A secret room, a single word key, and a choice that should have been simple. Hermione Granger is learning that casual never stays casual at Hogwarts. Morning finds Draco Malfoy distant in public yet relentless in private, his scent a shield that turns corridors into contested ground. In class, Theodore Nott stiffens at the truth. In the library, Pansy Parkinson names what was done to her and calls it a debt. At dinner, eyes follow Hermione. By night, the door closes and want becomes something neither of them can file under biology alone. This chapter pushes the bond past rules and into consequences, as Hermione weighs autonomy, secrecy, and the peril of being unbound in a school that smells blood in the water.