Disclaimer:
Anything belonging to the HP universe belongs to J.K. Rowling and others who have bought the rights to meddle with her toys. Anything that's not is mine, unless stated otherwise. I'm just playing around here, not making money, so please don't sue.

Author's note's:
This fic was written for twistedm. in the Hds Beltane fic exchange on livejournal. It's beta'd, but not finished. I signed up for this exchange and started enthusiastically researching Beltane and then I moved and started my own company. It swamped me completely and to make matters worse, this fic grew into a multichaptered monster.
This was Twistedm.'s request: lots and lots of UST between Harry and Draco (but they can have sex in the end), hot NC-17 slash (can be between any two or three people in the fic) that makes me really wet, snark, humor, fic on the longer side.
No warnings, nothing exciting in the prologue, but the story is meant to reach NC-17 ... eventually. Thanks heaps to Naadi who did a hell of a betaing job on this.

Summary:
Seventh year and Harry, Ron, Hermoine and Ginny have decided to return to Hogwarts after all. Both old friends and old enemies have returned. But nothing is the same. Harry wants to start the hunt for the Horcruxes and finds he gets help from unexpected people. And what is up with Malfoy?
Chapter summary:
Prologue, in which Harry's shocked, Hermoine's wise, Ron's indignant and Ginny says important stuff.


Prologue

This is not happening! It's utterly ubelievable! But there's definitely no mistaking it. I'm certain that I just saw someone with very blond hair hop quickly from the train and that could only mean one thing: Malfoy is coming back to Hogwarts. I just catch the mixture of suprise and fear on his face, before he enters a carriage.

"I can't believe they would let him back in, after what he did!" I say indignantly as I turn towards Ron, Hermione and Ginny, who are standing next to me on the platform of Hogwarts station. The bright red Hogwarts Express is stretched almost along the entire platform puffing out small clouds of steam that I feel might just as well be coming out of my ears.

At my outburst, Hermione turns to me with a confused look on her face, but before she can ask me what I mean, Ron informs her icily that Malfoy is back at Hogwarts. The held-back anger I feel, sounds clearly in his voice.

Hermione looks first Ron then me in the eye searchingly before she quietly says: "I'm sure Headmistress McGonagall has good reasons." Ron and I round on her simultaniously, our shoes making a scraping noise that is mostly, but not entirely drowned out by the tap-tapping of the shoes belonging to the dozens of students that rush by us, hurrying out of the rain and into the carriages. Both Ron and I are fuming, but Hermione doesn't give an inch. She just looks up at us down her nose. I realize that should be quite impossible, but leave it to Hermione to make the impossible work for her.

"'Mione! He tried to kill Dumbledore! What possible reason could McGonagall have not to kill him on sight?" Ron asks her, a 'how-could-you?' look burning in his eyes. He always reacts this way when she doesn't agree with him. Even after all these years, he still takes it as a form of betrayal. I can predict Hermione's agitated sigh long before the sound actually reaches my ears.

"I know very well what Malfoy did last year. That's precisely why I think McGonagall has good reasons for letting him back in school. It won't be exactly easy on him, you know," she tells Ron.

I can't believe what I'm hearing. "Why the hell should it be easy on him? How about us? We have to deal with the fact that we can't do a thing as Dumbledore's murderer sits in a classroom with us every week!" I get even angrier about it when I say it and I don't care that my voice is rising or that the other students start throwing glances at us. I am silenced though, by Ginny's voice, laced with so many different emotions I can't even begin to disentangle them all.

"He didn't kill Dumbledore, Snape did," she says and when I open my mouth to tell her that doesn't make him any less guilty, she holds up her hand to silence me. "If you want to blame Malfoy for killing Dumbledore, you will have to blame me for everything the Basilisk did too."

I look at her, dumbfounded. How can she even think about comparing herself with that – that bastard Malfoy! But she's still talking. She doesn't say much these days, but when she does, it matters, so we listen.

"As much as I hate Malfoy, I can't deny that he might very well have been in the same sort of position I was. I didn't mean to release the Basilisk, but I did. And although Malfoy probably wasn't under the influence of a diary, he might very well have been under the influence of something or someone. So yes, if you really believe Malfoy killed Dumbledore, then you must also blame me for releasing the Basilisk." All through her speech I shake my head furiously, sending droplets of water spraying around. I wonder fleetingly why it always has to rain when we return to Hogwarts, but dismiss the question as irrelevant at the moment.

"You know that's not true, Gin. You didn't know what you were doing, he did. I was there, he tried to kill Dumbledore himself." I pause because Hermoine guides us towards the last few carriages and the slight push in my back catches me off guard.

"He tried, yes, but he didn't. What I want to know is, why?" she says as we finally reach an empty carriage. Her question resonates in the silence that falls over us after we all pile into the carriage. I'm the only one who can even begin to try and answer that question, because I'm the only one of us who was there, who saw it all. And every time the question comes up, I want to say Malfoy didn't kill Dumbledore because he was too scared to do it, but I know that's not the truth. Not the complete truth, anyway. Yes, Malfoy was terrified at that moment, but while Dumbledore talked to him and I was forced to stay hidden under the invisibility cloak, I saw something else in his eyes. An emotion I'm not ready to admit was there.

As we ride towards Hogwarts, the only sounds to break the silence are the rattling of the carriages' wheels and the clip-clop of the Thestrals' hoofs. And at that last sound I suddenly remember Malfoys surprised and slightly scared look just before he got into his carriage. It's only now that I realize he wasn't looking at anyone, he was looking at the front of his carriage. But what could have happened to Malfoy over the summer that made him able to see Thestrals?