"I responded to you every time," he said, and the rumble of his chest unraveled the knot in hers.

He was real. She remembered this feeling.

"You didn't hear me?"

"No." She pulled back and took his face in her hands. "But I trusted you were there."

Searching her face, he nodded. He pressed a kiss to her forehead before turning to the room.

There was an empty lamp over Draco's shoulder, and Hermione waved her wand to light it. The flame sprang to life, and two others followed.

They were in a sitting room — a dim parlor with a solitary sofa and two wingback chairs. The walls were lined with blocky paintings in the Art Deco style, and the cabinets seemed to be from a similar time.

Hermione stepped forward, examining the thick layer of dust on the credenza to her right — when something glimmered in the corner of her eye.

Across the room, a cloud of pale vapor was hovering over the coffee table, growing steadily larger. She raised her wand the same moment Draco did. They stared up in horror as it shifted and morphed, stretching taller and taller.

Draco angled himself in front of her, shooting one nonverbal spell after another. All vanished inside it, like lightning in a cloud.

The vapor sprouted arms, then legs, and Hermione gasped as a tall, long-haired specter with Lucius Malfoy's eyes and a slightly rounder chin materialized, floating to the ground. It blinked its empty eyes open.

Hermione's heart lurched. She stumbled to the left, joining the stream of spells with a Skurge Charm, an Everte Statum. They disappeared inside the wraith's chest, rumbling like thunder. It tilted its head.

Draco pushed her backward as it crept closer — almost solid now. "Reducto—!"

Sparks flew from his wand, but then the creature let out a ghastly snarl and shot its arms out, plunging into both of their chests. Hermione's eyes rolled back, screaming as icy fingers slithered up her heart like vines. She heard Draco's strangled cry mixing with her own — and then silence as the arm hurtled from her chest to her throat.

Her senses erupted — a metallic taste on her tongue, a slickness rolling through her skin as she stood frozen, paralyzed. It felt like the vapor was ripping through her body, squeezing every bone and sluicing through every vein.

And just as quickly as the attack came on, it ceased. Hermione collapsed as the vapor pulled its arms back, its icy fingers retracting. Her eyes flew open just as it imploded in a spray of mist.

Spots bloomed in her vision, and she heaved, dragging in lungfuls of air. She curled to her side, coughing, and then Draco was on all fours next to her. He pushed her on her back again, his face white as he ran his fingers over her chest.

"I'm fine," she wheezed.

He pulled her to sitting, his legs on either side of her and his arms around her back. "You're sure?"