Draco woke on the last morning of Christmas break to an owl pecking him. He recognized it immediately as his father's owl. He wondered what it could be doing here.
Draco tore open the letter tied to the owl's leg eagerly. His heart dropped.
Snape had told his father about Slughorn's Christmas party and about how he felt about Hermione, the Mudblood. He was getting a warning that if he didn't stop doing these foolish, impulsive, acts, they would tell the Dark Lord, and he would be snatched away in his bed, and Hermione would be killed. Draco had never hated Snape more in his life, though it must have been his duty to tell his mother, who he had created an Unbreakable Vow. Snape, the coward, feared for his life.
Hermione thoroughly despised herself to agreeing to Lavender's request. She shouldn't have gotten her hopes up that they could ever survive together. She was a Mudblood, and Draco's father worked for the man who's mission was to kill them all, Voldemort. She would have gone back in time with her Time-Turner, but it had been smashed the year before, and all the other ones. She could have run away, but she would be too easy to track down, being underage and a muggle-born. Nevertheless, she approached the Slytherin common room in the dungeons the last day of Christmas break, and attempted to find Draco.
The door was locked, so she attempted to guess its password.
"Er-pure-blood?" That had been to password three years before. But the door remained immovable and silent. Well, it ought to have changed, for security.
"Voldemort? Green? Parseltogue? Parselmouth? Chamber of Secrets? Mudbloods are scum?" Hermione guessed. She was about to give up when the door flew open.
"Mud bloods are scum? I-" she was cut off. The password hadn't opened the door.
Draco had.