Draco Takes a Mark

Chapter 30

Hermione stood at the foot of the marble staircase, determined not to move until Crabbe and Goyle came back inside the castle. When they reappeared, they merely nodded to her across the Entrance Hall, the only sign they would give while they still didn't trust her to show that Draco had been taken away, back to Malfoy Manor to answer the call of the Dark Lord.

Reporting to Defense Against the Dark Arts class as if it was a typical day, as if Draco wasn't being interrogated by Voldemort, seemed like a ridiculous prospect -- surreal. But Hermione knew herself, and knew she might feel a little less helpless if she could be close enough to Snape to let him know Draco had been taken, so she went to his classroom.

Strangely, class still hadn't started by the time she arrived. She sat by Harry but wouldn't look at him. They waited in peevish silence for half an hour -- her reading, him pretending to read -- until some of the other students started to leave.

"Come on, Hermione," Harry said. "Snape's not coming. It's like I said. Something's up."

"Of course something's up," she hissed at him, slamming her book shut. "Didn't I just tell you, in the corridor? Didn't you just see it for yourself?"

"All the more reason why we've got to find Snape, yeah? Let's go. We'll start in his study -- "

She stood up. "I am not going anywhere with you, Harry Potter. I'm going to see Ron, like I promised to this morning. He said he'd found something out and this," she waved at Snape's emptying classroom, "is going nowhere for now. Snape could have been dragged off to the manor himself, for all we know."

In the corridor, Harry jogged to catch up with her. She might have been right about Snape's trail having gone cold. And anyway, it would be safer for Harry if his first exposure to Ron since snogging his sister happened in the presence of a third-party.

Ron shot up in bed when he saw them. "Oh, here they are, at long last. I've only been dying to tell you something all day. Harry, you didn't even come on your free period."

"Sorry. Meeting with McGonagall," he said. "They've tossed me off the quidditch team, as punishment for -- yesterday."

Ron gasped. "No. Wow. Sorry, mate."

Harry shrugged, glancing guiltily at Hermione. None of the defenses of sectumsempra that Ginny had raised outside McGonagall's office sounded any good as he remembered them while standing in front of someone who loved Draco Malfoy.

"They could have done worse," was all he said. Eager to divert the conversation away from himself, he added, "Katie is the new captain, now she's back. Probably should have been her all along, really. More experienced and all."

Ron shook his head. "She'll do alright. Still..." He shook his head again.

Hermione cleared her throat. "So I started my research with Snape this morning," she said, gently reminding Ron he had something to tell her. "He had books on Mitrian charms stowed in his office, good ones written in plain language rather than cyphers, so that's promising."

It might have been promising for her, but the boys had no idea what she meant by it.

Ron began with an extraordinary comment. "Look, Hermione, forget the books for a moment. Pansy and I were talking and she thought of something better."

Hermione raised both of her eyebrows, assuming her battle stance for the second time that morning.

"Don't give me that look," Ron said. "All we're saying is, if you've got questions about old monks' spells, if you want some of their missing pieces filled in, who better to ask than an old monk?"