As a Slytherin, Draco preferred to reduce complex problems to their simplest form.
His plan for the Dark Lord was straightforward enough: find him in the Forbidden Forest, at his most vulnerable, and deliver a decisive blow.
This was all thanks to Dobby's surveillance. Some weeks ago, Dobby had appeared before Draco with great pride to report that Quirrell had been making nocturnal excursions into the Forbidden Forest. Then, last Wednesday, he returned to announce that a unicorn had been found dead among the trees.
The two pieces of information clicked together at once.
In his past life, he had encountered Quirrell—and the Dark Lord—in the Forbidden Forest. At that time, Voldemort had been sustaining himself by drinking unicorn blood.
It was a desperate measure. No wise wizard would willingly harm a unicorn; to do so was to invite a cursed half-life, and even the most ruthless Dark wizard would resist it unless he had been pushed to the very brink of death. Given Quirrell's increasingly gaunt and hollow appearance in recent weeks, that moment had evidently arrived.
Was there ever going to be a better opportunity?
All Draco had to do was stay close to Potter.
He was confident that Potter would blunder his way into an encounter with the Dark Lord once more—you could always trust Potter's talent for finding trouble.
"If you're sent to detention, don't leave Potter's side," Draco said, steering Hermione through the deeper corridors of the library's Restricted Section. "Stay with him."
"Harry and I would be in detention together anyway—of course we'd be together..." Hermione said, only half-listening.
She was tugging at his sleeve, trailing after him as he led her left and right through the shelves, clearly trying to commit the route to memory.
"If you're split into groups, make sure you're in Potter's group," Draco said again, glancing back to find her giving a vague nod while craning her neck to examine the bookshelves.
Hermione Granger's curiosity was entirely predictable.
Ever since he had mentioned his study space, she had been barely able to think about anything else. She moved through the restricted shelves as though cataloguing them.
"Here." Draco stopped before a heap of junk, a tangle of thick, dark-green wires blocking the way.
Before them stood a dark-green gilded barrier, inscribed in ornate cursive with the words: Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus.
"Isn't that the Hogwarts motto?" Hermione peered at it, then stepped back slightly. "I've walked past something like this before—but it looked completely different. I barely recognised it."
"There are protective enchantments on it," Draco said, a quiet note of satisfaction in his voice. "I prefer to keep unrelated people out."
"I understand." She glanced at him, something warm flickering in her expression. "But you're willing to show me."
"As long as you keep it to yourself and don't mention it to anyone else," he said. He watched her face settle into a slow, pleased smile, and felt a faint satisfaction of his own—she really was considerably more agreeable when she was happy.
"I'll keep it secret," Hermione said, then looked at the barrier with bright, expectant eyes.
Draco raised his wand and tapped the sign. The letter D in "Draco" began to glow silver, the cursive script shifting and coiling until it had taken the shape of a small silver dragon, which swayed in place as if breathing.
A faint warmth crept into his face. "I need your hand," he said quietly. "So it can recognise you."
Hermione held it out without hesitation. He took it carefully, turned it palm upward, and placed it against the glowing letters. His fingers rested lightly over hers as the silver light flared—the little dragon seemed to swim through her palm, leaving a tingling, faintly electric sensation in its wake. Then the light went out, the dragon stilled, and the barrier returned to silence.
"It knows you now," Draco said, releasing her hand. His ears were slightly warm. "When you touch the word 'Draco,' the door will open for you."
Hermione bent forward to study the inscription, fascinated. To look at it now, it appeared no different from any other word on the barrier.
"Just that?" She straightened and looked at him, wanting to be certain.
"Try it," he said.
She pressed her fingertips to the word. A flash of silver crossed her palm, and in the same instant the heap of junk and the green wires vanished entirely. In their place stood the familiar, warmly lit study—its shelves crowded with books, its armchairs worn and comfortable.
"Oh!" Hermione stepped inside, delighted.
"The entrance is near the Ancient Runes section—look for the shelf with the most dictionaries." Draco followed her in, hands clasped behind his back. "Studying by the lake is pleasant enough, but it's inconvenient when you need to look something up. If you'd rather not run into your Housemates for a while, you're welcome to work here."
He had noticed, weeks ago, that Hermione had stopped coming to the library. The absence was conspicuous enough to unsettle him—Hermione Granger not in the library was like a compass that had stopped pointing north.
Draco had always preferred this place to himself. Solitude suited him; he had no patience for students who wandered in without purpose and disrupted his thinking. But over time the quiet had become something else. Too still. Too empty.
Something was missing. Like a puzzle lacking its last piece, or a fine soup that wanted salt.
Perhaps what he needed was someone to share the quiet with—someone sharp enough to hold a proper conversation, lively enough to make the silence feel different rather than just louder. He had, in the privacy of his own thoughts, set what he told himself were sensible conditions, so as not to make the criteria too broad.
It had narrowed the field considerably.
Who else could it be?
He put the kettle on.
The girl, meanwhile—having been manoeuvred here by his careful, entirely rational chain of reasoning and deemed the only suitable candidate—was utterly unaware of any of this. She had already installed herself in the armchair, swinging her legs, and resumed reciting the history of the Goblin Rebellions.
Draco set a cup of tea quietly in front of her and told himself this was simply a matter of good neighbourliness. They were friends. Friends helped each other. He had offered her a quiet place to work. Nothing more.
He watched her pick up the cup and take a sip, her eyes narrowing in contentment like a cat that had found a sunlit spot. She looked up at him. "Thank you."
He said nothing, and settled into the opposite chair with his own book.
---
"Why do I have to stay with Harry?" Hermione asked, returning to the subject of detention now that she had worked out the route and declared herself satisfied. "Is there a particular reason? It's just detention. You're being very cautious about it."
"Potter is in danger," Draco said quietly. His grey eyes were steady on her, a flicker of something unreadable in them. "Serious danger. I have it on reliable authority that the detention is going to be served in the Forbidden Forest."
He paused, thinking of Longbottom, whom Hermione had Petrified with startling precision during their practice sessions.
She had executed it perfectly. He hadn't expected less, but it had still impressed him.
"You're a gifted witch, and you will master the Full Body-Bind. If there's any chance, try to teach it to Potter as well," he said.
Hermione looked alarmed. She set her teacup down with a sharp click. "The Forbidden Forest? We're first-years—that's completely against the rules!"
"Rules are made by people," Draco said. "Don't worry. I'll be under the Invisibility Cloak and I'll stay close to you. Nothing is going to happen to you."
"Draco, it's too dangerous," Hermione said, her voice tight. "If you're caught, Slytherin loses points too."
"This isn't about points." He directed his gaze absently at the chandelier above, adopting a tone of mild reasonableness. "Think about Potter. How many people want him dead? It's common knowledge among the staff that the detention involves the Forbidden Forest. If Quirrell wanted to make a move, it would be exactly this sort of opportunity."
Hermione pressed her lips together and said nothing.
He watched her from the corner of his eye—the conflict played out clearly across her face. Worry. Hesitation. Fear. Then the slow, familiar hardening into resolve.
"Fine," she said at last. "You can come. Just in case."
"Good. Don't tell anyone I'm there. Not even Potter."
He had learned, a long time ago, that Potter was too young to understand the value of a kept secret—he trusted people too readily, indiscriminately, as though trust had no consequences. And Weasley, for all that he meant well, had never once in his life managed to keep something to himself for longer than twenty minutes.
Hermione, on the other hand, had never breathed a word of anything he had asked her to keep.
She frowned, then gave the small, habitual nod that he had come to recognise as her version of surrender. It seemed to be getting harder for her to say no to him—he had noticed—even when she suspected she ought to.
He supposed she hadn't forgotten the troll.
---
"Draco, are you there?" Hermione asked quietly, drawing a slow breath to steady herself.
They were standing outside Hagrid's hut. The night sky was very dark. Rooks circled the treetops, black against black, and the Forbidden Forest loomed before them, its edge swallowing the light entirely.
The invisible hand found hers in the dark and squeezed it, once.
He's here. She exhaled.
Ahead of them, Neville Longbottom was telling Harry in a miserable undertone, "My grandmother says there are werewolves in the Forbidden Forest..."
Draco rolled his eyes behind his Invisibility Cloak. There are no werewolves in the Forbidden Forest, Longbottom. Only the Dark Lord—but never mind.
Hagrid addressed the group gruffly. "Long as you're with me or Fang, nothin' in the Forest'll hurt yeh."
"Hagrid, I'd like to go with Harry—we're not frightened," Hermione said quickly. "You take Neville. He needs looking after."
"Really?" Hagrid peered at her with concern. "You're sure? A little girl on her own—"
"This has nothing to do with being a girl!" Hermione said briskly. "You should be with the student who's most unsettled, shouldn't you?" Her hands had moved behind her back without her noticing.
Something tapped her palm from behind, lightly, and she had to bite down on a startled laugh.
"Right then. You take Fang with you..." Hagrid said, before pointing toward the first silver smear on the ground. "See that? Silvery white, there on the ground? Unicorn blood. We need to try and find the poor creature—put it out of its misery if we can."
They divided into two groups and moved off into the trees.
Fang kept circling back to Hermione, sniffing with intent interest.
"Harry, make him stop—I don't like big dogs," Hermione said, feigning unease.
She wasn't frightened of dogs. She was frightened of Fang leading the others directly to an invisible boy walking at her side.
"Come here, Fang." Harry, obliging as ever, called the boarhound back and took the lead, while Hermione lagged a pace or two behind on the pretext of keeping her distance.
The forest absorbed them gradually. The sounds from outside—even the rustling wind—faded. Their footsteps fell soft on a thick carpet of dead leaves and old moss. Draco's hand stayed in hers.
It surprised her, sometimes, how much that helped.
She had said she wasn't afraid. She had meant it at the time. But standing in the Forbidden Forest in the dark, with tree roots underfoot and something unknown rustling just past the edge of the wandlight—the difference between bravery and recklessness was becoming uncomfortably clear.
This was the Forbidden Forest. Older students went pale when they mentioned it. No first-year was ever supposed to be here.
Quirrell could step out from behind any of these trees.
She kept her eyes on Harry and Fang ahead, not too close, not too far, maintaining the gap that hid her unseen companion. But the space around her felt vast and full of shapes, and twice she glanced sideways at the empty air and felt a cold spike of doubt.
Was he still there?
"Draco?" she whispered.
"I'm here." His voice came from just beside her ear, quiet and steady.
"Why would anyone hurt a unicorn?" She could see another bright smear of silver on a fallen leaf, vivid against the dark. "It's so cruel."
It was cruel. But for the Dark Lord, self-preservation had always eclipsed every other consideration. Draco said nothing.
"Do you want to take my hand?" he asked, after a moment.
"Yes," she said, barely audible.
Through the cool, slippery fabric of the Cloak, a hand closed firmly around hers and did not let go.
"Better?"
"Much better," she said.
They moved deeper into the Forest. The silence here was a different kind—not peaceful but watchful, as though the trees themselves were listening. Hermione gritted her teeth against the growing ache in her legs and said nothing.
She stumbled on a moss-covered root, her ankle twisting sideways, and caught herself—or rather, was caught—before she reached the ground.
"Careful," Draco said in her ear, steadying her. They were very close; she could feel the warmth of him through the Invisibility Cloak, and catch the faint, clean scent of whatever he used in his hair. From any external observer, she would have appeared suspended at an impossible angle, held upright by thin air.
"Tired?" he asked.
"I'm fine," she said. She was not entirely fine, but she was not going to say otherwise.
He kept hold of her hand more firmly after that, leading her around the worst of the exposed roots.
"Hermione? You alright?" Harry called back.
"Fine, keep going," she said.
The silver stains grew closer together, more frequent. The path narrowed as the trees pressed in, and the moonlight came and went in pale strips through the canopy above.
Draco felt it before he heard it—a change in the quality of the silence, a sense of nearness.
He squeezed her hand. "Wand out," he murmured, his lips close to her ear. "Now. Be ready."
Hermione's free hand moved to her pocket. She had her wand out in an instant, knuckles white, eyes wide and steady.
Harry stopped ahead of them. "Look," he whispered.
Through a screen of tangled branches, they saw the unicorn.
Hermione's breath caught.
It was dying. Its coat was white as mother-of-pearl—or had been; now it was dulled and matted, sprawled across the dark leaves with its head tilted toward them. The pools of silver blood around it were enormous. The steady dripping from its wounds measured out the last of its life in cold, quiet increments.
Its eyes found them through the branches. They were clear and dark, and full of a sorrow that had no bitterness in it. The look reminded Hermione, for a reason she couldn't quite name, of the boy beside her.
Then a hooded figure emerged from the shadows on the far side of the clearing.
It moved wrong—too low, too slow, crawling rather than walking. It crouched beside the unicorn's neck and lowered its head.
Fang bolted without a sound.
The figure raised its head. In the same instant, Harry dropped to the ground with a cry, both hands pressed to his forehead.
"Now," Draco said, sharp and precise.
"Petrificus Totalus!"
Two jets of light struck the hooded figure in rapid succession. It collapsed mid-movement and went still. The cloud shifted; moonlight filled the clearing.
Quirrell lay motionless on the leaves. He looked, in the white light, exactly like stone.
"Stay here—don't move until Hagrid comes." Draco sent a shower of red sparks arcing up through the canopy. "Keep hold of your wand."
Hermione sank to her knees. Her legs had decided they were done. "Draco, I'm frightened..."
"Dobby," he said to the empty air above him. There was a soft, familiar crack. "Stay with Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. Don't let anything near them. Stay invisible."
"Yes, little master." The voice came from just overhead.
Hermione's head snapped up. "Who is that?"
"A very capable house-elf. He'll guard you—there's nothing to worry about. Go and check on Potter." He was already moving toward Quirrell, silent under the Cloak.
Up close, it was as unpleasant a sight as he remembered. The Dark Lord's face—chalk-white, flat-nosed, red-eyed—stared out from the back of Quirrell's skull with an expression of impotent fury frozen in place.
Draco studied it for a moment.
The theory held. A soul could certainly vacate a host body under normal circumstances—that much was well established. But a Petrified host was no longer a body in any functional sense. It was stone. And a soul sealed inside stone had nowhere to go.
He didn't linger. He turned and went back to the bushes.
Hermione was crouched beside the unconscious Harry, her brow furrowed, her wand still in her hand. She looked very young, and very worried.
Draco crouched beside her and let his head appear from beneath the Cloak. She startled.
"It's definitely Quirrell," he said. "There's a rather ghastly extra face on the back of his head. I'd recommend not going over there—it's genuinely unpleasant." He paused. "Trust me on this one."
Hermione looked across the clearing toward Quirrell's prone form and shuddered. "I'll take your word for it," she said. "I'll wait here until the professors arrive."
Footsteps and hoofbeats came crashing through the undergrowth. Hagrid's voice carried through the trees.
"Hermione." He spoke quietly, close to her ear. "You did brilliantly. I have to go—don't mention I was here." He reached out, almost involuntarily, and brushed her hair back from her face with the backs of his fingers. He caught himself almost immediately and pulled his hand away.
Hermione hadn't noticed. She was still pale, still trembling slightly in the cool night air, staring at where Quirrell lay.
A faint rustle of fabric, and the Cloak settled around him. The clearing held nothing but moonlight and the sound of Hagrid's approach.
Hermione raised her wand and cast a quiet Warming Charm over her robes. The invisible boy slipped between the trees and was gone, absorbed by the darkness of the Forbidden Forest as though he had never been there at all.