One would think the Ravenclaws would have a back-up plan considering any stranger could get into the tower with only a book of riddle answers or a philosopher.

They didn't. They expected a doorknocker to do all the guarding.

The space under the cloak was crowded, packed with Draco, Hermione and Lovegood, and Draco as the tallest was obliged to hunch. Well, forced was more like it. Stuck staring at Lovegood's blonde head, he suddenly realized that it was Malfoy blond. It was that platinum-are-you-sure-it-isn't-dye color, almost white, and exceedingly painful to stare at. He closed his eyes tight again, straining his ears for a sound of another person as Lovegood puzzled.

Thankfully, Lovegood finally figured out the answer to the riddle, ("A circle has no beginning." He could see the logic, but still. Stupid answer) saying it in that odd voice of hers, and the door unlocked. Pushing it open slightly, Hermione glanced at a map (How did it work? She said it showed where everyone was in Hogwarts...) and then nodded, and the three shuffled in.

Draco gave a groan as he was allowed to stand up straight again. Then he looked around.

The Ravenclaws had a good common room, he had to admit. It was airy, wide and tall windows, arched with little designs moving along them, window seats, silk curtains in their house colors. The room was circular, with strategic mirrors to add extra perceived room, a domed ceiling painted with stars, a midnight blue carpet. Tables and desks and chairs were scattered around, especially near bookshelves, large enough to attend to a dorm of the studious but not enough to make the space feel crowded. Even the fireplace continued the air-feel, large, darker colors, but from looks only small fires burnt in its depths, enough to make a warming charm productive.

A marble statue stared down at them. The woman was imposing, beautiful, with a smile that spoke more of her intelligence than anything she could have written. The diadem was carved as a delicate thing, a little dress-up tiara for princesses or weddings. He couldn't help thinking that was inaccurate, but then again, in his head all Ravenclaws were either a Lovegood (Insane in an oddly endearing way) or a McGonagall (Sensible; strict. Grey hair as soon as they can grow it), even if she was actually a Gryffindor. Either sorting pen, the diadem was either lacking fanciful, or too frilly.

Having made the decision to not trust the statue, he turned to Hermione, to find she was intently studying the diadem carving. He discovered since shagging her that he hated when anyone or thing besides himself received a stare from her, so Draco set about distracting her.

He played with her hair, finger winding and unwinding around the strands, breathing lightly on her neck, watching her attention waver from the conversation she was trying to have with Lovegood. He dodged her elbow just in time, dancing back. "Missed."

She whirled to give him an exasperated glare, only for them both to freeze at the sound of a voice.

"Students should be in classes-"

"What is-" the knocker began.

"Lemme in, you stupid-"

Draco grabbed the silvery material of the cloak near Lovegood's feet, settling around them in a whirl of fabric. His arms curled around the two girls, Hermione pressed against his shoulder and Lovegood clinging to him while he hunched over them. Breathing quickened among them, a moment's struggle to be silent as the squeaky sound of Professor Flitwick saying something slid through to them.

Oh, how Draco hated the Carrows. Thickheaded, cruel, laughing at the pain of all. They were not above torturing first-year Slytherins, cackling as they thrashed about on the floors and hurt themselves, saying they were toughening them for the Dark Lord...

Maybe they could excuse hurting the other Houses, or suspected Dumbledore's Army members, but not even Slytherins would excuse the pain of their own.

Alecto peered around dimly, footsteps heavy as she entered the room. Usually, she looked a bit more bright than that. When no one was in obvious sight, she began moving around, checking under objects-and hands suddenly darting out randomly as if to grab at flies. She was aware of invisibility cloaks, then.

Lips to Hermione's ear, he mouthed more than said, "Carefully..."

His arm tightened around Lovegood for a moment, fingertips pointing to the door. She seemed to get the message, and they slowly began to inch to it, taking a long path weaving among the furniture and still dodging Alecto.

"Well in that case, when are you and Amycus expecting?"

Draco kept Finnigan's vaguely humorous sentence in his mind as they very carefully eased around a chair. The Carrows had always been pureblood obsessees, the very dangerous practice of inbreeding prominent in their family. Even Malfoys would rather marry halfbloods than damage their line so. Knowing this information, those bravely and yet STUPIDLY timed words had always seemed much less amusing to him, because the Carrows would go that far.

But it had quite obviously bred all the grace out of them. Draco could hear her footsteps as she went sniffling around the dorms.

There was a scream. Draco paused, mouth dry. Eyes immediately going to a clock, he found himself counting the seconds as it continued, a raw sound that crackled in the air.

"Yer SICK, you say? Likely! Then why didn't you go to Pomfrey?"

And then another scream.

Ten... Eleven seconds... Twelve...

A sobbing wail and then the crashing sound of someone falling down the stairs. From the Ravenclaw boys dorm, a fifth-year fell onto the carpet, bleeding from the mouth and nose, flushed with illness. His eyes were rolling in his head. Hermione and Draco tightened their holds on Lovegood, just in case.

Alecto came down, leered at the boy and then exited, stepping much lighter with her sadistic happiness.

They carefully made their way around the furniture again, dropping the cloak at the boy's side.

"We can't take him," Draco said immediately. There was no room under the cloak, the angle of his ankle made it painfully obvious he could not walk and there was no telling what other injuries he could have. Luna tapped the boy's nose with an "Epipsky."

A sickening crunch realigned it. Hermione quickly muffled his cried, wiping the blood from his mouth and prying open the boy's jaw a little more.

"Draco, you're blocking the light," her voice was crisp and sharp-edged. She carefully fished around with a probing finger, pulling out a tiny shard of a tooth. Draco's eyes narrowed, but he took a step to the right and kneeled, summoning a slim couch pillow, transfiguring it just a little to slide it under the neck.

The girls were quick to make the Ravenclaw comfortable, Luna and Hermione trying a few more healing spells on minor wounds.

"We still can't take him," Draco repeated. Hermione flashed him a glare. "I know it goes against every drop of courage and chivalry you have left, but no. We need to leave, now, before anyone comes."

She glared again, a heated expression, but when he pulled the cloak around them again, she came silently. Quite frankly, that terrified him.

They almost ran in the effort to get to the location the door was today, on the sixth floor behind a tapestry of strange beings Lovegood called "high elves." They looked a lot more like a cross between muggle ideals of gods and goddess and their idea of faeries.

Without the stupid insect wings, of course.

The creatures looked up as the tapestry moved wildly as the three paced. The door appeared, and they very carefully slipped in, Draco finally tossing the cloak aside as the soothing feeling of the Room washed over them.

"Okay, so now we just need to find where the stupid tiara i-"

Hermione was still glaring, almost in tears, and yanked him into a corner. The room obligingly stretching to put a little extra space between them and the people milling around.

"I guessed you might be the jealous type, but deciding to leave someone practically dying because I look at them?" she snapped quietly. Draco blinked, trying to see the logic in what she was saying.

"J-You think I left him there because I was jealous," he parroted flatly.

"DO you have ANY compassion? You wanted us to leave him, bleeding from the mouth and nose, sick with a fever and a broken ankle-and that's just for starters! He could die! But I guess as long as I don't run off with him, you don't care, do you!"

"And I suppose we could have just floated him down the halls after us?" Draco snapped back.

"It's the Ravenclaw common room! They probably have half a bookshelf devoted to books on healing! It wouldn't have been that hard to look for a few, or accio them! Not like you were doing anything!"

"I-" Fuck, she had done it again, thrown her logic out and put him in a corner. "Can you stop assuming everything I do has some sort of selfish motive!"

"Why not? It's how you always acted before!" A tear in her eye. "I-I was actually starting to think you liked me, but then I remembered how you always were before...Teasing and insulting and-You always went on about how ugly I was, finding all those little... Details. How long until I find out this is just a sick joke-shag the hideous golden girl and break her when she finally starts developing feelings?"

Draco gaped, trying to figure out how they went from supposed jealousy to her insecurities.

"It's true, isn't it," she whispered, the tears she was doing so well at controlling beginning to slip down her cheeks.

Draco closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Hermione, care to explain the sudden rush of confidence-killing?"

Stupid statement number one...

He almost rushed to explain himself. "You always seem much more sensible than this, and I use that term broadly since you also think dragon-riding is a good way to leave a bank. You're supposed to be the brightest witch of the age, but you believed the drivel that came out of my mouth? Of course I insulted you! You went completely against every ideal I grew up with-a muggleborn who was first in every class, which my father berated me over every holiday, superior to everyone in everything and even vaguely attractive from the right angles. I had to save face somehow, and insults are easy. Too easy, even."

He sighed, pushing long strands of hair out of his face and leaning against the wall a moment. "Look, it's not a joke. I'd never do that to anyone. I'm not going to lie and say it's love, I'm not noble enough to feel that any time in the next decade, but there's some sort of attraction..."

Lust was attraction, after all, and he'd proven he could get along with her outside of a bed quite well.

She sniffled a little, processing his words and probably very carefully analyzing them for a hidden meaning. He gave her space by pretending to be interested in the wall.

"One chance."

He could have snogged her, but this was not the crowd for it. He had to settle for a chaste hug, whispering, "Bathroom, three tomorrow morning, the far shower stall."

Ambiguous-ending chapter. I couldn't figure out an appropriate Hermione response (Slap, snog, overenthusiastic nodding?), so imagine whatever you think is right. :P

Yeah, I know, cop-out chapter ending. Review and complain or something, or tell me what you're imagining. And you stalkers stop alerting without reviewing, it's not very nice.