Hi All. Here is a new chapter. Reviews are very welcome.

Previously… "Malfoy, I think you have some explaining to do!"

Chapter 23

All eyes were focused on him and Draco inwardly sighed. He hated explaining himself but knew he would not get out of it this time. "What do you want to know, Potter?" he asked in a bored voice.

Harry gritted his teeth, "We want to know what happened," he grounded out trying to compose himself. His resolve, however, did not last long and he abandoned his attempts of staying calm, blurting out the next words in a rant. "While announcing UAW you were supposed to talk about the ball, Hogwarts division into Houses, and that magic was just magic, not to be divided into a light and a dark one. That was what we agreed on. But instead, you went off and announced an attack on Hogwarts Express and then portkeyed the whole school to the Diagon Alley. And we want to know, firstly, if the attack is true and if it is, why, the hell, had not you told us beforehand?"

Under the accusatory tone, the Slytherin's expressions hardened and his mouth turned into a thin line. In the moments like this Draco really wanted to curse himself into oblivion for ever agreeing to work with Gryffindors in general and Potter in particular. He shot a covert glance at Hermione and saw her staring at him intently, her expression forcibly blank. All he wanted was to talk to her without all these people around but that would have to wait. He sighed inwardly and tried to keep his rising temper under control.

"The information about the attack is true," he replied curtly, "and the reason I talked about it was because you had been right, Potter." He paused enjoying the effects of his words on the audience and the startled look on the Gryffindor's face. "You were right," he continued, "when you said that a ball would not be enough to sway people's opinions. A little show of magic and a speech about what's wrong with Hogwarts rules and perceptions were all nice and well but it would not deliver the impact we needed."

Ernie was about to interrupt but the Slytherin lifted his hand, "No, let me finish. We are trying to fight hundreds of years of traditions and prejudice. We are also going against established powers that had ruled the wizardian world for many decades and on top of it all we are pressed for time. So in order to get anywhere, we had to deliver a bombshell and that's what this announcement did. Tomorrow it will be in all the papers, it will be discussed in every living room and when we go in trying to get support for UAW, we would stand a much better chance." He stopped for a second and then looked straight at Hermione. "And the reason I did not tell you all about it was because we could not risk somebody else finding out."

A momentary silence followed his words.

"Are you implying that one of us is a traitor?" Ernie exclaimed his face quickly turning bright red, "How dare you!"

Draco rolled his eyes, "I am not implying anything, McMillan. It's a simple fact that some of us are not just members of UAW," his gaze turned to Hermione and Harry. "And I did not want them to start questioning where their primary loyalties lay."

Harry could not keep his mouth shut any longer, "So you basically did not tell us about Voldermot's plan to attack Hogwarts Express, because you were scared we were going to tell the Order?!" he shouted.

"What did you expect, Potter?" Draco retorted sharply. "I knew you would have wanted to tell Dumbledore and as I explained earlier, the Order would have wanted to capture as many Death Eaters as possible, it would have been another blood bath. And UAW would have achieved nothing!!!"

"But they were planning on killing innocent students," Harry yelled, "they deserved to be captured. And what you did just helped them escape so they could maim and kill somewhere else."

Draco's face turned stone cold, "That's exactly why I did not tell you, Potter. This is where you and me are different. You see the whole war as black and white but I am not a Gryffindor and nor am I a member of the Order of the Phoenix. My aim is to bring peace and prosperity to the wizardian world. With any means necessary. That's what I agreed to with you and Granger when we started this whole thing. I did not promise to be a spy for the Order and I did not promise to deliver Death Eaters to the Ministry on a silver platter. So please spare me your rightful indignation."

He glared at Harry who returned his gaze just as heatedly and was about to retort, when Hermione stopped him.

"That's enough, Harry," she said quietly. And when he gave her a shocked look added hastily, "We don't have time for this conversation, at least not now, we need to join the others before we are missed and people start asking questions. We'll meet later and can have all discussions we want, but not now." She pulled out of her pocket six coins, "These are our personalised portkeys, they won't work for anybody else and will be able to take us to only one place, a flat in Muggle London. Tomorrow night, 11 pm."

She quickly distributed the coins, avoiding looking at either Draco or Harry.

"What kind of flat is it?" Blaise asked.

"It's my grandmother's," Ernie replied quickly, "She is bed ridden and I visit her quite often during the holidays. Nobody would notice us there."

Everybody nodded. "OK, then," Hermione turned to the door. "Harry and I will go first, then Ernie and Luna with Blaise and Draco being last." She turned to leave but was caught when Draco spoke up.

"Granger!" she whirled around forcing herself to look him in the face. His expression was unreadable but his eyes were fixed on her intensely. "You dropped this," he was handing her a lacy handkerchief, which had been part of her costumer.

She took it, her fingers brushing his. He was still staring at her and almost against her will she gave him a shaky smile before following Harry to the door.

Already on the stairs she opened the handkerchief and saw a tiny piece of parchment with 3 words written on it.

"2 hours, HMV"

XXXX

"You gotta be kidding yourself, Hermione, if you think I'll let you go on your own to meet him," Harry fumed as he sat on a bed in her room.

"Harry," she gave him an annoyed look, "it's not dangerous, I am going to talk to him and will be back within an hour."

"But what if…" he started but the Gryffindor girl interrupted him impatiently.

"Do you honestly think he would hurt me?"

Even in his rage against the Slytherin, the Boy-Who-Lived shook his head, "No…" he replied reluctantly.

"Exactly," Hermione continued with her preparations, digging out Muggle money from her purse.

"But still," her friend continued, "I mean, aren't you mad at him? He lied to us, to you, and did not even feel guilty about it."

Hermione stiffened and Harry fell silent, suddenly feeling guilty. "Sorry," he muttered.

"That's OK," she returned to her previous task. "You are right, I am mad and hurt and so many other things... But Harry, he is my soul mate! And no matter what he's done, it does not change the fact that I love him. And if he asks me to meet him, I will. Just like you would have, if it had been Fleur."

He did not have an argument against this and just watched silently as she gave herself one last look in the mirror and pocketed her wand. "Now, I am going to leave and you should go downstairs and distract Molly. Tell her I went to sleep because I was upset over what'd happened."

With these words she took off her shoes, put on an invisibility clock and left. It did not take her long to get to the HMV store. When she walked in, she saw Draco already there, he was flicking through the CDs but his eyes were glued to the entrance. When he saw her, she could see relief washing over his face.

He approached her in a few quick strides, "I am glad you came." He nodded to the Starbucks upstairs and she followed him.

"Did you really think I would not?" she asked a frown creasing her forehead.

He half turned to her his eye roaming her figure. "No," he hesitated for a moment, "but I was not completely sure."

In silence they proceed up the stairs and ordered their drinks. When they sat down, Hermione concentrated on mixing her coffee leaving it to Draco to begin the conversation. "I don't have much time," he started and when she lifted her questioning eyes to him explained, "Dumbledore and the Ministry had already started an investigation of what happened and the Dark Lord had been informed. He is furious and had ordered Severus to find out who stood behind UAW and how did they learn about his plan."

Hermione's heart sank. "How could he find out so soon?" she asked alarmed.

Draco gave her a confused look, "Because I told him."

"You?" it was Hermione's turn to look puzzled.

"Well, of course," he replied, "It was the first thing I did after getting out of the Diagon Alley. Both Blaise and I portkeyed straight to the Dark Lord's Head Quarters to report and Severus was not far behind."

Looking at her horrified face he shook his head, "Hermione, I am his spy. He would have found out anyway. If I did not tell him straight away, it would only raise suspicion."

She knew that he was right but the thought that he willingly went to Voldermot, made her sick in her stomach. "So what' going to happen now?" she asked trying to push the notion out of her head.

Draco shrugged, "We continue according to our plan. And try to be extra careful."

At his words her face clouded as she remembered the reason she was here, "Well, that's a bit difficult considering most of us don't know what this plan is anymore."

For a second their eyes clashed and then his face softened, "You want an explanation why I did no tell you about the attack?"

She snorted, "How perceptive of you!" Hermione could not hide bitterness in her voice and when he raised an eyebrow at her, she exploded. "Of course, I want an explanation, Draco. I want to know why on earth did you not tell me?! I thought we were supposed to be soul mates and all."

Draco sighed, "It was not because I did not trust you," he said carefully.

"Oh, great," she could not contain her indignation, "so why was it then?! Was it because you did not want me to lie to Harry again?" Her words dripped with sarcasm, "Or were you just concerned that my honest Gryffindor soul would break from the pressure of such knowledge?"

This time he had the decency to look guilty, "It was a bit of both, I suppose," he muttered.

"Fantastic," Hermione forced a fake smile on her lips. "Now I can see how much this whole soul mate thing means to you."

"Don't say that," his grey eyes flashed.

"And why should I not?" she retorted, "You told me that we would have no secrets from each other and at the same time for the last 3 weeks you had been lying to me. You purposefully pushed me away, kept me at arms length, so I could not read your emotions and find out that you were hiding something. That's not what soul mates do. Or were you planning on always keeping it one way affair, with me pledging myself to you and you choosing when it would be convenient to be honest or when you would like to keep your privacy, thank you very much."

With every word she could see anger growing in his eyes, but she was too hurt to care.

"It's not like that and you know it," he hissed lowly. "Yes, I lied to you and yes, I kept you at arms length. But I had a good reason for that. I've seen what lying to Potter does to you. It had nearly eaten you alive until we finally told him and when he did not react favourably, you almost broken down. I did not want to put you through this again."

She was about to interrupt him, but he lifted his hand affectively stopping her, "But this is not the main reason." He paused and took a deep breath. "I did not know until the very end that the Dark Lord would buy my idea."

He was looking straight in her eyes and watched them widen when the realisation hit her. For a minute she sat speechless, her eyes fixed on his face hoping for a sign that she misunderstood him. "Your idea?" she finally found her voice again. "To attack Muggleborn students on the Hogwarts Express?"

He nodded, "Yes, I stole a list containing the names of all Muggleborn students from the Headmaster's office and passed it to the Dark Lord. And then suggested that Hogwarts Express would be the best place to get them all at once."

She felt her head spinning, her breathing became ragged as she gripped the sides of table fighting to remain calm. "Why…" she stammered, "why did you do this?"

He tried to look nonchalant but it was not easy under her gaze. His impassionate mask broke and he looked into her eyes pleading for her to understand. "Because we needed something big for the UAW launch and because I needed to get the Dark Lord off my back. He was getting more and more angry with the lack of progress in my other mission and since I was not going to deliver any time soon I had to come up with something else that would keep him occupied for a while."

For a minute she stayed silent, struggling to take everything in. It was so overwhelming that at the end she'd given up and asked the first question that was on her mind, "But Draco, what if something had gone wrong and the students did get on the Hogwarts Express?"

"I would have alerted the Order after the ball," he replied tersely.

"Giving them what, a couple of hours to prepare?" she shot and saw his face turning cold.

"No risk, no gain," his calm reply made her shiver.

"Don't you dare!" she whispered at him furiously. "We are talking about children here. Fair enough the older students could try and defend themselves but the train would be full with 1st and 2nd years. There could have been a blood bath there."

"Well, there wasn't one," he shot back. "Everything worked out fine. Everybody's is safe."

"But you did not know it would be like that."

Draco's eyes flashed with anger, "That's exactly why I did not tell you," his voice was quiet but she could hear a well hidden frustration in it. "Because you would have been all up in arms and would not let me go through with this." His cold grey eyes glittered with determination as he continued, "I warned you before that I was not going to play by your rules. Hell, it was the reason you came to me in the first place, because I was not afraid to fight dirty and take risks. I told you it would be hard and we would need to make difficult decisions. This was just the first step. There would be so many more and trust me it's only going to get worse. And I have enough on my plate already with having to fool the Dark Lord and keep Dumbledore off my back. I can't fight you as well."

TBC..