"She can't be serious. Is she serious? Harry-"

"Listen, Ron," the dumbfounded look on the face of the young man who had been his best friend, had been their best friend for the entirety of his time at Hogwarts was too much for Harry Potter to bear. He sighed and slowly removed his rounded glasses off from his nose and replaced the place where the bridge of them had been with an irately and painful pinch of his thumb and forefinger. "There's not much we can do about it. She's gone out with ambitious people before. You'll have to allow her her freedoms." He didn't want to say what he said, but he of all people knew about what freedom meant. It was everything.

Ron Weasley, however, clearly didn't agree with what Harry had said. "She's got to be mad if she thinks what she's doing isn't a horrid idea. She's got to be under his influence because of something else. She hated him Harry!"

Harry hadn't been hoping to have a in depth discussion about what was going on that evening. He refused to permit himself even a thought of what might be happening. "Ron, can't we just-"

"He's got to have slipped her something. Oh!" His freckled face seemed to light up, as it turned a mixed, odd combination of scarlet indicative of embarrassment and sudden revelation and a light twinge of parlor indicating fear. "A potion! It all makes sense. Romilda Vane got away with it, and she's one of us. Surely the Slytherins would use means like that. That Parkinson girl isn't even slightly attractive. She's bound to-"

"Ron. She's not under the influence of anything." Harry had passed the point of wanted to discuss the topic at hand any longer. He was a few moments away from stalking back into the boys dormitory, leaving Ron to stew in jealous indignation. He had much more than love to think about that year.

"How can you tell? Maybe his father agreed to use the imperious curse to get the Git a girlfriend. How else would he? She's not that thick."

"Mate." Harry sighed and leaned down to where Ron had splayed himself on the floor, sitting on the red and golden carpeting next to the flickering red-orange flames of the fire, the embers slowly becoming less and less strong, increasingly shrinking with the growing night closing in on the castle, illuminating their faces in the soft moonlight slipping in between the high window frames. "She's fine." Ron's face grew all the more pale as he slowly realized he was grasping at straws. Harry smiled weakly. "I don't like him any more than you do. Still, it's not uncommon for girls to go for Gits. Just don't worry about her. She's not under any curse or potion."

Ron's final attempt at defending his stance was immediately put to rest by Harry's retort. "How do you kno-"

"Is she practically levitating as though in a trance, going on about how wonderful he is? Are her eyes misty and rolled back into her head like a shark?"

"No." Ron hung his head, covering his face with his hands. "No, you're right." He wasn't going to let Harry see him cry, and it seemed as though he was truly straining himself not to.

Harry moved his whole frame down so he was seated next to Ron. He put his hand on his back to comfort him. "It's alright. Perk up. Whatever she's doing with him, it can't be worth risking all we've done and plan to do."

Ron sniffed in as though he was suffering from an unfortunate bout of a cold. "Yeah?" He looked up again, regaining some of his old courage. "You're right. Hermione's too smart for that. Hey!" He smiled, his eyes suddenly lightened with panicked hope. "Maybe she's just using him to figure out what we've been trying to all this time! Maybe she's one step ahead of us like before! Harry if so, we'd really have the upper hand here!"

Harry smiled back, hoping to at least appear as though he agreed with Ron's sudden epiphany. He didn't, however, believe that's what was happening.

Hermione Granger wasn't playing with him, not in the slightest. It seemed shed really fallen madly in love with the last person anyone would have expected, especially given what he'd called her over the years they'd known him.

Hermione Granger was dating Draco Malfoy, and no one truly understood how or why.
____________________________________________
It was late in the evening when he'd arrived in the last place he'd ever wanted to meet his girlfriend. As the lights in the once flickering lantern -lined corridors were almost burnt out, and no one had bothered to check for students roaming the halls, despite what was going on that year; he'd decided to capitalize on the opportunity to meet her- in the- he didn't want to even say it aloud- library.

She had evidently used one of her many spells to unlock the door to allow for he and he alone to enter, and he was eternally grateful that the insufferable woman who usually hawked over everyone who studied there had retired. He laughed a bit under his breath when he imagined her asleep, perched like a raptor in a high nest above the school, waiting for the dawn to arrive so she could swoop down over the books and early morning scholars and strike fear into their hearts, dissuading any future ambitions therein.

"Draco? Was that you laughing? Get over here!" A voice whispered fiercely from behind the largest of the bookshelves, a trace of anxiety barely noticeable interlaced in an otherwise outward command. He fought back another laugh when he caught sight of her, positioned in an incredibly similar manner to the librarian he so dreaded.

"Oh, that's my greeting? A simple 'Good Evening, Draco' would have sufficed."

"We're passed that, now. There's no need for polite acquaintances. Come here!" She remained indignant.

"Fine, fine." He held up his right hand in his usual haughty manner. "What is it you want to-"

A hand yanked his halfway through his kingly salute and pulled him into the maze of shelves, clearly bypassing some sort of zone usually blocked off.

"Are we in the-"

"Restricted section, yes. Now shut up and help me find something." She didn't let go of his hand, something he noticed but she acted as though she didn't.

"Honestly, Hermione this isn't what I had imagined when you said you had an exciting evening planned for the two of us."

"I'm sure you had something else in mind, clearly. All boys your age do, apparently." She airily sighed. "I need you to tell me about- well..." Her voice trailed off.

"About what?" He leaned in closer to her, though the space between them narrowed to the point of almost touching, he couldn't make out enough of her face to see exactly how pink it had turned. It was hard to judge chagrin in the darkness.

Evidently that worked to her advantage. "I need to find out what Voldemor-"

"The Dark Lord." He cut her off. "We have a reason not to say his name anymore, remember?"

"Of course I do. People are bound to be saying his name on Hogwart's grounds, though. Harry and Dumbledore say it all the time." She sighed in a haughty manner, clearly annoyed.

"Okay, fine. What do you need to know? I would like to actually go somewhere normal people go on dates one of these nights."

"Well, when we stop being excessively abnormal people, I'll be more inclined to take you up on that offer, but in the meantime, I would really appreciate it if you could help me out here."

"Alright." He hoped she had smiled.

"We're going to find what we need to end him, Draco."

"What exactly do you mean by that?"

"Ron, Harry and I, we've figured out how to kill him. Volde- The Dark Lord." She decided to humor him.

"How? I knew Potter eventually was going to play a role in it, but ever since my father lost that bloody ball, I haven't had the glory I wanted from this whole endeavor. I don't see how you and your lot would ever be able to-"

"Draco. Please, after everything that's happened, can you for once trust me? I have all of our interests in mind. I'm not in this for what it will makes us look like. I'm in it to save two of my closest friends, and the person who I've come to love."

She reached out her hand to touch the side of his face. He allowed her to do so, subconsciously moving his face closer to it, remembering the day they had learned about Amortentia in Potions. He smelled one of the three indistinguishable smells he'd been unable to identify, a flowery, unknown scent he'd thought to be the orchids in his home's conservatory, but now believed to be Hermione Granger's perfume.

"You love me?"

She sighed again, though not in a haughty manner. She sounded guilty. "Of course I do. It seemed unlikely at first, but, you are kind, Draco, underneath all of this, you are truly, truly kind." She reached one of her hands up along his arm, finally resting it above the part she believed bore the mark of what everyone in her house and life believed to be of pure evil. The other wrapped around the back of his head, her small frame inching up to his, forcing her to stand on the tips of her toes, her fingers knotting into his carefully styled white blonde hair. It was a few moments before she stopped, and he was at a loss for words and air afterwords.

"I bet Viktor Krum didn't even get a kiss like that." He beamed back at her in the dark, hoping she could see it.

She laughed. That was close enough.

"So? Was I right?"

"You're impossible. Still, I want you to help us."

His heart skipped a beat, but it wasn't because he was excited at the prospect. In fact, it horrified him. He knew he'd have to make a hard and fast choice in the near future about Hermione Granger. She was a- a Mudblood after all. He checked himself almost as if told to do so. No, she was Muggle-Born, after all. No one would believe them, his friends in Slytherin thought he was using her, and her friends thought the same.

No one believed that they could possibly have actual feelings for each other.

His thoughts distracted him from answering her for a few moments, and she allowed him to think it over, silently validating the need for time. She knew well enough of it.

It was a bit longer than she thought it would be before he replied.

"Okay." He stated, and straightened up to regain his normal aloof posture.

"Really? You mean it? Oh Draco!" She threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in his chest, his robes encircling the tufts of bushy brown hair cascading down the sides of her face. He felt his chest swell with a type of pride he was unaccustomed to. It was a few moments before he realized what it meant: it was courage.

"I do, Hermione. I really do."

"It's not about the glory, is it? You really believe we can do it?"

"Of course I do. It's completely crazy, and I honestly don't know how we'll-" he paused. "How often do you come here?"

"A lot more than you would think."

"You know I'm not really that shocked. You always struck me to be not as much of a priss as I'd once thought."

"Thanks. Anyway, there's a book here that I need you to help me get."

"Really? A book you need my help for? How? I thought you were the master of all things intellectual."

"Surprisingly enough, you're quite smart yourself. You're not that far under me as far as class ranks go."

"Actually, I'm directly under you." He scoffed.

"You think that's funny, do you?" She was glad he couldn't see her flush red with understanding of what that innuendo meant. Though she saw it the other way around as far as that was-

"Now I do."

"Oh, why?"

"You just-" he paused, noting how she sounded just like he did once, a long time ago, when he first met Harry Potter. "Reminded me of someone."

"Alright." She silently felt grateful he wasn't thinking as she was- for once. "I need one from Snape."

"Why couldn't you- it's not here is it?" He suddenly realized she was looking in the wrong place. His mother had been to Professor Snape's home and she had come back with a closely tied black book that seemed to have recently become her most prized possession. She kept it away from him despite countless attempts to read it, to see what it was for himself. If Hermione knew about it- it must have outdated his mother, meaning it probably only was linked back to one man known mutually to the both of them. "Does Professor Snape have something of his? Of The Dark Lord's?"

"Not entirely. The truth is, after I searched everywhere for information about Horcruxes, I realized that our library was missing something imperative. Something even Dumbledore thought was long gone."

"Even him?" He smirked. He'd never fully liked the Headmaster, even as much as he'd grown to agree with him following- what had happened.

"I know you're smirking at me, Draco."

"I-" he stammered, blushing and hoping she could just predict his actions given the closeness their newly kindled relationship allowed for. "I was-"

"No, you have reason to. I was wrong. I thought he was bluffing but it turns out that what was supposedly meant to be here, in our library, was actually destroyed selectively after Voldemor-Tom Riddle, the Dark Lord, what have you, left here. The information was removed, and believed to be burned. That's why Harry had to dog Professor Slughorn like he did."

Draco silently grimaced at her mentioning of Professor Slughorn. He'd always resented not being invited to his infamous parties, and at one point truly felt envious of the woman now standing before him, truly loyal to him now. He'd gotten that much in the end.

"Anyway, it occurred to me that maybe all of the information wasn't actually destroyed. I thought that perhaps, Dumbledore wanted it to seem that way, so Voldemort- oh whatever, as I said before- would believe he was the sole knower of the process. It's not in a lot of books you know."

"So? What does that mean? If you already know how to- how to end him, then why find the book? Why not just let him think you don't know, when you really do?"

"Well that's the thing. We don't know everything, but we know most of it. That book has been passed on to Snape."

"My mother gave him The Dark Lord's book? He'll kill her! My aunt knows Professor Snape has been acting odd lately. This won't be good for me, for my father, for my family!" He was getting worried. "They're all I have, Hermione!"

"That's not true. Listen to me. You have me. You have me, and you will have Harry, and Ron, and Luna, and Neville-oh don't be like that."

"Those people! That lot? Oh, Hermione my family will disown me! I'll be a blood traitor! They'll never let me come back to them. I'll be an outcast and die like my cousin and aunt! I don't want to-"

"Draco listen to me." She had grabbed his whole arm, and forced the sleeve up to reveal the mark she'd so vehemently argued against him having with Harry and Ron earlier that year. He looked away from it, but there was no denying it was burning, a hot reddish black searing mark glowed back at her in stark contrast to the shadowy shelves that loomed over them. "The only way you're going to be free of this, free of what you had and will have to do unless you run away, desert everyone, is to trust me, and trust yourself to be able to fight. Your family is in an unprecedented form of danger, and the only reason I know about it is because of what I've done against the law, against the Ministry, and against my own conscious. You need us to help you, and we need you."

He breathed in deeply. "You mean it? You're not using me? That's what they all say."

"Let them. It will only help our case."

"You truly are incredibly intelligent, Hermione. If I ever call you a name again, you have the right to-"

She kissed him once on the cheek. "We've got to go. I can't be caught here when the first bell rings. It's almost time for breakfast. Come with me."

"Where? If we leave now, we'll get caught."

"No we won't."

"How do you know?"

"Trust me!" She grabbed his hand and led him back into the roomier parts of the library, where the faintest flecks of early morning sun softly illuminated their faces. She pulled a golden chain out from the pocket of her robes and held it up in the light.

"Is that a-"

"A time turner, yes."

"My mother said they all were lost, when my father got- at the Ministry. How do you have that? Do you know what he'd do to get his hands on one of those?"

"I have a few ideas, yes."

He didn't reply. "What do you plan to do with it?"

"You'll see. For now, you'll have to come with me up to meet Ron and Harry."

"Weasley and Potter? Why? I'm not ready to! They hate me."

"Harry and Ron don't hate you. They just don't know-"

"Hermione. They hate me."

"Now! They need to get to know you! Please, give them a chance! I gave you one. They're my friends. They will come around." She reached her hand back up to hold his gently in hers. "Please, Draco."

"Fine. I will. I won't promise anything."

"You already have. Let's go."
_____________________________________________
"What the HELL is he doing here?"

"Hermione have you gone completely mad?"

"No please, listen to me! He can help us. Harry, you have to listen."

"No. I agree with Ron." Ron smirked, as Harry backed him up, exceedingly mindful of their argument before. "He's a Death Eater, Hermione! He's lying."

"No he's not! Harry, please listen to me! We need him."

"You need him." Ron spat back. "Girls are so stupid! You're so-"

"What, Ronald? I'm so WHAT?" Ron's ears turned their characteristically red shade when he was either proven wrong or embarrassed. This time it appeared to be both.

"Nothing." He moved behind Harry, who stepped toward Draco, who hadn't said anything when he showed up with Hermione at the edge of the Forbidden Forrest to meet with them to discuss how to move forward with their plans.

They eyed each other, not speaking, each of them reliving the fights in their pasts, the hatred they felt towards each other. Then, Draco stuck out his hand, and offered it to Harry. Taken aback, he hesitated, and finally broke the tension of the silence that had built up.

"What are you planing, Malfoy?"

"Draco is planning to help us! If you would please just listen to me-"

"I want him to tell me." Harry still hadn't averted his eyes from Draco's stare. "I want to hear what he was to say."

"Fine. You want to hear what I have to say?" Hermione moved sheepishly closer to Ron, who was still angry but softened a little at her presence which he'd grown familiar to. "I. AM. SORRY." He punctuated each word and went on in a rant. "I'm sorry for calling you poor, Ron. I'm sorry for being so cruel to you, Harry. I'm sorry, so so sorry I called you a Mudblood-" he turned to Hermione, "Hermione. I'm sorry for believing I was better or smarter than any of you. I want to help you, and need you to help me. I'm not asking you to forgive me, but I want you to at least give me a chance." He had turned to face Hermione again, and both Harry and Ron looked on in belief and shock. "She did."

Hermione smiled and tears flecked her cheeks. She turned to face her oldest friends as they awkwardly nodded in affirmation, both stepping forward and shaking the hand of their former worst enemy.

Ron was the first to make light of the situation. "I'll never forgive you for writing that song about me."

Harry caught on quickly. "Or those buttons you made for the Triwizard Tournament."

Hermione giggled. Draco smiled weakly.

"Fair enough." He looked up at them.

"'So what's the plan, then?" Harry eagerly continued. "I'm beyond ready to fight him."

"She'll have to explain." Draco replied, nodding his head toward Hermione.

"Of course." Ron snorted.

"She always has a plan." Harry laughed

"Even if they don't always work out." Ron broke in.

"Either way," Harry went on. "You can't deny that she truly is the brightest witch of her age." He smiled brightly, as Hermione did the same, remembering who originally said that about her, all that time ago.

"Absolutely not." Draco affirmed. "She really is a genius."