Chapter 3

AN: Soooooo, remember me? It's defiantly been a while but I never planned on giving up on this but I've been so busy. But my A levels are over now and I have the whole summer to do what I want….and maybe get a summer job so I don't die from starvation when I get to uni. Oh well. I've read through and made a few improvements to the previous chapter and honestly I do actually plan on finishing this in the next 3 million years!

Chapter 3

It seemed like hours before he had finally stopped shaking enough to pick up the cup of coffee that Harry Potter had placed in front of him. He was sitting opposite Potter, Weasley and Granger at the dining table in the apartment Granger and Potter shared. It was small and open plan; there was a sitting room and an archway which lead to the kitchen/dining room. There were two large bedrooms and a smaller guest bedroom that had become Theodore's.

The ex-golden trio all looked similar to how they had in Hogwarts, just slightly older, Potter and Weasley were both taller and broader but that was to be expected, Theodore supposed he had grown slightly too, even though he was still slightly smaller than the other two. Granger had changed much more dramatically, in fact Theodore supposed one would call her quite pretty now, she had a beautiful figure her hair was much tamer than it was in Hogwarts and she just looked generally more mature…not that Theodore himself found her attractive.

His first mission for the ministry of magic had been a complete success. The head Auror had immediately taken to Ron's idea and they had managed to get Theodore kidnapped by the DER's by making a public announcement of his return and the leaving him at the bar in the Leaky Cauldron. Within the hour two random men had approached him and the next thing he knew he was standing in front of his father.

Theodore shivered at the thought.

It had taken a lot of convincing on his part to make his father accept him, he had been constantly aware of the wand that was pointed at him but he knew how to act, he had been doing it when he was younger and once he had managed to convince his father that he had the same beliefs he had been taken to his first 'Death Eater Revolutionist' meeting. He didn't know where they had been, it was a dark and damp and everyone was wearing dark robes with hoods that covered their faces.

"Come on Nott, out with it already," Weasley's harsh voice jerked Theodore out his memories.

"Ronald!" Hermione admonished

"Just give him a chance Ron," Potter said calmly while Weasley sulked.

"Go ahead Theodore," Hermione said softly, a small comforting smile on her face.

Shocked at the use of his first name Theodore stuttered a bit before telling them what he learnt at the meeting.

"My father's not the leader, it's someone else but they're never there, the person works through my father and he wouldn't tell me who they are."

"How helpful."

"Ronald!"

Theodore ignored him, "What they want to do is rid the magical world of Muggleborns and half bloods and the leader has a sort of side project that involves 'finding the traitors', I don't know what they mean by that but apparently they have people in the field."

"That doesn't sound good", Potter said, looking worried.

"Yeah, the leader has some special method he's using to track them but it all very secret. The most important thing though is that they're planning on taking over the Ministry."

"The Ministry!"

After another half an hour Theodore had finished his story, Potter and Weasley had gone to meet some friends in Hogsmead and Hermione was getting ready for bed. Theodore, feeling slightly out of place was sitting reading back editions of the daily prophet trying to catch up with the Wizarding world.

"I'm going to go to bed to read, feel free to get anything from the kitchen" She said coming to stand in front of him, "are you okay?"

"Amazing," he answered slightly breathless due to the feeling of being back where he belonged (the fact that Hermione was wearing a tight t-shirt and little shorts had nothing to do with it), "you wouldn't believe how much I've missed this."

Hermione smiled at him, a real, beautiful smile and Theodore felt his stomach flip for some unknown reason.

"Night Theodore."

Theodore swallowed, his mouth suddenly feeling dry, "Night Hermione."

He sort of felt guilty that he hadn't said anything about the plan involving her.

"I can't believe he's gone," Pansy's voice broke through the silence at the dinner table. She, Blaise, Gregory, Draco and Daniel had eaten the take away that the latter two had picked up in complete silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

"I think maybe I should go home," Daniel interjected, he was feeling slightly uncomfortable. True he counted Theodore to be a friend and a good one at that, but he had only known him for a short time unlike the other three and felt like he was invading slightly. He went to stand up but was stopped by Draco's hand on his wrist.

"No." He said firmly, "you're staying here tonight," his boyfriends mouth said one thing but his eyes said 'I need you to stay here tonight' and Daniel knew not to argue.

"Fine, but I'm going to go to the kitchen and tidy up. Leave you to talk."

"I don't think he's coming back." Pansy said as soon as Daniel had exited.

"Oh for goodness sake Pansy, lets go straight to the worst case scenario why don't we," Blaise said, "he promised he'd come back."

"Yeah, to stop us from worrying, he's not coming back Blaise!"

"Calm down Pansy," Draco soothed placing his hand on hers, "we don't know that he's not coming back, besides, he wouldn't just leave, he wouldn't do that to us we've been through too much together."

"You don't think -" Blaise cut himself off, "no, never mind there's no way."

"No, what were you going to say," Pansy prodded, "tell us Blaise."

"You don't think he would go back there do you…back to the other world."

"THE WIZARDING W-"

"-Pansy!" Draco cut her off, "Daniel's right next door."

"Sorry."

"There's… no way," Pansy stuttered, "he couldn't…he wouldn't"

"But what if he did." The three sat in silence as the reality of Blaise's words sunk in.

"No, I don't believe it," Draco stood up, firm in his denial, "he's just gone away to clear his head."

"But-"

"No! Pans, I refuse to think on it any more, he hasn't gone back, he wouldn't go back! He'll be home before you know it and a lot less grumpy probably. I'm going to help Daniel and then we're going to bed." And with that Draco walked out of the dining room leaving Pansy and Blaise to stare worriedly after him.

Draco looked at the clock in the corner of his bedroom, the bright green numbers showed that it was 2:13am. Untangling himself from Daniel he sat up, he couldn't stop thinking about what Pansy had said. Was it possible that Theodore had really gone back there and if so why? Draco sighed and stood up, he wasn't going to get any sleep if he continued like this.

He didn't bother turning any lights on as he wondered into his en-suite bathroom and ran a glass of water, splashing some on his face. He took a few deep breaths trying to will away his previous thoughts. It was as he was about to leave the room that he looked up into the mirror.

The glass of water went crashing to the floor, making a loud smashing noise and Draco darted over to turn the bathroom light on, cutting his foot on the broken glass as he did so. Daniel was in the room within seconds.

"What on earth was that?" He asked loudly but on seeing the broken glass, his boyfriends pale terrified face and the blood on the floor he immediately softened rushing to Draco's side, "what happened? Are you okay?" When he didn't get an answer he sat Draco down and silently put a flannel to his bleeding foot making Draco wince

"I…saw something…in the mirror," Draco finally said when Daniel had finished, he could feel his hands shaking and made an effort to stop them.

"I wasn't a spider was it," Daniel teased quietly drawing a slight smile from Draco.

"No," he carefully walked back to the sink and slowly looked back into the mirror, "It was nothing."

"You work too hard," Daniel's hand was rubbing soothing circles on his back as he tried to calm himself down, "come on, come to bed."

"Yeah. Yeah okay," and Draco threw a quick glance back over to the mirror and allowed himself to be lead back into his bedroom.

TBC

Like it, hate it? Have I totally lost the ability to write in the past year? It would be nice to know if people are still interested.