Here we go again…

A shock or two might arise this chapter… but hopefully it all still makes sense. Looking forward to seeing where this one goes and how I can make it interesting.

Thanks for your continued interest! Enjoy! As always, JKR is the real brain behind all this.

Chapter Four

It was almost midnight at The Burrow, and the house was filled with a suffocating air of tension. Since George had returned with one bloody, disfigured ear, the mood had gone rapidly downhill from relief at their survival to worry. As the minutes ticked by that worry transformed into panic. More than one pair had missed their expected arrival time. When Ron and Tonks finally arrived, Harry felt one small weight dislodge itself from his chest, knowing that his best mate had lived. He was still reeling from the death of poor innocent Hedwig, who'd only tried to protect her master.

But there were still four people missing. The group waited, pacing around the back door of the lopsided house impatiently. Harry's whole body felt rigid with nervousness. He had known this was a terrible idea. He'd tried so hard to dissuade the others from following such a mad, hair-brained scheme, not wanting so many to risk their lives on his behalf. But it had been out of his control it seemed.

The sharp crack of apparition made every head turn towards the far end of the garden, all their faces lit with hope. Molly raced forwards with a shout of relief as Bill and Fleur appeared. She threw her arms around her eldest son, weeping tears of joy. She even threw herself at Fleur who everyone knew she notoriously disliked. It seemed such petty feelings were to be buried in light of the woman's bravery and willingness to put her life on the line. She was undoubtedly part of the family now.

Harry frowned as he watched the others welcome the two arrivals. He felt a presence at his shoulder and turned to see Ron searching the tree line intently.

"Why isn't she here yet... where the bloody hell is Hermione?" his friend murmured, his freckled face a shockingly pale shade of white. Harry's heart clenched painfully with a mutual fear as he observed his friend. He wasn't sure what to say.

"She'll be here, any minute now," he stated numbly, not willing to believe anything else. There was simply no room for any other possible outcome in his mind. Ron nodded sharply.

"You're right. It's Hermione! I bet she came up with some kind of brilliant plan to get away..."

Bill and Fleur approached the rest of the group at The Burrow who were waiting with the most fragile of nerves. Fred even appeared in the doorway to clap a hand on his older brother's shoulder.

"George's sleeping. He got his ear almost sliced clean off by Snape, the slimy git."

Harry felt a wave of rage shudder through him at the mention of his former professor, but now was not the time to go down that path. Bill shared a look with his fiancée and shook his head.

"That's not all,' he began sadly, "Moody's gone. He was killed by You-Know-Who himself. We saw him…"

He hung his head and the group fell eerily silent at the news.

"We couldn't even get to his body…" he continued eventually, but Molly just shushed him soothingly and wrapped a motherly arm around his shoulders.

There was a sense of foreboding in the group then. Harry looked around, feeling desperate and helpless all at once.

"What about-" he started, but couldn't quite finish the thought, his voice trailing off. He couldn't say it. Nobody could. They waited in the yard for another half an hour or so before eventually many of them were too tired. Slowly, one by one, people began filtering indoors to nurse their wounds or just sit by the fire and rest. It had been a long, gruelling night.

Harry and Ron remained where they were. The two of them kept a silent vigil, watching the apparition point fixedly. Every sound that pierced the night made their pulses race. Every movement put them on alert. But still nothing.

Harry wasn't sure how long they stayed there. He vaguely registered when Ginny brought them both a cup of tea, but the warm liquid just tasted like ash and he could barely swallow it.

It was early morning by the time the cracking of apparition echoed across the valley once more. A scant yellowish hue of light brushed the horizon, though the sun wouldn't rise properly for at least another hour or so. They had been motionless for so long that both boys almost jerked upright in shock. As one, they raced across the ragged lawn, marching together to greet their friend. Harry heard the footsteps of others emerging from the house behind them.

Then they froze. Both boys were brought up short by the horrified realisation that it was only Kingsley Shacklebolt who stood before them. The imposing, broad shouldered man looked weary and his eyes were bleak. He reluctantly lifted his gaze up to their faces.

"I'm so sorry-" he croaked, his deep voice broken.

"Where is she?" Ron asked thickly, looking around as if he expected their friend to appear from the trees at any second, "Where's Hermione?"

By now the rest of the group from the Burrow had arrived, and Harry distantly heard a couple of gasps of horror, though the sound was muffled by the ringing in his ears.

"Kingsley… what happened?" Arthur asked.

The auror cleared his throat, hanging his head in shame.

"We were hit by a curse. I tried to hold onto the thestral and keep it in the air, but she was gone. She fell. By the time I found her in the forest below…"

He paused and let out a long, shaky breath.

"I didn't have time to bring her back, the place was crawling with death eaters. But I took this from her body…"

The towering man stooped to reach into the inside of his long cloak. He produced a frayed, knitted scarf in crimson and gold colours. A Gryffindor scarf.

"No," Ron spluttered, his voice choking into a pitiful whine as his gaze passed over the scarf, stained red with splotches of blood, "No, no, no. It's not true. It can't be-"

Harry couldn't say anything. While abstractedly he could hear Ron's shouts of denial, his own body was paralysed with shock. The icy feeling of helpless rage, hatred and guilt was spreading through him like a malignant disease. He pushed past Ginny as she tried to comfort him, stepping away from the trees. Arthur was trying to hold down Ron who had gone absolutely mental. But Harry just fell to his knees in the dust, cold and paralysed both inside and out. His mind was tormented with visions of Hermione lying alone somewhere in the dark with no friends or family around her. Alone. She'd been all alone.

That was when he lost it.

…..

As the chaos and the grief unfolded around him, Kingsley Shacklebolt watched on with a sense of savage glee. It was exactly as the Dark Lord had planned it. With the Granger girl now missing and wandless, Harry Potter had only really needed that little push to believe that she was dead. It brought the emotionally vulnerable boy one step closer to doing something stupid. One step closer to revealing himself to Lord Voldemort and revealing whatever plans Dumbledore had imparted to him. Ideally Kingsley was supposed to have actually killed the insufferable little mudblood for real, but things hadn't quite worked out that way. The girl had plummeted from their thestral as intended, but there had been no sign of her body below no matter how far and wide he had searched. Still, he supposed it was only a matter of time before they tracked her down and finished the job, and until then it only mattered that Potter believed it to be true.

The first step was to merely weaken the boy.

The second was to overthrow the Ministry of Magic (which was proving to be laughable easy actually).

Then they would have all the pieces set and ready for the final game.

And Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived, would be taken apart piece by piece until nobody dared to stand in the Dark Lord's way again.

It didn't take long for Draco to scavenge some breakfast together the next morning. Aberforth might be running a fairly seedy pub down this end of Hogsmeade, but it seemed as though the wizard liked a good meal as much as the next person. When he opened the cellar door, his mouth dropped open at the sheer size of his discovery. There were crates upon crates of elf made wine, scotch and firewhiskey stacked in towering piles, barrels filled with cheese and cured meats, hundreds of jars with just about anything pickled in them and overflowing bags of nuts, dried fruits and eggs. He poked further into the room and foraged around, muttering to himself in disbelief. Aberforth was certainly a man of mystery. With a shrug, he gathered a few pieces into his arms he thought might be suitable and slipped back up the staircase on tiptoes. It was unlikely that any customers would see him, but then again he did have rather distinctive features and it was late enough in the day for certain types of patrons to want a stiff drink.

The two young outlaws (which is what they were now, he supposed) had slept in much later than was usual for either of them. Both had been exhausted by what had unfolded last night and it had been rather early in the morning before they were able to escape into sleep and forget their troubles for a little while. Personally, Draco had slept like a damn log. It had been strange, he mused as he trudged back up the stairs towards their dusty attic room. The heat of another person in bed with him was not something he was familiar with normally. When he woke up at almost midday earlier, he'd felt so…warm. Even though they had thankfully kept a little distance between their bodies during the night (or early morning) the sheets had still been snug and inviting. When he'd first woken, he had kept his eyes shut tight for at least ten minutes just willing his mind to go back to sleep; his body was too comfortable to move from that cosy space. Then of course his pesky brain had woken up properly and he'd remembered why it was so damn warm and he'd forced himself to get out of there quick smart. The last thing he wanted was for Granger to think he liked sleeping with her. Merlin forbid.

Draco snorted as he approached the door to their room, listening for any sounds of movement. Granger had woken up with a jolt the moment he'd left the bed earlier, her hair even wilder than usual and her face scrunched up groggily. She'd pouted at him and rubbed her eyes.

"Wha s'time?" she'd croaked and he had to remind himself that she'd fallen about four hundred metres out of the sky and been cursed by death eaters last night. She certainly wasn't cute in the mornings. Nope. No way. She was a pain in the ass.

"It's late. I'm starving," he'd sneered, turning his back to the bed and trying not to look her way as she stretched her sore muscles.

"Go find yourself some food then, your majesty," she'd grumbled and he'd done just that without another word.

Opening the door to the bedroom now, he wasn't sure why he'd bothered bringing up enough food for the bossy little swot to eat something too. He supposed it was because he needed her alert and at her best to start solving the problem of his dark mark. They needed to sort this out as soon as possible. If that meant bringing her sustenance then so be it. He almost laughed at the absurdity that he was basically, for all intents and purposes, bringing Granger breakfast in bed. The old Draco Malfoy would have probably hexed him sideways for it.

As it was, Granger wasn't even in bed anymore. Thank Salazar for that. She'd clearly gotten up and dressed in the time he'd been downstairs. Draco glared enviously at her little beaded bag, wishing he also had a change of clothes and some basic necessities. No matter how hard he'd tried, he hadn't quite been able to smooth down his normally impeccable blond locks. Instead he just sneered at her as she wrestled with her own catastrophic hair.

"Not even magic could fix that bird's nest, Granger," he told her smugly. Granger responded by sticking her tongue out at him.

"Like you can talk. Have you seen your hair this morning?"

Draco frowned petulantly, reaching one free hand up to pat down the top of his head self-consciously, which only made Granger snort with laughter. More deftly than he could keep up with, he watched the infuriating witch twist her hair around her hand and pile it up into a knot above her head, snapping an elastic around it until the messy bun just sat there somehow, defying gravity. Her gaze then fell to the bundle in his arms then.

"Breakfast?" she asked him eagerly and Draco felt suddenly glad that he had in fact decided not to be petty and had brought some for her. He nodded.

"It seems our surly inn keeper has a penchant for good food."

Grange watched in surprise as he laid out the towel he'd used to carry his loot with each item spread out on top of it on the bed. There were morsels of cheese, walnuts, apricots and some salted pork.

"Huh… that's certainly unexpected. Nice work."

She went to grab an apricot when Draco pulled the blanket further away, tutting at her like one would a naughty child.

"Not so fast, Granger. What's the magic word?"

The witch glared at him.

"You're a prat."

"Close enough," he announced with a smirk, digging into the breakfast himself. They sat quietly for a moment; both too busy filling their hungry bellies to converse (or more likely argue in their case). After a while Granger cleared her throat and spoke through a mouthful of cheese.

"We need books," she told him seriously, swallowing and fixing him with her deep brown gaze.

"Books?" he repeated a bit dumbly, his own voice muffled by some pork, not sure what she was getting at here.

"Yep," she replied, her lips popping on the 'p' as she bit into an apricot. Draco found himself a touch distracted and shook his head, focusing on the confusing statement.

"What books?"

"I need to learn more about the magic that went into making your creepy tattoo," she told him, "and how its signature is linked to Voldemort."

Draco shuddered.

"Don't say his name," he scolded instantly, a trickle of discomfort easing up his spine.

"Fearing a name is irrational-" she began in a prim voice.

"It's not just a name," he interrupted crossly, "Look, I don't know when it's going to happen or even if it's possible, but the death eaters were planning at some point to curse the name and make it easier to trace people who use it. They call it a taboo. I think they figure it'll help them locate their enemies."

Granger's eyes widened.

"Oh. Okay. Um…well, thanks for letting me know I guess. I will mind my words."

"If only that were true. Now what were you yammering about? You need books about the magic that forged my mark?"

"Ideally, yes! Perhaps we could take a trip to Torin's Tomes just down the road? He has a good selection of books on darker charms and blood magic if you know where to look."

"Uh… aren't you missing something Granger?" he asked dryly, "It's not like either of us are exactly incognito in the looks department are we? We can't just go wandering around!"

She frowned and inspected them both critically for a second.

"Hmmm you have a point," she began with a frown, before perking up almost immediately, "But not to worry, I have a solution!"

With an overly cheerful smile, Granger bounded away and fetched her little bag from the sideboard. She rummaged through it for a moment before withdrawing an overly large hip flask. Her smile was a bit smug as she waved it in front of his face.

"So we just drink away all our problems? Now you're talking," he joked dryly, leaning back on his hands in a casual stance. He didn't even care if it was the middle of the day or with prissy Hermione Granger of all people; he was more than ready to drown his sorrows in liquor.

"What? No. It's Polyjuice potion."

Draco looked at the flask a bit sceptically.

"Polyjuice?" he asked flatly, "Doesn't that take over a month to brew?"

"34 days to be precise," she replied primly, "I started brewing a batch as soon as the holidays started just in case. But that's not all. I alsooo…"

She stuck her arm right down into the bag and felt around, her forehead creasing in a frown of concentration.

"Aha!" she withdrew a few little glass tubes with different coloured hairs in them, "I collected these samples from some of my muggle neighbours. Don't ask me how! And I made absolutely sure no pets were involved whatsoever. I have male hair here too, although obviously they were originally intended for Harry and Ron..."

Draco blinked at her a bit dumbly as she ranted on somewhat incoherently about her potion. She was a little firecracker when she got going, he realised. Especially if she was talking about something academic. He was both intimidated and fascinated.

"You know," he told her in a deceptively casual tone as he reached out to take the flask from her, bringing it to his nose for an unpleasant sniff, "I always hated you at school because you seemed to be able to beat me in every little damn thing, from pointless topic quizzes to our OWL exams. I used to always punish myself for not studying enough, not working hard enough to overtake you. But the truth is, I never really stood a chance, did I?"

Granger flushed an almost attractive shade of pink at his words, dropping her gaze to the bed between them.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were being nice to me just now," she told him eventually with a wry half smile. Draco scoffed quietly.

"Really? I though I was calling you an annoyingly swotty know-it-all."

The witch shrugged, before grinning at him in a positively wicked way.

"Whatever you say. But you should know I took extreme satisfaction in always beating the little pureblood snob who thought he was god's gift."

"Hmmm," he hummed at her, eyes narrowed in a glare, "And tell me, oh great brainy one, did you at least manage to find even a slightly good-looking muggle boy in that batch somewhere that I can transform into? I wouldn't want to lower my standards."

Granger rolled her eyes and shoved one of the glass vials at him. He took it, inspecting the brunette strands of hair a bit dubiously.

"Trust me, it'll be an improvement," she told him in a withering voice. He just chuckled quietly at her comment before turning his attention to the lone galleon that was still sitting on the side table. He noticed that she kept checking it every so often, but nothing had changed on its tarnished gold surface.

"To be honest, Granger, I'm a bit surprised I didn't wake up this morning to find you'd stolen my wand and run off to your little band of morons."

The witch sighed and contemplated him with a frown.

"I made you a promise, didn't I?" she asked him solemnly.

"You did."

"You might not like me very much, Malfoy, but I'm no liar. I promised I'd help you, so I will," she told him without even a hint of sarcasm or irony in her voice. Her impossibly brown eyes were about as sincere as he'd ever seen them.

"And what about Pisspot Potter and his Weasel?"

She snorted a bit at his insult, but then let out a slow breath.

"I honestly don't know. They should be at the Order safe house by now. I hope they get my message and that they don't do anything stupid. There's not much more I can do for them right now. We have a…mission of sorts. But none of us even knew where to begin the last time we spoke. And it's not like I can do much to find them without a wand."

"So… you'll stay? You're really going to help me figure this out?" he asked, hating the shaky tone of hopefulness that tinged his words.

"Of course. You saved my life."

Draco nodded, but watched curiously as the witch's lips twitched and she tilted her head to one side in thought. A single strand of hair escaped the loose bun she'd styled and dropped to brush lightly against one check. She tugged it back impatiently.

"And even if you hadn't caught me last night…" she continued, "I think I'd want to help anyway…"

"Oh?" he prompted, and he had a feeling he knew where this was going. Sure enough, Granger sat quietly on the bed, wringing her fingers together nervously as if trying to summon the right words. Draco took a deep breath and leaned against the side table, waiting patiently for her to work up the courage to ask what he knew she was dying to know. He wasn't sure why he was suddenly anxious himself. Even though he'd saved her life it didn't give her the right to know every sordid little detail about him, did it? He swallowed and regarded her calmly on the outside even though his thoughts were a bit jumbled on the inside. Another part of him was happy to get it off his chest. He wanted someone to know. He wanted just one other person in this savage, cruel world to understand the real Draco Malfoy; the one who had emerged from the ashes and was trying his best to be a better person.

"I also want to help you because I'm…intrigued. And a bit stunned actually," she told him in a slightly shaky tone and with a weak laugh, "I know we've all grown up a lot, and I know our sixth year was… more difficult for you than anyone. But Malfoy you have to admit, saving the life of a muggleborn, and especially me, is more than a little out of character. You've clearly changed; I'd be stupid not to notice. But what I'm trying to figure out is how much you've changed. Can I trust you? Or are you just using me to get what you want?"

"Is that what you think?" he asked her quietly, a muscle in his jaw twitching with tension.

"I don't have a wand, Malfoy. I need your help just as much as you need mine right now. I'd be a fool if I didn't treat you with some caution."

Draco grimaced and stared at her with hooded eyes.

"You willingly slept next to someone last night you thought might want to cause you harm?"

"Not someone who'd harm me, no," she answered slowly, considering her words carefully, "But someone who I don't… fully understand."

He considered her carefully for a long moment, trying to figure out what she wanted him to say. What he wanted to say. So much had happened since Hogwarts.

"That night in the hospital wing," he began, not daring to meet her gaze but staring intently at a stain on the floor, "when Potter sliced me half open and I thought I was dying… you were kind to me."

He cleared his throat and shifted, feeling a bit awkward with the serious turn the conversation had taken.

"This may sound really pathetic, but it was the first time in years that someone had actually treated me kindly."

"I find that hard to believe," Granger argued wryly, "I seem to recall Pansy fawning all over you when you returned to classes after-"

"That's not kindness," he corrected her, chuckling hoarsely at the memory of Pansy's rather juvenile attempts to flatter and pander to him, "She was doing that for herself, not for me. It was entirely self-serving. But you had absolutely no reason to treat me the way you did that night. In fact, you had every reason not to. So when I saw you falling last night, going after you just felt like the right thing to do. Not because I like you. Because I'm pretty sure you're still the most annoying person on the planet," he heard her chuckle at that, but pushed on, "But because you were kind to me."

"But you didn't just save me, Malfoy," she pointed out, "you abandoned You-Know-Who, the death eaters, your parents…"

"I didn't do it for you," he told her sternly, raising his eyes to hers and frowning, "I did it for myself. I know in the past I've been a coward and a bully and a complete fool, but I shouldn't have to defend myself for wanting to leave the death eaters."

Granger looked a little bit taken aback but merely watched him quietly, waiting for him to finish what he had to say. He appreciated it.

"Do you know what they do for fun?" he asked in a bitter tone. She shook her head with an apprehensive expression.

"They kill innocent people. Muggles mostly. And you know what they do when they're angry? They kill people. And when they want power? Kill people. And when they're sad. Or drunk. Or just bored. I might have been a terrible little snot at school, but I'm not a murderer. And I hate that I even have to say that! I hate that my parents gave me no choice. I hate that Dumbledore waited until the last possible moment to try and help me when he knew it was too late. And I hate that it took me until I was sixteen fucking years old to really start to question the values and opinions that had been forced on me since birth. I hate myself, Granger. You get it? And I need to do something about that or I may as well Avada myself."

By the time he was finished, Draco was shaking. It had felt odd to say it all out loud after bottling it up for so long. Good, but strange. He lifted his head and waited for some kind of reaction. Granger was silent as she absorbed his explanation. It was understandable that she was confused. He'd belittled her and tormented her for years, then saved her life and formed some kind of truce all in the space of a day. She probably needed time to assess him. But she surprised him when she merely shook her head with a soft little smile.

"You can't Avada yourself," she told him quietly.

"What?"

"You can't Avada yourself. It's not possible. It's the second impregnable rule of wand lore. A wand's loyalty to its master doesn't allow them to cause irreversible harm to themselves. I read a book about it. That's why the majority of wizard suicides are by poison." She paused then added jokingly, "Or people throwing themselves in front of the Knight bus."

Draco gaped at her for a second, then lifted one eyebrow questioningly at her words.

"Seriously Granger? Is that really what you got out of all that?"

Her smile widened slightly.

"No. I just wasn't ready to admit what I was really thinking," she sighed heavily, as if summoning her courage, "That I misjudged you. That I'm ashamed to say I thought you were merely saving your own skin. I didn't realise you might actually have more noble reasons for running away."

Draco snorted and shrugged his shoulder lightly.

"Let's not get sentimental, alright? I'm not about to jump in and join the Order of the bloody Phoenix or anything. I just want to be able to look at myself in the mirror every day and not regret what I see."

Granger smiled at him properly then.

"Sounds pretty noble to me."

"Fucking Gryffindor," he grumbled under his breath, but his lips twitched a bit at her words. Granger exhaled loudly.

"I'm serious. You want to be a better person. That takes courage. Even if we weren't both stuck here and you didn't need my help and I hadn't lost my wand…I think maybe that's worth sticking around to see."

She shrugged once more, letting her face light up with a nervous smile. Before he knew it, Granger was jumping to her feet and snapping open the lid of the flask.

"Anyway, enough moping… we've got some research to do!"

Draco grumbled under his breath, tapping his foot briskly against the floorboards.

"Great. Research," he deadpanned, but it was hardly surprising that Granger wasn't fooled for a second.

"Don't act like you're not even the teensiest bit interested," she scolded him, "I remember how good you were with linking charms at school. Remember when Flitwick tried to pair us together for that project on adhesive spells because we were his top two students? And then you conveniently broke your arm playing Quidditch and I had to do all the work by myself while you just sat there like a grump!"

"As if you even needed my help," he grumbled.

"True I suppose," she sighed, before darting out of the room and grabbing two glasses from the bathroom next door. She returned with a nervous grin and began to pour two measures of the foul looking liquid. It was grey and lumpy and smelled positively disgusting. Draco winced as he took his glass from her, his nose wrinkling up at the thought of actually swallowing the stuff.

"Now add the hair…" she instructed quietly, reaching for her own vial. They each uncorked their sample and withdrew the muggle hairs carefully from within. Draco's was a dark, chocolate brown, while Granger held tightly onto a couple of darker blond strands. They worked in sync to add the hairs, each watching as the potion bubbled and hissed before slowly turning colour. His now resembled a greenish sludge, while Granger held a yellowy orange mixture.

"Bottoms up," he joked teasingly as he chinked their two glasses together softly. Granger smiled, but looked a bit apprehensive as they each raised the potion to their lips.

Draco's first thought upon drinking it was that he might actually vomit. Well no actually, his very first thought was just 'holy fucking christ…'

But eventually the effects of the potion began to overwhelm any of his other senses. He felt his whole body shifting in what was surely the most surreal experience of his life. His skin crawled and his bones stretched until he felt like he was floating above his own body, watching it being transfigured by some clumsy child with a wand. He stared down in horror at his hands as the skin grew a little darker with a faint tan and the skin became more callused. Oddest of all was the way his mouth felt shifting around a new set of teeth, pressed against his new lips in weird and uncomfortable places.

Eventually the squirming, prickling feeling ceased and he found himself staring dizzily down at a body that was definitely not his own. He blinked in surprise and inspected himself closely, making sure there was nothing wrong or missing.

"This feels…weird," a strange feminine voice murmured and he looked up to see Granger doing the same. She was even pressing her fingers against her new teeth with a puzzled frown like him. At least, he assumed it was still Granger in there somewhere. Her appearance was rather unsettling. She had short cropped, dark blond hair that fell down straight to just below her ears, an upturned button nose and pale blue eyes. In that moment Draco felt an odd stray thought enter his mind and it made him pause. As his eyes wandered up and down over her polyjuiced form, he couldn't help feeling in his gut that it looked wrong on her. The blue eyes were pretty certainly, he supposed, but they had nothing on hers. Granger's normally dark brown eyes were remarkable. In all their years at school together, he hadn't ever really noticed them until that night in the hospital wing when she had stood over him, treating him with such care and compassion. He remembered the way she spoke to him soothingly, and the feeling of both her hand and a warm compress resting on his forehead. But mostly when he thought back on that night, he remembered her eyes. They were such a dark shade of brown that they looked like bottomless pools he could have fallen into. Not even a speck of colour or light tinged them or spoiled the weight of her steady, gentle gaze.

He realised Granger was cocking her head and frowning at him and quickly returned his focus to the polyjuiced witch in front of him, pushing these troubling thoughts away.

"Huh what?" he mumbled in confusion, wondering if she'd said anything he'd missed.

"I asked if you're okay. You seem muddled."

"Nope. All good," he lied, "It just feels really bizarre. I was trying to figure out if you'd fudged the potion."

Granger chuckled.

"Pff. As if. I've learned the hard way to be extra careful with polyjuice."

He shrugged in acceptance, wondering vaguely when she'd made it before and what could possibly have gone wrong. She was clearly speaking from experience. Granger cleared her throat and commented with a low chuckle,

"You look…er…shorter."

Draco frowned and sidled over to catch a glimpse in the rusted, cloudy mirror hanging askew in the back of the bedroom door. He was indeed not as tall as usual, but admitted rather reluctantly that this new body was fairly handsome. He had a strong jaw with brunette, wavy hair and tanned skin. And although he was not as lithe or muscular as usual, he felt strong and broad shouldered.

"Not bad," he murmured to himself with a shrug, approving of her potions work, "How long will it last?"

Granger shrugged.

"About an hour. We'd better get going."

Draco nodded and pocketed his wand, as Granger slipped her beaded bag into the inner pocket of her coat. He was about to follow her dark blonde head out the door when she turned and gave him an exasperated look. The expression looked kind of weird on this new face.

"Malfoy…"

"What?" he snapped, uncomfortable with her scrutiny.

"You'll have to try and stop sneering like you've got a bad smell under your nose. It's a rather distinctive tell. The death eaters won't need to track your dark mark if you just keep looking like a snobby little pureblood."

As she spun away from him to descend the staircase, Draco's reply was to stick his tongue out at the back of her head, grumbling about insufferable Gryffindors as he trudged down after her.

For once I decided not to leave a terrible cliff hanger this time. Just a shopping trip, nothing catastrophic haha... yet. Please leave your lovely reviews to inspire me!