Chapter Seven: Borrowed Time
Luna hardly slept that night, yet when she reached McGonagall's office the next morning, she was wide awake. Nerves, she suspected. She trusted Draco, but she understood the danger of what they were about to do.
No one defied You-Know-Who lightly.
Draco appeared calm and cool as ever when he arrived a few minutes later, though he'd certainly dressed down from his usual preppy attire in a pair of jeans and a plain navy-blue sweatshirt. Luna wondered if he expected them to be doing something that might ruin clothes and experienced a moment of unaccustomed panic over the prospect that her yellow-and-blue plaid skirt and buttercup-yellow sweater might be impractical for his plan. Almost instantly, she had to fight back a nervous giggle – what fashion rules governed attacks on dark wizards, anyway?
Yes, definitely nerves.
After six straight Saturdays, she and Draco had made quite a dent in McGonagall's backlog of alumni updates. Of the six over-sized boxes of news clippings they'd started with, only one remained to be catalogued. By mid-morning, it was half-empty.
Luna and Draco were by then arguing over who would win the House Cup that year – Luna supported Gryffindor (everyone knew Ravenclaw's team didn't stand a chance after their best players had graduated), while Draco, for obvious reasons, championed Slytherin – and Luna found herself forgetting that today wasn't just another Saturday. It surprised her how much she enjoyed talking to Draco about everyday things like Quidditch. He was smart and funny, and when he wasn't using those talents to bully someone, he was actually quite interesting.
And full of surprises, Luna noted, for he suddenly nudged the mostly-empty box with his toe and called out, "Excuse me, Professor, but what would you like us to do next? We're almost finished here."
Professor McGonagall nearly choked on her tea. Like usual, she was seated with her back to them at her large, cluttered desk, surreptitiously listening to every word. Luna understood the Deputy Headmistress' surprise: Aside from a terse greeting of "Professor" each Saturday, Draco hadn't once addressed McGonagall during their detentions. He'd certainly never sounded so, well, respectful to her before.
Luna's pulse quickened. This had to be part of the plan. Whatever was going to happen must be about to happen.
Recovering her composure, McGonagall turned toward them. "Actually, I thought we might forgo any further detentions, seeing as how next week is the first Hogsmeade visit and you've both been so diligent – "
At that moment, the door to McGonagall's office flew open and a harried-looking Filch stumbled breathlessly in. Affronted by his rudeness – no one burst into McGonagall's office without knocking, of that Luna was sure – McGonagall demanded sharply, "Mr. Filch, what is the meaning of this?"
"I'm sorry, Professor, but something's happened in the Gryffindor common room," Filch panted. "There's smoke everywhere and the Fat Lady won't let me in. It's like she don't know who I am, though I've been cleaning her every week for how long – "
"All right, all right." McGonagall, clearly exasperated, waved Filch into silence. She glanced uncertainly from Draco to Luna as she rose. "I'd best go take care of this immediately. Miss Lovegood, Mr. Malfoy, I suppose you can both go."
Draco kicked Luna under the table, confirming that this was her cue. "But we're almost finished, Professor," she countered brightly, pointing at the remaining box. "I don't mind to stay. It's the least we can do, really," she insisted, seeing McGonagall's reluctance to leave Draco alone with an unprotected friend of Harry's. "You've been so fair to us, after all."
Shrieks and shouts from the direction of Gryffindor Tower were now reaching them, and Filch was fairly dancing with impatience, anxious to see the culprits brought to justice and order restored. McGonagall sighed. "Very well. If you finish before I return, just lock the door behind you."
The instant they were alone, Draco flew into action. He shoved back from the table and produced a small silver flask from the pocket of his sweatshirt. Before Luna could ask what it was for, he pointed to a glass-fronted cabinet behind McGonagall's desk and commanded, "I need you to open that."
The cabinet was locked, Luna discovered, not surprising given that it was filled with an assortment of restricted and confiscated items, the majority of them Fred and George Weasley's products, hanging on brass pegs or stacked on small wooden shelves inside. A simple, "Alohomora," proved sufficient to unlock it.
Draco was now unscrewing the lid of the flask and fishing what looked like two black hairs out of a muslin pouch also stowed in his pocket. He paused to order her, "Take out the Time Turner."
The Time Turner – what was something so dangerous as that doing here, at Hogwarts? Luna's hand was already inside the cabinet, but she froze and turned uncertainly back to Draco.
He was ignoring her, intent on his own mysterious work. She couldn't quite manage her usual levity as she remarked, "I thought they kept things like this under lock and key at the Ministry. Terrible things happen to wizards – "
" – who mess with time. Yes, I know," Draco rejoined impatiently. He produced a rusty gold chain from the pouch – Luna wondered what all he had stored in there anyway – and tapped it once with his wand, murmuring an incantation under his breath. The worthless old chain immediately transformed into an exact replica of the Time Turner.
"Take the real one," he instructed her, "and put this one," he slid the fake Time Turner across the desk, "back in the cabinet."
Draco had by then dropped the hairs into the flask. It now bubbled and fumed slightly, giving off a fragrance that reminded Luna of peppermint and broomstick polish. He kept his eyes on hers as she continued to hesitate.
"Do you trust me or not?"
Well, when he put it that way…
Luna snatched the real Time Turner off its peg and hooked the replica in its place. She turned to see Draco grimacing as he chugged the contents of the small flask. In a flash, she understood at least part of what was happening: Draco's jeans, sweatshirt and beat-up trainers, far more casual and ragged than his usual snappy black ensembles; the dark hairs he'd stored; the familiar-looking pair of glasses he'd produced from the little pouch and placed on the desk beside his hawthorn wand – it all made sense, if what was in the flask was what she knew it had to be.
Polyjuice Potion.
Draco Malfoy had no business attacking You-Know-Who's minions. But Harry Potter did. And before Luna's eyes, Draco transformed into The Boy Who Lived.
It would take five turns to bring them back to Friday at the stroke of midnight, eleven hours before the exact moment that Draco and Luna found themselves alone in McGonagall's office. Draco had timed Crabbe and Goyle's disruption (courtesy of a dung bomb modified with the Weasley twins' Peruvian Darkness Powder and a Confundus charm performed on the Fat Lady) so carefully because he needed to know precisely what moment to return them to; as Luna had pointed out, meddling with time was a dangerous business, and Draco had spent considerable effort calculating exactly how far to take them back.
Five turns would give them eleven hours to sneak out of Hogwarts, enter Hogsmeade village, travel from there to the Malfoy's mansion, attack one of Voldemort's most dangerous henchmen, and get back before McGonagall returned to find them gone, their work unfinished. It was imperative that they arouse no suspicions, that no one have any idea he and Luna had not been in McGonagall's office the entire morning. They had to be right where she had left them, innocent as lambs, for McGonagall to find.
Luna looked blurry standing beside McGonagall's desk, holding the Time Turner on its long golden chain. For a moment, Draco thought something might have gone wrong with the potion – he'd never mixed it before – until he remembered the glasses on his desk, the ones he'd swiped from a fifth-year Slytherin boy's backpack and Transfigured to be an exact replica of Potter's. He slipped them into place, and the world (including Luna's unusually tense expression) came instantly into focus.
She smiled. "Now you look like Harry."
Draco shook his head, wondering how in the world she could manage to be so serene when they were about to run headlong into deadly peril.
"Ready?" he asked, slipping the Time Turner's chain around his neck and Luna's. He placed a hand on the small of her back to guide her closer; she stumbled a little, pressing her palms against his chest to steady herself.
Draco wondered fleetingly if it was odd for Luna to stare into Potter's eyes and see someone else – especially Draco, whom Potter believed to be his sworn enemy – looking back at her. He spared a moment to examine his reflection in the glass-fronted cabinet behind her and, though he knew what to expect, couldn't help starting a bit himself. How odd to look in the mirror and see Potter's green eyes, unruly black hair and lightning-shaped scar instead of his own pale features.
The clock was ticking, though, so Draco stopped dawdling and took them back in time.
A Muggle might have compared the sensation of time travel to riding an escalator backwards on fast-forward. Draco just knew it left him feeling giddy and slightly light-headed when, within seconds, he found himself standing in McGonagall's dark, empty office, Luna still clutching the front of his sweatshirt with both hands. Outside, the castle grounds were midnight-black; the clock was just then tolling midnight.
Please with the accuracy of his calculations, Draco left the Time Turner hanging around his neck but dropped it down inside his shirt, hidden from view. "Let's go." He led her out into the silent corridor.
"When is this?" Luna inquired evenly, as if she traveled back in time everyday.
"Last night," he answered.
Luna sounded a little nervous but unafraid. "Won't we get caught?"
Draco shook his head, feeling smug. For five weeks, he'd been sneaking out of bed nearly every night, memorizing the teachers' patrol patterns through the castle. Dumbledore insisted on heightened security now that Voldemort was back in power; the increasing reports of disappearances and murders in The Daily Prophet validated the Headmaster's concern for his students' safety. The teachers took their duty to protect their charges seriously, but they weren't Aurors: They quickly became complacent, walking the same routes at the same time every night. Draco knew exactly which hallways to avoid if they wanted to be unseen by teachers on their way to the Great Hall.
Once there, he hurried between the empty House tables, across the teachers' platform, and through the small, easily-overlooked door to the right. He was certain Luna remembered this place – the pitch-black, cavernous stairwell led to the cave-like room where their journey together had begun during the first week of school.
But that room wasn't their destination tonight. "Lumos," Draco whispered into the darkness, holding his wand aloft. Beside him, Luna did the same, then slipped the fingers of her free hand through Draco's, causing his heart to stumble in his chest.
She's afraid of getting separated, that's all, he told himself sternly. Don't read into it.
Draco supposed the fact that he was momentarily a dead-ringer for Potter might also have something to do with the hand-holding. Under something other than life-or-death circumstances, he might have taken advantage of that.
"Where are we going?" Luna whispered, her voice amplified in the darkness.
"Hogsmeade," Draco replied. He didn't offer further detail, and Luna didn't ask. Either she was more frightened than she let on, too frightened to want details, or she was willing to let his plan unfold one step at a time. That was how Draco preferred it – no need to have her worrying about their target any sooner than the plan absolutely demanded, he reasoned.
Down, down, down they descended, the air growing colder and staler with every step. At last, they came to the bottom – to a solid stone wall.
Luna stared serenely around them. "What now?"
In answer, Draco stepped forward and tapped the wall three times with his wand, sketching an invisible triangle. Immediately, the stones separated, sliding away to reveal another long, straight passage trailing off into blackness.
"Dobby showed me this," Draco explained, seeing Luna's hesitation. "I told him I needed a safe way out of the castle into Hogsmeade. The house-elves go this way sometimes."
Luna shivered. Draco drew her closer to his side, wishing he'd thought to bring their cloaks along – he hadn't anticipated how frigid it would be in the bowels of the castle.
If getting a little chilled is the worst that happens to us tonight, we'll be lucky.
Draco was more frightened than he cared to admit. He was able to move his feet forward by focusing only on the next step in his plan: Once through the tunnel, which took quite a while since they had to go slowly to avoid falling in the oppressive darkness, they had to make it to the Hog's Head Inn, where, if all went according to plan, help would be waiting. If his thoughts moved further ahead than that, Draco found a sheen of cold sweat covering his forehead despite the icy midnight air.
At last, the tunnel, which had been gradually sloping upward for nearly a mile, opened out of a sheer rock wall onto a hill surrounded by a thick stand of trees. Draco and Luna stowed their wands; he went a little ways ahead of her, picking a path down the muddy, tree-lined slope to the rocky path that led into Hogsmeade from the north, stopping now and again to offer Luna his hand so she wouldn't fall. The slope was unfamiliar to them both; the path was an approach to Hogsmeade that Hogwarts students never had any reason to travel. Ahead of them, the town was dark and quiet, just as Draco had hoped to find it, since he couldn't afford to be seen outside of the school.
Luna took his hand again as they threaded their way between the closed shops to the far edge of town. Draco opened the lock on the inn's front door with a flick of his wand. Even the unsavory crowd that frequented the Hog's Head was in bed by this hour. The pub was deserted, the candles cold, the great fireplace glowing with dying embers.
The fireplace was where Draco immediately headed, Luna in tow. At that moment, with a sharp crack! that made both of them jump, Dobby the house-elf appeared beside the hearth.
"Hello, Dobby," Luna greeted the house-elf pleasantly, as if she and Draco were simply out for a midnight stroll.
"Is everything ready, Dobby?" Draco whispered, aware of the innkeeper and guests asleep upstairs.
The little elf nodded, his protuberant eyes troubled. "Dobby has just come from Malfoy Manor, sir, and everything is quiet there."
"Thank you," Draco said, meaning it.
Beside him, Luna suddenly seemed rooted to the floor. "We're going to your house?"
Draco nodded and pulled her closer to the fireplace, but Luna refused to budge. He thought briefly that she must have been worried about him betraying her once they reached his house, where Draco could expect to be safe, but Luna's concern was of an entirely different sort.
"You can't mean to attack your own family." She sounded horrified by the possibility, her unflappable serenity vanished in an instant. "You can't think…No matter what they've done, Harry wouldn't ask you to do that."
Her concern touched Draco, though he didn't let on. Luna's thoughts had gone to the same place Draco's had when he'd first considered how to get close to Potter: Who would Potter want to suffer more than Bellatrax Lestrange, his godfather's murderer and Draco's aunt?
"You should ask Dobby about what my family deserves before you defend them," Draco replied. When Luna folded her arms stubbornly across her chest, prepared to argue the point, he hurried to assure her, "Luna, I'm not after my aunt Bella, or anyone else in my family. I swear."
Not directly, he added silently.
After a beat, Luna nodded her assent. Draco grabbed a handful of Floo Powder out of a small jar atop the hearth. "My father had this fireplace connected to ours when he was first named to the Board of Governors," Draco explained, tossing the powder onto the glowing embers. Instantly, green flames danced over the logs. He cast a sideways glance at Luna, whose pretty face was as grimly determined as he'd ever seen it.
"Keep your wand out."
He saw her grip on the rosewood wand tighten.
"Be careful, friends of Harry Potter," Dobby squeaked, as Draco pulled Luna behind him into the flames.
As the house-elf had reported, the great room of Draco's home was as dark and deserted as the Hog's Head when they stepped out of the hearth, brushing ash off their clothes. Draco motioned for Luna to be absolutely silent. For the moment, so far as Draco knew (and Dobby was an excellent spy), Voldemort was not in his parents' home; had he been, every possible entrance and exit, including the Floo Network, would have been guarded by a Death Eater. But the Malfoys still had plenty of security to be getting on with even when the most evil wizard of all time was not a houseguest. Even with Dobby acting as a look-out for them, Draco half-expected a challenge to issue from the shadows leading into his family's luxurious parlor.
Nothing. They were completely alone.
Satisfied that their appearance had so far gone unremarked, Draco took Luna's hand again – this time out of necessity, since she had no idea where they were going – and pulled her along behind him. They crossed the marble foyer without incident, slipped unnoticed through a side door that led through the kitchens (occupied only by house-elves, all of whom slept in the cellar), and finally stepped out a small door that opened into the gardens.
The clouds parted at that instant, spilling brilliant moonlight over the thick, tangled undergrowth. Draco noted ruefully that his mother's gardening had become somewhat less than stellar of late; her beloved trees, shrubs and flowers were growing wild, obviously untended. He suspected, not without a twinge of pain for his mother's plight, that Narcissa had continued her self-imposed isolation in the far wing of the mansion.
And who could blame her, with only her insane sister and Voldemort's soldiers for company? When this was all over, Draco promised himself, leading Luna along a twisting cobblestone path toward the garden gate, he would see to it that his mother lived somewhere quiet and lovely, with a garden all to herself, far away from the evil and madness that now distorted her world.
Whispers from up ahead brought Draco and Luna up short. He tugged her aside behind a bush heavy with late-autumn roses, their petals carpeting the ground underfoot. He leveled his wand at the path, upon which light footsteps echoed. Luna did the same.
A mad cackle drifted their way. Draco smiled to himself. Aunt Bella – right on schedule.
"If something happens," Draco breathed to Luna, who squatted beside him behind their screen of brown, dying roses, "get back to the Hog's Head. Dobby will be there to take you back to the castle."
Luna titled her head at him, her dreamy air undisturbed one more. Yet her voice was firm when she spoke. "No. We don't leave anyone behind."
By "we," Draco knew she meant Potter's little rabble – Dumbledore's Army, they called themselves. He had no patience for Potter's heroics tonight, though. If he was caught (or worse), he needed to know that Luna wouldn't sacrifice herself to save him. There would be no point in that, no use in them both dying – for the moment the Dark Lord discovered Draco's treachery, Draco would be dead.
"Listen to me," Draco snarled, painfully aware of his aunt's approach. He made his voice as cold and cruel as he possibly could. "I may look like your precious Potter right now, but I'm not. You don't know the things I've done. I'm not worth your life."
"I'm not leaving you here – "
"You're not listening!" Draco fought to keep his voice low. Luckily, his aunt seemed lost in her own dark world, humming and murmuring to herself as she twirled through the moonlit garden. He could see her silhouette now, slowly moving their way. He had only moments left before she would be within earshot.
"You have to listen to me," he insisted, his words come out in a rushing hiss as he opted for a different tactic. "If I'm caught, Voldemort will kill my parents. You can't let that happen. You get out of here, get back to Hogwarts, and have Dobby take you straight to the Headmaster. He'll help them."
Draco sounded more certain of that than he actually felt. He hadn't meant to ask Luna to do this favor for him; he was making this up on the spot, yet as he spoke, he realized that, if it came down to it and he was really captured, his parents' only hope would be Dumbledore's mercy.
"Promise me, Luna." Draco stared hard into her blue eyes, knowing his pleading expression would be even more affecting to her as it was currently etched across Potter's features – earnestness was not an emotion that would have seemed natural on Draco. "Promise me you'll save my parents."
And yourself.
Slowly, her eyes fixed on his, Luna's stubborn gaze softened. "All right," she murmured. "I promise."
"Good." Draco stood up, motioning for her to stay down. Now that the moment of truth was upon him, his earlier nervousness had vanished: He felt remarkably calm.
Winking over his shoulder at Luna, he whispered, "Potter show you how to stun somebody?"
Luna grinned back. "That, and a little more."
"Then let's hope he's a good teacher," Draco quipped, and stepped onto the garden path.
Bellatrix Lestrange screeched in enraged disbelief when Harry Potter suddenly appeared from behind her sister's rosebush.
"You!" she screamed, her wand momentarily forgotten at her side.
"Now!" Draco-Harry cried.
Luna didn't need to be told twice: From her hiding place just a few feet away, she raised her wand, pointed it squarely at Bellatrix's deranged scowl, and cried, "Stupefy!"
The force of the spell knocked the older woman backwards, where she lay prone in the mud, her wild black hair spilling around her head like a pool of blood, her heavy-lidded eyes closed.
Draco-Harry waved for Luna to stay put. She craned her neck to see around the jungle of weeds and flowers between her and the path, to figure out what had him staring so intensely toward the gate.
A moment later, Draco-Harry dropped into the weeds on the other side of the path. That was when Luna heard two sets of footsteps approaching. Someone was whimpering in terror; it sounded like a young girl. Luna tensed.
A hoarse chuckle reached her ears. Someone was thoroughly enjoying the girl's fear.
"Please," the girl sobbed. "Please just let me go. I won't tell anyone, just, please let me go!"
"Now, now," a strange, raspy voice growled. "No need to struggle, pretty girl. Just a little further now."
Luna glanced at Draco-Harry, hunkering beside a small tree with burgundy leaves. He caught her eye and put a finger to his lips, then mouthed, Wait.
"Bella! Oh, Bellatrix!" the man called in a sing-song voice. His words were laced with barely-suppressed violence. "Come out, come out, wherever you are, Bellatrix! Do you want to watch me play or not?" The girl sobbed harder.
The footsteps drew nearer until Luna could see the speaker, though his face was hidden in shadow. He was a tall, powerfully-built man. His clothes were soiled and greasy, like they hadn't been washed in months; she couldn't imagine Draco's mother allowing this creature inside her pristine mansion. But the man's beggar-like appearance wasn't the strangest thing about him: His hands, Luna noted with a shiver of revulsion, were grotesquely covered in thick black hair, almost like fur. The fingers of one of those claw-like hands were clamped around the hair of a terrified teenage girl. Luna thought the man's victim had to be a Muggle, given that she was wearing a jacket with the college name "Oxford" emblazoned across the front. She looked tiny compared to the giant man.
Luna's wand-hand twitched, her instincts telling her to protect the helpless girl, but Draco's instructions held her motionless in place.
Wait, he had said. And she had promised to trust him.
Overhead, the thick cloud cover suddenly parted, bathing the garden in light from a full orange moon so bright it might have been daytime. As the man's face finally came into view, Luna gasped.
The countenance was horrifyingly familiar from countless Ministry "Most Wanted" posters Luna had seen over the years. No doubt about it – the man in Draco's garden was the werewolf Fenrir Greyback.
She saw Greyback's eyes sweeping the garden in search of Bellatrix, who remained stunned just around the next corner. As soon as he spotted his fallen comrade, the game would be up – Greyback would know enemies were near.
Luna's heart stuttered to a stop. What in the world was Draco thinking? Didn't he realize that tonight was a full moon?
She had only a moment to be terrified before the werewolf threw his head back toward the moon and issued forth a bone-chilling howl.
The clock above the fireplace in the Headmaster's office chimed midnight. Dumbledore, his back to the room, gazed out the window across the castle grounds. The clouds suddenly parted to reveal a reddish-orange orb reflected on the inky lake.
"A Harvest moon," he murmured to himself.
Dumbledore sensed two pairs of eyes boring into his back but did not turn to look at his guests. Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape remained seated before the cheerily roaring fire. The tense silence in the room had stretched on for some time, but finally, unable to contain herself any longer, McGonagall burst out, "But it's suicide, Albus! To attack a werewolf at a full moon – there aren't even words for such foolishness! We should go after them, bring them back before…"
She trailed off, unable to voice what might happen if Draco Malfoy and Luna Lovegood truly confronted Fenrir Greyback on this night.
"If Draco fails to do what Voldemort has ordered him to do," Dumbledore reminded her quietly, "he will die anyway."
McGonagall spluttered, "But it doesn't have to come to that, surely. This can't be a matter of your life or the boy's. We could hide him, and his parents, if necessary."
Snape put in silkily, "The Headmaster and I have already had this discussion, Minerva. He believes we should let Draco be…useful," he hesitated over the word, causing a wry smile to twist unseen across Dumbledore's lined face, "for as long as possible."
"Useful? He's a boy!" McGonagall's voice shot up an octave. Fawkes hooted disapprovingly from his perch. "Albus, you can't seriously intend to let him be killed."
"Severus is not the only one who has sworn to protect Draco," Dumbledore declared firmly, his tone tabling any further question of his concern for Draco's well-being. "I consider the life of every student in this school my personal responsibility."
Undeterred, McGonagall pressed, "Then you can't possibly let him continue with this madness. In all likelihood, Mr. Malfoy is marching himself – and Miss Lovegood – straight into an ambush!"
"Severus assures me that Voldemort is quite unaware of Draco's plans."
"Even so," McGonagall protested, "there's simply no way two underage wizards can hope to take on that-that monster Fenrir Greyback." Nearly beside herself with worry, she stood and began to pace back and forth in front of the fire.
Snape remained seated, smirking a little as McGonagall repeated all of the arguments he had already unsuccessfully made in the past few weeks, once Draco's plans had become clear.
Dumbledore shook his head. "You forget the deeds Luna Lovegood has already accomplished, Minerva. And as I've told Severus, Draco is not without talent. Far from it."
"Luna is brave, no question about that, but as I recall she and her friends only survived the Death Eaters' attack at the Ministry because the Order rescued them. And as for Draco Malfoy…" McGonagall snorted derisively. "Not to be cruel, Albus, but I've taught the boy for six years. He's bright, certainly, but not what I would call 'talented.'"
"Ah, but a good student such as yourself, Minerva, is likely to overlook the fact that not everyone chooses to show his best abilities in the classroom."
McGonagall huffed, considering that. After a moment, however, a spark of understanding lit her eyes, and she gaped at Dumbledore's back. Snape's smirk deepened; he seemed to enjoy watching someone else be talked around to revelations Dumbledore had already brought him to.
"You mean…that is…he can…" McGonagall shook her head, disbelieving. "But honestly, Albus, he's never shown a scrap of talent in Transfiguration classes. He can barely turn a teacup into a stopwatch – "
"Yet somehow," Snape interrupted smoothly, "he received an 'Outstanding' in his O.W.L.s for Transfiguration."
McGonagall thought their arguments over, her pace slowing until she was standing still again. Finally, her voice far less authoritative, she insisted, "It couldn't be done in secret. We would have known."
Dumbledore spoke up at that. "It wasn't so long ago that four young men managed to keep such a secret from us. Or have you forgotten about Monsieurs Padfoot, Prongs, Moony and Wormtail?"
McGonagall dropped back into her chair, defeated.
"It's still dangerous, of course," Snape commented, leaning forward to brace his elbows on his knees. McGonagall nodded wearily in agreement. "Werewolves are vicious creatures, obviously, and Greyback is," Snape searched for the appropriate word, "unique in his appetites."
"I didn't say what Draco intends to do is without danger," Dumbledore pointed out patiently. "I only said that I believe he can succeed, and that we should give him the chance to try."
Snape accepted that. "What I would like to know," he switched tactics to address another point of contention between himself and the Headmaster, "is how you've discovered so much about Draco's plans."
Dumbledore smiled to himself again, watching Snape's reflection in the dark window. He sensed some sourness on Snape's part that Draco had chosen not to confide in his Head of House.
"You're not my only spy in Hogwarts castle, my old friend." Snape grunted at the reminder of his traitorous status. "Draco is very careful about whom he talks to, but he can't accomplish something of this magnitude without help. And I have seen to it that he has the very best help possible."
At that instant, a sharp crack! echoed through the office, and Dobby the house-elf appeared beside the Headmaster's desk. Whipping the tea-cozy off his bald head and twisting it between his hands, the little elf reported solemnly, "Mr. Draco Malfoy and Miss Luna Lovegood have departed for Malfoy Manor, Headmaster."
Dumbledore beamed at his clever spy. "Thank you, Dobby," he said earnestly. "You'll let me know when it's finished?"
The house-elf nodded and Disapparated with another loud pop. In the sudden silence, Dumbledore pressed his fingers to the glass and stared up at the enormous moon.
"All we can do now," he murmured, speaking mostly to himself, "is wait."
A/N: A few of you have asked why I am not just re-posting the entire story at once. I am trying to do a little polishing as I go! And it is a slow process, while I am marketing my own original fic. But I promise the whole story will be up eventually!