Disclaimer: If I owned it, it would have ended differently.

The Unspeakable Files: Godspell

An HP Fanfic

By AnotherSpoonyBard

Chapter One: Unspeakables

Four Hours Earlier, The Ministry of Magic

Draco resisted the urge to yawn, blinking several times to clear his vision. He'd fallen asleep in his office again, tall frame hunched over the cherry-wood desk piled with parchments that needed attention yesterday, last week, and varying other degrees of impatient bureaucrat. None of it was half as important as the work he did in the field or the laboratory, but then of course it was hard to convince a politician of that. Sometimes, he thought things would run much more smoothly if he were allowed to hex the worst of them, but apparently even the Department of Mysteries frowned upon that sort of thing.

Shaking his head, he breezed through the documents as efficiently as possible; he had a legwork job in less than half an hour, and he didn't want to have to worry about anything else after that. A vain hope that he might actually be able to go home and spend a proper night to himself was lingering at the back of his mind, but he pushed it down. He probably needed to put in another public appearance, find something outrageous to do and get himself on the front page of something. He'd been a little too quiet lately. Apparently, the nightclub scene in Transylvania was worth exploration, if one was willing to run the risk of encountering a seedy blood-sucker or two.

He would have laughed when Pansy mentioned that one, but it wasn't really worth explaining that drug-riddled vampires were hardly a concern for someone like him. No, that would definitely be a breach of his confidentiality, and he had been so careful up until this point, even if his double life was beginning to take a toll on his well-being. As long as nobody saw, it was bearable.

The last document was whisked off by the Ministry's interdepartmental communications charm, and he stood, stretching languidly and feeling a small measure of relief when several of the joints in his back popped into place. Exiting his office, he headed into the more general area shared between himself and about three other Unspeakables. Lupin and Greengrass mostly handled consultation cases from foreign jurisdictions, seeing as how they were much more sociable than Draco and his partner. Well, that and people were allowed to know about them. Both were probably at their respective homes at this hour, leaving only Draco and the dead man in the armchair.

Of course, Severus Snape, presently taking meticulous notes on what looked to be an ancient arithmantic text, was not nearly so dead as the wizarding population believed him to be, but that was strictly need-to-know information. He looked up as Draco entered, gracing his protégé with a solemn nod before he went back to his transcription. Draco crossed to the small kitchen area in one corner of the room and summoned them both some coffee. By now he knew that they each took it black, and that Severus preferred his hot enough to singe hair.

The former teacher set aside his work, sending it back into his own office with a lazy wave of his wand, and accepted the cup wordlessly. Only when Draco had settled himself into the chair across from his, propping an ankle on the opposite knee, did Severus speak. "You fell asleep again." It was not a question, and Draco did not treat it as one, instead raising an eyebrow in invitation for his godfather to continue. It was a conversation they'd danced around many times before, and though Snape had been clear in his disapproval of Draco's cultivation of a cover identity, it was not generally in his nature to push.

"Your… fatigue will begin to affect your job performance if you do not cease in your foolishness." For all his flat, unfeeling expression, he wasn't deceiving his audience. Draco had been working with the man for several years—since the end of the war, in fact, when the Ministry had been unable to locate Snape's corpse. It had been the Malfoys, indirectly, who were responsible for his being found and roped into the same harebrained project that had given Draco a job. Now, they and Greengrass were the only three that remained of what had once been a full-on task force of former Dark wizards hunting the same. Predictably, several had turned coat when the numbers looked favorable, and several more had fallen in battle. Others simply quit or chose to go to Azkaban instead—but Draco had not had the option.

His participation—and loyalty—had kept his family alive. Severus, he suspected, had kept him alive for long enough to figure out how to manage the feat himself. Hundreds of missions, cases, and covert operations had given him a read on his godfather's mood that few others had ever managed, and whether or not he would ever admit it, Snape was concerned.

Such a thought would once have brought nothing but a sneer of derision to Draco's aristocratic visage, but now it made him thoughtful instead. Severus did not interfere needlessly in the affairs of others, after all. Leaning back in his chair, Draco sipped his coffee and shrugged. "I'll see what I can do," he replied noncommittally. "You have details on the operation?"

This wasn't a question either, though it was inflected as one. Severus set his cup down and steepled his fingers, likely well aware that Draco had not addressed his implications adequately, but choosing to let it drop. They were on a schedule, after all. "It's another favor for the Auror's Office. Potter—" he paused for Draco's obligatory scoff— "has requested preliminary reconnaissance on what appears to be a violation of international trade bylaws."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Surely even the Aurors can handle a simple smuggling case." Much as it pained him to admit his rival's good qualities even after all this time, Potter was relatively skilled at his craft, even if Draco did think that nobody should be head Auror at the age of twenty-five. There had to be something else at play if he was outsourcing a job to the Unspeakables, of all people. The two departments were notoriously at-odds, mostly from a methodological standpoint.

Snape shook his head, apparently with his usual understated exasperation. "You forget that the Ministry is hosting the French Minister and his wife—all the Aurors Potter could have spared are being assigned to personal security for the event."

This time Draco did snort. "Security? For Moreau or Shacklebolt?" The Frenchman had something of a reputation for knowing a bit too much about the underground Dark elements remaining in his country, but of course the accusations went no further than vague notions and generalities. He also had a well-publicized dislike of Kingsley Shacklebolt.

Severus's lips twitched into a wry smirk, and that was all the answer Draco required. "Fine. Reconnaissance only?"

"Unless we see something egregious in progress, yes. The matter will require a certain degree of… delicacy." Which meant that the assignment would probably be longer than a single mission, but the extensive contacts Draco's family had in the right places and the fact that he was well-known to be a fool with no connection to law enforcement would be of assistance.

"And you?"

"A glamour charm should be sufficient." Draco shrugged. That was true enough. Snape looked somewhat like the man who'd taught him potions, but much had changed, and a charm for advancing his age and changing his hair color would be more than enough to disguise him completely.

"All right. I'll floo home in a minute, and be back in a half-hour. Need anything?" At the negative gesture, Draco stood, banishing his remaining coffee and exiting the office. The nearest fireplace was in the Department of Mysteries proper, and even that was protected by almost as many wards as his family manor.

Twenty-seven minutes later, Draco was back in his office, wand in hand, black robes pressed carefully, so as to present the image of a wealthy potential buyer. It had become something of a habit of his, this monochrome wardrobe, one that he attributed firmly to his godfather's influence. Occasionally, a girlfriend or acquaintance would mention it and he'd simply shrug it off, making a mental note to try and dress more like an ordinary person when in public.

Smugglers weren't likely to care.

He met the disguised Severus just outside the older man's door, and the two both took hold of the portkey on the table- a simple pair of spectacles. The Aurors had apparently prepared everything for the meeting except the personnel to conduct it, which saved the two of them quite a bit of time.

The customary vertigo ceased, and Draco quickly regained his balance on the ground. Looking around, he was immediately on-guard. They appeared to be in the middle of a clearing—and not another soul was visible. Severus, standing behind him, stiffened considerably, and both men drew their wands.

"Crucio!" A foreign voice, thick with some accent Draco could not place, shouted the unforgivable, and the spell hurtled towards Snape, who grimly deflected with a murmured counterspell. Sometimes, being at the cutting edge of magical research had its benefit. The counter wasn't perfect, and Draco caught the soft grunt as residual traces of the torture curse hit his partner, but there wasn't time to dwell on it.

Draco's Expelliarmus went off at the same time as Snape's Sectumsempra, and the wizard who'd attempted to cast the Unforgivable went down screaming. The battle, however, had scarcely begun, and within moments, the two men were surrounded by no fewer than fifteen people, all wand-ready and apparently prepared for their arrival.

The same morning, the Lovegood residence

Luna Lovegood drifted about the kitchen in her home without much discernible aim, occasionally making her way back to the massive cabinet which housed the most exotic of her ingredients. Practiced hands sliced gurdyroot, crushed the gossamer appendages of the aptly-named lacewing fly, and managed to keep the cauldron stirring without the aid of a charm. Not that Luna had anything against charms; quite the contrary, really. But the texture and thickness of this brew was important, and she had to monitor it as closely as possible.

She could hear her father shuffling around behind her, humming an old sea shanty to himself as he went about preparing the morning's coffee, doubtless still in his light purple bathrobe and the slippers that kept the Blibbering Humdingers away from his toes. They were oddly fond of toes, Blibbering Humdingers, and it did irritate him so when one chose to nibble on them.

The potion in the cauldron at last cleared of all color entirely, and Luna smiled a dreamy smile, extinguishing the heat and summoning several glass vials, into which she directed the brew. Stoppering each with a cork, she banished the mess that remained and washed her utensils until they shone, putting each away on the proper hook before rotating her stock of the clear solution, placing the newest vials at the back.

That done, she made herself some tea and toast, and joined her father at the breakfast table.

"Good morning, Daddy," she greeted amiably. "Have you heard back from the Ministry yet about your expedition?"

Xenophilius Lovegood sighed theatrically. "No, I'm afraid I haven't. I don't understand why… I took great pains to inform them that the Crumple-Horned Snorkack will only remain in that part of Mongolia for a short time." Luna hummed a conciliatory syllable in the back of her throat and resumed spreading marmalade over her toast. She was just raising the first bite of breakfast to her mouth when a loud crack sounded from not too far outside. Her already large eyes went wide, and she and her father both stood immediately. That sounded like apparation, and their wards were supposed to ensure that doing so in such close proximity to their house was impossible.

Luna made to draw the wand from behind her ear, but she was stopped by her father's indulgent smile. "Well, it seems we have guests! Luna, do try to tidy up a bit, will you?"

The young witch stared at her father in a genuine moment of shock. Old instincts, trained into her very being by a year of wizarding war, had tensed her like a rabbit ready to run, but her father seemed not to have a care in the world. Still, she trusted him, and though the wariness clipped her usually airy movements, she waved her wand about, trying to clear the worst of the mess from the sitting room. She and her father were interestingly-harmonious: he perpetrated a kind of organized chaos that meshed surprisingly well with her neat precision. For guests to be accommodated, though, some adjustments would be needed, like clearing off the blue plush sofa.

Once everything had been neatly restacked, Luna turned, hearing the muffled sound of voices from outside. The door was already ajar, but she pushed it open the rest of the way, wand still at the ready.

Whatever she had been expecting, it wasn't what she saw. Two figures from her past had walked right into her present, and fate couldn't have picked any more unlikely people.

"Professor Snape?" Indeed, it did seem to be the man himself. He was a little leaner then she remembered him, though conversely less-gaunt. A scar marred his face, crossing the bridge of his nose and cutting over the surface of his left cheek, but she couldn't really consider where it might have come from, because her eyes instead alighted upon the second, unmoving wizard.

Supported by Snape, one arm thrown over the potions-master's shoulders and apparently unconscious, was Draco Malfoy.

His charge weighed heavily over his back and shoulders, but Severus didn't really notice as he turned them around, apparating both away from the unexpected battlefield and to the first location he could think of.

It was not the practice of Unspeakables to make their emergency trips to any place as public as St. Mungo's, and of course no safehouse had been set up for this mission, since it was nothing more than a routine favor for the Auror's office. His options narrowed, Snape decided to call in a favor of his own, and disapparated directly in front of the Lovegood home.

Staggering slightly under the weight of his partner and his own fatigue, Severus nevertheless straightened as Xenophilius himself appeared at the threshold. The man's far-off expression was always curiously-unreadable, but his old schoolmate replaced it with a pleasant smile when he saw who, exactly, had intruded upon his space.

"Ah, Severus, it is good to see you! It has been many years now, hasn't it? I was beginning to think you'd never call 'round."

Snape's own face remained a slightly-irritated scowl, and he spoke with a degree of urgency to his usual velvety tones. "Xenophilius. I need access to a bed and your stock of potions ingredients." He had heard a segment of the curse that struck Draco, and the fact that he didn't recognize it meant that he'd have to treat the immediate damage first, then run a series of diagnostics to figure out exactly what his young associate had been hit with.

For some reason that the potions master could not fathom, Lovegood's smile only grew wider. "Oh, I can do you one better than that, Severus."

"Professor Snape?" The new voice forestalled any further explanation he might have given, and Snape glanced up into the (unsurprisingly) confused face of Xenophilius's daughter.

To her credit, Miss Lovegood recovered swiftly, especially once she noticed the condition of his companion. "Come in, quickly." The young woman held the door open, waving her wand and transfiguring what was apparently once a particularly hideous couch into a moderately-sized bed, complete with green-and-silver covers. Snape raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, allowing her to help him arrange Draco on the mattress. With a surprising surety of hand, Miss Lovegood at once removed Draco's outer robes and shoes, pressing a palm to his forehead and muttering several spells that Severus recognized as diagnostic charms.

"My Luna's a mediwitch," Xenophilius explained needlessly. Her former teacher could have guessed as much based on her conduct thus far. "She works mostly in experimental medicine, inventing new spells and potions."

That, Severus had not expected, and for a moment, he quietly watched Miss Lovegood at work. He recalled quite clearly that she had excelled in his class, but then his understanding was that she had excelled in just about all of them, as one would expect of a student in her house. Her knowledge had never been as broad as Miss Granger's, but she had a rare gift for intuiting connections between things that were not always obvious. It had taken even him a while to discover this beneath the odd talk of fantastical creatures, but of course he had known Xenophilius, and thus had understood where the blather originated.

"Daddy, get me two of the pain draughts from the cabinet, if you would. Professor Snape, can you please tell me what happened?" Her voice was no different from the dreamy tone he recalled, but her questions were unusually direct.

Nodding slightly, Severus recounted the strange curse, adding that he believed it had hit Draco in the chest or side. This caused the mediwitch to frown, and she sent Draco's shirt to one of the bedposts with a flick of her wand. The two immediately made eye contact again, confusion reflected in her bright silver irises and passivity in his black ones, though he would admit to a degree of perplexity himself.

There was no visible wound at all.

Luna chewed her lip, running through her battery of diagnostic spells again to be sure she hadn't missed anything. Professor Snape had tried a few different ones which he told her were for dark magic specifically, but there was still no luck. For all intents and purposes, nothing whatsoever was actually wrong with Draco. She'd healed the wound on his arm and a few of the smaller cuts on his person, all to no avail. Her former potions-master had waved off all such treatment, taking a curative from her medicine cabinet and sniffing it delicately before nodding slightly to himself and tipping back the vial.

She was sure that if some of her old school friends had been present, there would have been a nose joke in there somewhere, but she had never found it scandalously large. Perhaps that was simply because her father's was similarly aquiline.

For now, Luna sat beside the bed in her living room, trying to devise some other method of figuring out what was wrong with Draco. Tilting her head to one side, she watched the rise and fall of his bare chest, but it seemed to be regular. More than that, even, he appeared to be one of the healthiest people she'd ever come across. His musculature was pronounced, his face unlined, and his entire person seemingly cared for most meticulously. The only indications that something might not be as it seemed were the dark circles beneath his eyes. Glancing back up at her old potions professor, who was currently inspecting her stock of ingredients, she decided that this was what was different about him as well. At the moment, Snape looked tired, but she decided that he was also quite fit, if his forearms were anything to go by, and his hair, if a tad greyed in places, was apparently quite clean. Certainly, he was a far cry from the dead man that everyone had claimed him to be, and Draco did not have the look of a man living the life of luxury the tabloids eagerly followed.

She might have asked the older of the two men if he'd recently been in contact with a Keffering Morackus, since those were supposed to deliver great vitality, but she doubted he'd appreciate the inquiry being framed in such a fashion. As it was, her father saved her the trouble of finding some other way to put her question without being rude.

Descending the stairs, Xenophilius took his customary chair beside the fireplace, gesturing for Snape to occupy the other free seat. To Luna's surprise, the dark-haired wizard complied, crossing one ankle over his opposite knee and steepling his fingers. "Now Severus," her father began good-naturedly, though it did nothing to alter the once-teacher's posture, "I think it's about time you told me why you're here."

An odd look passed over Snape's face for the briefest of instants, but he smoothed it back into his customary impassivity before Luna could decide what it was. He spent a few moments in thought, ostensibly studying his callused fingertips very closely. Luna had to resist the urge to hold her breath in anticipation of his answer.

When he spoke, it was in the same soft lecturing tones he'd always used during the Ravenclaws' Potions classes. "As you well know, after the war several of those with a particular… expertise in Dark Magic and no lingering connection to Voldemort were silently conscripted into a task force for the ministry. They were charged with hunting down the remnants of the Death Eaters, in cooperation with the Auror Office. It went about as well as you would expect of such a foolish notion, but when all was said and done, both Mister Malfoy and myself were able to secure other Ministry employment."

Xenophilius was nodding along like he did in fact know this, and so Luna realized that the explanation was for her benefit. She turned her gaze to the still-unconscious Draco, wondering just how it had come to be that he was in such a situation in the first place. Unlike some of her friends, she had never truly thought him to be an evil person, just misguided and sad. Several people had disabused her of this notion, explaining with varying degrees of patience that she was "too nice." As she watched, his face tightened into a grimace, and she blinked slowly. That hadn't happened before, and she murmured another charm, this one to check for notable signs of dream interference. The mist that issued from her wand flared an angry red, and she summoned a dreamless sleep draught from her cabinet.

The motion had stopped the conversation, and Snape was at Draco's other side in an instant, helping her prop him up and tip the contents of the bottle slowly into the blond man's mouth. He wasn't swallowing, though, and so Luna ran the back of her fingers slowly down his throat, a trick she'd picked up mostly for use on children. She didn't have the equipment here to properly force it down, so he had to manage on his own.

Her pale digits slid over the smooth skin of Draco's neck, and he swallowed reflexively, bringing a small smile to her face. His own eased almost immediately, and she nodded to Snape, who lowered him back down. "Whatever happens now, it'll be a few hours yet before he wakes."

"If he wakes." To what might have been anyone else's astonishment, there was a genuine note of concern in his voice, but Luna's eyes just softened, and she looked at him with sympathy.

"He will." He looked at her askance, firmly back in his stoic, practical skin, and she smiled wider, not bothering to elaborate on where her absolute confidence came from. "But you were telling us how he got here in the first place." She watched as Snape straightened and crossed back to the chair, sinking into it again.

"I suppose I was."

Draco's journey back to consciousness was not an easy one. He was first aware of a dull pain in his chest, a lingering echo from something he could not quite recall properly. His limbs felt leaden, unresponsive, though he was on the most comfortable surface he could remember for some time. Soft, not unyielding like the ground he'd fallen on—

His eyes snapped open, and Draco sat up sharply, ignoring the splitting pain this caused and wrenching himself back into consciousness, grasping for his wand. When it wasn't immediately present, he summoned it with wandless magic, the feel of the warm ebony wood in his hand an instant relief, though he did not for a moment drop his guard.

"Draco." At least not until his godfather's voice drifted across open space toward him, unhurried and self-assured as always. The two syllables informed him of everything he needed to know: he was safe, the battle no longer raged about him. He groaned as his eyes finally came into focus, nearly falling backwards onto the bed. Braced by two thin, but strong arms, he found himself looking into a vaguely-familiar face, dominated by the biggest pair of moonsilver eyes he'd ever encountered.

"You're lucky I closed all your open wounds, else you'd surely have ripped them apart again," a soft voice chided, and though it had lost the wispiest edge it had carried in girlhood, he knew he recognized it.

"Lovegood? What the blazes is going on?" She smiled, flashing a row of pristine teeth, and Draco blinked. This had to be a dream of some kind, though why barmy Luna Lovegood was showing up in his dreams now when he hadn't seen her in years was a mystery.

"I brought you here, Draco. Xenophilius owes me a favor, and knows how to keep things to himself. It would appear that Miss Lovegood is a mediwitch." Severus's silken syllables reached him again, and he turned his head, making eye contact with his mentor. The older man appeared to be his usual unruffled self, though the juxtaposition between his somber, all-black robes and the panoply of colors that had seemingly exploded all over the Lovegood sitting-room would have brought a smirk to Draco's face at any other time.

"What's wrong with me?" The question sliced through the empty air, and was met only by a somber silence for a few moments. Draco locked eyes with his godfather, who stared back with what would appear to be equanimity. Clearly, however, Snape was worried. It was barely there, in the tense lines of his posture and the set of his jaw.

A rustle of movement tore his gaze away, and he noted that thin fingers had encircled one of his wrists. Lovegood still wore that damnably-vacant smile, but something in her eyes was more serious. She waved her wand over him a couple of times, and he sat still, recognizing diagnostics when he saw them. Merlin knew he'd been injured so many times in the past few years that he was well on his way to becoming a qualified mediwizard himself, if he could ever get the spells to work properly.

She shook her head, dislodging several strands of golden hair from her braid. "Still nothing. Your pulse is perfectly ordinary, no injuries. It's as if you weren't hit with anything, except for the interference with your dreams…"

Draco scowled as flickers of memory passed over his mind's eye. He did remember that he'd been dreaming, but not of what. Whatever it was, it had been most unpleasant, but all he recalled was great pain and then a soothing touch at his throat.

"Does anything hurt?" The voice came as if over a long distance, and Draco shook himself, returning to full awareness.

"My chest was—" At once, Lovegood pressed a warm hand to the center of the spot, and he stopped speaking to scowl at her. Granted, he knew she was doing what she did for his sake, and he wasn't such a complete prat that he wasn't grateful for what help he'd been given, but people, even healers, generally did not touch Draco Malfoy without his permission. At least not after that time he'd nearly snapped a man's wrist upon waking suddenly after being hit by a particularly nasty bit of dark magic. The little wisp of a woman seemed unafraid, however, and he admitted grudgingly to himself that it wasn't entirely unpleasant. Her hand was actually quite warm, and that warmth seemed to be spreading into his chest cavity, easing the pain and making it easier to breathe.

Both of Draco's eyebrows shot upwards. She was using wandless magic? No easy feat, and no spell he'd ever heard of, either. "Take a deep breath, please," she instructed quietly, and he complied, too perplexed to really do anything else. She smiled, apparently satisfied, and straightened.

"Well, I have good news and bad news." This, she directed to the room as a whole, and Severus inclined his head, indicating that she should proceed. From him, that was downright respect, and Draco was once again left feeling slightly wrong-footed. Where had that come from? "The bad news is, I have no idea what kind of curse this is," she started, and there was a slight note of perturbation in her tone, much like she'd sometimes used in school when she couldn't find the shoes her housemates had hidden from her. He wasn't sure how he remembered that, but then he figured he'd probably picked on her enough times to know.

"The good news is, some of my spells seem capable of treating the symptoms… for now. It would make the most sense for Draco to go to St. Mungo's—"

"No." Draco refused flatly, even as Severus shook his head.

The older wizard spoke after that, though. "Miss Lovegood, Draco and I are in a rather… delicate position at present. The less anyone knows about this, the better. I am, as you may have guessed, supposed to be dead, and Draco is—"

"—Supposed to be doing nothing more serious with my life than bar-hopping and spending ludicrous amounts of money," he finished with a roll of his eyes. "I can't go to St. Mungo's, or people are going to start asking questions." Lots of people. Many of them in very noticeable places.

Lovegood's lips pursed, and she appeared to consider for a moment, tilting her head to one side and placing the pad of her index finger just underneath her lower lip. "Surely, then, there is someone else, with better equipment, someone that knows already?" She looked vaguely concerned, and for some reason, this irritated Draco. Didn't she know that they would have done that already were it possible?

Again, though, Severus spoke before he could bite out some irascible retort. "It is better for the moment that nobody knows. We were supposed to be on a routine task, but the situation quickly became something else."

"Ambush?" Draco's eyes narrowed to little more than deep grey slits. At first, he'd simply assumed that the Department's numbers were faulty, that they'd underestimated the number of people involved in the operation and their hostility to outsiders, but it seemed that Snape had already moved beyond that conclusion.

"Whatever you were bespelled by is very old magic, Draco, and it seemed quite well-targeted. Whatever is going on, I think it behooves us to trust as few people as possible, and arm ourselves with information before we proceed any further." Snape sat back in his chair, eyes glittering as the wheels turned in his head. Draco knew him well enough to say that he already had an idea of just where they might find that information, but he was also aware that Severus shared nothing until he wished to, and he trusted his godfather enough to swallow his pointed questions, for the moment.

After another prolonged silence, Severus turned to the elder Lovegood. "Xenophilius, do you still have your contact at the library of Alexandria?" The wizard nodded slowly, smiling to himself, and Draco wondered just how it was that the old man was so unperturbed by what was happening. Both of the Lovegoods seemed to be handling it with an uncanny ease, actually, but Xenophilius didn't even seem confused, much less distressed, by the presence of a two former Death Eaters—one of them a dead man.

"I do indeed, Severus. I'll owl right away and see if I can't get you an appointment. It may take a few days." From the tone of his voice, it was fairly certain that he would be able to get them one, and Snape inclined his head. That was something else Draco didn't understand. As far as he could recall, the wizarding community at large considered Xenophilius Lovegood to be a barmy old bat, but Severus seemed familiar with him, and almost respectful. The man himself was peculiar, but mad might have been a stretch.

Snape pinned him with a look then, and Draco knew that at least a few of these things would be explained to him, once they could be assured of secrecy. The younger man looked down at his hands for a moment, riddled with a dozen tiny scars since his last glamour charm had worn off, then ran one through his hair, disheveling it further. That left the question of—

"I—" Lovegood had started to speak, but at that moment, Xenophilus barked a "Stupefy!" from the kitchen, and within a second, all three other people in the house were on their feet, wands at the ready. There was a muffled thud, and the sound of something heavy hitting one of the shrubs outside, and the elder gray-haired man was back in the living room, a few flyaways and the presence of his wand in his hand the only indicators of distress.

"Severus, I do suspect that we may have some uninvited company." He gestured airily to the front door, and Draco moved to follow, but Snape glared, and the meaning was clear enough.

"Miss Lovegood, ensure that he does nothing rash." Her answering nod had Draco gritting his teeth. Ridiculous. There was simply no way to tell how many were out there, and he couldn't say he had that much faith in Xenophilius's ability with a wand. His free hand balled into a fist, and he noticed that beside him, Lovegood was looking at the motion with a sort of indolent curiosity.

"Exercise is one of the best forms of physical therapy," she informed him in that misty voice of hers, and it took him a second to register what she was saying. He would have spent a second moment in surprise that she was condoning running recklessly out after them, but she'd already grasped his free arm by the wrist and was pulling him along behind her as she made for what appeared to be a back door, just off the kitchen.

Setting his face into its mask of perfected confidence, Draco let her lead the way for now. Hopefully, these people would have some answers.

A/N: Hey folks!

So, that was actually a full chapter. Mostly set-up, but necessary to get things going. Hermoine should be making an appearance soon, and I have other roles and cameos planned for other people as well. If there are any requests for characters you'd like to see, I'll certainly see what I can do!

I'd like to thank DZAuthor AKA DZMom for my first and only review, as well as quite a bit of helpful advice.

Thoughts? Questions? Predictions? I'd like to hear them, and the review button at the bottom of the page could use some love.