A/N: Hope you guys like it! It's kind of boring in the beginning, but stick with it, the action will come soon.

Chapter 1: The Plan

Draco had always thought his part in the war would be different.

For one, he never thought that one day he would be trapped inside the suffocatingly small space of Ronald Weasley's home. Sometimes he thought that the walls were closing in around him. Sometimes he panicked.

Time was passing, and it was passing fast. Too fast. The seasons whirred by in a flurry of colors: green, yellow, white, orange. The war went on, the death toll rose. Sometimes Draco spent an entire day staring at the window, just watching. He never really knew what he was watching for. But he enjoyed the feeling of peace that accompanied it; the feeling of not having to worry.

Another hobby he found entertaining was watching them. The trio. The best friends. He enjoyed watching them. The way they interacted. The way you could tell when one of them was angry. When Potter's eye would twitch, when Weasley would tense, when Granger's cheeks would flush. He found a frighteningly stalker-like enjoyment to it. He also found that he could read them much easier than he ever thought possible. Than he would ever care to admit. Potter would touch his scar when deep in thought. Weasley didn't blink when he was concentrating. Granger had the disgusting habit of chewing her fingernails when nervous.

Draco also saw what he was sure the others saw too: he saw their hero, their hope, deteriorating. He saw Potter cracking. The normally strong, unaffected youth had begun to show signs of delirium, of insanity. He would go off on tirades, sometimes. Sometimes…sometimes it frightened Draco. That was their hope? Because the Boy-Who-Lived was slipping. The war had gotten particularly violent, Draco knew. The Death Eaters had gone to new levels with their sick, disgusting ways. They killed children. Women. Raped them, too. And he knew that Potter was exposed to it more than anyone. And he knew that Harry Potter couldn't take it anymore.

Draco had always been an attentive person, but he blamed the subjects of his attention on boredom. In truth, which Draco knew deep down, it was a sort of sick fascination of the trio. No, maybe of something different entirely. Maybe of jealousy. He missed having friends. He missed having someone to talk to. He had never truly been alone in his entire life. Not like now. Not like here.

Granger talked to him, sometimes. But Draco would always respond with a harsh comment or a rude slur on her blood, and she would leave him, hating him more than ever. Draco didn't blame her. He would hate him, too. Because, deep down inside, in his dark core, he was a horrible person. Draco knew it. And that; that was why he was here. Because that was the trait that separated him from the rest of the Death Eaters. Draco knew that he was a monster. And Draco hated it. So he had left. He had escaped, thanks to much help from his mother and father, and that was more than a few unlucky souls could say.

Over the course of the last week Draco had noticed that the Golden Trio were angry at each other. Granger especially. She had not spoken to her two best friends at all, or at least, not that he had seen. It was probably because Potter and Weasley had wholeheartedly agreed to them being cast in the role of Death Eaters.

Draco did not blame her. He, too, had been thrown into going. They had figured that since he knew much about the Death Eaters' ways he could get them in. But Draco knew he couldn't, and he told them. So they had decided to join the Snatchers instead. There was some deeper reason to Potter wanting to join so badly, Draco knew. It was nothing evil; the Boy-Who-Lived, although slipping, was most certainly not evil. But it was a secret that he, Weasley, and Granger shared.

Hermione didn't want to go, Draco gathered. She thought it was too risky, too violent, too unnecessary. But Snape had brought in a torrent of information and there was no doubting that they needed someone in that position, or relatively close, after the death of his former Potions Master. Snape had been caught in spying. Snape had failed.

The Order had been vehemently against their Boy Wonder leaving them, but Harry had ranted, screamed, and put his foot down. He had argued some good (although vague) points, and had eventually won out.

Hermione would not talk to Potter or Weasley (the latter because he took Potter's side) and Draco knew she was beyond infuriated. Hell, so was he. But he was Draco Malfoy. He had no choice. He did as told, and before this, he had never done as told. He had thrown a fit about it, of course, had screamed, begged. He didn't want to go back. He hated it there. Draco did not want to return to that place.

But Draco had no choice. In this place, they didn't give him a choice.

"I don't want to go either, you know."

Draco snapped his head up, staring at Hermione. She was standing against the doorframe to his tiny room, her head leaning against the wall and her untamed curls falling in her eyes. She pushed them out of the way with an annoyed look, avoiding Draco's eyes as he turned away from her, continuing to pack his things.

"Shows how much control you have." He couldn't help the things that came out of his mouth. It wasn't like he wanted her to hate him…but he didn't want her to like him, either.

Hermione huffed, crossing her arms over her chest and turning to point her body in his direction. Draco refused to look at her, packing clothes that did not belong to him in his tiny bag. He felt like he knew what he'd see in her eyes if he looked.

"You need to get used to us working together. Because we're going to have to, you know. It's going to take a collaborative effort to get what we need."

"And what, pray tell, do we need?" Draco asked, cocking his head in her direction and raising a thick, blond eyebrow. He finally met her eyes, and she uncrossed her arms when he did, pushing herself from the doorframe and breaking eye contact to stare around his bare, vacant room.

"I can't tell you."

"Mm."

He turned his back to her, again, becoming rapidly annoyed. If they were going to include him, they needed to tell him these things! "Anyways," Draco went on, his lips moving without thought, "I wouldn't call it teamwork. You are going in as my slave, aren't you, Granger?"

"Yes." She said, her voice low and showing her frustration with him. He smirked.

"I guess it's the way it always should have been, then? A Mudblood serving me, how lovely."

He could feel her anger, could feel it in the air and he knew without looking that she had left, without even needing to hear the slamming of the door, without even needing to hear her huff of exasperation.

Draco placed his last belonging in his trunk, smoothing down the shirt and forcing the lid shut.

It was only then that Draco allowed the fear to take control. Because, he certainly couldn't let a Mudblood see him break down.

A/N: Extra short, but this is a prologue of sorts.