He watched as the Headmaster sank lower against the ramparts, his strength failing visibly.
"Oh, I did," said Dumbledore, in answer to something Draco had said. "I was quite certain it was you, in fact."
"Why didn't you stop me, then?" Draco demanded.
"I tried, Draco. Professor Snape has been keeping watch over you on my orders —"
"He hasn't been acting on your orders. He made a promise to my mother —"
"Of course that is what he would tell you, Draco, but —"
"He's given me plenty of advice. Can't mind his own business, the —" He shook his head. If Snape had genuinely been working for Dumbledore, he would have told the Headmaster about Hermione. And if the old man hadn't raised her name yet…
"You must have had an accomplice."
Draco's expression twitched. "I got the idea for the poisoned mead from Granger. Overheard her and Potter in the library — she was talking about Filch not knowing his potions."
Dumbledore's eyebrows rose slightly, a flicker of interest passing across his face. "Miss Granger," he repeated, his voice quiet, almost thoughtful. "I see."
"Not with her," Draco added sharply, his jaw tightening. "She didn't know what I was doing. I only overheard her. That's all."
"She's a clever one."
Draco's knuckles whitened around his wand.
He didn't want to speak about her. Not now. Not when even her name felt like it could split him in two.
"You're trying to get inside my head."
"I'm trying to understand you," Dumbledore corrected. "You've been spending quite a bit of time with her this year."
Draco's jaw tightened further.
"I said — she didn't know what I was doing."
"That's not what I asked." Dumbledore's voice remained impossibly calm, even as the wind howled cold across the tower. "Draco, you have had several long minutes now. We are quite alone. I am more defenceless than you could have dreamed of finding me, and still you have not acted…"
"Because you keep toying with me!" Draco snapped, stepping forward, his wand arm moving erratically.
"How did you know I had left the school?"
Draco froze.
His heart stuttered at the question. The words echoed through the wind like a slap.
How did you know I left the school?
His mouth opened. No sound came out.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Hermione hesitated for a fraction of a second — every bone in her body screaming to go back for Daphne. But the look on the Slytherin's face — not fear, determination — made up the difference. She held Daphne's gaze for one last second, then turned and ran.
She ran faster than she had ever run in her life.
She didn't think. Didn't look back. Didn't stop.
Corridor after corridor blurred past. She turned corners blindly, trusting six years of memorised castle to guide her. After all this time, she had to know it by heart.
She pulled up short on a landing several floors up, gasping, and squeezed her eyes shut.
She needed to reach Draco. Daphne wouldn't have screamed at her if she didn't mean it. She had to get someone down to help Daphne.
Merlin, she prayed they were both safe.
A moment after catching her breath — truly making her choice not to turn back — she started running again.
Astronomy Tower. Daphne had said Astronomy Tower.
Easier said than done. She'd somehow ended up on the fifth floor, having bolted up from the dungeons.
Her lungs burned. Her thighs screamed, and her ankle was throbbing now — definitely twisted, possibly worse.
Hermione's stomach dropped as the reality set in. She leaned against the wall, eyes closing.
She wasn't even a quarter of the way there.
The Astronomy Tower wasn't simply the top of the castle — it rose above it. And the stairwells didn't run straight. There were one hundred and forty-two of them, according to Hogwarts: A History. Some cut off mid-flight. Others spiralled endlessly, broke into other corridors, led nowhere at all. The castle liked its games.
She pushed off the wall, her jaw setting.
One floor.
Two.
Another turn. Another stairwell. Another corridor.
The stairwell from the fifth floor only climbed to the sixth. She hit the landing and swore under her breath. Not high enough.
She turned into a corridor — then the stairs moved beneath her, swinging round toward the east tower.
"No, no, come on!" She cried, stumbling off at the next landing and darting right, every hallway bleeding into the next as she searched for a staircase that would carry her higher.
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"I — " He faltered, staring at Dumbledore as if the man had cracked the floor beneath him. "I saw Potter leaving with you. Sent word to my aunt. We agreed to cast the Dark Mark above the Tower — draw everyone up here, as though to witness a death." He exhaled. "And it worked."
"I suppose it did. But you weren't in here when I first arrived."
"Your little group got in the way." He wasn't entirely lying — Daphne in Hermione's form had delayed him.
"Let us discuss your options, Draco."
"My options?" He laughed. "I'm standing here with a wand. I'm about to kill you —"
"If you were going to kill me, you would have done so the moment you Disarmed me. You wouldn't have stopped for this pleasant discussion."
"I haven't got any options!" He snapped. "I have to do this. He'll kill me! He'll kill my mother! He'll —"
"Ah," said Dumbledore quietly. "So that's it, then."
Draco's breath caught. The wind over the tower seemed suddenly louder, pressing through every crack in his composure.
"You care for her," Dumbledore said gently. Not a question. A truth simply laid out before them.
Draco's throat moved. "Shut up."
"I appreciate the difficulty of your position," Dumbledore said. "I can help you, Draco. Think of Miss Granger —"
A spark shot from Draco's wand at the name, narrowly missing the old man's shoulder.
"Think of what she would want. She is on our side, Draco. How do you imagine any of this ever works otherwise?"
"I haven't got a choice."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Up another narrow stairwell, through a hidden passage, past the library. If she could reach the Defence Against the Dark Arts wing, those stairs would take her to the tower.
Her head was spinning.
She had no idea how long she'd been running.
Was it five minutes? Ten? More?
Her body didn't feel like hers. Too heavy. Too raw. But Draco was somewhere in that tower, alone, facing the impossible.
And she was the one who had fixed the Cabinet.
She was the one who had helped him.
She was the one who had promised him it would be fine.
That she wouldn't leave.
That he'd be safe.
She pivoted into a corridor. A loud bang made her flinch, but she didn't stop.
She curved toward the Defence wing. If she could reach it, the stairs would lead her to the tower.
She passed a portrait that called after her in alarm, but she didn't slow. Her eyes stung. Her ribs ached.
A flash of red hair — a worried, "Hermione?"
She didn't stop.
Didn't even turn her head.
Just called out as she passed, breathless and hoarse: "Greyback has Daphne! Dungeons!"
She wasn't sure Ginny had heard her.
Please, she prayed, let her have heard.
She took the next stairwell, legs burning as she lifted them, one hand gripping the railing. She clipped her knee on a step and gasped, caught herself, kept moving.
"Merlin," she breathed.
The Defence classroom came into sight ahead of her, and she let out a ragged half-laugh, half-sob. She took a left at a celestial globe, her shoulder catching the outstretched wing of a gargoyle statue. She didn't notice the gash it opened in her skin, nor the blood beginning to trickle down her arm.
She shoved through a tapestry that hissed an insult at her back and took the next corridor at a full sprint.
The battle was ongoing around her, and she was fairly certain the only reason she was getting through it was sheer, stubborn force of will.
A left up another staircase, ducking as a stray hex came her way. A right at the junction. Another left. Another flight.
She pushed through the door at the top — and her heart plummeted.
A spiralling stairwell opened before her.
The Astronomy Tower staircase.
She could've wept. Could have simply stopped and let the whole thing unravel above her.
It was at least ten more storeys, she was certain of it — all of it just circling up, endless and unforgiving. She was sure she could do it.
"Come over to the right side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine. What is more, I can send members of the Order to your mother tonight to hide her likewise. Your father is safe at the moment in Azkaban… when the time comes, we can protect him too… come over to the right side, Draco… you are not a killer…"
Draco's hand shook.
The wand didn't lower.
Didn't rise either.
Dumbledore stood before him — helpless and old and entirely unflinching — offering sympathy when Draco wanted fear.
It would have been easier if he begged. If he screamed.
Instead, the old man was looking at him as if he understood.
As if he pitied him.
"I got this far, didn't I?" He asked quietly.
Sudden footsteps thundered up the stairs, and a heartbeat later, the missing Death Eaters burst through the door.
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The stairs coiled upwards like a punishment.
She could feel it all now — the gash on her arm where the gargoyle's wing had caught her, the bruise blooming across her knee, the ankle that throbbed with every step. Her thighs ached. Her calves ached. Her lungs pressed taut against her ribs.
She thought it helplessly — 'I can't. I can't do it anymore. I can't —' A broken sob escaped her, and her knees buckled. She hit the stone floor with her palms, hissed at the sting of gravel in the scrapes she'd already opened.
Everything hurt. Her head. Her body. Her heart.
Her thoughts were a jumble.
'Is he alive? Am I too late? Is he hurt? Is he angry? Is he scared?'
She was scared.
She was terrified.
Of what Draco had to do.
Of what she had let him do.
Of how much she loved him.
Of how she wasn't entirely certain he loved her back.
Her hands trembled as she pushed herself up from the cold stone, the sting of gravel in her palms sharp and present.
She sobbed quietly and reached for the first step as her knees buckled again.
'Get up.' It wasn't her own voice in her head that made her rise.
It was his.
So she climbed.
Round and round.
And round.
Her vision tilted. Her breath came in ragged gasps. Her ankle buckled every third step. The walls seemed to press closer, narrowing with her.
Draco. Draco. Draco.
She thought it with every step. Get to Draco.
She could hear her pulse in her ears. Her fingers slipped, and she nearly fell. How many stairs had it been? Fifty? A hundred? More?
She didn't know how long she'd been climbing.
The stairwell just kept spiralling, and her stomach churned as if she might be sick.
She had no plan. She'd had no time to make one.
All she knew — all she knew — was that he was up there.
And she had to get to him.
"Dumbledore cornered." Amycus Carrow wheezed. "Wandless. Alone. Well done, Draco."
"Good evening, Amycus," said Dumbledore calmly, as though greeting the man at a tea party. "And you've brought Alecto too… charming."
Draco huffed.
Alecto scowled. "Think your jokes'll help you on your deathbed?"
"These aren't jokes. These are manners."
"Do it," a rasping voice said from the shadows.
"Is that you, Fenrir?" asked Dumbledore.
"That's right." The voice was slow and pleased. "Pleased to see me, Dumbledore?"
Draco's spine turned to ice. If Greyback was here, then Hermione was safe. He'd have announced something far worse if he'd gotten to her.
"No, I cannot say that I am…"
Greyback stepped into the torchlight, blood on his robes. "You know how much I like young ones, Dumbledore." He grinned, all teeth. "Especially Muggle-borns."
Draco didn't look at him directly. He couldn't. The blood on those robes was too fresh, too bright — and Greyback's grin too satisfied. It churned the acid in his gut.
Dumbledore looked at Draco. "I must say I'm shocked you invited him into the school where your friends live —"
"I didn't." Draco snapped. "He wasn't supposed to —" His ring flared hot against his finger, and his eyes dropped to it.
No.
Greyback only grinned wider. "Oh, relax. I didn't get your little friend. She puts up quite a fight. That little blonde, though…"
The words slithered through the air like poison — casual and cruel, the kind of thing said by someone who had already decided pain was the point.
Draco's wand was on Greyback in a heartbeat. "What the hell did you do?!"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Spiral after spiral. The air pressed down on her, the walls narrowing with each rotation.
She hadn't eaten properly that day. Had barely slept the night before.
She was dragging herself up with her hands now, vision tunnelling, black blooming at the edges.
Just one more.
One more.
Just one.
The blood was still dripping from her arm. It might need Healing Spells, or worse, Muggle stitches. It didn't matter. None of it mattered.
What mattered was that he wasn't a killer.
Not really.
He had been cold and sharp for many years. He had been an absolute prat for most of the time she'd known him.
But he wasn't a killer.
Not then. And especially not now.
Not the Draco who held her when she couldn't sleep, who let her crash in his bed when she couldn't face the looks in Gryffindor Tower. Not the Draco who looked at her like she was rare and precious and entirely inconvenient.
Even when he was angry. Even when he was frightened. Even when he thought she'd leave him. He wouldn't scream. He could be cutting — God, he was cutting — but she wasn't sure she wouldn't be too, in his position.
Round and round she went.
Draco Malfoy wasn't a good person.
She wasn't either, if she was honest.
She had put Rita Skeeter in a jar. She had set Snape on fire.
Who had decided he was worse than her?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"No!" Yaxley snapped. "Draco — quickly. Dumbledore."
"He's not long for this world anyway!" Amycus said. "Look at him. What's happened to you, Dumby?"
"Old age," Dumbledore replied mildly. "Perhaps, one day, it'll happen to you."
"What's that mean?" Amycus snapped. "You're always doing that — talking and doing nothing. Come on, Draco, do it!"
But Draco's wand hadn't moved away from Greyback.
Bellatrix tilted her head, dark curls spilling across her face as she moved closer to her nephew. "What's wrong, Draco? He's right there. Just do it." Her hand curled around his wand arm, turning it toward Dumbledore once more.
"That's it," she whispered, her grip tightening. "Come now, darling boy — this is what it's all been for, isn't it?" Her nails pressed into his skin, just enough to bite. "The Dark Lord will be so pleased. You've done all the hard work already. Just the final step. One flick of your wand. Think of your mother — think of how proud she'll be when I tell her. Her brave boy."
"I'll do it." Greyback snarled, lunging toward Dumbledore.
"No!" Bellatrix blasted the wolf aside, her voice a screech. "Draco! Do it. Now!"
The doors burst open once more.
Snape walked in, eyes finding the younger boy immediately.
Dumbledore's voice was barely a breath. "Severus…"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
She climbed.
Because she loved him.
Because despite every warning sign, every risk, every reason not to — she chose him.
Because he hadn't asked her to stay once she saw the Mark.
Her legs found a new pace then — step after step, faster and faster.
She was so close. She'd been climbing forever. She was so close she could almost taste it.
Up. Up. Up.
Her hands scraped against the stone, every nerve in her body pulsing.
A blur.
Black and silver swept past the high-arching window in the stairwell.
Her eyes widened, and she stumbled, throwing herself against the wall, hands pressing flat against the cold glass as she followed the blur.
A large cloak billowing in the wind like wings — the scene almost slow in its horror as the Headmaster fell.
She didn't breathe. Didn't move. Didn't look down.
She pressed back into the railing, her eyes falling shut, not wanting to see his body hit the ground.
It took her two seconds.
In the first, she wanted to collapse onto the steps and sob — to scream that she'd made a mistake, take it all back, go straight to McGonagall and demand the Time-Turner she'd used in third year be put back in her hands.
The second?
She heard the door open above her. Bellatrix's laugh. The sound of the other Death Eaters.
In that second second, her decision was set in stone.
She had made her choice weeks ago when she helped fix the Cabinet, knowing what it was for. She had made her choice when she decided to love Draco despite everything he was.
'You're going to get yourself killed,' a more rational part of her mind whispered. And as she heard the creak of footsteps above, she turned and bolted back down.
Round and round once more, as fast as her legs could carry her.
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"We're going to the hospital wing," Ginny said, her tone leaving no room for argument.
"I'm not hurt," Harry said, his voice hoarse as Ginny led him back toward the castle, away from the crowd, away from where Dumbledore lay.
"McGonagall's orders." She said. "Everyone's up there already. Ron and Hermione. Lupin. Pansy."
Harry's head snapped toward her at the last name.
Ginny raised her eyebrows but didn't comment. "McGonagall caught her wandering while everything was happening. Thought it'd be safer if she was with us. I think she's tied to a chair."
"What?" he asked, incredulous. "Gin — who's dead?"
"Don't worry."
"The Dark Mark — someone stepped over a body —"
"Bill's alive." Her voice broke on the word slightly. "He… Greyback got to him. Greyback wasn't fully transformed — not a full moon — and it wasn't a proper bite, unlike —"
Ginny cut herself off, swallowing.
"Unlike who?"
"Neville's in the hospital wing. Got into a row with Carrow. He'll be fine. Flitwick was knocked unconscious." Her face was pulled into something strained and confused. "Harry, it was like everything just kept missing us. It was all so disorienting."
They reached the hospital wing, pushed through the great oak doors, and were inside before either of them could think further.
Ron and the other Weasleys were gathered by a bed. Neville was asleep near the door. Pansy was, in fact, tied to a chair — as Ginny had described — though the ropes were loose enough that she could have slipped free at any point. She was clearly there of her own choosing, whether or not anyone in the room had caught on.
Hermione, for her part, sat slumped in a chair, her eyes unfocused, her mind somewhere far away. Her ankle was swollen, her knee heavily bruised, and the gash on her arm was still open and badly in need of attention — but she hadn't let Madam Pomfrey near her. She was quite certain there were other bruises and scrapes she hadn't yet found. And yet, every few seconds, her gaze flickered to Pansy — brown eyes meeting brown — in a way that suggested there were many thoughts running beneath the surface of her silence.
"Unless you're bleeding or bitten," Pomfrey said, her voice clipped and brittle as she moved briskly from one bed to the next, "sit down or get out. I won't waste time on shock."
Harry and Ginny stepped into the room.
"How's Bill?" Harry asked quietly, his eyes moving toward Hermione.
No one seemed to answer him. But as he and Ginny drew closer to the bed, he could see the slashes across Bill's face — looking horribly familiar to the wounds he himself had left on Malfoy in a bathroom not so long ago.
"Can't you fix them with a charm?"
"No charm will work on these. I've tried everything I know, but there's no remedy for werewolf —"
"But he wasn't bitten," Ron said, staring at his brother's face. "And it wasn't a full moon. Surely Bill won't be a — a real —?"
"No," Lupin said carefully. "I don't believe Bill will become a true werewolf. The wounds are unlikely to heal cleanly, and he may carry some characteristics — but it is not the same."
"Dumbledore might know something that'd work," Ron said. "Where is he? Bill was out there on Dumbledore's orders — Dumbledore owes him. He can't leave him like this —"
Harry spoke. His voice was quiet and barely there. "Dumbledore's dead."
Hermione didn't flinch. Didn't even look toward Harry.
Lupin was arguing that it was illogical, that it couldn't be true.
"How did he die?" Tonks whispered.
Harry paused. He felt it more than saw it — the way Pansy's eyes shifted toward him without her turning her head to give herself away. The way Hermione wasn't asking a thousand questions. The way the room had gone strange.
"Snape killed him." He said, after what felt like a long time.
Hermione's head snapped up. Her eyes went wide with something he couldn't quite name.
"I was there. I saw it. We arrived at the Astronomy Tower — that's where the Mark was. He was ill, weakened. I think he'd already realised it was a trap. He Immobilised me — I was under the Invisibility Cloak. I couldn't do anything. And then —" his eyes met Hermione's. "Then someone came through the door and Disarmed him. Some Death Eater. I don't — I don't know his name."
Harry stopped himself.
His throat was dry, but that wasn't why he couldn't finish.
It was Hermione.
She didn't have to look at him like that.
"Then more Death Eaters arrived," Harry continued. "Then Snape. Snape performed the Killing Curse."
Hermione stood — grunting with the pain of it — and walked toward Pansy, kneeling down behind the chair to work at the knot of rope.
"What are you doing?" Ron asked sharply.
Hermione didn't respond, fingers still working.
"Hermione." Pansy whispered, turning her head.
The rope slipped free. Pansy rolled her wrists slowly.
Hermione stood. "Pans —" It was so quiet, the first word she'd said in hours.
The room was too loud and too quiet all at once — Pomfrey bustling between beds, Lupin still pacing, Ginny murmuring to Ron — but none of it registered. Her ears were ringing with what Harry hadn't said.
What he had refused to say.
He hadn't looked at her again since the name — Snape — but he didn't have to. She knew. He knew that she knew.
She knew Harry. Knew the slight catch in his throat before a lie. The faint tension in his jaw when he was making a choice he hated. The way his shoulder had dipped, just slightly, when he'd stopped himself from saying Malfoy.
Pansy's hands came up to cup Hermione's face. "Get stitches. I'll go to Daphne." She whispered, her eyes moving briefly to the open wound on Hermione's arm.
Pansy slipped past her, rubbing quietly at the red marks on her wrists, and didn't look back.
Hermione sank into the chair, her head dropping into her hands.
"They put a barrier up around the tower," Tonks explained. "Neville ran straight at it and was thrown back. We tried everything we had. Nothing got through. And then Snape —" She shook her head. "He was there one moment, and then he wasn't."
"I'll bet you needed a Dark Mark to pass through that barrier," Ron muttered.
Hermione lifted her head and looked at the group, her brows drawing together.
"No, that can't be right." She'd meant to think it, not say it aloud.
They all looked at her.
"What do you mean?" Ron asked.
Hermione hesitated. How was she supposed to explain that she knew the barrier hadn't been keyed only to Death Eaters — because she had entered it herself, and while she climbed those steps, Dumbledore was dying above her?
She swallowed the tightness in her throat, her fingers twisting the gold bracelet on her wrist, resisting the urge to clutch it the way she wanted to.
"I mean…" she stretched the words, buying her mind time. "I mean — Harry and Dumbledore got through, didn't they? They came from above. If it were simply a question of the Dark Mark, Harry wouldn't have been able to pass at all."
"We came in from above," Harry said quietly. He didn't want to poke holes in Hermione's story. He didn't want to know the truth. But there were things that would give her away if he didn't say something.
"Ginny could've done the same," Hermione said, not accusingly. "Or Ron. If either of you had thought to grab a broomstick. Don't you think Snape would have accounted for that? They would have blocked off the entire tower. It can't have been keyed exclusively to the Death Eaters — otherwise Harry couldn't have got in at all."
Ron looked as if he were about to press further, and Harry stepped in.
"Hermione — you're bleeding badly," he said, offering her an out.
"I'm fine."
"Then go and see Pansy." He said.
She wanted to argue. She deserved to stay for whatever was said next. But she didn't argue. She stood, staggering slightly as she made her way toward the curtained bed.
She slipped through the gap.
The Slytherins looked up as she settled onto the edge of the mattress, taking in Daphne's pale, sweaty face and the gash running along her jaw.
"You look like hell," Daphne said.
Hermione scoffed. "Should've gone back for you. You don't look much better."
Daphne groaned softly. "You should see my ribs. He got a good bite in."
Theo was seated closest to her, her hand in his.
Blaise handed Hermione the map she'd pressed into his keeping what felt like a lifetime ago. "He's not on it anymore," he said quietly.
Hermione took it, nodding. She didn't check for herself. She already knew he'd gone. She could feel it, somewhere deeper than thought — the faint, hollow tug of it, like something pulling away.
The map lay on her lap, and she let out a soft, wet sound that was almost a laugh. She pushed her sleeve up slowly and let her hand find the bracelet like a fixed point.
The gold was cold. She'd never noticed that before. Perhaps her mind was playing tricks on her.
"I was in the stairwell," she said quietly. "I didn't — I didn't make it in time. I don't know what I would have done if I had. It's not as though I could have stopped it. Not if it meant —" Her voice cracked.
Blaise and Theo exchanged a look, and Blaise lowered his voice. "You were actually in the tower?"
Hermione looked at him, nodding. "Yeah."
There it was again — that look. As though they were holding an entire conversation without words.
"Oi," she said. "Daph's half-dead, and my boyfriend is Merlin-knows-where. If you've got something to say, say it in English."
Blaise snorted, gave Theo a 'your turn' look, and stepped back.
Theo swallowed and pulled his hand from Daphne's. "I was with Bellatrix. Just before. She was the one who put up the barrier."
"So?"
"It was old magic. Blood magic. She could decide who passed and who didn't."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Theo, Bellatrix Lestrange did not choose to let me through."
Daphne hadn't said much — her body exhausted and aching. Her eyes drifted to the bracelet on Hermione's wrist, and she scoffed under her breath. "Fucking Malfoy," she muttered, pressing a hand to her face.
Pansy raised her eyebrows. "Yes, I'm quite sure Hermione loves fucking Malfoy."
"I'm in need of stitches, Pans, but I'll still hex you," Hermione said, her cheeks colouring.
Daphne gave a quiet, pained laugh that caught on something sharp. Still clutching her ribs, blood blooming through the bandages despite Pomfrey's best efforts, she leaned forward and took Hermione's wrist — turning it gently, examining the simple gold bracelet and the decorative knot worked into it. The markings were small; you wouldn't notice them unless you were looking. Even if you were, if you didn't know what you were looking for, they would look like nothing more than faint scratches.
"Daph?" Pansy asked, tilting her head.
Daphne released Hermione's wrist, looked from one Slytherin to the next, then back to Hermione, and narrowed her eyes.
"Beau temps, non? Des projets sympas pour l'été?" She asked Hermione lightly.
Hermione stared at her. "I took Spanish. Don't try that either — I stopped at eleven."
Daphne turned to Blaise. "Il a mis des runes. Anciennes. Traditionnelles. Contraignantes."
"Excuse me — English, please," Hermione said flatly.
"Oh," Theo said quietly. Then again, with more weight behind it. "Oh."
Hermione spread her hands. "Right — some sort of pureblood thing? You all speak French?"
Blaise exhaled sharply. Pansy made a sound in the back of her throat — half-choked laugh, half-curse, somewhere between admiration and alarm.
Pansy shook her head. "Non. Non! Il ne le ferait pas. Il n'est pas si bête. Lucius le tuerait."
"No, Lucius beat that fear into him — that's precisely why he did it." Theo scoffed, running a hand through his hair.
Daphne cleared her throat. "S'il voulait qu'elle le sache, elle le saurait."
"Si tu as raison, ce n'est pas seulement une foutue barrière que Bellatrix a érigée — c'est sa maison. Ses coffres. Tout." Blaise pointed out.
"I am going to scream," Hermione said, very calmly.
Silence.
Not one of them met her eyes.
"Just — shut up for a second, 'Mione," Blaise said.
"It's bound," Daphne said finally, lightly touching a ring on her own hand so they'd understand.
Pansy looked at Hermione steadily. "Congratulations, Miss Granger. You're more pureblood than you think."