Hermione almost jumped a foot in the air, caught off guard by the sudden crackling of flames. They were burning purple, shooting off sparks. It was better than the stench of a fallen troll, but not by far. She tightened her hold on her wand. "Snape's challenge," Harry was saying, "what do we have to do?"

Hermione didn't answer, holding her breath. She was struggling to keep her hand steady, suddenly aware of every bruise she had received from debris in the chess game and from the fall straight through the trapdoor, right on top of Draco. Devil's Snare. Clever trap, really, on the part of Professor Sprout. He'd saved her from the vines.

Now she just had to save herself.

"Hermione, what what are you doing?"

She almost smiled at the thrill that his panic sent down her spine, before she realised it wasn't a good thrill. Enjoying this made her more like the bullies she loathed, more like Ron Weasley. She didn't want to be like that - she wanted to be able to look back on her life and honestly believe that she had never done anything but the best thing she could have at the time. "I'm trying to stop something bad from happening."

"Should I be holding my hands over my head?" In spite of any fear he might have been feeling, he managed to sound sarcastic.

"Don't be silly, they're fine where they are. Just don't go for your wand, Harry, I'd hate to disarm you now."

"You have your wand pointed at my throat."

"I'm not going to cast anything, don't worry. Though if I wanted to, I'm sure you can guess how much trouble you'd be in."

"Yeah, I can guess. What do you want, Hermione?"

"I want you and Ron to leave Draco alone once we leave this place. I want you to swear that I will never again be twisted up in your clever little ideas, all these things that will end in who knows how many people losing their lives."

"What if I can't keep that promise?"

"The point is, and always will be, that you tried. But if you want a cost - I know more about magic than you. Of course I do, I read so much I probably know more than half the older students. I know spells that can cause you more pain than you've ever so much as imagined, spells that can literally melt your brain and every other part of your insides. You've seen the bluebell flames? Imagine them, running through your veins, burning away your blood. I know spells that can do exactly that."

"So you'll kill me?"

She stared at him, at his eyes. What was it people said? Just like his father, except for his eyes, the exact shape and shade of green as his mothers. Hermione didn't know if Lily Potter had ever looked at someone with the intensity Harry Potter was currently fixing on her, but she knew what was important to her: Slytherins. No matter how little sense it made to all the Gryffindors, or to all the people she shared classes with, that was what she cared about. The health of some random Slytherins and their ringleader, the boy who had literally picked her out of a crowd, picked her over everyone for the first time in her life. She hadn't understood what that meant at the time, of course, but she knew what it had meant for her when she saw the look in the eyes of people at Hogwarts, people who thought they knew all about the Malfoys and their legacy. She knew what pity was, and she knew the look that went along with it. But Draco Malfoy had never looked at her with that; he was the only person who hadn't, not once in the entire time she'd known him. He had picked her out of a crowd and for the first and only time in her life, it wasn't pity in the eyes of the person who saw her instead of everyone else. No, Draco Malfoy looked at her with curiosity and respect, and she owed it to him to earn it. In her mind, that was the price that made it worth the huge risk she was taking, bluffing like this.

"I won't kill you, Harry Potter - I will destroy what makes you who you are."

Harry stared at her for a long moment, his eyes wide behind his glasses. She couldn't tell if this was out of fear or disbelief, but she was sure that if she'd been watching Ron's face at the time, he would have looked exactly like this when she had blackmailed them with the information that the boys had locked her and Draco in a bathroom with a troll. Eventually, though, he nodded. "I understand."

Do you really? Despite her doubts, she lowered her wand, though she kept it in her shaking hand. "Of course you do, Harry. You're the clever one. Now, let's look at this paper."

She picked up the riddle, read through it slowly and carefully. She burned the verse into her mind, each word meaningless alone and the phrases melding together like a nursery rhyme.

Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind - ha! as though an unconscious troll, a barbaric life size game of chess and plants that literally choked out the life of unsuspecting victims were safe.

Two of us will help you, whichever you were find,

One among us seven will let you move ahead,

Another will transport the drinker back instead,

Two among our number hold only nettle wine,

Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line

- five of them useless to what Harry and Hermione wanted. One way forward, one way back. No way to guarantee both of them. It figured.

Choose, unless you wish to stay here for evermore

- or at least until they starved to death or, since neither of them knew how to conjure water yet, died of dehydration. Then if nothing else their ghosts could return to the school to tell everyone else how they were all doomed to die.

To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:

First, however slyly the poison tries to hide

You will always find some on nettle wine's left side;

Second, different are those who stand on either end,

But if you would move onwards, neither is your friend;

Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,

Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;

Fourth, the second left and second on the right

Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight.

Hermione grinned at the page, "Oh, brilliant. This isn't magic, it's logic - it's just a puzzle. Wizards like you and Ron, you don't have an ounce of logic, so you'd be stuck in here for the rest of your life."

"Yes, well, so will we, Hermione."

She wondered if he was starting to regret asking for their help, but he had already said he needed her, and, apparently, the two of them were a package deal. "Of course not, you've got me to solve it for you. This is why you brought me along, these riddles, because of the chance that something exactly like this could happen. Seven bottles, a riddle."

"Yes, but how do we know which one is safe? You read the thing, poison and wine and two things that we actually need."

"Weren't you listening? Lucky for you, Harry, our no involvement deal doesn't start until this is over. If you'll just give me a minute, I'll solve it for you."

Thankfully, Harry took her advice and stayed quiet while she thought the riddle through, looking up and down the row of bottles. She muttered to herself, thinking it through, dismissing the vials and then selecting new ones, shifting her fingers across the different types of glass. The biggest wasn't poison, so the second on the right had to wine because it was the same as the second of the left. Poison to the left of both, so the far right couldn't be poison, could it? But it couldn't be wine, it must be one of the potions they were after - back, since the ends wouldn't let them forward, through the black flame. And then there were two left, the smallest bottle and one that was neither small nor large. The only things left were poison and the way forward, and the smallest one wasn't poison. "Got it. Smallest will get us forward - well. One of us."

Harry frowned. "That's hardly one swallow."

Hermione shrugged, pointing at the other vial, the one on the far right. "That one will let one of us go back the way we came, through the purple fire. Back to Draco and Ron. But it might have enough for both of us. We could go back, let it go. If the Stone is through there, it's still none of our business, Harry. It shouldn't be our problem."

"It's not our problem, it's mine, as you've put a lot of effort into making me see since I invited you and Malfoy down here. I can't let him come back, Hermione, not if it's really him. He killed my parents."

"Yeah, the entire wizarding world knows that. Harry, your life isn't a secret to anyone, don't make the mistake of thinking it is, even if you can't remember it."

"I do remember it, though."

"You were one year old. That's not possible." She tried to stay formal and separate, hold herself aloft from him just like Draco's parents would - how else would she stay sane in all of this? "Sorry, but it's just not."

"No, Hermione, that's not true. Your books might say all of these 'facts', but they're not always right. If they were, no one'd ever learn anything, would they? No, things change, facts aren't always relevant, and maybe you're always right, but not this time. I dream about it, Hermione. I dream a scream and a flash of green light, and that's it. That's my memory of my parents - that and some flashes of smiles, of eyes like mine and hair that must've been my dads, if all the stories are true. I can remember my mother's last moments, Hermione, and nothing you say can make that a lie."

She wasn't sure what to think of that, at least not at first. She gaped at him for a minute, debating whether to speak or let it lie. Of course she had to speak, it was in her nature to shove a wedge in, make it worse. She knew she was right, after all - she had never been wrong. "Harry, you might think that, but those memories can't be really clear. They don't count. I know you want to think they do, but they can't. The brain of a baby can't form memories properly, not long-term ones, not the sort you'd have to form. Maybe your subconscious mind, but otherwise..."

He shook his head. "This is why Ron thinks that you and Malfoy make such a great match. He's absolutely certain that Malfoy is a bully, because that's what his father is to Mr Weasley. He doesn't see whatever it is that you seem to see in him. I don't think I see it, either, except that's not true. I've seen you when it's just the two of you, in the library or in potions. It's like... it's as though the two of you bring out best in each other, but the worst in everyone else. Does that make sense?"

"Actually, it kind of does." She shook her head. "Harry, you could be a brilliant wizard and an even better person, if you didn't insist on hanging around Ron all the time."

"Are you really the best person to complain about someone having a bad personality?"

"Point taken. If You-Know-Who is there, Harry, you'll be careful, won't you? You won't do anything reckless, will you?"

"Just try to stop the most evil wizard of the last century from coming back. Nothing too stupid, I promise."

In spite of the seriousness of the situation, she laughed, passing him the vial. "This is definitely the way forward, I'm sure of it."

"Completely certain?"

"Harry, you just told me I'm always right. Give me a chance, I know what I'm talking about."

"Alright. You drink first."

"Prove it's not poison. You know, I wouldn't kill you with a potion. Because if you're right, then Draco will be right, and it will all turn out that the only way to get out of here involves you."

"I was thinking you could each take a broom, actually. From the room of keys. And when you get back to the school, go straight to the owlery and send an owl after Professor Dumbledore. McGonagall said he was in London on 'Ministry business', but if he gets back soon enough he might be in time."

"Oh. Right." She uncapped the potion, raised it as if in toast, and downed half of the contents. It was like ice going down her throat, sliding down more like something near a solid than a liquid. Swallowing, she recapped the bottle, putting it back with a shudder. "That's not very nice."

"What?"

"It's like ice," she explained.

"You should go before it wears off."

"Good luck -"

"Just go! I don't need Malfoy out for my blood, too."

She nodded to him and turned away, walking right through the fire. Her vision was enveloped by purple flame for a long minute, and then it was gone, her passing through completely unscathed. She let out a sigh of relief. "Magic," she said, and shook her head.

Past the troll and the ungodly stench, Hermione took a deep, slow breath. With any luck, Draco had rethought his decision to stay, and he was gone already.

Of course she wasn't so lucky. As she stepped onto the chessboard, her footstep rang out across the board. She still had her wand in hand, which was just as well. Draco had his wand trained on her, on his feet in an instant, and he was quite good at defending himself with magic - at least better than Hermione was at punching people. "Hermione? Where's Potter?"

She shrugged. "Something came up, and it was better that I came back alone. That's all - oh!"

Draco had launched himself at her, catching her by surprise. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight, only loosening his grip when she squeaked that she couldn't breathe. Of all things to do in that moment, he stroked her hair. "You are never going anywhere with these bloody Gryffindors again."

"Heh. Yeah, I sorted that out, actually. I have it on good faith that he's not going to bother us again."

"How did you manage that?"

"I don't know. How are your fingers not getting stuck in my hair?"

"Miracle?" As if to prove his point, he released his hold of her and withdrew from the hug.

"Probably. There's just one last thing to do."

"Get Weasley out of here?"

"Okay, two things. Come on, the only way out involves brooms and you know how I feel about those things."