"You know, we really ought to find some other place..." Hermione said gently and softly. They snuck past the librarian with sheepish smiles – one after the other – hoping that their previous altercation had been forgotten but Madam Pince was far too engrossed in her book to notice the shifting shadows. As long as the silence held, she was perfectly content to let all other shenanigans slide. She had seen her fair share of stolen kisses and naughty tumbles between the shelves and had learnt to let certain indiscretions slide, as long as she had a good book.

"What? Afraid the perfect Potter will come screaming again?" Draco answered scathingly, almost daring her to say something contrary.

She lifted her eyebrow as if to say, 'what else could it possibly be?' and it subdued him somewhat.

"He does have that wretched invisibility cloak, doesn't he?" A smirk came over his features, "Do you want to see the Slytherin common room?"

Hermione's heart seemed to slow painfully and grow at the same time, filling her ears with a dull thump. She looked at him in wonder, "I would."

"If you manage to get the cloak..." There was a playful edge to his voice that she didn't want to lose.

"I'll meet you at the hall in ten!" She said hurriedly and stuffed her books into her bag before dashing to the Gryffindor common room, thinking about how she would get the cloak from Harry. With any luck, he would still be at Quidditch practice.

Draco loitered outside the corridor leading to the dungeons, looking suspiciously unconcerned. The truth was, he was straining to hear footsteps, unwilling to be caught unaware. But it was all in vain because he jumped ungracefully when his cloak seemed to catch on something invisible.

"Granger!" He hissed and out popped her head, floating in the corridor.

"Afraid of ghosts?" She smiled.

"Get your bushy head back down there!" He said and she disappeared. Satisfied that she was perfectly invisible, Draco led the way to the entrance of the dungeons, "Ladies first."

Hermione brushed past him and began descending down the stairs in silence, coming to a stop right outside the entrance of the Slytherin common room.

"Cogito ergo sum." Draco said with a flourish and the door swung open.

"Really? I think, therefore I am?" Hermione laughed in muted tones.

"Is that what it means?" Draco said sarcastically, "I had no idea."

He ushered her in, and they made their way side by side down the steps which let out into a large room decorated with tasteful designs that looked both ancient and priceless. The ceiling to floor, gilded windows were the most interesting because it seemed to emanate with a blue-green hue which coloured everything in a mystical aura.

Upon closer inspection, Hermione noticed that the serpent was present in every nook and cranny. It was engraved into the skeleton of the leather armchairs and etched on the sets of armour which stood guard in almost every corner. The chandeliers gleamed with forked tongues and beady eyes. Thousands of stone snakes twisted in high ceilings and large tapestries of notable Slytherins hung proudly in shallow alcoves, carved grandly out of stone.

"Wow," Hermione breathed, feeling a tingle of excitement dripping down her spine, unable to shake the idea that despite its grandeur, there was a certain coldness that permeated its very existence. The room felt oddly alive and she felt unnaturally out of place as though every serpentine eye was trained on her. But she stubbornly refused to allow her uneasiness to force her out of this one in a lifetime experience.

She nudged Draco's hand gently and guided him towards where she wanted to go, making a beeline for one of the windows. There they stood in silence, watching for shapes in the water.

"Mermaids?" She asked breathlessly.

Draco shook his head subtly. Truth was, he seldom looked out the windows, but as far as he was concerned, no merfolk had ever been spotted. They must prefer the depths of their homes or that the windows had been enchanted to keep peering eyes away. The eerie light silhouetted him in an ethereal glow. The blue-green of the lake complementing his silver and white colours nicely. For a moment, Hermione thought of what a pretty picture it would have been. Too bad she wasn't an artist, nor was she creatively inclined. Preferring the hard and fast rules of facts and numbers than revel in shallowness like prettiness.

When it was clear the windows would show them nothing exciting, Draco began leading the way across the room, stopping occasionally to admire an artefact or another, sometimes a skull, other times a book. Hermione's hands itched to touch them, and she did, pushing one book of interest straight out of Draco's hands and then sweeping it under the cloak.

"Draco?" A high nasally voice pierced the silence, "We're headed to– oh you found the Skeleton King." The girl said, sweeping towards Draco as though he had in his hands something precious of hers.

"I didn't find anything, it was right here." Draco said, placing the figurine back onto the shelves and taking a step back from Pansy.

"I lost it back in my Third Year," Pansy exclaimed, picking it up and holding it close, "and now you've found it!" She flung her arms around Draco and whispered suggestively in his ear, "The Skeleton King rewards heroes with–"

Draco shoved her off him and said, "I told you, I didn't find it."

"What's wrong, Draco?" Hurt coloured her voice and for a fleeting moment he almost felt guilty.

"Nothing's wrong." He mumbled, conscious of the fact that Hermione stood unmoving next to him. He didn't want Hermione to witness how he really was with his own House and it made him jump when Pansy took his hand.

"You haven't been the same since you came back to school." Pansy said, massaging his hand and pulling him to face her so that she could touch his hair. It wasn't anything that she hadn't done before, but these gestures of affection didn't appease him anymore.

"No, I haven't been the same since my father–" He said through gritted teeth, moving his head away from Pansy's reach.

"I know!" Pansy wailed, "It is horrible what they have done to your father. But you'll get back at them, won't you? The Dark Lord has you to rely on now and I know you won't let him down. Come, sit, I can–"

Draco looked at her stony-faced and said softly, "What do you know?"

He stalked off, not caring whether Hermione followed or not, but went up the steps a little slower.

When they emerged from the dungeons, Hermione piped up, "What did she mean, about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? What did she mean, he has you to rely on now?"

"Are you stupid?" Draco said in frustration, "Isn't it obvious what she means?"

With that, he too, left her to her own devices, walking down the corridor as fast as his legs could carry him. A million thoughts rushing through his head.

Suddenly, he became aware of the patter of feet chasing after him, "Draco! Draco! Wait, please! Wait!"

Invisibility cloak stuffed into her bag, she chased him wildly down the hall.

"Tell me." She commanded, "Tell me what it is, what is bothering you?"

It seems like their precarious friendship was filled with moments like these. Where it could go one way or the other, balanced on the tip of the knife. One misstep and everything would go tumbling into chaos.

"Why should it matter!" He hissed, hair dishevelled from the force he combed through with his fingers. A habit he had recently taken to, an attempt to alleviate the pounding questions in his head.

"It clearly matters to you." She responded calmly.

He scoffed and said, "It doesn't. It doesn't matter because I'm tasked with the impossible and I'm the only one who can do it."

Knowing better than to ask him what it was, she said instead, "If you can't do what he wants you to do, can't you just... Not do it?"

He looked at her incredulously, "And they say you're bright."

"No, Draco, I mean- there's got to be a way. There's a solution to everything. You don't have to beat yourself silly, trying to do the impossible. Try to find a way which can help you not do the thing that you cannot."

"There's no such way, Hermione." Defeat was clear in his voice. The sound of someone who has accepted his failure even before he began to try.

"Heroes are made, not born." She began, "The path to evil and good are the same. You can choose the hard path, the good path. Or you can choose the easy one to..."

To Voldemort, he thought in his head, finishing her sentence for her, just like my father.

"Do you want to do it?" Hermione asked, "Do you... want to try?"

Draco shook his head. She wouldn't have needed to ask if she had known what he was being asked to do. But he couldn't tell her. How could he? It was his responsibility to bear. It was his grievous burden, passed down from one Malfoy to the other.

"Then let's think of something, you could be useful in other ways. Make yourself indispensable. Don't let this one task hover over your head like you're waiting for the blade to drop."

He looked at her quizzically, "Is that supposed to make me feel better? What blade?"

"It's just a saying – well, people used to be executed with guillotines."

"Guille?"

"Guillotines, it's a contraption used to behead people with."

"Savages!" Draco exclaimed after he made Hermione explain exactly what a guillotine was, which helped him forget his mood swing.

They circled the Atrium and made their way towards the Black Lake and it was an odd sight to see Draco without his usual cronies. To Pansy, who romanticised Draco, her heart ached to see him desolate and alone. But he wasn't alone. He had Hermione's companionship. With Harry's cloak, they could go anywhere, including her favourite beech tree, which was where they were headed.

"She seems awfully handsy," Hermione said to lighten the mood, "are you guys dating?"

"Does it look like we're dating?" Draco scoffed.

"You two did go to the Yule Ball..." Came the soft, mutinous reminder.

"Is that a hint of jealousy, Granger?" A smirk on his lips, Draco glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes teasingly, though he overestimated how tall she is and was actually gazing at the top of her head.

His poor aim did nothing to decrease the hot wave that washed over Hermione and left her red in the face, "I'm not jealous." The denial sounded weak in her ears because it sounded exactly like what someone jealous would actually say but she wasn't. She really wasn't. She opened her mouth to protest some more, but Draco had pulled the cloak back to reveal her blushing face and he laughed instead.

"Green really isn't your colour."