"Mother has it under control."

She nodded quickly, trying to focus. He checked to make sure she was entirely decent before stepping into the room.

"You're alright?" he asked again.

"Why did she do that? That was… beyond stupid, really."

He swallowed and met her eyes. "She cares about you."

A warmth spread over her, from her chest outwards. She felt the full events of the day return to her. It seemed he was doing the same — his eyes over her shoulder, caught on the glowing white light in a jar.

"I won't apologize for finding the ritual," he said, looking back at her. "But I will apologize for not telling you sooner."

"I could have helped you."

"I know."

"But you didn't want me to," she surmised.

"I didn't want you worrying about Plan B."

Hermione swallowed. She wondered what she would have done. If she had hours and hours sitting next to him in the library researching ancient spells, squirming at the thought of needing to do it the "easy" way… Would she have just turned to him at midnight and kissed him?

Would he have let her?

She cleared her throat. "You treat me like a child who needs protection," she said softly. "And I don't like it. It makes me feel even more useless than I already do."

His jaw clenched. She continued, finding a fire inside of her that had been born at Edinburgh as the cannons fired.

"We can help each other. Already, I am assisting you with any suspicions of your behavior. I can help with other things if you just tell me what they are." She held his eyes, and she watched them flash quickly before returning to grey. "And I need your help as well. But first, I need to know there will be no more secrets between us."

He was still. "No more secrets," he repeated, like testing the words in his mouth.

"No more waking me at two in the morning with a ritual from the Middle Ages. No more stealing my hair for Polyjuice potions. No more tugging me away from Edinburgh because there's a catastrophe in the courtyard you forgot to inform me of."

There was pink on his cheeks, and tension in his arms.

"No more secrets," he said, almost daring her in his tone. He stepped into her, eyes dark and dangerous. "Tell me what he did to you."

She blinked, her mind crisscrossing in different directions. "Who?"

"Dolohov," he whispered, his eye twitching.

Hermione felt like a bucket of water had crashed down on her. "Oh." She frowned, distracted from her purposes by his strange question. "Just threats. He made it clear that he had a special interest in me."

Draco's face was impassive. There was no need to tell him about the showers, or his hand between her legs. Certain things couldn't be erased.

She stepped closer to him. He eyed her in acceptance, and she pushed on, trying again to get an answer to the only question that mattered. "Why am I here?"