Midnight

Author's Note: Huge thank you to the people who reviewed the first part - it was incredibly kind of you to spare the time and share your thoughts. I really appreciate it! Thank you to: BookGirl1982, AMY7506, Soul of Draco and CandyQuills! You are fabulous :D

Midnight

Those are pearls that were his eyes
- The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot

The clock struck midnight, and her heart struck with it.

One. Hermione was tensed, her body resonating with the low, slow toll of the bell that swung in the depths of the dungeons even though it was cracked, the clapper gone. She did not know what magic made it sound, made it say: it is over again, the death of another day is upon you.

But she knew what it meant.

She scanned the floor for her wand; this was her opportunity. She would need to seize it.

Four

"Nothing to say?" Draco said, his voice mocking. "That's unlike you."

The seventh chime rolled out. Nearly, nearly...

There it was! She could see the tip of her wand underneath a bookshelf. She would have to get past Draco, but she had the element of surprise on her side.

And the past, of course, hovering like a mist upon the place, close and cold and all-consuming. That was hers too, intimate as a lover.

Nine.

Before he followed her glance, Hermione met his eyes. Her voice was rusty with disuse, but fearless, and she prided herself on that.

"I thought I'd let them say it for me," she said.

Eleven.

Bemusement flashed over his face, the question framed on his lips: who?

Twelve.

And suddenly a great cacophony filled the air - screams, shouts, gasps and wails and moans - as the dead of Hogwarts swarmed from the stones where their blood had been spilled. Outside, pale forms flickered like fireflies, fighting a dead war with their dead hands.

Colin Creevey ran into the library, a white shimmering figure, eyes vast with terror. Draco swung around at the movement, and she moved, diving for her wand.

He realised his mistake and snatched for her, but she was too quick.

It was there, in her hand, and she whipped around, the spell silent, as all her spells had been silent since the end of the war.

Expelliarmus!

His wand snapped out of his hand, launching like a javelin through the ghost of Colin.

Accio wand! she thought, all her will aimed at it. It shot into her hand with satisfying speed.

She expected rage from him, and was already running the first syllables of a blistering hex through her head, but Draco was motionless, distracted. It took her a moment to realise what he was staring at.

She had seen the ghosts so many times that they were part of the backdrop. But to Draco, they were new and ghastly.

Colin backed away, mewling, his voice a thin keen against the whirlwind of sound. "Expelli-"

He jerked as a hex hit him. Hermione counted off the twitches, one, two, pause, a third, as familiar with the rhythms of his tragedy as if it were a nursery rhyme. The liquid that splattered the ground was thick and cherry-red - she knew if she touched it, there would be nothing there, but for a few minutes, the library was daubed with blood, disfigured.

"See what you did?" she heard herself hissing, the words rolling out with the ferocity of steam before she even knew they were there. "See what you did to us?"

Colin slumped against the desk, shaking. He raised a hand to some invisible assailant. "Please...please, don't..."

Draco's face was like marble, frozen and unreadable. But he did not look away.

Colin raised his head, and said in a small, weak voice, "Will it hurt? The curse?"

If he had ever received an answer, it was lost as surely as he was. Colin shuddered and toppled forward, mouth slack, hand curled like a dead spider.

His shade dissipated into the floor, the bloodstains fading with it. Slowly, the other voices across the castle died away. One by one, Hogwarts' dead sank back into its stones, pinned like butterflies, waiting for midnight. Whatever magic kept them there, it was a spell so cruel, so ruthless, she could only think it was Voldemort's work. Who else would not be satisifed with mere murder - who else would need to chain the dead?

Her eyes burned with tears she refused to shed.

"Predictable, am I?" Hermione said, her voice hoarse.

Draco turned slowly, and she could have sworn his eyes were dazed, but then his usual smirk began - before he remembered she had his wand.

"Every night, they rise again," she spat, advancing on him. "And they die again, because that's all you and your foul Death-Eaters left them. They have no release. They have no respite. You tell me I'm predictable, well, here's the world you created! It runs like clockwork - you can tell the time by the dead you left here! That's the world you want, isn't it, so predictable. You rule and we die and our ghosts scream in a world where no one hears them."

Not one whit of his arrogance had faded. She could have killed him there and then - a silent wish, a flash of green, but she didn't. She was better than that.

"You know nothing about what I want," he said coolly. "And don't tell me you know anything about the world either. You've been cowering in Hogwarts."

That stung. Her fingers gripped the wands so tightly she felt every ridge of the wood. "Forgive me for not handing myself over to Voldemort for a quick death."

His smile was very gentle. "Oh, it wouldn't have been quick. It wasn't for any of the others."

She grimly ignored the bait, even though part of her hungered for news, even bad news so the uncertainty would be over. Her voice was harsh, the words like bullets. "How did you find me?"

A lazy, crooked smile. "A little bird told me. Well. A big, fiery bird. Not exactly the height of subtlety, Mudblood."

She cursed her luck. "What do you want?"

His eyes swept her in a languid examination. "You, alas."

"Me?" She gave a brittle laugh. "If you think I'm going to let you drag me back to your master like the dog you are-"

"Tempting as that thought is, I have no intention of handing you over to the Dark Lord."

"What?" She surveyed him. He appeared to be serious; no trace of a smile, his gaze steady on her. But even if she'd drowned him in Veritaserum, Hermione wouldn't have trusted his word. The mark livid on his arm was warning enough. "I doubt that."

"I thought you might. So I brought you something. A token of my good faith, I suppose." She hated those bored, clipped tones, the insouciant way he stood there, as if it was all so amusing.

He drew something from his clothes; it was a moment before she recognised it. A tiny, slouched figure, scowling in the way she knew so well. But it wasn't moving like most magical figurines, which was strange.

It was Viktor Krum. But...

"Where's his hand?" she said, puzzled.

"Missing."

"And it doesn't move. Why have you brought me a broken toy? Even for you, this is pathetic."

"I don't think most people would consider this a toy." Draco held it carefully, as if it might fall to bits. "This is a Homonculus Charm."

Horror slowly spread over her. The staid sentences she had read leapt to life, suddenly chilling, the truth before her in grotesque shape.

A representation of a person...a curse of devastating proportion which few wizards have the ability to perform...actions enacted on the homunculus are replicated on the target...

Her breath felt fast in her chest. "You mean...his hand..."

"Gone," Draco said flatly.

"Why did you bring me this? As a lesson?"

Oh, Viktor...what must it be to know that they can break you piece by piece; that as long as the charm exists, you cannot die, cannot know mercy, cannot even move unless they will it so.

"No. Like I said, as a token of good faith. I thought you might trust me if I showed you that the killing and the torture and all those things you find so disagreeable are strictly business."

She realised he was holding it out.

"Strictly business," she said through gritted teeth. "Do you think that makes it all right?"

He shrugged. "We all do what we must to survive."

She took him in a with a savage glare; the high quality clothes, his unblemished skin, the thick silver ring on his finger, untouched by suffering in even the flimsiest of ways. "Yes, I can imagine how tough it is to survive. I mean, there's always the danger that you'll be crushed by the weight of your own wealth."

"My father abandoned the Dark Lord when he stumbled the first time," Draco said. "Do you think the Dark Lord forgets? Do you think he forgives those who failed him?" For the first time, she saw hints of emotion - his fists clenched, a bitter twist to his mouth. "He needed my father to bring him to power. Now that he has it, he doesn't need him at all. You don't know what the Dark Lord has become since he defeated Potter."

"He was already a monster," she snapped. "I saw what he did to Harry. And the others - all of them, I've lived with what he did here."

"Hogwarts was just the start," Draco said shortly. "It's worse now. My mother..."

He stopped; how white he was, the smudges under his eyes dark as blackberry stains.

Then he said in a listless voice, "I need your help, Granger. I need you to find the Order, if there's anything left of them."

She was beginning to believe. She couldn't take her eyes from the figure of Krum, couldn't stop the insidious echo of Draco's voice: It's worse now.

"What do you think the Order can do?" she said.

He took a breath. She saw how grim his face was, how subtly older he looked. The child was gone, the man in his place no less arrogant, no less cold, but perhaps a little wiser. He tossed her the figure - she fumbled for it, terrified it would shatter on the floor. And she knew in that moment that this was not altruism: Draco had decided that he would be better off without the Dark Lord. It wasn't valour or glory that drove him - it was ambition and the need to survive.

His voice was firm. "Kill the Dark Lord."

At her astounded look, he flashed a grin, savage and bright and ironic. "How about it, Mudblood? Fancy saving the world again?"

"Don't call me that," she said sharply. "That's what got us into this mess."

His smile faded. He watched her, measuring, analysing. "Very well. Granger."

"I still don't know if I can trust you," she said, fingers cupping the figurine of Viktor. "And I have to be able to. I can't take that risk."

He cocked his head. "What do you need?"

She didn't want to do it, but knew it was necessary. "Two things. I want to show you Hogwarts."

She needed him to see what had happened here. And she needed to see if he could show remorse, if there was anything human left in him. If not...if not, how could she trust him? If he put no value on life, she could not hand him hers if carelessness or arrogance might end it.

And too, all that dwelt here would be part of him: she would not be the only one who knew the dead of Hogwarts, a living breathing memorial to them. They would not be abandoned then, would not play out their nightmare scenes in solitude.

He raised an eyebrow. "Peculiar. I can't imagine why, but if you must show me the old slum, I suppose I can bear it. What's the second?"

She looked straight at him. "An Unbreakable Vow."

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