Hermione opened her mouth, but Draco grabbed her wrist.

"And speaking of probing," Theo hissed. "I have a mother of a headache despite not drinking more than a glass or two." He pointed a finger at Draco. "You and Blaise are fucking with me again, aren't you? Like you used to with your fucking mind tricks—"

"Theo, it's two in the morning." Draco let out a long-suffering sigh. “Did you have a point besides these wild accusations?"

"I know you're up to something, Draco. If my father hears that you're asking questions—"

"Fine," Draco cut him off in a bored tone. "You're right. I'm looking into the tattoos." Hermione blinked up at him, stunned. He took a step forward. "But only because I'm having trouble with hers. Last week, her tattoo allowed her outside the boundary with hardly as much as a shock. I'm trying to fix your father's mistake so my 65,000 galleons doesn't run off in the middle of the night."

Theo glared at him. Then he let out a loud snort. "Merlin. You're losing your touch. Haven't heard you lie that poorly since school."

Theo downed his scotch and set the glass on the table. Oliver hobbled across the room to clear it, and Hermione's heart cracked with every stumbling step.

"I was trying to do you a favor by looking into it myself," Draco said coolly. "But if you'd rather I inform the Dark Lord that another one of your father's projects is failing—"

"Are you blackmailing me?" Theo snarled.

Draco smiled, low and cat-like. "That's a rather indelicate word, but I suppose I am. Speaking of blackmail, Cassandra and I had a lovely conversation tonight about what goes on in the booths — or better yet, what happens the next day, when you bribe the guards to bring her home—"

"She wouldn't."

"Amazing the things you can learn with a little truth serum." Hermione whipped her head to look at Draco, and he smirked. "Always get leverage, Granger."

"Wood!" Theo screamed. "Leave us."

There was a cold silence in the room as Hermione tried to recover from the whiplash of the last ten seconds. She watched as Oliver hobbled out and closed the door behind him. Theo and Draco held each other's eyes in a fierce contest.

Theo broke away first. He pursed his lips and took a deep breath, pulling a book from the inside breast pocket of his jacket.

"The only thing I can say for sure," he said quietly, "is that my father was determined to get his hands on every copy of this book after he'd created the tattoos. We traveled all throughout Europe tracking them down and either destroying them or removing sections." He moved closer to them, staring down at the book like it could hurt him. "I was supposed to destroy this one." His eyes locked on Hermione's. "He'll kill me if he finds out I gave it to you."

And in what seemed like slow motion, Theo stretched out his arm and offered her a familiar book with the name Jeremiah Jones on the cover. She gasped and took it from him, flipping through the pages.