Narcissa didn't meet her for breakfast that morning, sending an excuse with the elves. And Hermione was glad she didn't have to poke at her eggs and pretend to eat. She read the paper five times over, searching for more mention of him, but all she found was the picture of his steely eyes turning towards the ashes.

She missed him. The feeling was too visceral to ignore. At night, she tossed and turned over the memory of their last fight, as if dissecting every detail would somehow make it less painful. She still had no idea how to "decide what she wanted" — or what he'd even meant. But it made her chest clench to think of the million things she wanted to tell him throughout the day, but was unable to.

Several times a week, she would wander through the passageway between their rooms and imagine she might find him twisted up in his sheets, snoozing soundly with his hair askew. She would examine his trinkets, thumb through his bookshelves, and press her face into his sweaters and shirts. Some days she would stare down at the drawer containing the knife and the Portkey, and wonder. But then she'd slam it closed.

Even if she cut off her arm and escaped, she still had no idea how to find George and the others. Snatchers and Death Eaters were roaming the country, and if she was caught, the Malfoys would certainly be tortured and killed, if they hadn't been already. She couldn't leave without saying goodbye. She might never see him again—

No. She'd resolved to stay. The Order needed her here. Even Theo had said that she was the only one who could break the tattoos. No one else had the same access she did; the most expansive library in Great Britain and all the blueprints for their spells were at her fingertips. She would stay, even though Draco had left behind the keys to her cage. She'd stay so she could free Ginny and Ron and the others from theirs.

She never lingered in his bedroom for too long — she didn't want to attract the attention of the elves. She knew they still came in from time to time, though they'd left his bed unmade. The day after he'd left, she'd tugged open the bottom drawer of his dresser and found the shoebox containing the newspaper clippings was gone. Only a blanket left behind.

As the death toll rose in Switzerland, breakfasts with Narcissa became shorter and scarcer. There was nothing to fill her days but research. She sometimes spent eighteen hours a day in the library. Once or twice, she fell asleep on top of her books, only waking when the elves Apparated her into her bedroom — tucking her legs into the sheets and pulling a warm blanket up to her chin. With no distraction except for the daily papers, she tore through the Scourers' journals, translating each of them with the help of Jeremiah Jones's key.