Her head and heart were pounding as Hermione and Draco sprinted through the back streets of London. She glanced behind her and just managed to make out the shadowed outline of the Auror that was tailing them before Draco swerved suddenly, disappearing around a corner and dragging her with him. He pulled her behind him and peered cautiously into the street.

"Malfoy, what the h--"

"He's going to follow us all the way to the gallery if we don't deal with this now," he explained, breathing heavily as he moved back into the shadows. Hermione saw him reach for his dagger a second before his words sank in.

"Oh God," she whispered, shaking her head. "You can't. You--"

"I can and I will," he answered coldly, stance posed and dagger at the ready. Hermione was only thankful that she couldn't see his face from her position. She was afraid of what she might find there. Would it be bloodlust or apathy or rage? Or would it be simple, painful resignation?

Her throat tightened. There was no going back now. If they were seen, it was over. Any Auror who spotted Draco Malfoy, son of the infamous Death Eater, was not likely to let him walk away without a fight.

But did it always have to end like this? With someone's blood painting the walls?

No, she thought venomously. No.

"Draco, please," she whispered calmly. "He doesn't have to die. Just give me a chance to--"

But it was too late. Before she had time to finish, Draco had taken a lazy step forward and she saw the flash of his dagger the same second she caught sight of their pursuer.

Hermione snapped her eyes shut. Oh God. Lavender.

They had assumed that the person following them was a man and she had only hoped that it wasn't anyone she knew.

But already she could see it; that gleaming slice of his dagger, Lavender's pale throat spilling blood on to the concrete. She felt nausea rise up her throat, already clogged with the threat of tears.

Draco's impatient voice rang out in the silence of street. "Open your eyes, Granger."

No. I don't want to look. Please don't make me look.

Harsh hands came up to cradle her face, thumbs resting against her temples as he raised her head and made her look at him. Her eyes popped open at his first touch and she stared pointedly into his eyes, too afraid to look anywhere else.

"What did you do?" she whispered. "What did you do!�

She pushed him away, suddenly motivated by sheer hysteria, and stepped hesitantly towards the crumple form of her friend. But as she moved closer, she saw no sign of blood, no sign of a wound.

Hermione knelt down next to the Auror and pulled her into her arms, fingers seeking out a pulse. She breathed a heavy sigh of relief when she found one. Lavender was alive.

It was then that she noticed the ugly red mark marring her friend's left temple and realisation washed over her. Draco had knocked her unconscious.

"Jesus," she breathed, and slumped tiredly over Lavender's limp body. Her hands trembled as she drew them towards her chest and a tiny, relieved sob escaped her.

"We don't have time for this," Draco snapped behind her. "Get up."

She stiffened. Her jaw tightened, her hands clenched, and her flat brown eyes flared and narrowed into angry slits. She rose slowly, approached him slowly, but the movement of her hand was quick and sharp and the sound of it hitting flesh was a loud crack in the darkness.

"Stop it," she hissed, ignoring the cold glare he fired her way. "Stop ordering me around like I'm your lackey. I'm not. You need me. Remember that."

And then she turned and walked away, certain that this time, he would be the one doing the following.

---

They were ten minutes early, but Draco's associate was already waiting.

To say that she was not what Hermione was expecting was an understatement. The girl sitting on the front steps of the gallery smoking a cigarette looked to be barely out of her teens. Seventeen, eighteen, perhaps? She had classic features, simple but beautiful, framed by a tumble of glossy, brunette curls that Hermione envied. Her tall, lithe figure was encased completely in black, from the long-sleeved shirt and jeans, to the Doc Martin boots and the thin black headband in her hair.

She rose from the steps as she saw them approach, taking one last drag of her cigarette before stubbing it out beneath the heel of her boot. She watched them both intently with dark eyes as they walked towards her.

"Hey." She took an easy step forward and curled her arms around Draco's neck. And to Hermione's surprise, Draco met her embrace, wrapping his own arms around her waist and holding her to him. After a short moment he pulled away slightly, kissed her lightly on the temple and turned towards Hermione.

"Granger, this is Ann-Marie," he said. "Our curse-breaker."

The last thing Hermione expected from the sombre young girl in front of her was a radiant smile and a hearty handshake, yet she found her hand encased in another, anyway, manicured fingernails a glaring contrast to her own bitten stubs. The girl was chatting away animatedly and beneath the polished, cultured voice, Hermione caught the faint undertones of a Liverpudlian accent.

"... to school with Draco. He doesn't talk about it much. Don't know why. Never bothered to ask. I just figure that it's--"

"Ams."

The girl glanced at Draco and smiled cheekily. "Sorry," she said lightly, and then leant forward towards Hermione to whisper loudly, "He hates it when I get personal. He's all business, this guy."

"So how about we get down to some?" Draco retorted and pulled the dagger Hermione was now all too familiar with from the waistband of his trousers.

It was with one sharp movement that he struck. The dagger whistled through the air and there was a collective gasp before everything felt quiet. This time Hermione's eyes were wide open and seeing, and after a long moment she turned to stare at Ann-Marie in horrified fascination.

There was now a single, shallow cut marring the left side of the girl's face. It was only just beginning to bleed and she watched as the curse-breaker lifted her hand to prod gently at the wound.

"Ow," she said, and scowled at Draco.

"Wuss," insulted the boy and slid his dagger back into place.

Hermione watched the entire scene in dazed disbelief. This was... this whole thing was... she couldn't even begin to...

"What. In. The. Hell," she screeched, "Was. That!"

Draco and Ann-Marie both turned in unison at her outburst. Neither looked at all surprised by her reaction, but considering what these people considered normal human behaviour, that was no surprise.

"Plan B," Draco stated reasonably. "Now lets go."

And then he started walking briskly down the street, towards the Ministry, hands buried deep in his pockets. The Ministry was at least half-a-mile walk from here but due to the heavy duty anti-Apparation spells now in place, they had little choice but to continue their journey on foot.

"Hey!" Hermione shouted as she jogged to catch up to him and an amused Ann-Marie. "Hey! Hey! Hey!"

Draco paused and turned, irritation written clean across his features. "What?"

"An explanation might be nice," she answered tightly, folding her arms over her chest. She stared resolutely at the boy who merely rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"Fine," he agreed through gritted teeth. "Plan A is this. We go in, get what we came for, and get out. If Plan A should go wrong, there's Plan B, which requires both you and Ann-Marie to run as fast and as far as possible. Should you get caught, Granger, your glamour should stay in place long enough for you to find a way out. Ann-Marie doesn't have that luxury. The Dark Mark identifies us for who we are, no matter what we look like. And if, by chance, she does happen to get caught, I don't want Voldemort thinking she was anything but an unwilling participant in this whole fiasco. Got it?"

Hermione shook her head uncertainly. "But she's not--"

She froze and turned just in time to see Ann-Marie raising her arm and rolling up her shirtsleeve. She watched, entranced, as the familiar tattoo was slowly revealed, identifying the young teenager as a Death Eater and rendering Hermione speechless.

Oh God, how could she have been so stupid?

Hermione took a shaky step back and stared at them in disbelief. "You played me," she accused in a quiet voice, eyes trained solely on the boy in front of her. She kept moving backwards in tiny, baby steps, despite her need to simply turn around and run full pelt in the opposite direction. "You played me, you son-of-a-bitch."

Malfoy merely looked bored. With a sigh of annoyance he took a step towards her, wrapped his hand around her bicep and propelled her forward. "If I was going to play you, Granger, I could do it all by myself," he said, as he marched her down the street. Ann-Marie fell into stride on her left, looking sombre.

Okay, don't panic, she thought. Do. Not. Panic. Things could be worse. I could be a whole lot deader right now.

"Do you honestly expect me to believe that not one, but two Death Eaters want to see Voldemort dead?" she sneered. "Not likely, Malfoy."

"Believe what you want. It's what you've always done, Granger, and it's what you'll always do."

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"It means that some of us don't always have a choice when it comes to choosing who we're going to become," came Ann-Marie's soft, solemn voice. Hermione turned to look at her and found not a hyperactive, mischievous teenager, but a hardened young woman. The intensity of her gaze made Hermione shudder and she turned her gaze away.

They walked the rest of the way in silence.

---

Getting into the Ministry was the easy part. With Hermione's clearance they were able to walk right into the heart of the building with no trouble at all. Of course, it would have been just as easy for her to accidentally mutter the incantation that would trigger the silent alarm rather than deactivate the basic security measures -- after all, neither Draco or Ann-Marie would know the difference -- but if Draco was right and Voldemort truly was working the Ministry from the inside, then it wasn't safe for any of them, especially her.

In spite of that, Hermione had already made her decision before she had come here. There was too much to lose if she was unwilling to trust Draco. Yes, maybe a life would be lost -- her own, no doubt -- but at least she would know she hadn't turned her back on their only chance to bring down Voldemort and save her people.

If she walked away now, they had nothing. Their numbers were too depleted and war was inevitable.

But Draco Malfoy, Death Eater and enemy, was handing her a weapon with which to fight, and she was not able to refuse it.

Yet she was still afraid. Still waiting for the trap to spring. She took every step with bated breath and watched every shadow that slinked its way across her path. Every now and again her gaze would shift to Draco and Ann-Marie. Draco's expression never changed as they walked. He continued to look bored yet surprisingly alert, while Ann-Marie simply looked thoughtful.

It still unnerved Hermione to see a hardened Death Eater in the place of the bubbly, affectionate young girl she had met earlier. Her polished accent no longer spoke of a cultured life, a sheltered, pampered life; it was cold and cutting, a clipped tone to keep the distance and cut a man down to his knees. Her beautiful features were frozen, smooth like marble, hardened and lifeless and breathtaking in their intensity. She was something else, something Hermione recognised, and it was only when Ann-Marie's sharp gaze caught hers that she realised.

Ann-Marie wasn't just a Death Eater.

She was a killer.

Hermione used to think they were one and the same. It wasn't so. Death Eaters were cruel, but they killed for the cause. Killers killed for themselves alone. So which were deadlier? Which would be the first to draw their swords?

We're too young for this, came the sudden thought. We're kids fighting a war older than ourselves, killing our classmates without a second thought because it's all we know.

The truth of it was as ugly as the war itself. They were a generation bred for one reason alone. To kill and maim and destroy. To win, no matter the side they chose.

Ann-Marie was right. There had been no choice when it came to choosing who they wanted to become. They had been raised warriors, and the process was so subtle that they had barely noticed it, had barely seen the changes from innocent to murderer, until one day that bloodlust had become impossible to ignore.

It had made a lot of them hateful, and no matter what side they fought for, it was still ugly. Blood never ceased to be spilled.

And would anything truly change if she did this? If she helped to bring down the very thing that had sparked that hate? Or would it live on into the next generation, and the next, until it became second nature for every witch and wizard to be constantly riding the killing edge, waiting and waiting until that bloodlust was finally satiated.

She couldn't think about that. It was the here and now that mattered.

Once they reached the Vaults, Hermione turned to look at Ann-Marie.

"Can you do this?" she asked cautiously as she watched the curse-breaker pace slowly in front of the thick ebony doors. The girl paused for a second and cocked her head, listening. After a long moment, she answered with a nod and a confident, "yup," before drifting off down the corridor.

Hermione glanced at Draco. "Where is she--"

"Security check," he cut in, his tone as bland and as bored as he looked. She expected him to at least look slightly nervous or excited, hell, even nauseous, but no, he simply looked indifferent. Never mind that all their lives hung in the balance at this precise moment in time. Typical bloody Malfoy.

The minutes ticked by in silence. Ann-Marie still hadn't returned and Hermione was getting antsy. Daring another glance towards Draco, she voiced the question she had been dying to ask all night.

"So," she started. "You and Ann-Marie." She paused to study him from the corner of her eye, only to see him watching her, his gaze sleepy and hot. She knew that look. It meant she was treading on dangerous ground.

"How did you meet?"

The sleepy look vanished, only to be replaced by one of caution. It was obviously not the question he had been expecting, but it wasn't one he liked, either.

"Our fathers used to be friends," he answered after a long moment. His tone was clipped and brusque, clearly indicating that he didn't like the way this conversation was going. Still, Hermione pressed on, strangely intrigued. What had happened to spark an unlikely friendship between two completely different people, both killers, that would see them uniting to fight against their own cause?

"Used to be?"

"Her father's dead."

"Oh," said Hermione, when it became clear that he wasn't going to give her much more than that. Draco, it seemed, was not in a talkative mood tonight. As for her... well, she couldn't sit still and she felt the incessant need to start blathering on about absolutely anything just to fill the silence.

Lucky for her, Ann-Marie chose that time to finally return.

"It's clear," she said to Draco, and then turned towards the doors of the Vault. She stared at them contemplatively for another few minutes before kneeling down in front of them.

"Give me an hour," she told them and closed her eyes.

There was a long stretch of silence before Draco nodded his head toward the far exit, instructing her to follow him. She did so, and they both left Ann-Marie behind to work her magic.

---

It took her fifty minutes. Fifty minutes of awkward silence that Hermione had struggled to fill before Draco had told her to shut up babbling and keep an eye out for any sign of trouble.

When the three of them finally ventured into the Vaults, Hermione immediately felt the heavy pressure of dark magic weighing down on her. Malfoy hadn't been wrong when he said that they had upped the security measures since her last visit here; the stench of multiple incantations, old and new, hung heavy in the air and the entire place screamed Voldemort.

She didn't like it. This was her home away from home, her sanctuary, and it was tainted.

She followed Draco instinctively through the cavernous hall, stretching her senses outward and probing for signs of unexpected booby-traps as they walked. After concluding that they were relatively safe for the time being but opting to err on the side of caution, she lowered her voice to a whisper and asked, "Do you know what we're looking for?"

Draco's answer was a brusque, "Yes," before he finally stopped in front of a non-descriptive alcove. He studied it for a long moment before turning to look behind him. "Ams."

The curse-breaker, who at that moment was prowling through the hall, gazing at the numerous alcoves curiously, looked up and made her way over to where they stood. "This it?" she said to Draco and received a curt nod in confirmation. And then she fell silent. Her eyes slipped closed and her hands came up to trace the air in front of the alcove.

"Fuck me, Draco, this is dark shit," the girl suddenly exclaimed, her Liverpudlian accent coming through thick and heavy. Hermione found it odd how a curse-breaking Death Eater could be so horrified by such a strong use of dark magic, but thought nothing more about it. After all, the girl was an oddball in herself.

"How long?" enquired Draco.

Ann-Marie shook her head. "Don't know. There's too many layers to tell. An hour, maybe two. I can try breaking as many as I can tonight, but we may need more time."

"No. We do this tonight or not at all. We can't risk them knowing what we're up to."

The girl looked uncertain for a moment and Hermione felt her last thread of hope stretch to breaking point. If this didn't work, they had nothing. No way to fight a hopeless war. No way to keep her friends safe. Harry wasn't enough anymore.

She stared at Ann-Marie with desperate pleading, though the girl, with her intense gaze trained on Draco, did not notice. Hermione had little time to consider the implications of their situation; that Ann-Marie, a Death Eater and her enemy, was her last and only hope. It was beyond her rationalisation, and so it was therefore best that it was not rationalised at all.

It was with barely-contained relief that Hermione saw the curse-breaker nod. She then turned back to the alcove with a look of quiet determination glittering in her dark eyes, and the Gryffindor nearly wept in gratitude.

"Go keep an eye out," Ann-Marie instructed them. "I'll call you when I'm done."

And without hesitation, they did as they were told.