A/N- Thanks to everyone who has reviewed/favourited/followed this story! It's so amazing to see the great feedback and also thanks to Nina for betaing this!

Chapter Twenty Five

Neville had pulled through and by the time his nine days were up, he'd managed to recruit almost one hundred Order members. It seemed as though the members were looking for something new to come along and take them away from the place. Dumbledore had died on Neville's second day of recruitment and from that point, the Order fell to shambles.

Hermione was absolutely shocked that Bill, Charlie and Fred Weasley had agreed to join them after everything that Hermione and Draco had done in the past. Neville had told them that everything made sense and it wasn't really the Malfoys who had killed their brother. While it was their bodies, it wasn't really their actions. The brothers demanded to see proof; once Hermione had shown them her memories of everything that had taken place compared to what she thought was actually happening, they accepted it and moved into the castle.

Hogwarts was their headquarters. As new members continued to move into the castle Hermione was forced to reinstate the wards to keep Tom out. She couldn't leave the castle and everyone living there vulnerable for a surprise visit from Tom himself.

In addition to the Weasley brothers, Neville had also managed to bring over Dean Thomas, Oliver Wood – someone Hermione wasn't even aware was in the Order, Angelina Johnson, Lee Jordan and at least twenty other former Gryffindor students Hermione knew from her time at school.

He'd brought Zacharias Smith, Wayne Hopkins, Benjamin McEwan, Annabel Entswhistle and many more Hufflepuffs who were beyond Hermione's time at school – both older and younger students.

Neville hadn't managed to rope in many Ravenclaws – that had been mostly Luna's doing as most of them had managed to remain neutral throughout the nonsensical war. She'd convinced Felicity Eastchurch, Marcus Belby, Cho Chang, Isobel MacDougal, Sue Li and a handful of students that Hermione and Draco both recognized from school.

Both Luna and Neville had had the foresight to ask those who were joining them to bring along their elves, so they now had at least thirty elves there to help take care of the castle. Hermione was doubly happy, as this meant added protection for the elves.

Plenty of adults had made the switch as well, and Hermione was as shocked and delighted to see most of them as they were nervous and wary to see her, Draco, and their close friends. Everyone seemed willing to listen to them, though, and that was really all that they could ask for.

Narcissa and Lucius took the information they'd learned from the journals better than either Draco or Hermione had expected. Lucius immediately knew that he'd need to return to his post and pretend that nothing had happened – he needed to secure his new job as Minister and try to stall Tom on passing any outrageous laws until they could deal with the monster.

Narcissa had decided to stay behind at the castle and Lucius was going back with the story that she just wanted to spend some time with her son and daughter-in-law before the next major skirmish or raid took them into danger.

Draco had told Lucius to flee the moment Tom realized he wasn't able to get onto the castle grounds, so he wasn't murdered on the spot for treason. Lucius said he'd do his best to keep Tom distracted without giving his younger members too much thought – he was also going to keep his eye out for young couples and send them Draco's way so they could perform the bonding ceremony and help them open their eyes.

Hermione, Draco, Blaise, Theo, Ginny, Neville and Luna were all standing on the raised dais of the Great Hall, hundreds of eyes watching their every move as they explained everything they could to the group of people in order for them to understand why everything was changing.

"I want to be able to show everyone our memories but I'm afraid I haven't quite figured out how to project them the way I want to so everyone can view them at once instead of a couple people at a time. That would just take way too long and we're running out of time."

"Hermione?" she heard a voice call from the back. She squinted her eyes and the owner of the voice waved her hand in the air.

"Isobel! Hi!"

"I think I know how to project the memories. I've been working on it for a few months for the Order and only just cracked it a few days ago."

"Wonderful! Would you mind coming up here and helping?"

Isobel MacDougal made her way through the crowd and joined her at the top of the dais. She conjured a device from thin air that had a funnel on the top and strange substance in the middle. "You pour the memories into this funnel and this slows it down so it's not pouring right through onto the ground," she explained, pointing to each piece of the device as she spoke about it. "This part that looks like a large water droplet is actually the projection piece – it will play everything out on the opposite wall so everyone can watch the memories at once."

"Wicked," Draco breathed, looking at the contraption in awe.

Isobel summoned a large white sheet and stuck it to the opposite wall with a strong sticking charm.

"Everyone may want to take a seat," Hermione called out to the crowd. "There are quite a few memories to review and it will take a while!"

The hall filled with noise as the benches were pulled from beneath the tables below them, they were scraped against the stone floor loudly as everyone settled in to watch the memories.

/

"Everyone believes us," Draco said in awe after their meeting was concluded. Hermione had never expected the entire group of people to believe their story and help them out, but it seemed that everyone wanted so badly to believe in something good that it wasn't too hard to transition their feelings.

Especially after everyone witnessed her rape by Ron Weasley and her subsequent treatment by Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore.

She'd been shocked and moved to tears as, over the next day, friends had approached to offer sympathy, support, or vow vengeance. Although Draco hadn't cried, of course, she knew he was just as appreciative. He squeezed her hand as she sat down at the table and pushed in her chair. She looked around the faces of those she and Draco considered their 'Inner Council,' and had a sudden thought that took her breath away.

"Neville," Hermione said, swivelling in her seat toward her friend, "where's Harry?"

Draco's eyebrows drew together upon hearing those words, wondering why his wife was worried about that stupid wanker.

"I have no idea. I haven't seen him for almost a week."

"He wasn't at headquarters of the Order while you were recruiting people?"

"No. He left after Dumbledore died, immediately after, and no one has seen him since. I know you know that our headquarters changed from Grimmauld Place but Harry was stationed with Dumbledore in one of the safehouses. I guess a few of our elders received a patronus from Harry and rushed to their house but Harry was already gone and Dumbledore was already dead when they arrived."

Hermione turned and faced Draco head on.

"That's weird," she said, one of her eyebrows lifting slightly. "What do you think happened?" she asked Neville, turning to him again.

"I think Dumbledore died and Harry freaked out and left."

"Maybe," Hermione said quietly. Draco could tell that Hermione's brain was working at a million miles a minute but he had no idea what she was thinking about.

"I want to speak to him," she said suddenly.

"No, Hermione," Draco said immediately. He'd never let her go anywhere near that twisted fucker if he had anything to do with it. "You know what he's said and done to you in the past – you know what Neville and Ginny overheard him saying about you – there's no way."

"I need to, Draco. Something has happened. No one has seen him or heard from him in over a week and regardless what you or I feel about him… he's the one that needs to end this."

"Let us talk to him then, Hermione," Theo said after a moment. He didn't want his friend going anywhere near Harry Potter either.

"I need to be there," she insisted, getting annoyed. She wasn't some dainty little girl who couldn't take care of herself. "You think anything is going to go smoothly if you guys go there without me?! He might hate me, but at least he used to consider me a friend."

"Let me go, then," Neville said, jumping in.

"No," Hermione almost yelled. "I need to be there! I'm going, and that's that. We need Harry on our side. We need him to finish this. I know everyone is disgusted with him right now, but we still need him here."

Draco sighed. "It's true that if we want to finish this then we need Potter to do the honours. We've looked into the prophecy as best as we could from here and it does seem as though only one can kill the other. Tom lied to his Death Eaters about everything that happened when Potter was a baby so we had no idea about the fact that it would have to come down to Tom and Potter but… yeah. We need the tosser."

"We do," Hermione said. "I know I can help to get him to join us, Draco! Let's just you and I go, I'm sure they'll be able to hold the castle down for a day or two while we're gone."

"You don't even know where he's gone to," Blaise pointed out. "He could be anywhere."

"He could be, but I also know Harry better than anyone else here and he's already been run out of Grimmauld Place and his back-up safe house. Harry likes familiarity and I know for a fact that his aunt and uncle have not returned to their house… or hadn't by the time I left the Order."

"They haven't returned," Neville filled in. "They were given a rather nice house when the Order moved them all those years ago, and have refused to leave because they feel much more prestigious than they did in their own home. The Order figured it wasn't worth the argument with Voldemort still out there wreaking havoc on everything, so they let them stay. Their old house has been empty for years."

"That's where Harry is," Hermione said knowingly.

Draco puffed out a breath before finally standing up and pulling his wife with him.

"It's late," he said suddenly. "Hermione and I will leave first thing in the morning so it's up to you five to keep things normal until we return – hopefully with Potter."

"Hermione, can I talk to you quickly?" Ginny asked in a small voice.

Hermione nodded and she and Ginny left the hall first, arm in arm.

"I spoke to my brothers today and they told me that they're going to go look for my parents and convince them to join us. We all feel that once they see the memories you've provided that they won't hold anything against you – they can't, not after seeing everything that's happened."

"That's nice, Gin," Hermione answered, because she really didn't know what the hell the girl wanted her to say. She truly couldn't give a shit if Molly and Arthur Weasley believed her or not – they'd still managed to raise a rapist and that was really all she needed to know.

"I wanted to actually ask you to please not mention anything about me to Harry while you were gone. I'm not embarrassed about being married to Neville or about my baby but I don't think it'll do you any favours to bring me up before you get him here."

"He's angry with you," Hermione guessed.

"He's been angry with me for years, Hermione. He wanted me to be the perfect little girlfriend who would sit docilely by his side while he commanded and barked orders at everyone, myself included, without any questions or disagreements. I'm not that person and he didn't enjoy the fact that he couldn't change me – that's one of the reasons I always strayed to Neville. He treated me fairly. Kindly. After Harry really started to change, he just treated me worse and worse and I took it without a word because I was scared – that's why I joined Tom, as well. Just… don't bring me up and everything might go alright for you."

"Thanks, Gin," Hermione said, nodding.

"Good luck," the redhead said as she departed, turning to head for her own quarters.

/

"I've been thinking about our magic," Hermione started tentatively as she showered with her husband. He passed her her favourite shampoo bottle before giving her a small, knowing smile.

"Is this going to explain why you spent four days of Neville's recruitment buried in the library except for meal times? I wasn't the only one to notice, by the way. My mum was so bored of sitting around with me and the guys that she started to 'explore' Hogwarts."

"I know you remember during our ceremony that the Justice had reacted to my magic being previously bound, so I thought I'd finally look into it with my free time while waiting for all the recruitments to arrive."

Draco nodded, watching her closely with slightly narrowed eyes. He started soaping up while waiting impatiently to hear what she had to say about it, because he was incredibly curious. Hermione rinsed her hair quickly and stepped out of the spray before taking a deep breath and starting to explain what she'd learned.

"I was looking over books about binding magic and I figured out exactly which books I needed because I knew what it felt like when my bindings broke – it turns out that Dumbledore, I'm assuming, thought it was prudent to bind my magic so no one would understand how much magic I actually possessed. I then started searching for reasons why he'd want to do that to me, reasons besides the obvious…because Dumbledore never did anything for obvious reasons. I think I can trace people, Draco. I know this sounds insane but when I was younger I always knew where my friends were and what they were doing. If I was worried about them, and let's be honest, I was worried about Harry all the time because he's so fucking reckless, I could hone in on him and just … I could feel where he was."

Draco didn't say anything but his left eyebrow had ascended ever so slightly before he stepped into the spray of water and rinsed all the soap from his body. Hermione had to will herself to pay attention to her train of thought instead of becoming distracted by her ridiculously hot husband.

"One time I couldn't find Harry and I was so confused, I think we were just about finished our sixth year. I had a feeling he was in a broom closet near the Great Hall so I opened it quickly without knocking – imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon Harry snogging Ginny. Lord, it was so fucking embarrassing for all of us."

Hermione was smiling widely at the memory and Draco felt something rear in his chest – jealousy. He had no good memories with her from when they were children, and the fact that other people did made him feel jealous and angry. He switched sides with Hermione quickly so she could rinse off her own body before he stepped from the shower and yanked the curtain closed behind him, unable to quell the annoying feelings in his chest.

"Don't be upset, Draco. You get me for the rest of our lives and we'll make our own happy memories to look back on," she said knowingly, turning off the water and stepping out behind him.

Fucking bond, he thought to himself as he handed her a towel and waited for her to continue.

"Anyway, when we went to Grimmauld Place in order to let Tom through the wards I knew the house was empty as soon as the wards broke. Why would I know that? I could just feel it."

"Why would Dumbledore want to bind that, though?"

"I think he didn't want me to be able to track my friends and see what it was they were doing. What they were actually doing. I think he wanted my magic bound because if it wasn't I would have been able to apparate directly to my friends' sides without even a second thought and he didn't want me to know the full truth about everything. Yes, Tom is an awful, despicable man, but I think Dumbledore was too – he had his own agenda and he wanted everyone to follow it. Imagine the problems that would have occurred if I'd apparated to Harry's side while they were raiding an innocent family's house? He kept me in the dark about that for years, Draco."

"He was afraid of your power and what you'd be able to do with it. He knew you and Potter were close and probably figured if you knew what was happening you'd be able to convince Potter that what he was doing was wrong. He bound your magic and put a wedge between the two of you so he wouldn't have to worry about the risk you'd pose to his entire plan."

"I still don't feel like I understand his plan."

"Power," Draco said, and Hermione mouthed the word along with him as she started to brush out her hair in the mirror.

"I know. Power. But why?!"

"That's all some people are concerned with, love. Power and gold. Sometimes there isn't another valid explanation about it."

Hermione sighed.

"I feel like it will make a lot more sense once we find Harry."

"Tomorrow," Draco said, throwing his towel at the hamper in the corner of the bathroom before heading for bed.

/

"You have to stay civil and calm if he's there, Draco. Fighting with Harry and riling him up won't do us any favours at this point," Hermione said while they were preparing to apparate away from Hogwarts.

"I know that," Draco said, holding his hand out for her to take. "What's the address again?"

"Number four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey," Hermione recited. Neville had told her the address the evening before and she'd been saying it in her head ever since just to make sure she got it right.

She moved forward warily and fit her hand into his, taking a deep breath for the confrontation that was about to happen.

They materialized in a tidy lane, the houses all matched and the yards were all covered in a small blanket of untouched snow. There were obviously no children playing in the yards in this neighbourhood.

"Number four," Draco said, gesturing to the neat house Harry had grown up in.

Hermione moved forward slowly with Draco's hand clenched tightly around hers. They could feel the wards before they got too close but Hermione worked her fingers into the air, pulling the magic apart – their powers were really coming through. She didn't want to dismantle the wards completely, but by instinct she pruned them back enough for her and Draco to slip through.

"One person is inside," she whispered to her husband as soon as they were through the wards. "I'm pretty sure it's Harry."

"Alone?" Draco asked, suddenly feeling uneasy. Why would Potter be alone? Yes, he'd fled his safe house after Dumbledore died and hadn't spoken to any Order members that they were aware of since but Draco had never expected him to be completely alone.

"Feels like it. He doesn't seem to be moving so let's try to sneak in."

Draco approached the door first and broke the locking spell when his hand touched the handle. They were getting good at controlling their magic, but he was still surprised by their strength in situations like this. He'd never been able to cancel a locking spell just by touching a door handle before. He went in first, warily, with Hermione close on his heels as they cased the house. Neither of them had been there before so they had no idea what the layout was – they searched the entire lower level on stealthy feet.

"Must be upstairs," Hermione whispered, annoyed that her tracking magic wasn't able to pinpoint exact locations.

Draco looked at the wooden stairs and cast a silencing charm before they began their assent. It wouldn't do to have the stairs creak and give them away when they'd already made it so far without Potter knowing.

Hermione slowly pushed open a bedroom door and the couple could see the tell-tale messy haired head laying on a pillow in the single bed. Potter's left leg was outside the blankets, wrapped on top of it as though it was too hot to have both legs covered. His owl's cage was sitting on a table near the window, which was cracked slightly but not enough for Hedwig to get in or out.

Hermione ushered Draco inside before closing the door softly behind them. Harry stirred slightly in his sleep and Draco thought maybe he could subconsciously smell them – they would carry a scent that he wouldn't be used to.

Hermione laid her wand on the side table by Potter's face softly before quickly unsnapping her cloak and discarding it on the foot of the bed purposely – Potter twitched again. She turned to Draco and gestured for him to do the same.

They'd talked about it and knew they wanted to pose the smallest threat possible, so discarding their cloaks and robes and wearing regular, tight fitting clothes while their wands were obviously not on their bodies seemed to be the only way to go.

The safest way to go.

Draco tossed his cloak on top of Hermione's, the catch hitting Potter harshly on the knee. He couldn't help the smirk that graced his features when he heard the small sound. Potter mumbled in his sleep and reached down to his knee, confused. Draco rolled his eyes.

This was the supposed saviour of their world? Lord help them.

He turned to Hermione and almost laughed to see her checking him out in his tight fitted shirt. Her cheeks reddened and she turned away abruptly, crossing her arms and staring at Harry, waiting for him to wake up.

"Potter!" Draco yelled, tired of waiting.

The messy haired man jumped up immediately, his eyes wide and his mouth opened in a silent scream. His hand was scrabbling around underneath his pillow fervently before he seemed to give up and sighed.

"Kill me then," he said. "My wand is in the bathroom because I'm an idiot and forgot it there when I went earlier. I thought my house was safe."