A/N Thanks for the reviews, guys. It's nice to know that people are still reading. My collar bone is healing up, so hopefully I'll be posting more often. Sorry about the delay.

Chapter Three

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The group of six teens stood in the now setting Californian sunshine, the four new arrivals shocked into immobility.

It had been quite a mystery around Hogwarts when Draco Malfoy had disappeared early in his sixth year. His sudden absence had been fodder for the school's gossip mill for months, everyone seeming to have a different theory on his vanishing right before Christmas. After it had been discovered that his father Lucius had broken out of Azkaban with the help of Voldemort and the dementors, Harry and a lot of others had assumed that Draco had run off to join the Death Eaters.

Why was he here, then? In L.A.? With the girl who was a part of the group that Dumbledore had sent them to? These people were supposed to protect him, protect them!

How was he to trust people that associated with Draco Malfoy? Even if he looked like an entirely different person. Malfoys didn't change.

And if Harry had been right in his deduction of the events surrounding the Slytherin's sudden departure from Hogwarts, Lucius Malfoy was near at hand, having escaped and reclaimed his heir.

Was this all an elaborate trap? Had Dumbledore just sent them into the clutches of a group of Death Eaters? How would they escape?

The rivals stood there glaring at each other, neither one looking to be the one to speak first.

Dawn was becoming tired of the stalemate, and decided that something needed to be done, especially since the sun was nearly set.

The girl walked up to her friend, poking him in the ribs with a finger while running her other hand through her multi-colored hair.

"Stop staring, J.J. You knew they were coming. Get the car loaded and let's get out of here. Sun's nearly gone."

"What do I look like, sunshine, a bloody house elf?? They can load their own junk."

Harry looked like he was going to protest, but Dawn jumped in before he could speak. Her careless mention of Cordelia had soured her mood, and the sullen boys were not doing anything to improve it.

"Forget it. I'll do it myself if I have to!! The car might as well have Scourge of Europe written on its side, and I don't feel like being out in it with four out-of-towners when the sun sets and somebody decides that we'd be a good way to make a name for themselves." With that, she grabbed a handle on the nearest trunk and hauled it over to the back of the car.

The four newly arrived teens stared at each other in surprised silence, unsure of what to do. The girl had been in such a good mood just a few minutes ago. Then again, Draco Malfoy was enough to put anyone in a foul mood. And what had she meant by Scourge of Europe. It sounded vaguely familiar. Harry was the first to recover from his stupor, and he put a restraining hand on her arm.

"I am not going anywhere until I know why Malfoy is with you. The last we heard of him, he disappeared right around the same time as his father. For all I know, you all work for Lucius Malfoy."

Dawn dropped the luggage that she was hauling and turned angrily towards the boy-who-lived. "Shut up and get in the car! Do you really think that Dumbledore could be fooled by Lucius?" She almost sneered the name, venom in her voice. "Would he really send you to a bunch of Death Eaters? Now you have two choices. You get in the car, then you can ask your questions in a polite manner, and I might choose to answer them. Or you stay here and hope that someone can come and get you and you pray that your real enemies don't send some of the local baddies after you before your next babysitters show up!"

The quartet looked at her for a full minute with no one saying a word. Draco was impressed with her. It was such a rare occurrence for the four most annoying Gryffindors to be stunned into silence.

Hermione was the first to speak. Draco wasn't surprised by that. Granger always had been the one with all of the brains in the group. The Gryffindor prefect laid a hand on Harry's arm in a comforting gesture.

"She's right, Harry. You know that the Order would never have let us come here if it wasn't safe. Besides, Dumbledore must have known that Malfoy was here."

"Of course he did, Granger!" he sneered at her. The four other Hogwarts students took his sneer for what it had always meant, utter disdain for her and the fact that she wasn't a 'pure-blood'.

But Dawn knew the truth. He hated the name Malfoy. Hated being associated with his biological father in any way. And these teens never seemed to call him anything else.

"Who do you think sent me here? Get your trunks into the care. We should get to the hotel before dark. Dawn's right, the car is a target."

Harry tried to resist, but seeing the look on Hermione's face, and knowing that Dumbledore trusted the Slytherin, even if Harry didn't, was enough to get him moving.

The teens quickly had their things in the car, and crowded in. Harry and Ron got into the back with Hermione, while Ginny sat up front beside Dawn and Draco, who was driving.

Dawn was pressed up against his side, the boys in the rear glaring daggers into the back of her head. The girl had seemed so nice, and had been lovely to hug. How could she be friendly with Malfoy, of all people?

The Hogwarts girls could feel the tension levels rising in the car, and were struggling to find ways to get rid of it.

"So where did you learn to drive?" Hermione asked as a way to break the oppressing silence.

"Well, thankfully not Buffy!" Dawn answered, a giggle coming from her lips, and a chuckle from Draco's. "Although, considering how many times they had to put back up the Sunnydale sign, learning to drive from Spike might not have been the best way either!"

Her face fell as she realized what she had just said, but before Draco could think of something to lift her spirits, Harry spoke.

"I'm surprised that such a completely muggle activity isn't beneath you," he mocked from the backseat.

Normally Draco would have retaliated at a comment like that, especially coming from St. Potter. In fact, his mouth was just opening, a half formed retort at his lips, when he heard Dawn snicker. He couldn't bring himself to put down his nemesis after that, because even if he'd been insulted, Potter had managed to save Dawn's mood before she could slide into an Angel-style brood over her mention of Spike.

"It's just a cheap replacement for her broomstick." Her snicker got louder as she spoke, threatening to turn into a full fledged case of the Summer's girl giggles. "He can't ride it much here, and he missed the feeling of wind in his hair. The boy has a need for speed!"

"Shut up, Summers."

"Bite me . . ." she looked at him sideways, and he became worried about what she was going to say next. 'Junior!"

With that she broke down completely, leaving the others in the car wondering what in the world the American found so funny.

"Oh, hardy har har. Well, according to Xander, you like biting. After all, there was that one Halloween . . . "

Dawn had recovered enough to slap a hand over his mouth before he could finish the sentence. "We really don't want to start playing reveal the secrets, now do we J.J." She cast a sideways glance at Ginny, Draco noticing the direction of her gaze.

"I don't know," he answered after finally getting her hand off of her mouth, "might be worth it. I think you have more secrets than I do."

Ginny glanced at the two of them from her position pressed up against the passenger door. She was nervous, never having liked muggles forms of travel, and the two of them were behaving rather like Ron and herself when they were having one of their famous Weasley sibling fights. Ginny knew how distracted they could get during their rows, and Ginny didn't want Draco's attention away from the road. The young redhead searched for a way to get Dawn's attention off of Draco.

"So, when do you think we'll get to go shopping, Dawn? I hear that Beverly Hills has the best shopping in the country."

"Oh, yeah! But with the prices, it's mostly good window shopping. Don't worry, though, Buffy knows where to go to get the deals."
Ginny searched her mind for something to keep Dawn involved in the conversation, and keep her from distracting Draco. Then the youngest, Weasley remembered another person that Dawn had mentioned while talking about shopping.

"What about Cordelia? Was that her name? Will she be shopping with us too?"

Both Dawn and Draco stiffened visibly at the name, the girl almost flinching in pain as well. "Could be awhile." She suddenly learned over Ginny towards the glove box popping it open.

"You talked about Cordelia too?" Draco asked her, getting no response other than a faint nod of her head before she loudly changed the subject.

"You know one completely muggle thing that J.J. does like, Harry? My music!" She was almost laying on Ginny's lap while rummaging through the collection of CD's in the glove compartment. "What's in here that we can listen too?"

Draco shot a glare at Ginny over Dawn's bent back, angry that she'd brought the seer up. It wasn't really her fault, but he wanted somebody concrete to be angry at.

Now he knew why Dawn had snapped at them at the airport. She had brought up Cordelia, while talking about shopping. Probably without even realizing it. And when she did, she had probably kicked herself, like she had been about to about Spike. He laid a hand on his friend's back, giving her silent comfort.

Ginny shrugged, not knowing what she had done, and turned away from them to glare out at the passing buildings of Los Angeles.

Hermione noticed all of the tension in the front seat, realizing that it was the mention of Cordelia that had brought it on. Her questioning mind wondered why that was.

By now, even Ron had noticed the tension in the car. "What's so great about muggle music?"

Even Harry and Hermione had to roll their eyes at that.

"Have you never heard muggle music?" Dawn asked, her head still nearly buried in the glove buried in the glove box. "A ha! Here's one!"

She grabbed a CD and sat up in her seat.

"Nope," Ron answered her. "I've never really been in the muggle world before."

"You don't know what you're missing!" They had stopped for a red light, and Dawn took the opportunity to thrust the case she was holding in front of Draco's face for him to see. "Can you believe that he's got the soundtrack to Queen of the Damned in his car? I bet Xander put it in here to make him mad."

Draco laughed, "Yes, that would be something that Xander would do, wouldn't it?"

The four Gryffindors from Hogwarts didn't know which confused them more, the fact that Draco Malfoy was laughing, or what was funny enough about the CD to make him laugh.

Ginny had heard him laugh before, but it had always been in cruelty, with his eyes cold. Like all of those times when he and his goons would cut her down for being the 'baby Weasel'.

But she could see his eyes when he laughed with Dawn. There was a gleam in them different from anything she'd seen there before, given her limited experience with the boy. But it was enough to make Ginny wonder if maybe the differences in Draco Malfoy were more than just skin deep.

The four newcomers jumped as music suddenly filled the air. They had been so preoccupied wondering about the Slytherin that they hadn't noticed Dawn slipping the CD into the deck.

"Now check this out Ron," she yelled over the music.

What happened next shocked the four Gryffindors more than anything that had happened since Dumbledore informed them that they wouldn't be spending the year at Hogwarts.

The vocals of the song started, and Dawn began singing along.

"I'm over it . . . "

Then the girl elbowed Draco in the side, and he joined in.

"You see I'm falling in the vast abyss, clouded by memories of the past, at last I see. . . "

The two continued singing, oblivious to the stares of the four other occupants in the car, as the car continued on its way to the Hyperion.