The Night Patrol

Chapter 67: The Night Patrol

Educational Decree Number Thirty-Six. All quidditch teams are disbanded, pending approval from the Hogwarts Special Inquisitor.

Angelina almost resigned her post from rage, but kept it when Fred swore that he would seize the captaincy and force everyone to play nude if she abdicated. Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff were reinstated immediately; the Gryffindor application was “pending” every time Angelina went to ask.

Educational Decree Number Forty-Two. Students found in violation of school rules will be sent directly to the Hogwarts Special Inquisitor for appropriate disciplinary procedures.

Lee Jordan was almost expelled for dangling Slytherin second-years in the rafters; Goyle was sent to the Hospital Wing for quadruple stomach ulcers after eating something Fred gave him; Ron had to get four stitches in his eyebrow after picking a fistfight with Graham Montague, which Draco had to break up, nonplussed, with a Relashio, a Shield Charm, and a handful of red hair.

Educational Decree Number Fifty-One. Students failing to comply with appropriate norms of dress for their age and sex will be disciplined at the discretion of their Head of House and the Hogwarts Special Inquisitor.

Katie lost forty points from Umbridge each day she refused to take off her piercings, and far from being cowed, she and Seamus made a point of giving themselves new ones every night. Draco saw them conspiring in the common room before breakfast, boiling safety pins with the grim solemnity of soldiers preparing war paint.

Hermione, who usually prosecuted any violations of dress code with vigor, feigned blindness to this, and slipped a Sanitizing Charm behind her back at them.

Educational Decree Number Fifty-Five. Students will not linger in the hallways between classrooms unless accompanied by a prefect.

Cedric spent his passing periods leading groups of students to and fro from the library, his shoulders square, a brittle set to his jaw. His Head Boy badge gleamed on his chest, bright and clean and never more useless than when Filch confiscated Padma’s pet weasel, which was carried off, squeaking helplessly, to wherever non-regulation pets went, while Padma sobbed into Ernie Macmillan’s shirt.

Educational Decree Number Fifty-Six. Students will not use magic in the hallways under any circumstances.

Graham Montague kicked Justin Finch-Fletchley down a flight of stairs, and Colin Creevey was given a week of detentions for Stunning him in retaliation. Draco and Ron had to wrestle Harry away from Umbridge as he shouted himself hoarse, racking up a two-hundred point demerit and a month’s detentions of his own— but only they knew that Harry had taught Colin that spell.

The next day, both Justin and Susan Bones approached Draco, privately and separately, to ask about dark curses. When he inquired as to where they came by the impression that he knew any, they seemed suitably embarrassed, muttering something about names and reputations and how fire was fought, on occasion, with flames.

From pity and amusement both, he taught Susan the jinx for boils he’d used on Cassius Warrington. She picked it up inside an hour, which was far quicker than he’d have expected from anyone under the auspices of Helga Hufflepuff. When she made the test rat erupt in tiny black bubbles, and he experienced a difficult flicker of emotion.

“How’s your aunt these days?” he said.

Susan lowered her wand, grinning. “Oh,” she said, “she’s fucking furious.”

Educational Decree Number Fifty-Eight. Students will not raise their voices in the hallways above an appropriate level.

Crowded hallways were silent but for the shuffle of footsteps and the furtive susurrus of whispers. George Weasley came back one night with hands so caked in blood it soaked his sleeves, his face drawn. Ginny screamed and ran to him, while Hermione swore and dove for her muggle sewing kit.

“You have to close your mind,” Narcissa sighed, later that night. “Stop imagining what I say. Do you understand? See nothing. Think of nothing. Feel nothing.”

“You don’t think I’d like to?” Harry spat, hauling himself off the floor. “You think it’s fun, do you, being in my head?”

“Draco has managed to progress admirably since our last session.”

“Yeah, well, maybe he can be the Chosen One for a while, and give me time to catch up!”

Draco folded his arms and lowered his head.

Harry swiped at his forehead with the back of his hand and barked: “Fine. Let’s go again.”

Narcissa eyed him up and down. “If you require a moment to compose yourself—”

“Death Eaters wouldn’t give me a moment, right?” His tone was edged. He shook out his arms and squared his shoulders, like he was about to duel her. “Again. Hit me. Hard as you can.”

She pursed her lips. “Potter, this is not supposed to be easy.”

“Story of my life. Cast the stupid spell, would you? I’ve still got a detention after this.”

She had him on the floor in two minutes, but as he lay groaning, she offered: “Better.”

Educational Decree Number Fifty-Nine. Students will not purchase or possess non-regulation periodicals, papers, publications, or written content that is untruthful or inappropriate for children.

The Daily Prophet printed page after page about unrest in the north. The circles under Harry’s eyes darkened to the shade of a midwinter sky. At night Draco heard him tossing restlessly in bed.

The only time anyone saw him smile was in the Room of Requirement.

Educational Decree Number Sixty. Student groups of four or more persons will not assemble outside of common spaces without the permission of the Hogwarts Special Enquirer.

And still— and still.

In the third stall of the first-story boys’ bathroom, dropping a sickle on the floor would cause the disembodied hand of Seamus Finnigan or Dean Thomas to appear with a small firecracker.

Fred and George passed out small kits of emetic candies that, if gulped down in an emergency, could reliably get you out of class. In the back of the library, Romilda Vane and Parvati Patil pulled crumpled-up editions of The Quibbler and the Daily Looking-Glass out of their shirtfronts and pressed them between the pages of romance novels. Ernie Macmillan had a habit of leaving his answers to the week’s Defense Against the Dark Arts homework lying out on the Ravenclaw table while he went to the loo, a fact that he announced, loudly and with gusto, so that aspiring plagiarists might be “well warned” not to “trifle with anyone’s academic integrity” while he wasn’t looking. Shouting the name Weasley in a scuffle brought the nearest one hurtling over, and if it was Ginny, you’d probably win. Sometimes just shouting Weasley was enough to make the other bloke run away.

Draco spent Defense Against the Dark Arts making notes for improvements on a Blood-Replenishing Potion, and when he swept out of the classroom, he felt the eyes of a hallway settle on the back of his head. He shook it off, kept moving. Hermione put her hand on his wrist, and he let her keep it there. Threw a sneer at anyone who tried to stare.

It was Lavender Brown, of all people, who had the idea of offering topical glamours to make it look like the back of one’s hand was scarred. The fashion caught on quickly in the Tower, spread through the Defense Club to Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, and the flash of a wounded hand in the hallway became a sort of allegiant gesture, a symbol of esteem and fury.

“I actually thought it was tacky,” said Hermione, when Padma Patil subtly twitched up her sleeve at them on the way to Transfiguration. “But if everyone’s got them, it doesn’t feel shameful. And you can see how many people…” She trailed off as Michael Goldstein passed by, flexing his hand. “I think Lavender’s done something really clever.”

“Does she get to know that?”

“Of course not.”

He held the door for her, and touched the small of her back as she moved through. She brushed a piece of dust from his shoulder. Neither of them looked at each other.

It was homeostasis, of a sort. Tiny incidents of contact offered costless comfort, of the sort that was in none too great supply, and at no greater cost than a willingness to ignore what was special about it; he was allowed to touch her in stairwells and doorways, and she was allowed to fix his prefect’s badge and straighten his tie, and if no one said what it meant, then it didn’t have to mean anything at all.

Of course, Harry and Ron didn’t take her elbow while checking a corner; certainly no one else was at liberty to reach out and straighten his badge, at least if they wanted to keep the hand that did it. But in the Gryffindor common room, while Harry brooded in the corner, and Ron sat in a four-headed huddle over Arthur’s latest letter, there was no one to notice or find it unusual if Hermione inhaled sharply, as if remembering something — twitched — and put her hand on his knee. He turned a page of his book and silently allowed her to keep it there.

From trial and error, contact with Hermione was prolonged if he allowed her to believe he hadn’t noticed.

On a Saturday morning in early December, fires burned in towering grates around the Room of Requirement, shedding warm coats of gold on lacquered floors. Diamond chandeliers cast buttery light on a promenade of children firing Knockback Jinxes and Snare Hexes at each other, while a few older students experimented with variations on Incarcerous. Harry had summoned the Room, this time, which meant it resembled less a cathedral than a classroom — the Transfiguration classroom, in fact, though the resemblance was too faint to be intentional.

Draco flicked up Colin Creevey’s wand grip, shoved Dean’s arm onto the proper line, and strolled up the aisle, ignoring the chorus of greetings sent in his direction.

Hermione and Daphne circled each other on a piste. Hermione hesitated, lurching on her front foot, and then leapt forward and lashed a glittering Expelliarmus from her wand, which Daphne skittered back and let splash harmlessly on the floor. She replied with a soft, weak Trip Jinx that Hermione effortlessly deflected from a Shield. Hermione bit her lip, eyes skittering over Daphne’s guard, and then quickly dropped her Shield, fired a white dart over its edge, and reactivated the Shield before Daphne could deflect. Her sleeves were rucked up, and her hair was twisted high in a red resin clasp, spilling in a corona around her flushed temples.

“You’re hesitating.”

Hermione jumped.

“How long have you been lurking around?”

“Long enough to know you’re hesitating.” He shed his robe with a casual roll of his shoulders. “You’ve got an excellent Shield Charm and you know it, but sooner or later, you’ve got to try to land a hit.”

“I made attempts.”

“And barely gave them a chance. You’ve hardly cast a spell before the shield’s back up. You’re not pressing the attack, because you’re already thinking about how you’re going to get back behind your defense.”

“I don’t want to hurt her.”

“With a Trip Jinx?” he said, amused. “Even Greengrass isn’t quite so feeble as that. Nearly, but not quite.”

“I resent that!”

“I can only hope that’ll lead you to do something about it,” he called. To Hermione: “Come here.”

Warily, she did — crossing the piste with short, delicate steps to stand in front of him. He eyed her up and down, taking in her guard — lingering, harmlessly, on the place where her tie had slipped loose, and the top button of her shirt hung in a single concession to exertion, revealing a soft triangle of skin at her throat — he cast the image into a familiar and increasingly crowded quadrant of his brain — and he stepped forward, then thought of something.

“Greengrass. Go bother Abbott. She needs a sparring partner.”

“Certainly,” Daphne murmured.

He gave her a flat look, and Hermione twisted around to glare over her shoulder, but Daphne smiled guilelessly and sashayed off, her wand dangling idly from her fingertips.

“Daphne,” called Hermione, flushed. “It isn’t — oh, what did you do that for?”

“What? Did you want her to watch?”

“Watch what? Did you have something in mind she oughtn’t see?”

“No, but you don’t like to be corrected, and I didn’t think you’d enjoy a spectator when I did.”

She opened her mouth, paused, and then closed it. Her eyes softened in a dark, shiny way, but she blinked it was gone. “That’s — true,” she said, with halting gratitude. “I wouldn’t. Only she seems to have the wrong impression.”

“Well, let her have it, then.” He ignored the little intake of breath she gave when he stepped closer. “It won’t be the only thing she’s wrong about.”

There wasn’t a meaning in it, nor in the way she startled when he lifted his hand. The corner of his mouth lifted.

“Steady on.” He took her shoulder and pressed his foot against hers, driving it back, until she slipped almost involuntarily into the duelist’s stance. “That’s better. Start there.”

She complied. “I won’t have time to fix my footwork if someone’s shooting curses at me.”

“And you won’t land a curse back if you don’t. Move your offhand— here.” He caught her wrist and twisted it around to rest behind her left hip, fingers lightly curled. Her chin sprang up, and he found himself caught in a frozen stare, her mouth parted and inexplicably wordless.

She cleared her throat. He withdrew his hand.

“Point your front foot forward. Wand-arm out front.”

Her lips closed, and she pressed them together. Slowly, she extended her arm and held it with the tip high, arm arrowed unnaturally straight. Her eyes flickered at the point and back to his face.

He cocked his head, calculating.

“Slacken your wrist.”

With an obliging little nod, she pronated it.

“No. Like this.”

He caught her wrist with his hand and twisted it, bringing her palm upwards. Her wand rotated into a grip she already knew perfectly well.

“Crook your elbow.” He took hers in hand and brought it lower, then drew it towards himself. “Extend it. Lean forward.”

“I am,” she said, though she wasn’t.

“Lean more.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, after a moment.

He gave her a long, intense glance, which she returned evenly, her shoulders straight.

“Fine,” he said. He gave her elbow a sharp tug, and she jerked forward, almost stumbling against his chest, until she caught herself on his shoulder. When she dropped back onto her heels, he was standing inside her guard, her wand-arm held firmly in his hand — if they were dueling, her position would be horrendously dangerous, he could more or less do anything he wanted — but she had twisted her face up towards him, and her expression was a guarded, smug little thing, a veiled glint of satisfaction that glowed through an innocent stare like light through a screen.

A flare of heat broke down his neck.

“How does that feel?” he said quietly.

“This?”

“Mm-hm.”

Her tongue probed the inside of her cheek. The light in her eyes was capricious.

“Better.”

“You sense the difference?”

“If you say so,” she said, “Frankly, I still don’t see why it matters.”

He made an irritated tch. “It matters because it’s proper. And useful.”

“Oh, I suppose so.”

“I’m serious. If your guard isn’t set correctly, you’ll be caught wide open by the first duelist who knows his lines. Besides which, the stance keeps you balanced when you’re throwing jinxes, and it means you’re pointing your wand straight instead of whipping it around from the side, which improves accuracy and form. What are you looking at?”

“Hm?”

“Hello? Are you listening, or shall I save my breath?”

“That’s a good answer,” she said, without answering him. “I still think it’s silly. People in battle don’t stand ahead of you and wait their turn. And to your question, I was thinking about our waltzing lessons.”

“And is there a reason you found that more interesting than the man standing in front of you?”

“It reminded me. Dancing and dueling. They’re both a sort of game, aren’t they?”

“It would put me significantly at ease if you offered a pretense of taking this seriously.”

“Mm. Counteroffer: suppose you pretend I’m taking it seriously, and I pretend it’s serious.”

“Granger—”

“Malfoy.”

“I — don’t do that.”

“Sorry. Wide open.”

She smiled, and it was hopelessly sweet. Her mouth was a small round flourish of satisfaction. When she laughed, it was knowing, and shy, and he had a great difficulty not taking her by the collar and kissing her.

Whatever his expression did, her smile flagged, replaced by something more tentative, almost fearful. But she didn’t move.

He pivoted away from her sharply, because if he didn’t, he was going to do something incredibly stupid in a room full of people who were entirely too invested in his business. Already he noticed Parvati and Hannah Abbott hurrying to resume their practice match, badly disguising their previous postures of interest. Daphne, perched three deep in a bench with Lavender and Romilda Vane, flashed him a backwards glance of some freight.

“OI! Draco! Need advice.”

Ginny came trotting through the crowd, ducking stray spells here and there, her ruddy ponytail swinging jovially. Hermione stepped off the piste, slipping her wand into her sheath, and turned away to re-do her hair clasp. Draco rubbed his eyes, resenting the existence of most persons in the room, and possibly all.

“Question about the Blood-Boiling Curse,” she announced. “Can’t get it right for the life of me. I’ve been testing them out with Nev in the greenhouses, going after slugs and aphids, but they haven’t got a lot of blood to boil, so— sorry, are you two in a match?”

“No.”

“Not presently,” said Hermione, with a slight edge. “Is there a reason you’re interested in the Blood-Boiling Curse? It’s extraordinarily painful.”

“Yeah, and I’m not boiling a bloke’s blood because it’s fun, am I?”

“I mean that there are easier ways to debilitate people, and less painful ones.”

“Setting them on fire, for instance.”

“Shut up, Draco. Ginny, I’d recommend a Binding Spell.”

“Take it under advisement,” said Ginny easily. “What’re you two scheming about, then?”

“We do not ‘scheme.’”

Ginny ignored this, as she should. “Because the twins and I were thinking. We ought to do something to Slytherin. Something nasty. To get them back for what they said at the game.”

“We’re not retaliating,” Hermione said. “Slytherin House isn’t your enemy.”

“Yea? Count the Slytherins in this room.”

“One,” said Hermione fiercely. Ginny scoffed. “One, and don’t roll your eyes, she counts.”

“Yeah, she’s fine, but hasn’t got a lot of company.”

“There could be a hundred girls like Daphne in Slytherin.”

“I don’t think there are a hundred girls in Slytherin.”

“And certainly not like me,” said Daphne, ambling over on Neville’s arm. She used a handkerchief to daub beads of sweat from the line of her brow. “I’m a prize. What are we talking about?”

“Ginny wants to start a war,” Hermione said.

“Ginny wants to win one,” muttered Ginny, scuffing her shoe on a flagstone.

“Against Slytherin? Gracious. Not likely,” she said mildly. “I mean, down with the ship, of course. Rah, rah. But you’re not going to beat Teddy Nott with Expelliarmus and Knockback Jinxes, I’ll tell you that.”

“By which you mean what, exactly?” muttered Draco. The memory of Theo did nothing for his mood.

“Only that he learned how to duel from a Death Eater. Namely, his father. There’s a reason everyone in the dungeons respects him, it’s not just because of his Ministry connections,” she said plainly. “And Draco’s seen Pansy Parkinson use blood runes with his own eyes.”

Wind whistled in the eaves behind the frosted glass, and the light in the room seemed to change. She shifted her weight in the ensuing silence.

“What?” she said. “You knew all that already.”

“Thank you, Daphne,” said Ginny pleasantly.

Hermione rubbed her face. “I don’t know why you’re asking me,” she said tiredly. “It sounds like your mind’s made up, so why do you care?”

Ginny traded an uncertain glance with Neville.

“Reckoned we ought to check,” he offered. “You’re in charge, aren’t you? It was your idea.”

“That’s — partly true, but I’m not — I don’t give orders. I — we suggest things, we teach, but — I’m hardly a commanding officer.”

“That’s debatable,” said Daphne mildly. “Call it what you like. You do know there’s not a person in this room who wouldn’t do anything you asked of them.”

Her remark carried his attention to the room at large, instinctually: the high sweep of its vaulted stone ceilings, the light scintillating from the small diamonds of the windows, and the mad, frenetic medley of students trading spells under the auspices of both: Dean and Seamus having a spectacularly pyrotechnic exchange that was more fireworks than jinxes, cackling each; Padma Patil and Ernie Macmillan were crouched together, drawing a runic circle around a suit of armor; Fred and George sparred two-on-two with Lee Jordan and Cedric Diggory, of all people; Justin Finch-Fletchley was dangling Dennis Creevey from a table by his ankle, while Colin giggled and took pictures; Lavender and Parvati were crouched together over a cauldron of Blood-Replenishing Potion and a wizarding magazine, whispering noisily; and among it all there was a roar of conversation and laughter, a sound that bled together and fused into a great wavering note, as if despite including scores of very different voices, it was drawn up and down by a single current of breath.

Harry stood at the fore of the room, his arms folded, watching. Ron leaned with his arm on his shoulder; he shouted something to Fred and George, and their response made him laugh. A soft smile drew the tired folds of Harry’s face, and he lifted his chin to shout back at them.

“I — doubt that — very much,” said Hermione haltingly. “Everyone’s here for Harry. And each other. I’m not any kind of reason, and I wouldn’t expect anyone to follow me.”

Daphne smiled.

“Wrong on at least one count, I think,” she said. He narrowed his eyes at her, and she continued, guileless: “Harry’s dreadfully dear, but if I thought we were counting on his brains to make it through, you wouldn’t catch my dust trail out of here. If you ever consider resigning, let me know well in advance, so I can go beg for my room back in Slytherin.”

---

The snows came down in a probing gray veil, and then all at once, overnight, in a blinding sweep of white. It was the time of year when Hagrid usually could be found dragging a giant Christmas tree out of the forest, or guiding the hippogriffs back into their paddock. But because Hagrid was gone, the trees in the hall were conjured by Flitwick — silver with red tinsel, strangely cold, despite their festivity — and it was Grubbly-Plank who conjured a wooden lean-to for the hippogriffs, brandishing a wand whose like Hagrid could never use, and then trotted back to the castle.

From the library window, Draco watched it come down. It was dark, and the snow dimmed the further it floated from the window — black grains bleeding into darkness at a distance, but bone-white when it piled against the glass.

Hermione had found a table by the corner. The Runes textbook floated over her journal and a scheduling chart. Two quills hovered at her elbows, waiting to be of use; as he watched, she grabbed one out of midair, stabbed it through a troublesome twist of hair, and then used the other to scrawl something on her journal, which lifted obligingly to meet her quill, even as her eyes never left the page.

Ron was paging through an O.W.L. prep book with a pencil, chewing pensively on the eraser, one hand buried fretfully in his thick red hair; Harry slouched back in his chair, fidgeting with a pocket snitch, all work forgotten. A lamp guttered in the center of the table, wax puddling.

“Anyone know the counter-charm for hiccoughs?” announced Ron, ruffling his hair. “I’m stuck.”

“Those quizzes are meant to teach you how much you know, Ron. Giving you the answer won’t help.”

“Yeah, but I know what I know already, don’t I? And I know I don’t know this.”

“You know the counter-charm for hiccoughs, you taught it to Lavender last week.”

“After Draco taught me that morning. And I don’t memorize that stuff, there’s no point.”

“The test is the point.”

“That’s the problem,” he groaned, slouching. “I don’t care about the test, Mione, and I know saying that makes you twitchy, but it’s all so much… rubbish. It’s not like I’m ever gonna be out there mowing down Death Eaters and suddenly need the counter-charm for hiccoughs.”

She snorted. “‘Mowing down’ Death Eaters? You’re fifteen.”

“Fred and George aren’t much older, and they’re going straight into the Order. They’ve already talked to Moody.”

“Fifteen to seventeen is a world of difference. And Molly would skin you.”

Ron grunted.

“You’re all assuming we have a choice,” said Harry. He flipped up the snitch and caught it. “We might not.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Hermione after a moment.

“I mean it’s not like we’ll be safe at Hogwarts. Viktor wasn’t.”

Hermione flinched. Draco lifted his eyes from his page, cutting a look at Harry.

“Viktor was seventeen, too,” she said tautly. “And he still made a choice, in the Maze. He could have run.”

“Run where? The cup was still cursed. If he hadn’t come with me, nothing would have changed. Except he’d be alive.”

“Mate,” muttered Ron. “Do we need to talk about this?”

Harry pitched the snitch fiercely into the air. “As opposed to what? Pretending it didn’t happen? I reckon enough people are doing that, don’t you?”

Hermione set her quill down. “That isn’t true,” she said calmly. “You don’t know how that fight would’ve turned out, if he wasn’t there. Possibly we’d all be dead.”

“Granger—”

“What? It’s true enough. And Viktor liked you, Harry. He made a choice to follow you, just like everyone else. Don’t deny him that.”

“He didn’t follow me,” said Harry, with surprising force. Draco slowly closed his book. “Nobody ordered him around. I got kidnapped, and he got roped in. It was stupid and pointless.”

“It wasn’t pointless,” said Hermione frigidly. “I don’t know how you can say that about someone’s death.”

“Because it was!” he exclaimed. “Saying it or not saying it doesn’t change anything, I’m sick of people acting like it does, and — and it makes my skin crawl, y’know, when people go around praising it like it was some noble thing to do—”

“He was noble.” Hermione’s mouth was a white line. “He wasn’t some lamb to the slaughter. He did care for you. He was intelligent and selfless, and he wouldn’t have done any of it if he didn’t believe you were worth it.”

Her tone chastised him, but he only slunk low in his seat, chin dipping in a surlish pout.

“I don’t want to be worth it,” he muttered.

“Bully for you,” she said crisply, and bent her head to her work again.

Draco raised an eyebrow, and Ron shook his head; then he shifted his hair back and scratched the center of his forehead. He shot a meaningful glance at Harry.

Scar.

“It’s ten to curfew,” Draco remarked, dropping his quill into the inkpot. “An appropriate time as any to retire.”

“Great idea,” said Ron at once, shutting his book. “I was sick of this an hour ago. Fancy a stop by the kitchens, Harry? Could get the house-elves to make some chips.”

“Can’t. Gotta practice Occlumency,” he said dully. “Then I’ve got the Potions homework. And I promised Dean I’d take a look at his Combustion Charm.”

“And how’s that coming?” Hermione said coolly, underlining something. “Occlumency?”

“Ask Draco. He’s the one who can actually do it.”

“Mother believes there’s been great strides made this term.”

“Yeah,” said Harry. “By you.”

This was true. Tactfully, however, he replied: “You’re leagues ahead of where you started.”

“Funny, because she still acts the same.”

“If she thinks you’re doing well, she won’t mention it. That’s how you know you’re doing well.”

“And what if she tells you you’re doing godawful? What’s that mean in Malfoy?”

“That she likes you, probably,” said Ron.

“She would never use the term ‘godawful.’ It’s pedestrian.”

A pair of giggling students darted through the stacks, stumbling over each other. At a distance, it was hard to make them out, but there was a whirl of dark curls, and the green of a Slytherin tie, and a boy with sandy hair. A door creaked, and their whispers winnowed out into silence.

Harry grunted and threw back his chair. He plucked the pocket snitch without looking from where it hovered behind his head, and shoved it in his pocket.

“I’m going to go see Cho.”

“Now?” Hermione checked her watch. “It’s ten to nine.”

“Yeah, so?”

“It’s five to ten,” she said, with a glance at Draco, “and if prefects don’t catch you, Filch will.”

“Yeah, but it’s you two on patrol tonight. It’ll be fine.”

“I — I resent that implication, frankly! The fact that Draco and I are prefects is not license to flout the rules!”

“Are you joking? You broke half a dozen school rules just this afternoon!”

“Which is more than enough risk for one day, and for a better reason than sneaking out to visit Cho Chang,” she said pointedly.

Harry glanced at Draco and muttered something. Draco narrowed his eyes and unfolded his legs.

“What was that?”

“Nothing! Honestly! Like it makes a difference! I’ll take the Cloak. Keep the Map, if you’re worried.”

Hermione made her lips thin. “I am,” she said, “since I happen to know what happens if you get caught.”

She twisted her right hand up pointedly, and the gauze slipped free of her sleeve, dangling.

“Yeah,” said Harry, agitated. “And I’ve got one to match. Two, actually.” He jerked his thumb at his forehead. “All anyone seems to want me for is this one, so maybe now they’ll care twice as much.”

“Harry!”

“That’s not true and you know it,” said Ron. “We’re right here—”

“I mean other people! Anyone from the Order, for instance, funny how no one wrote me once I started learning Occlumency—”

“That’s a coincidence,” Hermione said. “It’s not like they haven’t been busy, and you started Occlumency lessons around the same time Umbridge closed the Floo. Arthur called you, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, and hasn’t since! ‘Bye, Harry, don’t write, see you at Christmas’!”

“He’s been busy!” Ron exclaimed.

“Pretty busy, is it, in the Muggle Artifacts office?”

Anger propelled Ron upright. “You know what Dad’s been busy with, git! And they’re worried about Umbridge monitoring the Floo!”

“Really! That’s why they won’t let me write to Sirius, right? They’re worried about the Floo?”

“I don’t know what you even think you’re saying,” said Hermione, dumbfounded. “No one’s conspiring to keep you from your godfather—”

“Sure. Sure, yeah. Okay.”

“What are you implying?” said Ron, with more irritation. He rose to his feet, too, which put him several inches over Harry; the height seemed to level out the playing field of the conversation. “D’you really think my dad didn’t come as soon as he could? Seriously? He’d run here on foot if he had to, you know, if you called—”

“I didn’t ask for that!”

“You don’t HAVE to ask for it,” said Ron loudly, “that’s the POINT, you ingrate—”

“Sorry, then! Yeah! I guess I am ungrateful, but I don’t want a bunch of people lining up to die for me,” said Harry savagely. Hermione flinched. Draco shifted to his feet, his expression cold. “Had enough of those! Sorry! Not taking applications, tell everyone I said thanks—”

“Harry, what the fuck?”

“I don’t want an army!” he shouted. “I want people I can bloody talk to! I’m sorry if that puts your noses out of joint, but it’s what I want. Not that anybody particularly seems to care!”

Ron was wide-eyed and slack-jawed with some unnamable kind of anger; his hands were fists. Draco took a half-step between him and Potter, fingering his wand, contemplating the easiest way to disengage without hurting either of them if someone swung.

“Harry,” said Hermione quietly, “is your scar hurting?”

Harry’s head snapped to her. His chest heaved as a visible swell of anger moved through it. “None of your business!”

He strode past them, shouldering his bag, and swung into the aisle.

“Don’t wait up for me,” he snapped, and was gone.

In the guttering candlelight, Ron gave a sudden bark and kicked Harry’s chair. It tipped slowly over on its side, a tragedy of anticlimax.

“Wanker! That bloody wanker! Self-absorbed — mean-spirited — impossible sodding arsehole—”

Hermione gave a hollow laugh. Ron looked at her wildly, interrupted in his mutterings.

“What?”

“Oh, not — you’re more than entitled to say it, but it’s just — that’s really not true, is it?”

Ron ground his hands into his eyes. The tension in his shoulders seeped away.

“No,” he muttered. “It’s not.”

He tossed himself down in the chair, his spine a glum slouch. Draco pointed his wand discreetly at Harry’s chair, and righted it.

“He acts like he’s the only one making sacrifices,” Ron muttered.

“I know.” Hermione was fidgeting with the gauze on her wrist, twisting a tourniquet, then letting it go. Apropos of nothing, she said: “I wonder if I shouldn’t have pushed so hard about starting the Defense Club.”

“Why not?” said Draco.

“Hm. I — well. I think I assumed,” she said slowly, “that the pressure would be… fun for him. Like it is for—” She glanced up and gestured between them: You and me. He nodded. “You know, I was so frustrated that we didn’t have anything to do, that Umbridge was here and the Order was out there and we weren’t even being taught to fight, only to stand still and watch as everything got worse, I wanted to feel like I was doing something. You know — I can’t fight, and I’m not rich or pureblooded or powerful, and I can’t save anyone, but we can still do something. You can always do something.”

The candlelight made her glow, softly, with a light that seemed almost to emanate from within. She spoke with her hands, and they cast birdlike shadows on the far walls, waltzing to the rhythm of her low, passionate voice. He watched her and marveled that anyone had ever found it easy to ignore her.

“But the pressure was part of it. It makes it feel like we’re doing something serious. Even if it isn’t, really.” She shrugged, faintly embarrassed. “Harry’s not like that. It’s not pleasant for him, that sort of intensity, I think it reminds him too much of… well, his life, I suppose. I always forget that difference. He’s… not like us.”

“Not like you, maybe,” admitted Ron. “All that spy stuff with the Order scares the hell out of me. It’s one thing for Harry, you know, with Remus and Sirius, they’ve always been these big action hero types, but… I dunno mate. My dad’s a bureaucrat.” He scrubbed his nose, his expression bleak. “Bill’s cool, but he’s not a soldier, he’s… he’s a cursebreaker, he does puzzles that blow up if he’s wrong, and I just — when Harry said that, about them dying, it hit home to me, like — he’s not wrong. They could.”

There was a creak of floorboards somewhere in the library. The castle sighed and shifted on its foundations, rattling like giants playing timbrels in the walls. Draco flicked another Muffliato at the aisle, for good measure.

Hermione folded her arms. “There’s not any real fighting yet,” she said. “It’s all politics and spycraft. It’s a whisper war.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means nobody’s going to die,” she said, and cut herself off, with a telltale disjoint, before she could reach the word he knew she’d wanted: Yet.

But even for that, the bodies of Viktor Krum and Barty Crouch were too long cold for her to sound convincing. Their presence emanated silently through the library’s floating dust.

“And your parents were soldiers, actually,” she said suddenly. “In the first war. Remember? You could give your father a little credit. And your mother, for that matter. You know, Mad-Eye once told me there were only three people who ever beat him in a duel—”

“Don’t — please don’t talk about it,” said Ron, hoarsely. “I’m sorry. I know I brought it up, but this — this is worse.”

Draco inclined his head silently toward the flames, and the warmth of the fire suffused on his face, while the chill of the shade cooled his back.

“My mother is working with Dumbledore,” he said. He didn’t know why he said it, but when it was there, he turned it over in his head, and found that there was a hollow where his regret was supposed to be.

He was used to that hollow by now. It was his familiar. He gave it a suspicious poke sometimes, when Harry or Hermione said something especially redolent of muggle, or Ron made a crass joke, or anything happened that ought to have made his mother curl her lip. But it remained empty. The emptiness unnerved him. He didn’t like the idea that he was walking around with a cavity inside him; a man was supposed to have beliefs. Convictions. His father had. That was what a family motto was for. Vincit semper.

But he didn’t have any. What he had were a single-digit number of people around him who were simply not allowed to die, and he didn’t really think that counted. He’d flushed all the other beliefs because they kept getting in the way of that single-digit number, and he wasn’t ashamed of it, but it gave him pause, because it made him feel — incomplete, somehow. A half-man, cleaved at the limb, a philosophical amputee.

He’d cut himself out of something awful, and it was good, it was — it was necessary — but sometimes he worried that the cut had taken too much. For if he’d been wrong — meaning Lucius had been wrong, meaning fifteen generations of his forefathers had been wrong, if the things they’d gone to war and died for were so much chaff in the wind of history — then how could anything be true? How could you trust the same heart that had almost ruined you?

Hermione’s voice tugged him out of reverie.

“Is she?” she said curiously. “What’s she doing?”

He debated his liberty to speak. His exact words to his mother had been I swear to share confidence in this with none but Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape, which didn’t actually specify the extent of the vow. Certainly it extended to the secret of the Dark Lord’s immortality, but she hadn’t clarified whether her involvement was included.

“I don’t know.” That was true; she never shared her whereabouts. “Her connections with the Death Eater movement give her… valuable knowledge.”

“Blimey! Your mum’s a double agent?” Ron seemed to highly approve.

“She wasn’t an agent in the first place, thank you. She wasn’t a Death Eater. She still isn’t. She wouldn’t — make a good spy.” She’s mad, he didn’t say, and was therefore perhaps among the few people in the world that Dumbledore could never, under any circumstance, ask to keep a cover. Her mind was a vouchsafe of her freedom. Wasn’t that a delicious irony.

“I thought you said you didn’t know what she was doing,” said Hermione.

“I don’t. But she wouldn’t take the Mark.”

“You’re… confident about that,” she said, carefully, but the challenge settled there, however delicately, all the same.

He grappled for the means to make her understand. “It’s not something done lightly,” he gritted out, finally. “It’s permanent. Irrevocable. You’ll die with the scar of it on you, I—”

I’ve seen it, he might have said.

He began again:“My father would never let her.”

“Let her?”

“No — it wasn’t — he protected her. One of them had to take it, so he did.”

“You make it sound like it wasn’t his choice.”

“It wasn’t.”

“I thought he was a believer.”

“He was. But you can’t refuse the Mark, when it’s offered to you, and — I don’t know how to explain this in a way that makes sense to you,” he said, and tried to sound patient. “The Death Eaters are not a group it is possible to walk away from. It isn’t the Order. You’re there because there is no life outside of it. No one has ever betrayed the Dark Lord and lived.”

The candlewax whined and cracked like the shuffle of fingerbones.

“That’s not true,” said Ron suddenly, and they both startled.

“I assure you that it is,” said Draco, with a touch of acid. He lifted his hand and cocked his signet ring. “Or I wouldn’t have this.”

“Yeah,” said Ron steadily, “no, didn’t work out for your dad, and that sucks — being evil is a raw deal, no question — but you’re still forgetting someone.”

“Who?”

He paused, and said emphatically: “Snape.”

“That’s right! He did, didn’t he?” said Hermione, relieved. “He betrayed Voldemort, and he lived.”

Draco drew his hand back into his lap, tracing the shape of his crest on the gemstone. His finger knew the grooves like they were etched into his skin. He could draw them sleeping, backwards, deaf and blind. “Snape survived, and continues to survive, as the thrall of Albus Dumbledore,” he said tonelessly, not quite disagreeing. “Technically, he’s never left the Dark Lord’s ranks, and the moment he tried, he’d be as doomed as anyone else. If his cover breaks, he’s dead. He’s still not free.”

“That’s still not the same as being a Death Eater,” argued Ron. “Dumbledore’s not making him kill muggles.”

“Morally, yes. I suppose you could argue his soul’s better off for it,” said Draco, and struggled to keep the scorn from his voice. “But in terms of free will, hardly. Whatever reasons he had for betraying the Dark Lord, the luxury of choice wasn’t one of them.”

“We know his reasons,” said Hermione suddenly. “He was in love.”

This was so unlike her, as a retort, that his fingers stilled on the ring. He raised his eyes, slightly incredulous.

She tinged pink and said, crisply: “With Lily Potter. That’s what Sirius said, remember? In the Shrieking Shack? He turned coat because her life was in danger. Lily Potter.”

The concept was too bizarre; Draco sidelined it, settling it in an uncomfortable mental corner with everything else he didn’t know about his godfather.

“Who hated him,” said Ron mildly, “so we’re clear. I mean, ups to him and everything for doing it, whatever his reason was, but it’s not exactly this big damn love story, mind you — she was married by that point, actually, to another bloke.”

“As was Guinevere,” said Draco.

“Yeah, and that one caused a few problems, too, I think,” Ron said promptly. Draco flashed him a cool glance. Hermione huffed in amusement.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “My point is just that it is possible. Whatever his reasons are, whether they matter or not, he did, and so people do have a choice. Can we agree on that?”

“Fine,” he said, curtly. “But my father didn’t, and sometimes people don’t. So long as that’s clear, too.”

She tilted her head sideways at him, spilling dark hair down one side, baring her neck to the firelight.

“Maybe,” she said.

“‘Maybe’?”

“Maybe, yes.” She smirked, obstinate and smug and unfairly lovely.

“Meaning ‘no.’”

“Meaning maybe,” she retorted. “I’ll think about it. If you can come up with a better argument in the meantime, let me know. We’d better get going if we want to finish the patrol before midnight.”

Harry had been right: they were slated to sweep the third floor. Draco rose and offered her a hand, and she took it, wheeling herself to her feet with a sharp tug. When she came to her feet, she remained there for a moment, her hand balancing lightly in his; then she removed it quickly and drew her wand, using a Collection Charm to sweep their arrayed notes into her journal.

“Right. Guess that’s you two off, then,” said Ron. He stretched, lacing his hands behind his neck. “Suppose I’ll wait up for you, then? In the common room?”

Hermione paused in gathering her books. “Are you sure? We won’t be back until eleven.”

“I’ll be awake, anyway. Hey, you two hungry? Want something from the kitchens when you get back?”

“No, thank you, and I’ll thank you twice not to do what I’ve just got done yelling at Harry for,” said Hermione, with mild amusement, shouldering her bag. “Which is to give Umbridge another chance to catch you breaking the rules. Go get some rest. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“If you say so. Here, let me take those back,” said Ron suddenly, and reached for her bag. “What’s that, two stone? You don’t want to be hauling all that around on patrol. I’ll drop them off with Lavender, she’ll take them up.”

“You don’t have to… but I suppose… that’s very nice,” said Hermione, blinking in surprise. She yielded up her bag, and Ron shouldered it, grinning good-naturedly. “Thank you, that’s — very kind.”

“No worries.”

“I mean it, you don’t have to. And I’m sorry for what Harry said, earlier,

Draco nudged in his chair with one foot and stepped into the aisle, pointedly ignoring both of them. It wasn’t for him to be irritated that Ron was doing her a kindness. That was one of the privileges that friendship did not afford, even a particularly unique friendship of parameters undefined. That was something one needed a sort of claim to do.

Out of everyone committed to the understandable masochism of caring for Hermione Granger, Ron was probably the most irritating. He was an earnest, well-meaning, natural-born pureblood of whom Hermione probably knew very few: pure of heart, mind, and intention. When he claimed loyalty to something he sank his teeth into it like a trapjaw and let go never, the same as the rest of his fervent, scrappy clan. It was only out of some grim perversity that he continued to watch as Ron plucked the quill from Hermione’s hair, making her giggle and grab for it back: an unfathomable taste for ideation about the ease with which Ron touched her hair, and admired her work, and said in loud clear terms how impressive he found her, even though there was nothing particularly remarkable about being impressed by Hermione. It was woefully easy to be loved by Ron.

Even Hermione, who always seemed to take his attention as half a joke, seemed flustered by the intensity of his praise, or his affection, or his generosity. Ron gave as if there was no end to giving.

Draco took as if there was no end to taking. So he took his leave, and went to stand by the front desk.

Hermione caught up with him belatedly, wearing the ghost of a flush and rearranging her hair.

“Ready?” she said brightly. “We’re rostered for the third floor. I could kiss Cedric for that; Padma has the dungeons, and she says it’s frigid down there at night.”

He made a noncommittal noise and opened the door.

“Now what’s the matter with you?” she said, with exasperation that made clear she would tolerate only good answers.

“Envy,” he said coolly. Hermione tripped and caught herself on the doorframe, and he turned back to offer her a hand down the step. “I feel rather snubbed. Ronald’s made no offer to carry my books, and I fear his intentions with me are unchivalrous.”

Her face quickened into relief, and she took his hand. Imagination furnished it with a quick squeeze as she stepped down, and she stood close to him in the hallway while he shut the door.

“It’s true,” she said seriously. “I’m afraid he’ll never marry you.”

“And I was so ready to be a Weasley.”

“Don’t lose hope. George is a bachelor.”

“Granger dear, I’m titled, handsome, and fathomlessly rich. I think I can do a bit better than George, thank you.”

“Mm. What about Fred?”

“Oh, in a heartbeat.”

She burst into laughter. Her hand flew to muffle the sound, but it tripped out between her fingers. Predictably, hopelessly, helplessly, he smiled for her; and whatever bitterness he felt was lifted up and carried away, if momentarily, on the rising current of their wings.

---

“I don’t think Harry meant what he said. About Viktor.”

The inner hall of the third floor had rich wood paneling that skirted the wall, lacquered to a liquid sheen under the glaze of torchlight. Suits of armor bent to salute them as they passed, their steel plates rattling; tapestries swayed gently in a subtle draft. It was dim, and quiet, and the only people awake were the ghosts that moved now and then through the walls, their pale silhouettes flickering at the end of corridors.

Hogwarts was haunted. It didn’t do to forget.

Hermione took a girding breath. Her wand dropped a thin beam of Lumos into the embroidery at her feet, sweeping their way.

“Do you think?”

Draco didn’t reply.

“Because if he did, then he didn’t know Viktor at all. Which he might not have, I suppose. A lot of people didn’t know him. He wasn’t easy to talk to.”

“He seemed,” said Draco, “nice enough.”

“He was.” They turned a corner and passed the grand staircase, sweeping down the next row of classrooms. “He was — extremely nice. But he wasn’t very good at making friends. I wish Harry had known him better, they would have got on. And I think he would’ve adored Ginny, actually.”

“Why so?”

“Oh, just a feeling. Quidditch, flying, sports. And she’s high-spirited, which he would have admired. He said he liked passionate people.”

He shot her a look that made her twitch.

“Other people, I mean. In general. Not just — it wasn’t like that, with him and me. We went to the Ball together, and that was the only time — well, and we kissed once, but that didn’t count.”

He made some sort of sound, which she interpreted as leave to keep going.

“I don’t count it, anyway,” she said. “It was a few days before the Third Task. We were both too busy to see each other, me with Harry, and him with his preparations, but I came to see him a few times on the Durmstrang ship, and he would walk me back to the castle; and the last time, I thought it would be nice, since we’d spent all this time together, to — I mean, that’s what people do, when they’re seeing each other, isn’t it? It would be — a perfectly ordinary thing to do. And even if not, as a gesture of friendship—”

“A friendly kiss.”

“It was! Listen, just because you and your date had some sort of physical imbroglio—”

“It wasn’t anything physical. Greengrass is a friend. Before that, she was a stranger. Never anything else.”

They turned another corner, and ventured down a narrow hallway.

“You can say that if you like, but you did kiss her.”

“I kissed her, the once,” he said tartly, “for pedagogy.”

“For pedagogy!” It was delighted and teasing.

“We were fourteen years old, and I was her date to a ball. It was an avenue of intellectual exploration. It was,” he said, mimicking her, “‘what people do.’ As I’m told.”

“And what were your findings from kissing the great Daphne Greengrass?”

“I’m under the impression it’s impolite to tell.” He checked a corner, ignoring the heat of her eyes on his back.

“She told first, so it cancels out.”

“Is that how it works?”

“No,” she admitted, a bit embarrassed. “I’m just being nosy, I suppose.”

He snorted and stepped ahead of her, which was doubly successful, because besides hiding his face, it meant he didn’t have to see whatever hers was doing. “It was brief. Happy?”

“That hardly tells me anything.”

“Merlin. How much detail do you want?”

“Well,” she said defensively, “did you — you know, enjoy it?”

“As much as I’ve ever enjoyed a kiss, yes.”

“Oh.” She walked in measured silence for a while, her wand steady. “Is that a high bar, then?”

“Are you asking me if I’ve kissed someone and enjoyed it?”

She cleared her throat. “Suppose I am,” she said. “Of pedagogy.”

He’d been in a traincar, in the thick, terrible heat of June, and he’d been holding a girl in his arms, and she’d leaned up and kissed him on the cheek.

Nearly on the mouth, but not quite; just close enough for him to think about it for a summer.

“Not in the sense you’re thinking,” he said.

“Really? You haven’t?”

Hermione sounded surprised. Momentarily, she added, stiffly: “I don’t know why I reacted that way, I — I thought otherwise.”

“What? Why?”

She wet her lips. “Because you — obviously you grew up a bit, and the other girls are — I mean, Parvati asked if you wanted—”

“She did what?”

“But I told her you wouldn’t be interested.”

“Patil? Really.”

“Yes. Are you upset? I can tell her you are, if you are, I mean I assumed because you’d never actually had a conversation longer than three sentences, or mentioned her ever, at all, you probably wouldn’t like to sit across from her in some stuffy tea shop in Hogsmeade and listen to her rave about muggle novels—”

“I like muggle novels.”

“Not enough to get through lunch with Parvati,” said Hermione, with vague conviction. “And I’m sorry, but she’d never survive your mother. She starts blubbering when I scold her for leaving hair in the shower; Narcissa would have her on the floor in ninety seconds.”

This seemed admittedly probable.

“I’ll thank you not to terrorize my admirers, Granger, there’s little enough good taste to go around as it is.”

“I didn’t terrorize her,” she said indignantly. “I saved her time.” She paused. “I did not terrorize her,” she amended, “much.”

He did not smile; it was difficult, however.

“I don’t encourage her,” he said. “I don’t flirt. There’s a difference between having attention and courting it. As I’m sure you’re aware.”

“You… don’t.”

“No.” He turned around, under the pretense of checking over his shoulder, and found a view of her full, alert, studious face, focused on him like he was a particularly fascinating kind of Arithmancy problem. “Not usually.”

“So you… but— oh.”

He raised his eyebrow at her. She had stopped walking and was staring at him.

“Yes?”

“When you flirt with… people,” she said slowly, “what do you mean?”

His heart continued to assert an increasing weight on his ribs.

“What I say,” he said, succinctly. “Don’t you?”

She wet her lips. “Yes,” she said, haltingly. “I — mean it.”

The heavy object blossomed in his chest, its weight dissipated into heat and smoke.

“You do.”

She’d said it. She’d said it, out loud, irrevocably. She did mean it. He hadn’t been wrong.

“But I’m not — I don’t — I’m not used to— those of us who aren’t tall quidditch players don’t— I’m not used to people — fancying me, you understand. I don’t — there’s so much of friendship that’s like fancying someone anyway, and I don’t know — I don’t get the rules to this, I just sort of assumed — and anyway, it’s not like you’re the most obvious person in the world—”

Sometimes he wondered how she didn’t walk into walls.

“Respectfully, Granger, I beg to differ.”

“But I still think you’re — possibly unaware of the extent of the circumstances,” she said tightly.

“Which are?”

“I don’t — I don’t know, I’m not good at — I don’t have a lot of history with fancying people, I — as I said, I kissed Viktor,” she added, “but I don’t think I did it right.”

He almost did walk into a wall, then. Twice. First at fancying people, and then did it right, which snared him in the crosshairs of two different kinds of confusion.

“I mean it was fine and everything, but I suspect I messed it up a bit. It wasn’t…” She hesitated. “I suppose eventually, if I’d had more time… anyway. It doesn’t matter now.”

He ground out the flicker of resilient bitterness at the bottom of his chest. “…I doubt you did it wrong, Granger.”

She made a noncommittal sound.

“I suspect he would have agreed with me.”

“It wasn’t a thing,” she said, after a moment, in a tone that was some distance away. “A real thing, I mean. We were both too busy — I was always with you and the boys, and he was a champion, and he was going to graduate anyway, so… But I think I would’ve gone to Bulgaria, when he invited me. And I would’ve brought my parents. He could’ve met them. I think he would’ve liked them. And I don’t know what would have… you can never know how things would have went, but it could’ve been something. Or maybe it wouldn’t have been, but at least I would’ve known.”

He didn’t mention that Krum had invited him to Bulgaria, too. He doubted that was the summer she was imagining.

“But then I wouldn’t have been able to come to visit you,” she said abruptly. She held her head straight ahead and did not look at him. Her wand rolled endlessly between her fingers. “And I wouldn’t have seen the Manor. So you see, many things would have been different, if Viktor hadn’t died.”

“You still would have seen it.”

“Eventually,” she said. “After I went to Bulgaria. Do you think that would have made a difference?”

“…In what?”

“I don’t know. Just that I might be a different person. If Viktor had lived.”

“You could have been a thousand different people, in other lives, if other things had happened to you.” His voice was low, effortfully smooth. It rippled in thin echoes in the corridor. “You’re here. They’re not. You have the right to make decisions they can’t.”

“But—”

“You also have the duty.”

Hermione exhaled slowly.

“Speaking from experience?” she murmured.

He inclined his head. His heart hung heavy in his chest, an insistent pressure on his ribs.

“A great many things would have been different, if Lucius Malfoy had lived,” he said. “Possibly it was a better world than this one. But I don’t live there.”

She stopped walking, and he turned to face her with a graceful movement of the heel.

“If my father could see me, he would loathe me,” he said coolly, and it was remarkable how little it stung; the words passed through him cleanly, with only a pinch of pain, like a wound that cauterized itself. “But that stopped being my problem when they put him in the ground.”

Hermione’s mouth was a soft line of doubt.

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do.”

“You don’t.”

“I care for you more than I care for his memory. I mean that.”

His echo hung on the vaulted ribs of the ceiling, sending ripples of his casual apostasy out into the fathomless night.

She made a noise like the breath had gone out of her, half-laughter, half-pain, and her eyes closed.

“You can’t,” she said, “you don’t understand—”

Something shrieked.

A sound like shearing metal rent the air. Running water erupted in the distance. The portraits shuddered from the impact. The castle groaned.

Hermione started, but Draco was faster. He darted to the staircase and scaled it, footsteps beating a groan out of old wood. Hermione flicked a Detection Charm off her wand and it went skittering into the darkness, landed on something, and gave a high caterwaul. He veered right and took three steps before his foot splashed in something, and he saw a black mirror of water filming the hardwood.

Something was moving in the darkness: splashing at the end of the hallway, a figure under the low bars of torchlight.

“Who’s that?” she called. “Stop there!”

Draco threw a Petrificus down the hallway, but there was no one for it to hit. A tapestry of Dedlig the Gilded fluttered in the draft from the window.

“Damn,” Hermione snapped. “Check the bathroom.”

A pair of Siphoning Charms stemmed the flow of water from the doorway, and he toed open the door. In the dark bathroom, light glimmered from a bevy of floating candles above the floor, and the torches glittered dully from the high stone walls. Water babbled thickly on the floor, ankle-deep, and the sound of drowning drains rose in croaking echoes, like a chorus of frogs.

“It’s one of the taps,” said Hermione. Watery acoustics turned the echoes of her voice to vibrato. She dropped to her knees near one of the sinks, which had been shattered in half, and water sprayed ecstatically from a shorn pipe, like blood from a jugular. It splattered her face and her shirt, and she winced.

“I suppose this is someone’s idea of a prank.”

“Some prank,” he said, picking his way disdainfully through the flood. “A bit of a mess, and no audience. The twins have higher standards.”

She picked up a bit of shorn ceramic, hefted it, and then tossed it back into the soup. “Hm. It’s all shattered here, the faucet isn’t cleanly snapped… You can take off a faucet without breaking the whole sink like this. It might have been a misfired spell. Or accidental magic.”

“In the bathroom? On a weekend?”

“Why not? It’s private and reasonably ventilated. And — ergh — it’s got a built-in drainage system,” she said, gritting her teeth, and layering another Sealing Charm over the broken pipe. The water slowed to a weak splutter, but the pressure increased from the thinner outlet, and it struck her cheek, splattering her hair. “So they can rinse any evidence — which might be what they were trying to do—”

“Mmhm.”

“Not that they did a very good job of it,” she added, twisting her wet hair out of her face, and wrestling it into a quick knot atop her head. “It’s a hack job. But that person didn’t look young, did they? I couldn’t make them out.”

“No.”

She nosed a bit of broken porcelain with her toe. “It’s just a strange thing to do,” she said. “Flooding a bathroom. I can’t think how you’d do it by accident, and I can’t think why you’d do it on purpose.”

“Granger.”

The water was coursing over her shirt, slicking it to her shoulders. The imprint of her underthings pressed through the fabric, clear white under an increasingly translucent sheen of pearl-gray, and clung to her waist. Her hair was dark and stringy where it floated in front of her face, and beads of water darted here and there, like shining clear gems studding her fringe, her eyelashes, the ridge of her cheek.

He was warm. He wanted to touch his mouth to the place where the rivulets fell on her neck.

He wondered, not for the first time, if fancying someone wasn’t just a culturally venerated way of going mad.

“Your shirt,” he said, with difficulty.

“Hm? Oh — oh.” She fumbled her robe to cover it. “I… sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

“I can’t really help it.”

“No.”

“Yours is the same. You’re — a bit soaked through.” The pipe was still guttering.

He stepped past her, reached over her with his wand, and cast a charm. A skein of spongy black webbing knitted itself over the pipe’s mouth, and the water shut off.

They were standing very close together.

“What’s that charm?” she said. Her voice seemed loud. “I don’t recognize it.”

“ Sfongari. It conjures a spongiform leech. Absorbs moisture.”

“Oh, that’s marvelously useful. Is that sixth year curriculum, or seventh?”

“Neither.” The spell had come from Snape’s notes. It was also intended to be cast on someone’s skin. “Found it in a book at the Manor.”

“Can you teach me?”

“If you like.”

“I would.”

Her eyes were still somewhere low. Then she said, in a normal voice: “You’re looming.”

“I know that.”

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why are you looming?”

“Guess,” he said. The heat in his chest had reached the skin, which was numb, tingling.

She bit her lip, staring at him.

“We can’t do this,” she said. “We really can’t do this.”

“Do what? Have a conversation?”

“You know what. I — don’t make me explain to you why we don’t stand this close to each other.”

“Why not?”

She took a sharp breath, and said something that would be running through his head up until the minute of his death, probably, and then for whatever he got beyond.

“I think about this all the time,” she said, and gave no sign of having casually ruined him. “I — about you. And me. Because it would change — it would change a lot, if not — everything. And I wonder, sometimes, if you have any idea how much I need you. Sometimes I think you don’t. Know, that is.”

“I beg your — I — what?”

It had been his formal opinion, though not one that he liked thinking about, that Hermione Granger rarely needed anyone at all. The idea that he made the list was both pleasant and startling in equal measure, a forked tongue of lightning down the spine.

“Well, I do. Need you. I feel — when you’re there, it’s—”

“It’s what?”

She tore her hands through her hair in aggressive frustration. “Never mind, it sounds ridiculous.”

“I sincerely doubt that.”

“Being around you makes everything possible,” she said softly, and then glared at him, which was a study in dissonance if he’d ever had one. “So please, don’t — I know you like to flirt, and I haven’t really stopped you, but — we can’t do something that would make it impossible to — listen. We have something. It’s a good thing. We know what it is.”

A lie in at least two senses; once again, he had no idea, whatsoever, what they were about.

The one consolation being that she seemed not to know either.

A headache was mounting behind his eyes.

“If it went away,” she said, parceling out her words slowly, “something — bad would happen to me. I think.”

“It doesn’t have to go away. It won’t. I won’t.”

“The thing about that,” she said, “is you can’t know that. Actually. And I’m this — would you believe me if I said it was a compliment to you that I refuse to take chances?” She closed her eyes and gave a sort of half-wince. “I’m — being careful. I’m not very good at it, I’ve never tried to do it before. I’ve been reliably informed that I’m not very good at being careful with people, actually.”

“If you are, I’m worse.”

“You’re very careful with me,” she said.

“I’m your friend.” The word rang hollow; she gave another pithy, halting smile. “Comes with the job. I’m reliably informed.”

“Yes,” she said, a touch melancholy. “The best I ever had, or ever will.”

“…I don’t like the way that sounds.”

“It’s true. I never had a friend like you before I came to Hogwarts, and don’t think I’ll ever meet one again. I don’t think I’d want more than one, if it feels like this.”

“Feels like what?” he said, feverish.

She hesitated. Then, with the quick, daring movement of someone breaking a rule, she stepped forward and — he nearly had a heart attack — and fastened the button of his shirt where it had come undone during the duel. Her neat, deft little fingers slipped it through the buttonhole. When it lay flat, she smoothed his collar with her hand, and his throat alit with warmth wherever her hand moved.

“There,” she said, with a timid, proprietary satisfaction. “That was bothering me for hours.”

She glanced up at him from under her eyelashes, and it probably wasn’t intentional, but if she didn’t want him to kiss her, she needed to stop looking like that quite soon.

“I want to do that,” she said, with slight frustration. “But for everything.”

Very soon. Extremely, extremely soon, she needed to stop.

“A compulsion to fix my clothes?” It was rough.

“A compulsion,” she said, with a clear, high, but clearly waning bravery, “to keep you.”

“Keep me what?”

She paused. Her eyes dropped from his.

“Nothing,” she said. “Just… keep, I guess.” She paused. “I don’t know if that’s how other people feel about their — good friends. I haven’t, but I gave up on being ordinary a long time ago.”

“It isn’t.”

“No? I hope it isn’t unnerving. I’m not crazy, the feelings are just — complicated.”

“It has always been apparent to me, if not to most people,” he said slowly, “that we have a very complicated friendship, and we operate on parameters that are entirely our own.”

“Yes. It’s not the same friendship we have with other people.”

“It’s not one most people have with other people.”

“But so you’re not worried about… I mean, it doesn’t unnerve you?” she said hopelessly. “What I said about keeping. Because it is normal, really. Or it can be. It doesn’t make you uncomfortable? Because I could stop, if it was too much. Or something.”

If she knew the fucking half of it.

“It isn’t.”

“Oh. I’m glad,” she said, awkwardly pleased. She fidgeted with her hands, glowing.

“No one else?”

“What?”

“You don’t feel that way about anyone else, you said.”

“No,” she said automatically. “I mean, I care for other people, but it isn’t the same as… it isn’t the same feeling. There’s something very discomfiting about it, actually. It isn’t something I think I’d choose to feel. Is that insulting? I hope it’s not insulting, but it’s the truth.”

“It’s never the same with anyone else,” he repeated, fierce with satisfaction. “That’s what you said. You wouldn’t do that, with the collar, for anyone else.”

Her mouth twisted in a sly way. “You’re vain,” she said. “You’re terribly vain. I wish that irritated me more, you know, it would be easier if it did.”

“What would be easier?”

She gave him a half-cocked, knowing look, and he returned it with an even, unabashed challenge. The lightning in his spine continued to flicker.

She straightened her skirt and adjusted her prefect’s badge. She ran a Drying Charm over her shirt, and then pointed her wand at him. “Do you want one?” she said. “Here. We’ll have to report this to Umbridge — actually, you do that, since you’re her new favorite, and tell her I just ran away or something, like the scared little muggle-born I am. I don’t want to deal with her idea of a follow-up investigation.” She flinched. “God, I don’t want to know what she’ll do when she finds out about this. Do you suppose we could just lie?”

“Not successfully.”

“No. She’ll want to blame someone in Gryffindor. I’ll tell them to start preparing alibis. Fred and George will be targets, obviously… Katie, too, she’s been dress coded four times this week… you know, I could have sworn girls were allowed to wear pants — and Seamus, God, even I’m not sure it wasn’t Seamus — maybe we can all just hide until the train comes, wouldn’t that be nice?”

Her smile was wry and weary.

“We could,” he said. “You’d miss Transfiguration.”

“A bad blow,” she said seriously, “but I might just survive it.”

“McGonagall wouldn’t. She’d assume her favorite died, and lose the will to live.”

“Harry’s her favorite.”

“Difference in kind. She looks at him like a stray kitten she’s taken to feeding. She smiles at you.”

Hermione beamed at the ceiling, muttered something about flattery, and threw a Drying Charm at him.

“Meet you in the common room?” she said.

“You will.”

“To debrief?”

“As per.”

“Lovely,” she said. “Thank you. I — thank you.”

She smiled at him: timid, grateful, apologetic. Then, after a moment, she spun around, and darted across the bathroom.

He didn’t see it coming: it landed without warning, a furious, hot press of her mouth on the corner of his, landing just ajar to his cheek. Warmth all over, her skin everywhere, softness where moments ago there had been empty air. For a second, he was simultaneously numb and on fire.

She sprang back.

“Thanks,” she said, insensibly, her voice light and giddy and taut. Hermione backed off, flushed and slightly mad-looking, the madwoman he was unfortunately, hopelessly attracted to.

“That’s not fair,” he said, roughly, after a moment.

The corner of her mouth twitched. “No,” she said, and for a second, her grin was very much like his. “Sorry. I — I’m reliably informed that it isn’t.”

And with a soft, high flutter of laughter, she swung out of the bathroom, her hair a dark cowl of soaked curls.

And when the door swung closed, it felt like he was walking around with something strung up in his chest, a cat’s cradle of tendon and string. He threaded his hands through his hair, and finally, he couldn’t resist the urge to laugh.

The feeling was spreading off his skin, catching, crackling; it felt like the moment he opened his eyes, he’d find the whole castle on fire.