Out of Time

Chapter 12

Pansy's words come back to her. "Draco is under a tremendous amount of stress that has nothing to do with you. But you can help him with that, if you can be understanding."

If she can be understanding about her boyfriend having a fucking Dark Mark? Hilarious.

"And with that... pressure," she mulls over slowly, "comes a responsibility. He's meant to do something specific with it. What has he been tasked with doing, Theo?"

She holds him in blisteringly direct eye contact and he swallows hard. "I can't tell you that."

"Is this one of those 'exchange of trust' things?"

"Probably. But that's... that's not mine to tell." Theo looks a little scared and Hermione decides to drop it, for now. But there is something, something big. Something important.

Theo takes this opportunity to change the subject. "You asked what we really think of you. I told you what I think of you, in the library. That was the truth."

"What about the others?"

"...I don't want to speak for the others."

"Do it anyway," Hermione snaps, casting another spell at their practice dummy.

Theo scratches his neck, awkward and growing a little sweaty. His curls are beginning to stick to his forehead. "We all think things are going too far. With the - the -" he mouths 'Dark Lord' and grimaces. "None of us like where things are headed, and they're going to get there sooner rather than later."

"Not enough to speak out against it, though, I expect," she says bitterly, not missing that this did not answer what they think about her.

"Exchange of trust, Hermione." Her gaze whips back to his and she narrows her eyes to scrutinise him.

He hasn't given her anything particularly dangerous to rat on, aside from the fact that a batch of Slytherins (a batch Hermione can assume she knows the extent of, but Theo didn't exactly name the roster) don't fully buy into Voldemort's agenda. But can she be patient enough to wait for answers? Can she bargain with her morality, her principles, to stick around long enough to find out what she wants to know? Or should she walk away, right now?

There's plenty more she wants to ask but the internal debate lasts her the rest of the lesson. She declines to continue pressing Theo, who's obviously more relaxed with the change of pace - not that he's perspiring any less. They've just reached a nice balance of spellcasting in silence when Snape flaps through.

"Miss Granger, see me after class."

'What now?' she wants to groan. Theo's intrigued by this, but not quite enough to break their happy stalemate and discuss it.

Hermione spends the last few minutes of class forcing herself to confront the hardest question of all: is she going to end things with Draco and tell Dumbledore that he's a Death Eater? Her conscience says yes, but the nuances give her pause. He'd been coerced. Hermione accepts that he hadn't truly had free will in the decision.

She'll approach it like any academic question - she'll listen and gather information from various sources. She won't put any pressure on herself until she knows more, one way or the other. If that necessitates a bit of conscience-massaging in the meantime, so be it.

* * *

For the first time in her scholastic career, a professor locks and silences the classroom before speaking with her.

This should probably make her uneasy. More than it does, anyway (the locking, in particular), but her curiosity is rampant, and Snape is a member of the Order.