My Manor, my home if you will, was being used as the base for Voldemort's reign. Ironic, he was growing to depise my whole family, yet it was in our bloody house where he set up camp. Sycophants and psychopaths running in and out all the time, reporting for Voldemort, bringing in Mudbloods. Mother wrote me about the chaos, even her letters sounded exhausted.

And Snape strolled around Hogwarts like he owned the damn place. I suppose as Headmaster, yes, he held a certain degree of power, but no one OWNS Hogwarts. No one OWNS knowledge. But tell Snape that. Or don't, because he's dead. But go back in time and try to tell him.

The funny part is, he was always Dumbledore's man, from the very beginning.

And I wonder, if I was Dumbledore's man too.

That's why I couldn't kill him.

He was right there, before me. I remember that look in his eyes, his piercing blue eyes, that look that should have shown terror only showed pity. Not self pity, oh no. Pity for me, the man who had the goddamn wand, the man with the power. He pitied the man who was about to kill him.

Because he knew all along I never could. Never would. Did he pity me for being put in that situation? Did he pity me for my inability to strike him down? I hate pity. Fuck it.

I have nightmares, still, about that look of pity he cursed me with. I have nightmares about his long white hair blowing in the wind over the tower. Nightmares of all the Death Eaters appearing, encouraging, nightmares when Snape commits that final curse, the last curse Dumbledore would ever see.

And I bloody cried over that. Don't you dare judge me, I'm sure you cried too, and you weren't THERE. You didn't hear him… Severus Please… his voice haunts my nightmares to this day, even now that I know he was begging for death. Begging for death, beginning for life, it makes no difference anymore, because I saw him die.

The thestrals were real this year. I mean I know they were always real, but is anything really real to you unless you can see it? Sense it? Believe in it? They became real.

They weren't pretty.

They reminded me of people who return from Azkaban alive. There's a glow in their eyes, but everything else seems dead. Everything about them seems wrong, seems like they shouldn't be alive, and yet just by existing, they emit this tragic sort of sickening beauty.

But I digress.

The point is, it was a shitty start to a year. A monstrous evil villain had taken refuge in my home, my headmaster was a prat, my friends had become obsessed with the Dark Arts and Death eaters… things of which they couldn't, didn't understand, and I felt… far too alone for someone who was always surrounded by people.

It was for all of these reasons perhaps that I didn't even question whether or not I was t aqueisce to the mysterious note I received two evenings after my encounter with Luna. I'd honestly been waiting for something, for anything, and then it came- a tiny hyper owl tapping at my window.

It flew in enthusiastically, its tiny wings waving as I detached the letter from its foot, gave him an owl treat and sent him on his way with a cheerful hoot.

"Astronomy tower

Tomorrow

9PM

Don't Think."

I didn't need to be told twice not to think. I was trying, ever desperately to avoid that incessant human function, but what could I do to escape my own thoughts?

I thought/

And I wondered, whose feminine script had written the note? Whose cheerleader owl had delivered it so enthusiastically? Why me?

I could barely focus in transfiguration, but McGonagall seemed preoccupied with the Carrow sister interrupting her lesson to drag out Colin Creevey for "detention" that involved the practice of Dark Curses, older students, and Creevey tied up in a body bind, tied up in paralysis. I felt a little sick. Unnecessary. All of it.

So what made this journey the tower necessary? The very fact that everything else around me was unnecessary.

So I went, each step felt like a step higher, a step towards the stars, a step away from my Slytherin dungeon, a step away from Crabbe, and Goyle and the mounting rumors of my father's fall from the Dark Lord's grace. As if the Dark Lord ever had any grace. Ha.

At the top of the tower, the tower where Dumbledore had died for Voldemort's hatred, for my father's mistakes, for Snape's loyalty, for my own cowardice, the memories threatened to floor back, to bring me to my nears, to make me see those blue eyes.

Instead, a pair of brown eyes fixed upon me as I reached the landing.

"Make a wish," Ginny Weasley said, her tone and expression entirely blank, "The sky is full of stars tonight. You can see them all if you look, the constellations of Sirius, of Bellatrix, the North Star. Take your pick, make a wish."

I wished for the past. I closed my eyes, remembering the days when everything came so easily, remembering the first 15 years of my life. But when I reopened them, there was only the present. The present, the stars, and I supposed, the future.

"What am I doing here?" I asked her, wishing there was somewhere to sit, a sofa atop the Astronomy tower would seem so convenient right about now, I mused.

"Ask yourself that," She smiled slightly, her face the same pale hue as the moon, her hair vibrant in the starlight. She looked a bit like an angel. A blood traitor angel, sure. But whatever.

"The letter said don't think," I reminded her casually, "To ask myself would be to think."

"You're here because you're one of us now," She replied confidently, "Or at least, that's what I'd like to believe. Dumbledore believed the best in people, so as members of his army, we try and do the same. Do you believe the best in yourself, Draco Malfoy?"

"I guess," I shrugged, not thinking about what that would really mean.

"I hope you're guessing right then," She said a bit harshly, standing beside me as we surveyed the sky above instead of the grounds below. We both looked up as if for answers, instead of down, down where he fell, down where his body lay, lifeless, askew, destroyed. I shuddered.

"What do you ask of me?" I inquired, trying to keep my thoughts together, on the present, on this moment.

"The best of you." She answered simply, "We need help to evade discovery, we need distractions, we need someone on the inside, we need assistance."

"You need protection," I sighed, running my hands through my light hair and turning to face her, "Yeah, I get it. You're fighting back, you and Luna, and whoever else is brave- or stupid enough, to risk everything for a dream. And yeah, I'm in. I'm about to risk whatever I have left in exchange for everything I could lose. I'm in. I'll protect your silly group. I'll protect the dreams of the innocent, the hopes of the hopeful. I'll do what I can."

"I thought as much," Ginny looked a bit relieved none the less, "I ask you one favor tonight."

"I thought as much," I smirked.

"We're having a meeting, our first of the year tomorrow," She explained.

"You want me to attend?"

She laughed, not sounding amused at all, "No. Never. You are never to attend. It is only Luna and I who know of your involvement and that is how it shall stay. You are not to attend meetings, you are not to know all our secrets. You are to serve us from the outside, because you're already on the inside of the otherside."

"Whatever," I frowned, "Your meetings are a bunch of mudbloods and blood traitors swapping stories of how brave Potter is, and how much the Dark Lord sucks, I get it. And I'm not a part of that world. Nor, honestly, would I want to be."

"What world are you in?" She tilted her head to the side curiously.

"Both?" I sighed, "Neither? I'm outside of everything. I'm looking in."

"Well, keep those pretty eyes open then," She laughed, "Now, the favor… I need you to ensure the Carrows are entertained tomorrow night. Host a party, start a club, ask them Death Eater trivia, but keep them happy and keep them occupied."

"Yeah, easy enough," I shrugged, planning on asking Slughorn to have a staff meeting because the Carrows were having too many detentions during study hours. He'd agree. I knew it before I asked.

"And Snape…" She started

"I can take care of that too," I rolled my eyes, "Don't even worry about him, he's distracted. It's the Carrows, they're the ones to be concerned with. Except for tomorrow, of course, you're covered. But won't your little army wonder, after they've exhausted the topics of how very fashionable Harry's glasses are, and how cool his left elbow is, why they're so lucky all the time?"

"You plan on assisting us all the time?" She actually grinned. Her eyes sort of sparkled. Like stars of their own.

"If you're going to do something, you do it right," I drawled, rolling my eyes, feeling more like Draco Malfoy than I had in ages, "Don't Gryffindors know anything?"

"I am going to ignore that last comment," She narrowed her eyes briefly, "And just thank you for your support. And no, they won't wonder, they'll just thank these lucky stars."

"If you have too many Ravenclaws, they might ask questions," I reminded her.

"We have Luna to distract them," She shrugged, unconcerned, "Luna and I- we appreciate this. It's important, vital even, to the DA. And the DA is important, vital even, to the moral that's left, to the hope that lingers… with Harry."

"Yeah, great," I started towards the exit, not wanting to discuss Harry Potter, beacon of hope to the poor, mudbloods, oppressed, Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, the weak, the useless, the people I was supposed to want dead. The people I was sick of watching scream and die in my own home. The people who were destroying my life as their lives ended, for my home was now a slaughterhouse, my father the slave to a revolution that was headed nowhere, and I was the slave to the situation. The situation I would now to my part to end.

I wanted my life back, is that so much to ask? Just the status fucking quo.

"Normally when peopled are thanked, they reply with 'you're welcome'," Ginny commented, not moving from where she stood, rooted on the stone floor of the tower, her eyes locked on the sky.

"Normally Draco Malfoy doesn't conspire with Gryffindors," I shrugged carelessly, "Normally, Death Eaters don't run Hogwarts. Normally, we wouldn't need this Dumbledore's Army, because we'd have Dumbledore. And normally, we'd be ignoring each other. Who cares about normalcy anymore? It died with Cedric Diggory."

"You're an optimistic one, aren't ya?" She laughed as I crossed the tower, ready to desend the stairs, back to where I should belong.

"Tell me, Weasley, what does it feel like to know exactly where you stand?" I asked, wondering where I should be right now, or tomorrow, or the next day, or next year.

"Beautiful and frightening." She smiled, not at me, but at her destiny, "How does it feel to be free for the first time? How does it feel to be liberated from all your constraints? How does it feel just to exist?"

"Lonely," I answered honestly, but without emotion, "And exhilarating when I don't think too hard. Anything is possible for me now, isn't it?"

"The best or the worst," She grinned, "But that's the fate we all accept in the DA"

"So I am a member?" I frowned, "Sort of?"

"Entirely," She corrected me, finally turning around, our eyes met for a second, "But don't let it get to your head."

"Fat chance," I smirked and disappeared, beyond the tower, beyond the stairs, home to Slytherin.

Home?

Home is where the heart is. My heart just beat on, just wandered on.

They say not all who wander are lost.

Well, clearly some of them are. And they would very much like a map, or a compass, or a fucking tour guide.

I counted my heart beats as I fell asleep. They sounded almost like footsteps, as though my heart was physically searching, physically wandering on a journey of its own.

What a stupid thought.

I rubbed my eyes. Hard. I saw black when I closed them, when I wanted to see nothingness, the sweet embrace of slumber, the comfort of solace.

I thought back to fourth year briefly, to my badges that read "Potter Stinks" and back to cursing Ron into burping slugs, and back to walking around, no strutting around with Crabbe and Goyle fifth year, owning the goddamn place.

Was it all a bloody dream?

And if not, if it was real, why does it feel so far away?

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times

I knew I wasted my wish that night, wishing for the past, when my focus should be the future. No one peaks at 15, I reassured myself, but I felt a bit dizzy.

Questions, doubts, fog. As if I was being followed by a dementor.

Oh, the best and the worst.

That is how they both began.

Author's Notes:

Is anyone reading? Lol

Hope so =]

Read and review? Please? Haha. Anyway, I hope this is enjoyable so far, the excitement is to come.

Love,

Your devoted author.