Out of Time

Chapter 16

"Dangerous," Hermione comments, only half-absorbing Montague's plight as she fixates on the cabinet in front of them.

"Anyway, he ended up in the bottom of a cabinet like this one and when he pushed the doors open, he was in the middle of Borgin and Burkes."

So many things click together at once. Before school started, she, Harry, and Ron had followed Draco down Knockturn Alley. He'd inquired about something. That had been the basis of all Harry's wild imaginings about what Draco must be up to.

Shaking her head in open dismay, Hermione can't even picture what Harry's reaction to this would be.

"Montague's parents pulled him out of Hogwarts after that incident and sent him to Durmstrang. Presumably he's not too thick to figure out they're a set, but as far as I know, nobody else has put it together."

"How did you fix it?" Hermione begins running her hands over the thing, walking all the way around it.

Draco seems to preen, just a little. She bites down a smile.

"A lot of advanced Charms work and a load of Arithmancy. Even more testing. Most of the year, I was convinced it couldn't be done. Then I figured out what major piece of the transportation equation was botched up, and things began to move along."

The pun isn't lost on Hermione, who rolls her eyes and mentally skims their Advanced Arithmancy text. "Isn't that also called the... convection-diffusion equation?"

Draco nods. "It's a first-order PDE. The partial differential equation," he clarifies for Hermione, who knows but lets him tell her about it anyway. He's so proud of himself. "It's the basis for most common transportation models."

"So it's completely fixed now?" she asks, impressed despite what it means for castle security.

"I haven't tested anything living. But inanimate objects go there and back again without damage."

Wildly, Hermione wants to test something living in it right here and now. She's insanely curious to see how it works. Her academic fascination is gradually, reluctantly swallowed up by the absolutely terrifying fact that this is a way in and out of the castle that Dumbledore has no idea about.

"We have to tell Dumbledore about this," she insists at last, arms folded across her chest. It's the only thing keeping her from running her hands all over it, crawling all over it, inspecting the top and under the base, and then opening it and climbing inside to look.

"Absolutely not."

She'd expected nothing less, but the flat and unequivocal tone of his voice still draws her attention.

"That's why I'm waiting until everyone leaves for summer. That's the compromise. I can't get away with not completing this assignment, but I can try and mitigate the damage to everybody here."

Hermione knows this is a major compromise, to be sure. He's been delaying Voldemort's entrance to the castle for months. Just like Draco, she has no idea what he could possibly want to do here, but whatever it is, it's bound to be awful.

"I understand, and I think that's... heroic of you."

Draco gives her a derisive glance as if this is patronising, as if she's only saying it at all to placate him. She puts a hand on his arm. "I mean it. And you made that choice, didn't you? When?"

He blows out his cheeks with a big exhale. "Shortly after we... started shagging, I guess. Lots of people here will be potentially in the crossfire if something happens, but people like you might actively be targeted. Even then, I knew I didn't want that to happen."