Hermione narrowly avoided falling into the gutter, but she did make intimate contact with a grimy, brick wall. A small child, about three or four years of age was holding on to lantern post with both arms and crying.
Luckily, the child's mother appeared out of the scrambling crowd, shouted with relief and scooped him up.
So this was it then, Hermione thought, this was the kind of widespread, public havoc Voldemort could create. It was just like the Quidditch World Cup, only now the chaos had reached Wizarding Britain's hub.
Draco bellowed her name with such force that several people near to her spun around to look. The number of people on the street seemed to have doubled in the past five minutes.
"Here!" she called out, her voice all but lost in the din.
He heard her, Merlin knew how. Within moment, he was there; pulling her along a she kept turning around to gawk up at the Mark.
They kept to the pavement, along the edge of buildings where there was more light. Draco took them into the first alleyway they came across. It was already filling up with like-minded people intent on Disapparating to the safety of their homes.
He stared down at her, looking quite menacing in his seriousness. "Can you Disapparate, or do you need to Floo?" It was a fair question to ask someone who hadn't been in a close combat situation with Death Eaters before.
She was shaken, but she was not anywhere near distraught enough to splinch herself. "I'm fine."
He nodded, wand already in hand. "Do you know that little picnic spot near Hogsmeade station?"
She knew the place. Most Hogwarts students of Hogsmeade-visiting age did. It was an unassuming little clearing beside the lake, sought after for being a very agreeable combination of shady and sunny.
"On three," she whispered.
They arrived together at the agreed upon location. Hermione first, followed by Draco
Hogsmeade Green was an eight minute walk behind them. Hogwarts loomed ahead, beyond the lake and the famed, anti-apparition boundary. On impulse, Hermione scanned the sky. She breathed a sigh of relief to note nothing more untoward that a flock of birds making their way across the lake.
Compared to the noise and panic of where they had just come from, the quiet of the lake was startling.
Hogwarts was home, and at that moment there was nowhere in the world she felt safer. It was also much cooler than in Knockturn Alley. Hermione rubbed at her upper arms to ward away a chill that had as much to do with seeing the Mark yet again, as it did with the weather.
The look on Draco's face said he was thinking about more than just the Mark. He pushed his hair back, straightened his shoulders and started walking.
"Something's not right," Hermione said.
"Besides the fact that we've personally seen two Dark Marks in two short weeks?" he scoffed. "Yes, something is definitely not right."
She walked a little ahead of him and was in the process of tying up her hair. Her hands were still shaking a little and so she only managed a loose bun that looked in danger of coming undone almost as quickly as it was put up.
The nape of her neck was exposed, showing the small curls that clung to the end of her hairline. There was a smudge of dirty just above the scooped neckline of her singlet, above the bump of her spine and before the start of her shoulders. It could have been soot or soil or regular Knockturn Alley grime.
In any case, Draco didn't like seeing it there. Almost absently, he licked the pad of his thumb and cleaned the spot away.
Hermione came to a stop and turned to look at him in amazement. "You didn' t just do that."
He seemed more surprised than she was and stared down at his thumb as if it has just asked him how the weather was. "Evidently I did."
It was wise to seize the moment while he was still looking particularly unguarded, she decided. "You really need to tell me if these two Marks have anything to do with what Dumbledore spoke to you about in his office. I don't believe in coincidences."
Draco made an amused noise. "Good, because there's no such thing as coincidence. You' d best get used to the fact. Everything happens because that' s the only way it can happen."
"Is that so?" she challenged. There was a 'moral of the story' lecture coming on, Hermione thought.