Hermione is busy again, brewing potions and working on strategy. The more she has to do, the less free time there is to think. It’s only at night that she can’t shut her mind down as her thoughts veer wildly from worrying that Voldemort might discover Draco’s secret to imagining the Dark Lord’s defeat and being reunited with Draco without any more obstacles between them. At her darkest moments, she relives over and over the night before Draco left, when she went to his room to say goodbye. I should have kissed him, she thinks. If I’d kissed him, maybe he wouldn’t have gone. What if he doesn’t come back? What if I never get to tell him?