He skated from Viktor to Charlotte's wild eyes to Draco clutching her face on the bedroom floor.

"She knows about me. She knows I was passing notes to Ginny."

"I can't remove her. Her tattoo. The suspicion—"

"Then kill her."

Draco sweeping to the fireplace.

She fought, trying to kick him out, trying to close Charlotte's book before he looked too close—

"Did you just send him into a trap?" His eyes blazed into her, his fingers gripping her so tightly she cried out.

"No!" Her heart thumped in its cage. "I would never—"

Snarling, he sliced through her mind again.

His grey eyes locked on hers as a waltz played — his hand lifting as they spun around each other.

Blinking through her lashes at the long, pale fingers gripping a quill across the room, taking careful notes.

Her mother's arms around her, laughing in the kitchen — "His hair is so beautiful, Mum."

Ginny quirking her brow, sitting cross-legged on her bed at the Burrow — Christmas lights twinkling behind her head—

"Malfoy's looking fit lately, isn't he?"

Hermione's fingers trembling as she smeared ink across her schoolwork — "I—I hardly noticed."

Hermione shook as she tried to summon her energy, to push him out — and he sliced further inside.

At the Manor, laying on his pillow and burying her nose in his scent.

Rolling onto her toes, reaching up to kiss him as the pages of a Gainsworth manuscript crinkled in her fingers.

Then he was releasing her, his mind withdrawing from hers and his fingers disappearing from her chin.

She fell, sliding down the wall, her mind trying to repair itself.

"You stupid girl," he whispered.

She panted, righting herself and struggling to stand again.

"If you love him, stop trying to get him killed."

Her lip trembled violently. She bit down on it.

He loomed over her, pouring venom into her eyes. "If he dies tonight, I'll hand you off to Dolohov myself."

Sweeping back from her, he paced to the fireplace and called out for Edinburgh.

When she could breathe again, the air was cold and biting. Her lungs felt as if they'd frozen solid, unable to move.

That wasn't — she didn't—

He couldn't die.

Panic swelled in her chest. A sob tore from her throat as she pressed her forehead to her knees, trying to center herself. Deep breaths, one after another, Occluding.

She found her lake with still waters. The water was frozen, and there was snow on the trees.

Her books mended themselves slowly, their covers gluing back together and their pages pressing flat again.

The events of the evening took a volume for themselves. She folded in the pages of Cho Chang's lifeless body, her foamed lips curved in a smile. The werewolf that lunged at Draco, the crowd tearing them apart. Charlotte's terrified eyes as she pleaded with Rabastan. She bound them together and slipped the book onto a shelf until it disappeared, determined to lose it.