Hermoine glanced at Draco over her section of The Daily Prophet.

"Did you hear Ronald Weasley just quit the Aurors to play second string Keeper with the Harriers?" He didn't raise his head from the business section, merely grunted.

"Really? I didn't think you really followed Quidditch, especially the semi professional teams."

"I don't, I happened to be talking to Arthur over the floo. He mentioned that you and Ronald had managed to inadvertently end the blood feud, and get him a tryout. I wonder how that conversation came about."

"Weasley was always a decent player, and I imagine the tricks he learned in Auror school must have served decently well. At least that's one annoying part of the puzzle we no longer have to deal with."

"True enough. I don't suppose you would like to tell me what you and he were together talking about in the first place?"

"Not especially, no."

She slapped the paper out from in front of his face and drummed her fingers on the table. "Out with it." He sighed.

"Must we have this conversation now?"

"We must unless you want to find those ever so unobtrusive bodyguards that have been following me the last four days in a heap in the foyer with an entanglement charm on them so strong they won't get up for a week."

"Dammit."

"Really, I was a spy too Draco, I know when I'm being followed." He set the paper down with a snap and carefully placed his glasses on top of it, glaring at her. She glared right back.

"It's for your own protection. The Aurors have been talking about bringing you in for questioning." She snorted inelegantly.

"So what? Let them question me, we haven't done anything wrong or remotely illegal." He slammed a hand down on the tabletop, and Hermoine's eyes widened as, unconsciously aided by magic, the force of it cracked the thick wood. He looked down and cursed quietly, his jaw muscles jumping. Taking a deep breath he passed a hand over the table and the crack repaired itself seamlessly. "Hermoine, this isn't some little interview where they stick you in a room and try to trip you up verbally. This is true interrogation."

"You can't tell me they're using Veritaserum, that's ridiculous, it would be prohibitively expensive, not to mention being a complete breach of wizards rights."

"No, they're not using Veritaserum, they're using torture," he said bluntly. "They're doing openly in the Aurors now, and it's approved by the Ministry. That's why Weasley came to see me, to warn me that he, they are going to try to get to me through you." Her eyes narrowed and he knew he hadn't covered his slip well enough.

"You said he, Draco. Who? Shackelbolt? Grimsley? Brown?" He hadn't even heard of the last two and wondered for a moment what she'd done to antagonize them before deciding that was probably something he didn't want to know at all but would have to find out about later, just in case.

"No, not them. For the love of Merlin, Hermoine, think about it. Why would Weasley come to me, of all people?" Her face fell, and he knew she knew, but hadn't wanted to believe it.

"It's Harry, isn't it? Ron knew I wouldn't want to believe it, so he went to you." He shrugged.

"What did you expect after the ball? You still believe too much in some people, love." She raised her head, and he saw the disillusion in her eyes.

"You might as well tell me the rest of it." He spoke steadily for several minutes, not attempting to embellish or detract from the story Ron had told him, or his own observations during the meeting. She listened, and he wasn't surprised when he saw her tears, but he didn't try to comfort her either. This was a hard lesson to learn, he was fortunate, he had learned it when he was barely able to walk, she had maintained her illusions for far too long. As he finished telling her the last he held up a hand and a thick file settled onto it. She was becoming so used to his casual magic that her eyes didn't even alight on it until he handed it to her.

"I will admit, I wasn't even sure that it could be quite as bad as Weasley made it out to be, so I had a bit of independent investigation done. You might want to skip the photos and just read the report. It's not pretty."

"I need to know all of it. I need to see if there is any way to get him back, if it's a spell, or maybe a Dark artifact…" she was grasping at straws and she knew it. Worse, she knew he knew it, too.

"It's not love, not in that way at least. I know about the Horcrux hunt the three of you went on in seventh year. You thought the last one was Nagini, the snake, yes?" She nodded, but he only shook his head.

"So did He, at first. But everyone was wrong. Harry was the last one, that's why his body had to die, at least for a short time, to sever the connection between his soul and Voldemorts. Dumbledore suspected that it might be something like that, so did Severus. The thing is, any object that is used for a Dark purpose can begin to take on the Dark itself. Hence the cursed ring that was slowly killing Dumbledore. The irony is, by the time Harry became the last of the Horcruxes Riddle didn't even realize what happened, there was so little of his soul left. But that kind of Dark leaves a mark far deeper than any tattoos you and I carry."

"So you think living his whole life as a sentient Horcrux…"

"It corrupted him, yes. Maybe if he hadn't become an Auror it would have been slower, or maybe not happened at all, I don't know. Riddle was furious when he found out. He had been planning to take a new body shortly, one better suited to his new plans. That delay while he planned to resolve the Harry situation was the lull where I told the Order they had to attack." Her eyes widened in understanding. No one had understood at the time why Draco had so heatedly insisted that they attack, they were not dug in or prepared properly, but he had said the Dark Lord would be more distracted then than any other time and they had trusted him. And Voldemort had been killed. It astonished her still that even after all that he had been punished.

"Is there more? Is part of Riddle still in him?" He shook his head, relieved that she had taken that tack with her questions.

"No, the soul fragment truly is gone, it was left in the void where it belongs. It just doesn't matter all that much anymore, Harry has embraced the Dark it left behind."

"That's why Ginny left him," she said woodenly. "She said Harry hit her. I tried to think maybe thy just got into one of their worse rows and it escalated, but it didn't, did it?" He shook his head.

"It started like that, as do most things, but the records from St Mungo's show it was most of a year before she became frightened that he would start on the children and left with them. Concussions, broken wrist, broken jaw, broken ribs twice; it's so easy to do," he said reflectively. "When you have so much power, and so much anger, you lash out and you don't realize how hard you hit until it's too late. And the worst part is, when it releases all that anger it feels so good, so freeing, you don't realize that what you did is wrong unless you force yourself to really look at your actions. Do you know how hard it is to learn remorse?" She shook her head, fascinated at the small look she was getting into the mindset of a true Dark Wizard before his redemption.

"Was it so difficult? Didn't you have any empathy for those you hurt?" he looked far away.

"No, not really. It wasn't about them, you see, it was about me. I was the only thing that mattered. Everyone else was just pawns. As long as I felt good I didn't see the problem."

"When did it change?" he chuckled sardonically.

"Oddly enough, it started when a certain unsufferable know it all cast a reversion charm on me in fourth year right before Christmas holiday." She gasped, remembering that charm. She had been so furious with him as he reduced a group of second years to tears with his damned sarcastic mouth. She hadn't even thought about what to hex him with, it had just come out. She had cast a hex that allowed him to experience the exact emotions and physical symptoms he engendered in his victims. It was a damned complex piece of magic, and wickedly effective. "It made me see, in the most basic way, how what I said and did effected others. It was more than sobering. It took a long time, a lot of introspection and some fairly heavy research, but slowly I developed remorse, then a conscience, and when that was fully formed, that's when I realized that I couldn't ever really be a Death Eater. That's the night I went to Dumbledore and begged for a way out."

"A way that you never really got, did you?" he shrugged.

"It was atonement, wasn't it? I deserved that and more. But that's neither here nor there now. We were talking about Potter. I think he has begun the reverse of the journey I went on. He began to stop caring, and now enjoys what he does as a release of whatever is festering inside him. If you ask me that's a harder one to cure. I did what I did because I didn't understand what it did to others. He does it with the full knowledge of it and either doesn't care, or actually likes it."

"In other words, he's gone mad." He shook his head.

"No love, he's perfectly rational, if you think anything else you will underestimate him completely. He's simply changed."

"But if he wants me, he'll simply come and take me in and to hell with your bully boys, so what's the point?"

"Eye witnesses and a warning system," he said. "I have to know when he makes his move so I can come for you. I might be the only one who is willing to fight him."

"He'll kill you. You were evenly matched in school, and you've been out of it for ten years while he's been fighting almost constantly, how could you possibly beat him now?" He debated for a moment. If he told her then he would lose the final secret he had. If he didn't she would have no way to sleep soundly at night. He would tell her what she needed to hear, he thought, anything else was dangerous.

"Moine, I know you and he were mates back then, and you believed he was practically a god. He was the Chosen One, the Boy Who Lived, the walking miracle, the salvation of the wizarding world. But the fact is a prophecy does not a cunning wizard make. He is strong, I grant you, perhaps even stronger than Dumbledore, though without the experience. But he still lacks subtlety, and he's not sneaky enough. He also can't use wandless magic from what I have seen, in fact I don't know that he realizes it can exist in a higher form. That sort of ignorance makes him weak. The element of surprise is an incredible advantage, as is the fact that you are never restrained to the point that you can't cast."

She had seen him in battle, seen him throw curses that no one recognized afterward, but the results of which were, vile. It seemed that there was more than one sort of killing curse in the world, the only differences were how long it took death to come and how painful it was. She suspected he knew far more than he had ever showed anyone, even Voldemort. Curses likely learned at his fathers knee. Years ago she would have been appalled at his ability and willingness to kill. Now it simply made her feel safe. Still…

"Just promise me you won't kill him, Draco. He's sick, but he's still Harry."

"No." His reply was flat, cold, and steady. "He is dangerous and if it comes down to killing him to protect you he's a dead man."

"Draco, dammit, they'll give you the Kiss!"

"I think not. Precautions have already been taken for certain circumstances like this. It's under control."

"I hate it when you make pronouncements like that."

"You would like it far less, I think, if I decided to share the details of these precautions with you either beforehand or informed you when not necessary. You will have to learn to trust me eventually."

"I do trust you, that is not the point." He smiled, and she cursed under her breath. "Yes, I trust you. You needn't be so smug about it. You trust me as well."

"Mmmm, but I have far more reason than you do. If I can make even you trust me the rest of the world cannot be far behind."