Chapter 1: Welcome to the Burrow

When he blearily awoke, Draco didn't have the slightest clue where he was. He was in a bed, in a completely unfamiliar room. He tried to sit up, and his efforts were rewarded with a huge pain shooting through his body, seeming to come from nowhere and fill every centimeter of space in his body, causing him to yell out from the intensity of it as he fell backward onto the mattress. Cringing as the slightest of movements brought him immense discomfort, he tried to recall the events prior to his blackout, thinking maybe he'd be able to remember where exactly he was.

As he thought, the memories came flooding back, clearly and vividly: putting the plan into action… finally making his way into Dumbledore's office… disarming the wizened old headmaster and… and… finding that he just couldn't do it. Knowing in his heart that he wasn't a killer... that there was no way he could ever… Dumbledore's calming voice, the voice of reason… Draco's desperation, trying to make him understand... Dumbledore's acceptance, his promise of protection, telling Draco and Potter what to do, how to escape… and then seeing Dumbledore killed, right before his very eyes, by Severus Snape, the man Draco had known for so many years. Seeing Dumbledore's body, the body of one of the greatest wizards ever to have lived, seeing his body just thrown out the window like some sort of garbage…

Draco suddenly felt sick, sicker than he'd ever felt in his life. He could so clearly hear Dumbledore's voice, see his eyes, pleading with Snape for his life. The image was ingrained on the backs of Draco's eyelids, making it impossible to escape. Eventually, succumbing to the pain, he fell into another fitful sleep, haunted by dream-visions of Dumbledore whispering, "Draco, please… please… Draco…" followed always by a flash of green light.

"No, no… NO!"

"Draco. Draco! Wake up, dear."

Slowly Draco opened his eyes once again to a middle-aged, redheaded woman looking down at him with concern in her eyes.

"It was just a dream, dear, just a bad dream," she tittered. The woman fussed about, handing him a pain-relieving potion and instructing him to drink. When he had finished, she handed him a tray of food.

"You must be hungry," she smiled kindly at him.

Draco was still confused as to his whereabouts and the identity of this lady.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Oh, right, of course you mightn't recognize… so silly of me. I'm Mrs. Weasley, Ron and Ginny's mother," the woman responded, smiling kindly again.

Draco bit his tongue just in time to prevent himself from making a rude comment to Mrs. Weasley about how he knew exactly who her children were. He knew that as a result of his acceptance of Dumbledore's protection that his very life was now in the hands of his enemies, and figuring that it would thus be imprudent to offend them.

"And… Where am I, exactly?" he asked slowly, still trying to process that this woman, who was herself his adversary- well, former adversary, was being so kind to him, almost as if he were her son.

"This is the Burrow," she proclaimed brightly. "Our home. It's being used as one of the Order's hiding spots at the moment… Once you've finished eating, you can come downstairs and I'll give you the grand tour. Some of the Order should be over later; several of them are very keen on speaking with you. I keep telling them to let you have your peace, you've been through so much, but they insist…"

Mrs. Weasley's brow furrowed as her face momentarily displayed her annoyance at the mysterious Order members' refusals to comply with her request on Draco's behalf, but the look was fleeting. A second later she was back to her cheerfulness, urging Draco to enjoy his breakfast and come down when he was ready.

Draco's eyes followed her as she left the room. He could not process her kindness toward him. He had been her enemy, he'd fought against everything she stood for, endangered the lives of her children, and Merling knew what trouble his father had caused them all over the years, and yet… and yet she was treating him like a son. His mother would never have done anything of this sort. It could not be denied that Draco was likely the most precious thing in the world to his mother, but she was no less a Death Eater than his cold, uncaring and abusive father. Any enemy of hers would never have been given a second chance; would never have made it past her doorstep, let alone welcomed into her home and cared for…

Thus, it made absolutely no sense to him that Mrs. Weasley had so easily forgiven him for everything he had done. There must, he decided, be some sort of catch, be something else lurking behind her amiable demeanor. He would definitely need to keep a wary eye out now, because if he had learned anything in his lifetime surrounded by the Dark Lord and company, it was that no one could ever be trusted. Your closest companion could so easily be your greatest foe.

Draco had learned that lesson early on, and had fitted his ethics to suit it. He was of the 'look after number one' school of thinking, and who could blame him, he wondered? With everything he had been through in his short seventeen years of life, who could blame him for being a survivalist?

Draco looked down and realized that he'd finished off the entire tray of food already. He hadn't realized how hungry he'd been, but he definitely felt much better with food in his stomach, and the pain-relieving potion had kicked in. He could only assume that the pain he had felt had been from what must have been a nasty portkey trip.

The others hadn't wanted to take him, especially the two Weasley brats. They had argued very briefly, insisting that he was only coming with so he could reveal their location to You-Know-Who, but they had finally yielded to Potter's insistence that Dumbledore had ordered him to bring Draco with him, to protect him, and that Dumbledore's last wish would not be in vain.

It almost physically hurt to think that he was probably life-indebted to Potter now.

He lifted himself from the bed and walked over to a mirror on the wall. Horrified by his disheveled reflection ('No Malfoy would ever been seen in such a state!' a voice in his head reprimanded), he immediately attempted to brush his hair down with his fingers and brush the dust and grime off his robes, flattening out as many wrinkles as he could.

Realizing with a sigh that he was fighting a losing battle, he gave up trying to tidy himself and leaned on the dresser, pondering what to do next.

The only option, it seemed, was to make his way downstairs and face whatever might await him. He sighed again, this time at the prospect of having to deal with a group of people he knew didn't trust him, and probably weren't especially thrilled that he was even there in the first place. But he knew he wouldn't be able to stay holed up in the room forever, nor did he particularly want to.

Making a last-ditch attempt to improve his appearance, he sighed once more, turned from the mirror, and made his way through the door and down the stairs to whatever might be waiting for him.

Draco finally reached the bottom of what seemed an endless number of stairs that travelled past various bedrooms, and found himself walking through a hallway filled with decades of Weasley family portraits. He was amazed by the sharp contrast between the images that surrounded him and the family portraits that lined the halls of Malfoy Manor. While the Malfoy family portraits were so serious and often somewhat scary, as if to put the fear of the Dark Lord himself into any passersby, these portraits of various red-haired Weasley relatives were bright and cheerful, like Mrs. Weasley herself. Everyone was smiling, some even waving as he passed, all looking so content and happy.

It made no sense to Draco. How could these people be so happy? They were dressed in old, secondhand robes, nothing like the resplendent clothes his family wore. They were dirt poor, could barely afford to send the kids to school… But yet, they seemed content, relaxed, and carefree. How was this possible? It was an act, Draco decided. In the same way that his parents would never show fear, would always maintain an air of prudishness- no, respectability- in this same manner, the Weasleys must probably never betray the unhappiness they must possess due to their lack of gold.

Draco shook his head, clearing all these thoughts from his mind. Thinking of the Weasley family only made him think of his own parents, a subject he was trying to keep his mind as far away from as possible. He wasn't ready to face his father's disappointment and anger, his mother's angst, the shame that he had undoubtedly brought upon the Malfoy name in the eyes of the people who mattered most. Not that they could really be shamed anymore after last summer… It was too much for him to bear, so to occupy his mind once more he returned to the photographs on the wall, studying them more closely just for something to do.

One portrayed a young boy and girl, Draco guessed nine and eight years of age, respectively, chasing each other around the yard on broomsticks, laughing happily. He recognized them as Potter's Weasel and the Weaslette. Another one showed two identical red-haired boys squirting water at each other out of trick wands. They, too, were full of cheer. As he made his way through the hall he found himself confronted with picture after picture of smiles, laughter, amiable expression. Draco felt something unpleasant welling up inside of him; all the cheerfulness was making him almost ill. It was nothing like what he was used to.

Unable to take any more of the happy illustrations surrounding him, he escaped from the hall and made his way into what he guessed was a kitchen. He'd never really been in one before, as he had been raised never to associate with house elves (beyond barking orders and doling punishment), and the house elves had always brought him anything he might have desired from the kitchen, so he had never seen any reason to bother entering. But now here he was, in a kitchen, the size of which he was sure must pale in comparison to the kitchen at home. The Malfoys were always entertaining and throwing parties, and a large kitchen was necessary to serve so many guests.

At any rate, the kitchen he now stood in was definitely quaint. There were dishes washing themselves in a sink underneath a window that looked out onto a sprawling green yard. There were cabinets filled with more dishes, and some with books on various subjects from household spells to recipes for desserts. On the counters there were knives and wooden boards, upon which lay chopped vegetables. There was a big box-shaped thing in the corner with circles on top. On one of the circles sat a pot, the contents of which were being stirred by a wooden spoon. It must be an oven, he decided at last. He'd never seen one, but he knew what they looked like in theory.

Draco heard voices coming from the next room, and, realizing it would look suspicious if he seemed to be lurking or eavesdropping, he decided to make his presence known, and stepped forward into the room.

Draco entered what he immediately recognized as the dining room (the large table and set of chairs were a bit of a give-away). Seated around the table were several people he knew, including the Golden Trio and the Weaslette. There were two twin redheads seated at the table as well, more Weasley children. He vaguely remembered them from Hogwarts; they were always causing trouble. A snide comment came into his head about Mrs. Weasley not knowing when to quit when it came to reproducing, and Draco tucked it into the back of his head in case he later needed an insult to throw at Ron, whom he and his Slytherin friends had dubbed "the Golden Weasel" in reference to his friendship with "the Golden Boy". Granger had been similarly dubbed "the Golden Beaver" because of her slightly large two front teeth, and not being content to stick with the "the Golden Boy" for Harry, he had become "the Golden Potty". That one, which Theodore Nott had constructed, had brought roars of laughter from the Slytherin table.

He pushed these thoughts from his mind and returned to his study of the faces at the table. Upon further survey Draco was able to recall the werewolf Lupin, who had been his Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher in Third Year; and then, with a shudder, Mad-Eye Moody, who had also been his DADA teacher, in Year Four. Well, sort of. The rest of the lot he didn't recognize: a vaguely familiar-looking young woman with shocking pink hair seated next to Mad-Eye, another lady with graying bronze hair, and a large, dark-skinned man seated on Moody's other side.

The dark-skinned wizard had been talking when Draco entered the room, and continued to talk, unaware of Draco's presence, until Lupin gave a small cough and the room's inhabitants turned to look at the newcomer.

"Oh good, you made it down alright, I was starting to get a bit worried, thought I might send Ron up to check on you…" Mrs. Weasley jabbered.

At that last bit Ron made a face akin to having eaten something sour.

Mrs. Weasley's jabber died down, and there was an awkward silence for a few moments. Draco knew that those in the room weren't quite sure what to make of him, which was just fine considering he didn't really know what to make of them either.

"Well." It was Mrs. Weasley who broke the pained silence again. "I was going to give Draco a tour of the house, but it's nearly dinner, so… Oh, I know!" There was a bright smile on her face and all children in the room knew that could only mean one thing- a Mrs. Weasley scheme. "Ron, Harry, Hermione, why don't you lot take Draco on the tour, and I'll go get dinner ready. Ginny, you can go too."

"Or, I could get din-" Ron began, but he was cut off by a glare from Mrs. Weasley that Draco thought with a shiver would be neck-and-neck with any stare his own mother was capable of. No, he told himself, you can't think about her.

The Golden Trio and their tag-along had made the tour as quick as possible; it seemed that all of them were eager to be rid of Draco as quickly as possible, and Draco wasn't surprised, considering what he knew they thought of him. They would stop just in the entryway of a room, tell him what it was, and move on. Short, to the point. Draco could have cared less, but he had a feeling that it wasn't a good idea to be on Mrs. Weasley's bad side, so he complied.

Throughout the mini-tour, the Weaslette continually glanced at Draco as though expecting him to begin making snide comments about her home at any moment. Draco decided he wasn't going to give them that satisfaction, mostly just to throw them off a bit.

The tour ended rather quickly to Draco's relief, and Ron and Harry dragged Ginny and Hermione up to Ron's room to converse, while Draco, left to his own devices, stepped outside and walked into the large field surrounding the Burrow, where he laid in the grass with his eyes closed, enjoying the pure sensation of being alive, until Mrs. Weasley's voice could be heard calling everyone to dinner.

After dinner Draco retired to his room and spent the remainder of the evening staring out the window, trying to think of anything but Dumbledore's death, his parents and the Dark Lord. He knew he needed a plan of action ready for his present situation; it seemed unlikely that he would be allowed to stay, if the Golden Trio had their way, which he was sure happened fairly often around here. After all, bloody Saint Potter was the rallying point of the whole cause, "The Chosen One" or some load of garbage like that.

In any case, even if Potter had saved his life, he was sure the Golden Boy wouldn't want him hanging around, and Weasley and Granger certainly didn't spare him any hard feelings. Going by their reactions alone, he'd probably be out on the street tomorrow.

After a few hours and no ideas, Draco finally decided that he would just have to play it by ear, and make it up as he went along. Draco detested the idea, as he always liked to have plans ready, to know what he was going to do. He wasn't one for spontaneity in any form. But seeing as he wasn't exactly sure what was going happen to him, he couldn't really formulate much of a plan. Maybe someone would take pity on him and let him stay; he doubted it. He was a Malfoy, his father was a Death Eater. These people were his enemies. If any of them had shown up in Death Eater territory they would have been tortured and killed, and Draco could only hope that these 'Order' people wouldn't do the same to him. Finally giving up on any sort of plan, he slipped under the covers and moved into a fitful sleep full of unsettling dreams.