit into its frame. She flung it open and burst out into the freezing air, into the wreckage.

The door banged shut as she gasped for air, eyes watering in the cold.

Here.

The destruction. The smashed stone, the scorched wood, rent and lying in disrepair. The ruination that everyone seemed to be denying.

She wanted to cry for it. To burst for it. To scream at it, to pull it back into shape. Hogwarts should not be broken, even the tiniest section, even if they were planning on rebuilding it to more than its former glory. No. It should stand against all wind and weather, never changing.

Hermione unleashed a long scream on the ice gray sky, and swore she could hear her raw angry cry bounce off the iron sheet of cloud, hear it resound against the stone.

Then something shifted in her peripherals, and she stumbled back, nearly tripping over the edge of the parapet. Her fingers grabbed for the freezing wall. She barely managed to yank herself back into place.

"Granger?" said a voice.

Her heart pounded as she glanced back over the edge to the ground, hundreds of feet below. She'd nearly fallen all that way. Merlin's beard.

"Granger," the person repeated.

"Malfoy," she said, even as she recognized his voice. He'd heard her scream. Would he finally tease her? She found she wasn't averse to the concept – she could snap back at him to her heart's content.

He emerged from behind a chunk of rock, hands in the pockets of his robes, two fine strands of blond hair falling over his brow.

She eyed him with distaste, her face hot. "What are you doing?"

"Thinking."

Well, she couldn't really begrudge him that.

But she could try. "And what could you possibly have to think about that requires being up here?"

He shrugged his slim shoulders, his warm winter cloak settling more fully around him. "I'll leave, I suppose, if you need the space."

Hermione shook her head. "No, that's not –"

She broke off. They stared at each other for a protracted moment. Then, "Come on, Malfoy," she said, her teeth gritted. He had to notice how his civility unsettled her. Malfoy was a lot of things, but he wasn't stupid, and he certainly had practice reading people.

He raised his eyebrows, looking mystified, and she rounded away from him, breathing hot through clenched teeth. "Come on," she repeated. "Come on."

Her eyes scanned the grounds, which were slowly transforming into piecemeal whiteness.

A long silence.

When he spoke, his words were slow and guarded. "I've … no idea what you're talking about, or what you want, and you're … acting slightly insane, so I'll just be goi –"

She snapped.

"I WANT TO KNOW WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU!" she yelled, whirling around in a flurry of tangled frizzy hair. "I'm trying so hard! I'm trying so hard – I just want things to be the way they were – I've no idea what's wrong with you, Malfoy, I don't know what's happened to everything I – everything that should have – you used to –" She cut herself off with a strangled noise, slumping over the parapet. She buried her head in her arms and felt the heat of blood coursing through her cheeks. Rage. Humiliation.

The stone froze her nose and blistered her lips.

Snow fell from the heavens. It cushioned the world around them, glimmering dust.

"Well, Granger," he said, his widened eyes settling back to normal. "That was unexpected."

She didn't say anything, or turn to face him. There was a long moment of snow-hushed silence.

"I can't really blame you, of course," he finally said, and Hermione stiffened. The change in his voice was stunning. It was that lazy drawl, the one she'd hated so much, the self-satisfied smirking tone. "I would certainly miss the presence of a Malfoy in Hogwarts, too."

Hermione straightened up so quickly that her spine made an unpleasant cracking noise. She whipped around, floundered for a second, and then found her tongue alight with words. "I have no reason to miss or associate with a ferret."

"Well, it's good you're beneath the effort, then, or we'd both be wasting a lot of time, wouldn't we?" He folded his arms, cocking his head.

From all she got in those grey eyes, this could be real. He could really mean it. Maybe he'd been holding back before, restraining himself because they'd been in public and he needed to save face. Maybe he really was the same. Her heart leapt a little, dizzied by cautious relief at the possibility.

"Where's Weaselby, then?" he said. "Off scrounging food to feed his miserable family?"

Her veins lit with a flood of electric hatred. "Probably scraping Dark artifacts from your estate," she shot back. "I hope you've hidden the remnants of your dignity where no one can find them."

"Oh, trust me, Granger, I've hidden quite a few things where no one will ever steal them, even Potty, the Weasel, and their scavenging company." He yawned luxuriantly. "Why didn't they lug you along, then? Got tired of carrying the dead weight, I suppose?"

"Well, in a choice between being dead and you returning to Hogwarts, I'd say the former is a sight more palatable."

"Please. This place wouldn't be a thing without the Malfoy patronage."

"This place would be infinitely improved without the Malfoy patronage."

A sickening smirk stretched out his mouth. "Not that you'd know anything about patronage. Everyone knows class is the one thing Ms. Know-It-All can't learn."

Hermione clenched her fists, outraged, exuberant. "Shut up, you miserable flobberworm!"

"Loudmouth!"

"Ferret!"

"Mudbl –" He cut himself off, his chest rising and falling slightly, his thin lips parted.

Was it just her, or did he look more alive?

She swallowed, pulse pounding in her throat. She felt it. Staring at his face, those pointed features, wanting nothing more than to hit him. She felt herself again.

Hermione couldn't resist her own grin. A stupid smile, thrumming with exhilaration. "Well, if you've humiliated yourself quite enough, Malfoy, you should probably run along to your cronies."

But he sat down instead, on a chunk of stone, and let snowflakes litter his hair.

They remained silent for a while after her words had faded from the air, not necessarily looking at each other, not necessarily noticing each other. They simply coexisted, two forces drawn and yet repulsed by the nature of their selves, their inherent detestation.

She took sweet, cold, slow breaths, watching the snowflakes fall. Watching them twine and flutter, caught in the wind's whimsy. She pictured Ron's ears burning red; Harry's gritted teeth and clenched fists. They should have been here to accompany her sharp tongue.

Hermione smiled, sliding her hands into her pockets. For the first time in months, she ached for them to return, and it was sweet. She ached for Ron's earnest blue eyes and Harry's sharp grin. Ached for the companionship of her best friends. Thank God Malfoy had been here to remind her what she was missing.

A sudden strain of curiosity caught her. What was Draco missing, to be so abject? He'd practically been enslaved by Voldemort, chained by his own cowardice – he couldn't miss anything about the last year or two of his life, surely.

A question crept in, a question she wasn't sure she wanted to entertain. If it had been her, would she have defied Voldemort? Would she have faced death knowingly?

She liked to think she would have.

"Malfoy," she finally said.

"Yes?"

"How have you … been?" she asked. The euphoria had not yet faded. She did not yet feel hollow. She could take the chance, incite conversation. Just this once.

He flicked the hair out of his eyes. "I'm not inclined to speak to anyone like you about it."

The taunt was almost too far, almost a caricature of itself. The odd urge to laugh burgeoned in Hermione's stomach as she turned away.

But it faded as the silence reigned once more.

She took another glance over her shoulder at Draco. He had hunched over in the silence, his elbows rested on his squared knees, his face pointed toward the ground.

"I'm being serious," she said quietly. "I'm asking you as someone who … I don't know. Pretend you don't know me. Pretend I'm someone else. If you'd like to speak about it…"

When he looked up at her, a weary ghost of his former self lay on his features. Mild disgust. A patronizing expression. "Granger, as much as I appreciate your obvious effort to reach out to me, I hardly need your pity at the moment."

Their eyes locked, and she fidgeted. "Well, then. In that case." She headed for the door. "Freeze to death, for all I care."

He lingered long after she'd left, like a specter bound to a place of mourning.

#

"What's got you so cheery?" Ginny yawned, as they sat around the breakfast table.

"Nothing," Hermione said.

Neville gave her a sidelong glance. "You do seem happier."

"Oh. I … Neville, I should apologize," Hermione said. "For running out. I needed to visit Hagrid."

"How's he getting along?" Ginny said.

"Not bad. He's got these odd new plants that –"

An elbow whacked into her shoulder. She whipped around and saw Draco sauntering past the table as if nothing had happened.

"Look at that. Slimy git's still got it in him, then?" Ginny raised her eyebrows. "I thought he'd gone soft – he's been so quiet for the last week."

Screeches and hoots rang in the Great Hall as owls swooped in from all directions. Pigwidgeon plummeted toward the table and found lucky cushioning in a heap of scrambled eggs. Wrinkling her nose, Hermione plucked him out.

Ron's letter had come in a parchment envelope this time, an official-looking thing sealed with red wax. Hermione cracked the wax and peeled open the yellowing flap.

Dear Hermione,

Like the fancy packaging? We've just Apparated across the French border to Madrid, and we're staying at an embassy while Kingsley tries to root out some old contacts he had here. It's an old place – reminds me of Hogwarts, sort of, but more ominous. All this gloomy-looking architecture, right out of the fifteenth century. Creepy, but Spain's great.

The wands they have here are so odd – you'd have to see them for yourself. They're no Ollivander, let me tell you. Apparently their San Relinga hospital – that's like Mungo's, only everyone's hablando en Español – has three misfired wands a day. A day.

Anyway, there's not much news otherwise. We figure Yaxley's headed south, which is why we're here – he's got some family in Spain, though we're not sure where, and as far as we know, a few of You-Know-Who's sympathizers are still hiding out in Morocco. Could be just rumors, but Kingsley's good at finding rumors that are actually true.

If you have any brilliant analysis, it'd be wonderful to hear it. Could you send it by Howler? I miss your voice.

Joking, by the way. Don't actually send a Howler. We hear too many of them around here as it is – there's a primary Wizarding school next door to the embassy, and parents are always sending Howlers to their hijos when they step out of line. Which is a lot. Little buggers have a right sight more fun than we did when we were second years.

Love you,

Ron

Hermione smiled and tucked the letter into her pocket, ideas already fizzing through her head for the reply. Pig probably needed a couple days' rest before she'd be able to send anything – the little owl looked ready to keel over, his feathers ruffled and damp, his hooting fatigued. She appreciated the interim, though; with the extra days, she could finally write Ron a decent-sized letter. Which he would probably call novel-length and take hours to read and complain about in his response, but that was his problem.

Pig made a half-hearted attempt at flying, wobbled past her shoulder, and toppled onto the stone floor. Sighing, Hermione turned to retrieve the hapless bird, musing that a passenger pigeon might be of more use than Pig.

As she straightened up, brushing egg off the owl's wings, she caught a glimpse of Malfoy scanning a slip of parchment doubtless delivered by the magnificent eagle owl before him. His eyes glinted cold and hard, his sharp jaw set, his lips thinned.

Hermione turned back around and set Pig by her plate, pretending she'd seen nothing. She pretended she hadn't seen the consternation on Malfoy's face, and beneath it, the panic. The desperation.

When they headed to Potions – the other double class with Slytherin – Malfoy jostled her again, seemingly recovered from his bout of humanity. She pursed her lips and didn't bump him back, replying only with a cool "Very mature."

He seemed to have settled in with the younger crowd, walking in step with a short girl with Slytherin robes. Hermione eyed the girl's red hair – she could have passed for a Weasley.

Professor Slughorn harrumphed as the class filed in. He'd been less cheerful this year – the Slug Club had been forcibly disbanded by Professor McGonagall, which he hadn't appreciated. He still kept disturbingly close tabs on Hermione, however, a disappointing complication. She'd been looking forward to escaping his interest.

This was the last day of classes. The workload had been paltry anyway, between the end of exams and the impending start of Christmas vacation. After break began, a short week would remain before Hermione and Ginny saw Ron and Harry at the Burrow.

Slughorn announced the day's assignment: Levitation Elixir. Everyone else buzzed at the prospect – even the Slytherins seemed childishly gleeful at the concept of flying without brooms – but Hermione dreaded trying it. It felt inconvenient and unnecessary, and she briefly considered botching it on purpose so she wouldn't have to spend the entire day floating three inches off the floor. But when she found that she cared about the good grade, it gave her enough satisfaction in and of itself to convince her to do the damned thing correctly.

The Levitation Elixir was supposed to boost them into the air slowly. When she bottled a vial of the orange liquid and took a sip, though, she shot upward like a popped cork, her stomach plummeting horribly.

Letting out a small scream, she thrashed, needing something to hold onto. But she didn't stop until she was ten feet in the air, and there were no handholds that high except the blazing braziers on the walls.

She looked back down, her feet finding purchase on the air. The class had erupted into laughter – and that included some of the Gryffindors. Even Ginny was grinning, a smile reminiscent of Ron's sheepish grin.

"Oh dear, Ms. Granger," said Slughorn. "I suppose I'll get to work on that antidote, then." He shot a look around the class, but either couldn't find or didn't feel like finding a culprit, because he headed for the supply cabinet without further commentary.

Hermione scowled, her face glowing redder than the flame under her cauldron. Her eyes caught Malfoy. He was doubled up, cackling for all he was worth, and even as she watched, he exchanged a thumbs up with the red-haired girl.

"Hilarious," Hermione said, half to herself. "So witty."

He spared a glance at her, his pointed features illuminated with careless mirth. For a second she forgot the embarrassment, forgot to fume with rage, and a strange satisfaction on his behalf rooted in her stomach.

But then the indignation returned in full. She gripped her wand in her pocket, levitated the powdered bicorn horn that sat behind Malfoy's back, and emptied the bottle into his cauldron, her actions unnoticed in the chaos.

Little by little, the class's laughter subsided. Other groups of students rose from the floor, but none as high as her. The draught was simple, impossible to foul up. Unless, of course, someone had it in for your dignity. (Or unless you were Neville, but he hadn't seen fit to take N.E.W.T. level Potions.)

Hermione kept one eye on Malfoy. After a few long minutes, he took a sip of his potion.

He shot up to her level with a noise that sounded vaguely like "HMMmmg", renewing the class's hysterics. Hermione smiled primly and leaned against the wall, folding her arms.

Looking up from a stewing cauldron, Slughorn heaved another sigh. "Oh, dear."

Hermione gave a sanctimonious little shrug and went back to fiddling with her wand.

It wasn't long before the bell rang. With a jolt, Hermione realized a fundamental fault in her decision. Her feet were fixed above door height, as were Malfoy's. They could as much get through the doorway as they could walk through the wall.

She briefly considered blasting the wall out of the way with a well-placed Reducto, but it wouldn't be worth the aftermath.

Damn.

Ginny grinned up at her. "I'll tell Professor Quist you'll be late for Defense, then, shall I?"

"Yes," Hermione ground out. "Do." She shot a look at Malfoy and pursed her lips. Why had she decided on revenge? If she had just been the better woman, they wouldn't both be stranded up here. And after their interaction of the day before … this would be insufferable. Awkward. Painful. Damn it, damn it, damn it.

"Out of porcupine quills!" came Slughorn's muffled voice from the cabinet. "Why am I out of porcupine quills? How does one even run out of porcupine quills?" He extracted himself from the cabinet, his squat body seeming to come out with a pop, and craned his neck toward the two stranded students. "The antidote requires porcupine quills."

"I have some," Hermione said. "In my bag." Thank Merlin for being prepared.

"Ah, wonderful." Slughorn rooted around in her bag, extracted three quills and tossed them in the cauldron. "You'll just need to wait an hour while the potion simmers, then. I'm off to see Hagrid about getting some new quills – how absurd that I don't have them; you'd think…"

He left the room still muttering to himself.

"An hour?" Draco said, aghast. "In here? With you?"

His whine was so impeccable that Hermione couldn't help but rise to it. "Oh, stop being so petulant. It won't kill you to breathe my air for sixty minutes."

He made a pedantic gagging motion and sat down in the air. It was an odd sight, his robes pooling around his seated form as if an invisible floor separated them from the room below.

Hermione settled to a sitting position too. Minutes passed in silence. Ten. Fifteen. The only movement was the soft bubbling of the cauldron below.

When he finally spoke, she jumped.

"So, Granger, why'd McGonagall not give you Head Girl, then?"

Hermione scowled. It was a bit of a sore topic. "She gave it to that Ravenclaw Girl, Amelina Terriflue. And the other real seventh year, Andrew what's-his-name. Since technically we're too old to be here in the first place."

"Speak for yourself."

"I'm speaking for everyone our age, Malfoy; it's fact, not a personal opinion." Her voice was testy.

They fell into wordlessness again. Time ticked away. Twenty-five minutes, and then half an hour since Slughorn had left, by Hermione's count. Does it take that long to find porcupines?

This time, Malfoy stretched, warning her of his impending speech. He raised one slender eyebrow. "So Potty and Weasel think education is beneath them, I suppose? They think they can do anything they want without coming back?"

"Since they're already working with the Aurors, I'd say they're doing quite well for themselves."

"Though if the Weasley family has any sort of record for itself, that won't last long."

"You're awful."

He sneered. "You know it's the truth. I never lie."

"Never lie?" Hermione scoffed, turning to face him more fully. "Oh, except when you're betraying the Wizarding World to enslavement and torture, is that right?"

Instant silence rang like a gong, pressing, stifling, oppressive. Heat burned in her extremities. Had she gone too far? They'd been agitating the candles of each other's contrarian personalities, not really aiming to wound – but this had just slipped out …

Then he replied, his voice slick ice. "At least I'm not with someone who clearly doesn't care enough about me to stay within a thousand miles."

Hermione's eyes flew wide. Her entire body reverberated with shock. Before she could stop herself, words flew out, words she'd long wanted to say but had never had the chance. "That's an awfully rich statement for someone who's been raised by a pair of parents who don't even know what love is."

He got to his feet, silvery eyes burning. "Don't you dare speak about my parents," he snarled, but he fumbled with his wand as he drew it, and it fell ten feet to the floor. "Dammit – how – how dare you assume you could have a fraction of the strength they have."

"What do any of you know about strength?" She stood. "What do you know about anything but groveling and pleading?"

Malfoy stalked forward, his lean body dangerously poised. "Oh, you underestimate how strong we are, Granger. We've lasted through everything the world's thrown at us. People will always know the Malfoy name, but people will only ever know you as the lesser friend of Harry Potter. You will fade into history like a thumbprint on a secondhand wand."

If it was an act, it was an awfully good one. Malfoy's eyes traced the lines of her face, laying her bare, his knife-sharp scrutiny painting her exposed.

"At least I have friends. At least I'm not a traitor." She drew herself up, summoned liquid fire to her voice, and threw her last assault. "At least, when the moment came, I wasn't a coward."

He stopped feet from her.

Something awful was happening to his expression. It quavered, fluctuating between fear and rage and anguish and hatred and it eventually settled on miserable self-loathing. Those eyes had never looked so bitter.

Coward. The word hung in the air; it replayed itself a million times, crushing down on Hermione's shoulders.

Well, it was the truth. Draco Malfoy was a cringing, sniveling coward.

But was its truth justification enough for telling him?

Of course it is, Hermione – stop feeling guilty – stop it –

"You think I don't know that," he murmured. It wasn't a question. "You think I don't understand. You think I haven't come to terms with it."

Hermione bit the inside of her lip. Yes. She did. Because she couldn't see how anyone could come to terms with such tremendous cowardice and not go insane.

Malfoy looked around the room and let out a short, hollow laugh. "Granger, what am I doing? What are you doing?" He threw out his arms. "What in the bloody hell is this we're trying to do?"

"I don't know."

"From what I know, I don't particularly like you. Why am I doing this? Why am I – why am I putting this face up again, just for your sake? What do you think it'll do, Granger? Explain. By all means."

"I don't know I don't know I don't know," she whispered, folding up her arms, folding up her face and folding in on herself. She didn't know what she'd been trying to do. But it had been working. She had been herself.

Or had it been a willing delusion? Was the person who had returned quite Hermione, after all? Was she starting to feel like that girl with the letter from Hogwarts clutched in her hands, innocent and simple; or was she simply starting to feel like the girl whose knuckles ached after punching Draco Malfoy in the face, childish and petty? Which side of herself had started leaking back, and which did she want, and which could she salvage, if any?

Hermione half-turned, staggering just a bit. She wanted answers. She hated questions – she loved answers.

"Malfoy," she said, "what's happening?"

"How in the hell should I know?" He tried a sneer, but it came out lopsided, a transparent facsimile of confidence lost. "I don't know anything."

Silence. The seconds dragged out and rolled over in the air.

"I feel old," she said. Her voice cracked.

"That's a stupid thing to worry about. You have time."

"It's the time I'm afraid of." Her voice was heavy, every word laborious. "There's just … so much of it."

His lips pulled down at the sides in comprehension.

Hermione bit her tongue. "I've already accepted death so many times I keep … wondering why it's not … why I'm not …" She found her eyes moistening. Instantly furious, she took a few deep breaths and sniffed back the encroaching tears. They vanished without too much complaint.

"Of course," she said, "I can't … I can't imagine what you're going through."

"Can't imagine you'd want to, Granger."

"No. You're right."

A long pause.

"All right, well, since you've been so talkative, shall I tell you anyway?" he said, his voice sleek and soft and dark, black glass under rain.

She looked up at him, scrutinized his sharp, fragile facial features. They examined each other for a long moment, tentativeness filling the air until it pressed into the corners of the room. She could say no. She could shut him out.

But she didn't really know why he was offering to tell her in the first place. And she was curious. And Hermione Granger did not refuse information.

"All right," she said. "Go ahead."

He looked away and took a deep breath. "Picture yourself young," he said softly, and Hermione heard a startling sincerity in the words. She found herself tensing, bracing for him to continue. "You're a boy new to the world outside the manor life," he said. "You're someone who's only ever had comfort. Someone who's only ever had ease. You're capable, talented, intelligent, and there is nothing money can't buy you." His voice found a tint of harsh assurance. "You see your friends as bouncing boards for minor frustrations and nothing more; your teachers see you as a famous name and nothing more; you see your future as a given and nothing more. And you are so satisfied with it. With what you've drawn. You're even grateful, on some level; you know you're lucky and privileged and you know the stars must have been on your side when they connected the lines of your fate."

He took a shuddering breath, having spat the last words with bitter irony. He breathed and fidgeted and composed himself before continuing.

"And then you see the price of it. You see what you've paid of yourself to have something so temporary as arrogant reassurance; you come to see the character you're missing and you're powerless to earn it, and when he comes for you, you see your own manipulation all around you but you can't make a bloody sound or a noise or any attempt to stop them because you were never taught how to do anything but take and take and take. And you've never had so much pain in your life as seeing your mother crack under the mockery, or your father cower like a servile beast, when he always taught you strength was in the eye of the beholder, and your eye – well, it's jaundiced and sickened and ripe with disgust, isn't it. For your own family. Your own self. Because you are all so scared. "

"And the worst part –" His words came out twisted and snarled through his teeth. "The worst part is knowing you were wrong. Slowly realizing you're wrong, the more you try to convince yourself you're not. That's the worst."

Malfoy swallowed hard, his eyes burning into the floor. "And then they say it's over; they say you're supposed to fold back inside the lines you knew once, before you knew anything, and you can't. You can't do a thing but watch the choices you could've made shred themselves up in your memory."

He folded his hands. "And that's what you can't understand." His eyes pierced up into hers, and a flash of hurt wandered through them before he turned them away once more. "The thing you will never understand, Granger."

More silence.

"I know what I am, and what I was, and what I've been meant for all my life. And knowing … understanding is the thing. It's the thing that … hurts." His voice shook but did not break.

Hermione's nails bit her palms. Her mind tried to process the words from his mouth, tried to process the thoughts she'd never imagined he could have. Her mind screamed he is different he is different he has become so different but she rejected it. She stepped on the analysis and she stared at Draco with sheer unwillingness to believe.

What should she say? Was there anything to say?

Minutes flickered by in the torchlight. She sat down slowly in midair.

"Maybe … maybe you need something to latch onto," she said. "Maybe you just need to know where you're going."

He pursed his thin lips, his blond hair toppling over his forehead. "I know where I'm going, and it's hardly reassuring. I'm going to find a job at the Ministry and coerce and force and battle my way up the ranks. I'm going to marry a nice Pureblood girl and have a Pureblood child with my great-grandfather's name. By any standard except my own, I will probably be successful."

"What's your standard?"

A mirthless chuckle. "Maybe if I tried harder, I could change my standard to something feasible. But for now … it's ridiculous. Something I haven't felt in a long while." He shook his head. "Don't ask."

Hermione swallowed. The way he stared at the wall, she got the impression that she simply served as a sponge for emotions he'd long wanted to spill. As much as it put her off, though – as much as his words were depersonalized, cold on a deep inalterable level – she couldn't stop drinking in the boy's new dimension.

He didn't offer to speak about her side of things, but what should have she expected? He was a Slytherin. Self-absorbed. Proud. He wouldn't want to acknowledge the feelings, the thoughts of anyone he spoke to – that might open up a chink of weakness in his cultivated armor.

And so they sat in silence.

He did not ask about her, and she did not offer him words of consolation.

Knowing his hopelessness did not ease hers.

"What did your letter say?" she asked.

"This morning's letter?" He thumbed through fistfuls of his hair. "It was from my father."

"That's not an answer."

"I know," he snapped.

She let out a heated sigh, and he glanced over at her, his jaw set.

"Sorry," he muttered after a second. "I haven't … I … never mind. Father said … he and Mother have been called to an international hearing in Stockholm."

"And you?"

"I'll have my own. Later."

"Good luck."

He folded his arms and shut his eyes.

Hermione stared at the ceiling, folding and unfolding and twisting her fingers. "I've wondered … why is it just me who feels this way in the entirety of Gryffindor House? The only one who's still fixed in place? I can't understand."

"Do you really think that, Granger? You really think it's only you?" Malfoy's lip curled. "Even some of the Slytherins have had to buy Pensieves to store thoughts they don't want, thoughts they can't take."

"Well, of course, everyone's been hurt. Just seems like I'm the last to recover, though." Hermione blinked a few times, the back of her throat swollen with restrained emotion. "I suppose … silly, but I suppose I refused to acknowledge it for so long, it ate me up from beneath."

Draco slowly stood, walking over to stare at one of the torches on the wall. "I understand something about that."

And looking at his sharp profile, illuminated by the red flickers of fire's thousand tongues, Hermione thought she might understand too.

Maybe she didn't need to turn back the clock. Maybe all she needed to do was accept the late hour of the day.

"I think this place is killing me," Malfoy said in a hoarse whisper. "I think sitting in classrooms and listening to teachers is murdering me."

"Then leave," Hermione said, getting to her feet as well. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, that you need to leave."

He scrutinized her, his narrow eyes calculating the meaning behind her words. "Maybe you should, too. Maybe you've just been going through the motions, Granger, and you didn't even realize it. Monotony ruins passion, you know. Repetition."

"No." The word was a knee-jerk reaction. "I – I don't believe that. There is no routine at Hogwarts. There's never been."

"Are you sure?" he said quietly. "Now that your friends and your problems have gone, you've nothing to worry about or fight or explore, have you? And that can't be normal, Granger. Not for you." He turned slightly. "Not for any of us."

Hermione folded her arms and opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Second by second, analyzing every angle of his face, she realized the truth in his words. Did her life have a single unexpected thing?

That was just it.

That was the root of it.

There were no surprises anymore. Nothing lurked in the shadows to draw her.

And she looked down at the floor and said in a dreading faraway tone, "I think you may be right. There is so little that could possibly surprise me," and that was when Draco Malfoy walked over to Hermione Granger and took her face in his warm long hands and pressed his lips to hers.

She kissed him back because she did not know what she would say or do when they broke apart.

She kissed him back because his lips were warm and firm and tasted like gingerbread.

She kissed him back because she couldn't muster the amount of cognizance it would have taken to disengage herself.

It wandered across her mind how strange it is how little people touch each other, how infrequently a brush of a hand or a nudge of the arm occurs, how terrifying true human contact appears by its scarcity.

Her small hand slid up the smooth pale fabric of his neck and traced the line of his jaw. It was foreign. She had never considered how Draco Malfoy's skin might feel, never wondered how his lips might taste pressing against hers. His teeth exerted gentle pressure against her lower lip until they shifted, the sharp tip of his nose rubbing her cheek. She couldn't recall – had she ever been attracted to him? Was she attracted to him even now, as they moved in tandem, or was she just astonished at the feel of him?

The room's quietness was a megaphone. Every brush of his sweater-clad arm against her robe was a scream of noise; every whisper of their skin together was a steel brush against a snare drum. It echoed. They echoed.

She felt self-conscious as they shifted, as his hand slid down her side to grip her waist. She didn't know what to do with her hands. His body was a land unexplored, and she didn't know if she could muster the will to wander it.

Hermione felt behind the touch of his lips the desperation, the lostness, the lingering denial. She let her hands rest against his chest; she pulled him a little closer, though he was so tall she had to stand on tiptoe to make sure the contact didn't break. Where Ron was solid, Draco was lithe, where Ron was wiry, Draco was slender. Different, but not entirely dissimilar.

His hands behaved differently than Ron's. Ron's wandered, tentative, gentle. Draco's held her waist as if her body would fly away, and somehow, under his firm grip, she felt closer to flying than she ever had.

He finally lifted his lips from hers.

Draco Malfoy's face was a different one up close. His features seemed more even, his eyes less narrow, his brow more serious.

"What did …" she whispered.

And that was it.

They stood frozen, bodies sparely held together, unspeaking and unmoving, eyes locked tight.

And she almost felt he could transmute her emotions by the very weight of those evident in that ice-grey gaze.

Hermione made only tentative moves, only tentative expressions. She wasn't sure whose body she was in. She didn't know why the world felt so real, when she was obviously swimming through some bizarre dream. After all, she couldn't fathom kissing Draco Malfoy. Even having done it, she couldn't really understand.

In theory, it was repugnant. In theory, he tangled his hands in her hair with no regard for her comfort and tasted cold and hard and mineral. In theory, he took what he wanted, unresponsive to her touch and smirking even as they kissed.

But then the truth overrode the concept, and she found herself in a sea of confusion wider than the Atlantic. He was anxious, and serious, and held her like an anchor.

Something in her body had forgotten to regulate her warmth. Random spikes of heat jazzed across her back; tingles of ice spiraled over her empty lips. "Malfoy," she said, and her mouth filled up with cottony disbelief. "You're Malfoy."

She felt like some sort of shoving, kicking, or punching motion should accompany those words, but instead she just frowned.

"Yes," he said. "Well done."

"And I … am a Muggle-born."

His eyes flickered to the floor. "Don't."

"Yes. I will. I have to. Why are you doing this?"

"Because I feel like it," he said.

She narrowed her eyes. "Perhaps you didn't hear me the first time: I'm a Muggle-born."

"I know, I know." Malfoy loosed an impatient sigh. "So are billions of Muggles, Granger. I know I always used to – but I just wanted to see if it … do you have to belabor every –"

"Billions of Muggles? Yes, well, you don't kiss them."

"I don't kiss many witches, either."

She floundered for a response, and came up with, "Neither do I."

His lips quirked up at one side. He made no move to reply, but his eyes softened almost imperceptibly.

The urge to kiss him again seized her without warning or reason. She said, "I'm going to kiss Draco Malfoy," and the desire to laugh hysterically at her own words bubbled up in her throat. But instead she pressed her lips to his smirk. It fell away beneath her lips.

He tilted his head and caught her mouth more fully. And just when she had finally adjusted to the idea that yes, this was happening again – that yes, she was willingly putting her mouth to the one that had caused her such misery for so long – Draco Malfoy wrapped a strong forearm around her waist, lifted her clean off her feet, and with the effort, let out a low, constrained murmur. And Hermione decided that yes, she was very attracted to the boy holding her. To hell with logic. To hell with reason.

They gravitated to the corner, where the low-burning braziers found less purchase. They settled into the corner and kissed for a long time, fingers finding curves and muscles and sweater-padded joints.

Eventually, Hermione broke from him and leaned back against the wall. Something awakened in her brain, cold rationality taking over. She said what she knew she was supposed to say: "What are we – what am I …"

"Yes?"

"I'm so stupid! I … I can't be here, I can't be doing this, it's so dishonest!" The words sounded too frantic, too false, even to her own ears. Why? Hermione had no idea. It was dishonest. She and Ron had said they would wait for his return before taking things up properly, that neither of them should feel beholden, but she knew it would have enraged him if he had known.

He considered for a while. "Well, you could always tell him, I suppose, though I don't see why you'd want to. I was the one who kissed you."

"At first."

Malfoy gave a languorous shrug, flicking Hermione's hair out of her eyes. She flapped a hand at him, trying to shoo him away. He let his hand trace over her own. "If Weasley were at Hogwarts in the first place," he said, "you wouldn't have done it."

"Of course, yes … but …" It wasn't as if it meant anything – it was harmless, as long as it stayed in this room – but what bothered her most was that she knew it should itch at her conscience. And she felt nothing at all. Resolve darkened her features. "I should tell him anyway."

He cocked one eyebrow. "And what's that going to achieve?"

"I – I'll feel guilty, so I won't do it again!"

"If you don't want to do it again, you won't. I know you well enough to know that much, Granger."

"I … yes. Well."

"Well what?"

"I'm not saying I don't … nothing!" She flushed red. "Oh, this is all so ridiculous, Malfoy. Is this helping? I don't even know if it's helping."

"Don't you think we should be on first-name terms?" He leaned against the wall next to her.

"Not particularly."

"All right, then, Granger," he said. "Let me ask: Does being so stubborn give you a headache?"

"You should know. You've been so determined to be an utter arse the last seven years. That requires some obstinacy, I'd say."

Further minutes passed. Hermione tried rationalizing it to herself, convincing herself that it was all right to have kissed the boy sitting next to her, but after a while she gave up the effort, realizing that she simply didn't feel bad. And that realization tore the lining from her stomach. How horrible of her. How dreadful, not to feel any sort of remorse for something that could hurt Ron so badly. Her conscience should have been screaming; her moral compass should have been crying for her to renounce her actions.

She resolved to kiss Draco Malfoy until she felt terrible. Until she felt awful and wrong and repentant, as she should.

He interrupted her thoughts with motion, stroking back his hair, his fingers playing with molten silver. "What are you doing over Christmas, then?"

"Visiting the Burrow in a week."

Malfoy snorted. "Why, what's there?"

"Oh, just my best friends, my surrogate family, and my not quite boyfriend, Malfoy." She gave him an are-you-an-idiot look. "What did you think?"

"Don't know. Something more exciting, maybe."

A chuckle burst unbidden from her lips, and she stifled it back, horrified. She didn't know what was going on – she didn't know what this was – but it was not a laughing matter.

"Why?" she said, constricting her face back to seriousness. "What are you doing?"

"Father and Mother will be at their trial. So I'll be sitting here, I suppose."

Hermione opened her mouth, and shut it again. It would be stupid to say what she had been about to say. Actually, it would be more than stupid – it would be sheer idiocy.

It would be roughly as idiotic as snogging a Slytherin in Slughorn's classroom for Merlin knew how long.

She ignored better judgment and said it anyway. "So we have a week before I go to the Burrow."

"We?" Malfoy gave her an uneasy glance. "What's 'we' supposed to mean? What are we?"

She drew a deep breath and caught the scent of him, cold fresh things, the smell of lime and pine and fresh water and foggy air. She could still feel the hidden warmth that radiated out to his fingertips, where he'd touched her. The taste of gingerbread tucked behind his thin lips.

"Well, I don't know what either of us is," Hermione said slowly. "And I'm not sure I know what we are, either." She shook back her hair and looked him in the eye. "But I know what I want when I'm with you more than I do without you. So you'll forgive me for being around."

The words rang off the stone walls. Draco bit his lip and picked at his nails and did not answer, and she knew he felt the same.

A quiet second.

"And what do you want, Granger?" he murmured, as if to himself.

"Merlin, I …" She looked up at the ceiling. "I suppose I want to do something I've never done. Climb mountains or cut down trees, dive into the ocean and find new worlds. I want to discover something no one's ever heard of." Then she closed her eyes. "But since I can't do any of that, I suppose I'll settle for you kissing me again."

"Settle? Settle?"

She didn't open her eyes. "Oh, hurry up."

The edge of a smirk tinted his voice. "Say please."

Hermione cracked open an eye to give him a glare. "Now."

He obliged.

His hands ran up her arms and down her sides and she knotted her fingers into the back of his sweater to feel his body against hers. Hermione's stomach swooped and went weightless and every nerve spiked with anticipation. Her back kissed the stone; her feet kissed the air; her nose kissed his pale cheek.

As she closed her eyes, images licked like flames across the dark. She saw him that morning at the Slytherin table, when he had worn his usual spoiled-brat sneer, laughed his usual cold smirking laugh. She had known it was false laughter, even though it had looked like the Draco she'd known and hated, the one she'd been trying to restore. And she wondered if he knew that, when he laughed that way, he looked unfathomably cruel, and his face looked nothing like his face at all.

She realized she did not want him to set his mask back into place.

She thought of the girl she'd been, too, all the punishing child's masks she had herself outgrown. Hiding in the girls' toilets the night a mountain troll had burst in on Halloween. Sending birds like bullets at Ron in a fit of jealousy. Stifling tears day after day in the Forest of Dean, when she had been so certain they would fail.

She did not want the world to be the way it had been. She did not want herself to be who she had been. She knew she could never go back again, and as she pulled back and looked into the gray eyes—familiar, unfamiliar, like all of this—that knowledge felt not like a curse, but the sense of an open road.

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