Becoming Beta

Chapter 32

A/N: Beta love to the incredible brownlark42. She's like the first sip of wine after a long week at work.

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The end of April and most of May slipped away from Hermione with little contact with Draco. They met a few times in the Room of Hidden Things and slowly worked on the two hundred and forty best possibilities. Draco refused to talk about more than getting the vanishing cabinet fixed. She'd tried everything she could think of, even seduction. While that had worked to a degree, he still wasn't seeking her out. He wasn't speaking to her in any meaningful way.

She didn't know what else to do. Clearly, he was upset about his aunt and his mother's failure to protect him. Was he keeping other secrets from her? Or was he upset because she was keeping secrets from him? She didn't know, but she couldn't let the end of the year come and go without having some sort of resolution. Updates from the Daily Prophet were making it clear that she may not be able to return to Hogwarts next year. It might be better if she, Harry, and Ron went on the run to find the remaining Horcruxes. The sooner found, the sooner they could end this war.

Maybe then Draco would start speaking to her again.

Hermione searched the library endlessly, looking for any information she could find on living Horcruxes. There wasn't much. She desperately wanted to know if there was a way to remove the Horcrux from Harry without killing him. She certainly couldn't use Fiendfyre on him. The Fiendfyre might kill the Horcrux, but it would decimate Harry's body too. The Horcrux somehow had to be extracted from Harry and put into something else. She didn't know if she could do that or if it was possible. If it was, it might mean going through the procedure to make a new Horcrux.

One of her books alluded to that, and she was horrified. In order to make a Horcrux, you had to kill your target, cut them open, and pull their heart out. Using blood directly from the heart would seal your ripped soul into the Horcrux of your choosing. Is this what the Dark Lord had done to Harry's mum? She'd never heard anything about how the bodies were found, nor had she had asked or looked for that information. She just didn't know and she didn't know who to turn to. Professor Dumbledore was clearly raising Harry to be sacrificed. It all made sense now. Hermione didn't know if she could trust Professor Snape or Professor McGonagall with this information. She just didn't know. She was at an impasse.

It was a beautiful Friday evening when Hermione finally ran into Draco again. She decided to work on the vanishing cabinet, since she didn't have anything better to do. They were about three-quarters of the way through the list and Hermione was determined to finish before the end of the year. One of them had to work. She didn't want to think about what would happen to Draco if they failed. Or what Draco would have to do in order to complete the task given to him by the Dark Lord. It was going to be better if Fenrir could do his part, but in order for that to happen, the vanishing cabinet needed to be fixed.

The Room of Hidden Things was dark and quiet when Hermione entered. She sent a Lumos at a few of the wall sconces as she made her way back to the vanishing cabinet. She looked at her charmed parchment. Draco had the other copy. She'd used a variant of the Gemino curse and the Protean charm so that when she crossed a combination off of the list, it crossed it off off on Draco's list too — and vice versa. She quickly added up how many combinations were left. Fifty-three. They were so close. She set her bag down and went to work. After three failed combinations, Hermione took a small break. She cracked her back and stretched her arms, flinging off her school robes as she rolled up her sleeves.