I do not own Harry Potter or the Characters/Places in it. I do own Amalthea Vitani and her family

Chapter 28

For what it's Worth

"I need you to meet me at my place immediately! Set the Floo up, I'll be standing by, vital information on the case. Bring Potter" Draco's voice rang through Kingsley's office; scaring the occupants of the room.

Kingsley, Potter, Zain, and Blaise all stood up quickly. Kingsley started saying an intricate spell, blues and greens flowing from his wand to the fireplace in his office. A bright flash of green alerted the men that the spells had finished. Blaise was the first to grab a hand full of the soft, liquid like power, throwing it down, and yelling "Malfoy Cabin." The other three men followed in haste.

"Thea, come on!" Draco yanked her by her wrist out of the bed, pulling her towards her fireplace.

"Don't manhandle me Malfoy" she growled, ripping her wrist from his hands.

"Amalthea, we don't have time for this" Draco sighed aggravated.

"Oh, we have plenty of time for me to throw a few spells at you, you asshole" she grounded out, whipping out her wand, and pointing it up into Draco's chin, as he looked down at her.

"Listen, we need to get to my place now!"

"First off, I heard what you said, so yes I know we need to go. However, I'm pretty sure you don't want me going over there in a see through yellow teddy. After I changed, I would have calmly come with you. Second, I'll only tell you this once Malfoy, I've been hustled by one too many men, and if you EVER do it again…I will not hesitate to ensure that the Malfoy line ends with you!" Her eyes glowing green, as she shook with rage.

"I don't care if you are my mate."

A shiver ran through his body from the power that came off of her in waves. This little spitfire was nothing to be messed with, that he knew, and Merlin forgive him, but he couldn't help but be turned on.

"Okay. I'm….I'm" he swallowed. "I'm sorry, Thea."

Quirking an eye brow at him, she looked at him flatly.

"Hard to say Malfoy?"

"Listen. I'm not going to lie. This is all completely new for me too. I may have fucked other women, but these feelings are new for me. I'm not good with my feelings. I'm not good with my words. You're going to have to be patient with me."

Rolling her eyes, she dropped her wand. Her teddy turned into a floor length, strapless, sun dress; the yellow color remaining. With her arms bare to him, he was able to tell she was still irritated from the way the snakes on her family arm band were slithering, tails flicking at the ends. A bonnet flew out of the closet and landed softly on her head. Ducking under Draco's arms, she walked towards the door of her room.

"Coming pretty boy" she mocked over her shoulder, pointing her wand at him. His pants slithered up to his hips, snapping and zipping, while turning into a tailor fitted black slacks. His white button up floated behind him until he put his arms out, so the shirt could put itself on him. The color changed into a sharp baby blue as the shirt buttoned itself. A black suit vest appeared on top of the shirt, his wizard robe draping itself on his arm softly; a spicy cinnamon flavor filling his mouth.

He had to physically stop himself from letting his jaw drop. Did she just...dress me?

"Malfoy!" Amalthea's voice rang through the room.

Shaking his head, he used his long legs to cross the space quickly, meeting her at the fireplace.

Smirking at him, she dropped a hand full of green dust into his hand.

"Just so you know, your woe is me speeches won't work on me. Your past is your past Malfoy, it's your choice to move forward and change. Change is hard and takes time, so I will be patient with you. We will grow together, but don't ever try to cover your tracks by saying that this is new to you…EVER….AGAIN. Or you'll find yourself girlfriend-less."

Draco nodded his head and smirked back at her. He was about to make a snarky comment back at her, but she beat him to the punch.

"How do we know that your Floo is set up, and we're not going to end up in some crazy weird place?"

"If I know Kingsley, he's been at my place tapping his foot for 5 minutes now. You ready?" he asked lacing his left hand with her right, bringing it up so he could place a kiss on her knuckles.

Playfully smirking at him, she kissed the hand holding hers and nodded.

"3, 2, 1..."

"Malfoy Cabin" they shouted at the same time.

Appearing in Draco's foyer, they were bombarded by questions.

"Where have you been?" Potter.

"What information do you have?" Blaise.

"What took you so long?" Kingsley.

Zain just stared at the laced fingers and grinned.

Amalthea looked at the gentlemen in front of her and laughed.

"Boys, why don't I make some tea? Then we'll sit and talk" she said calmly, dropping Draco's hand, and headed for the kitchen.

Zain raised his eye brow at Draco.

Seems you grew balls and pursued something good for once! Zain's voice rang in his head, as they all followed Thea into Draco's kitchen.

Is it too early for us to be seen together like that? What would Kingsley say? We were supposed to be pretending to be together, not really be together. Will I be kicked off the case because Thea's the target? Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he followed them through to his kitchen; brows furrowed with worry.

Thea put a black porcelain teacup in front of each man, placed sugar and milk in the middle of the table, then poured tea for each one. Silence filled the room, as each gentleman watched her move around Draco's kitchen like she had been there for years. Her grace, her beauty, power, and strength were to be admired; that they could definitely all agree on. The sweet melody she was humming to herself, gave a sense of peace to each man, creating calm about the room; the awkwardness dissipated.

Once she was done, she casually sat down between Zain and Draco, took a sip of her tea, groaned in pleasure of the warmth that spread through her empty belly, and looked up at the other occupants of the room. Realizing they were all staring at her, she blushed.

"Thank you for the tea" Blaise stated, genuinely grateful.

"I haven't eaten since…" he trailed off. "I actually don't remember when."

"I'll make breakfast too then. You boys talk amongst yourselves" she finished, getting up from her chair to cook the food.

"You said you had some news for us?" Potter asked, quirking his eyebrow at Draco as he watched the blonde's eyes glaze over in contentment while watching Amalthea. Malfoy was good at schooling his features, clearing his eyes of all emotion. He was the best Auror to send on missions that required one of them to be "caught" by the bad guys because he could shut himself off completely, create fake memories as if they really were real. They may not have been great friends, but he held an immense respect for the former death eater. 'Bout damn time too!

He watched as Draco tore his eyes from Amalthea's form, as he reached down into his pocket for the poker chip.

"When Amalthea went to her shop yesterday in Hogsmeade, she had the joyful pleasure of running into Theo. He had this." throwing the blue poker chip onto the table before he continued. "He had two other men with him. The two men worked at the shop. Amalthea seems to think that Theo is somehow involved with everything going on. It would explain how they seem to keep eluding us at the very last second. Now, I, personally, don't think he's the new head, but he's definitely got to be working with whoever it is."

"It's a blue chip. Neferkare said that was the highest ranking right?" Blaise asked.

"Yes" Amalthea answered.

All the gentlemen turned to find her leaning over the counter, the knife in her hand shaking slightly from the force of her grip; bonnet and hair hiding her face from them.

"I've rolled it over and over and over in my head. I can't seem to understand exactly why he would have a chip. It's not activated to go anywhere. So that means that either he had just retrieved it from a prize trade or he was on his way to pick up a prize." The confusion laced in her voice the more she talked.

"Maybe he had gone to pick you up as a prize" Kingsley suggested.

"No. You can't trade the same prize more than once. I was already on the market, regardless of who bought me, it's against the rules."

"I wish we knew the rules to this game. Sure would make things a lot easier" Potter growled.

"We could. The original plans are in Amon's vault in Egypt. All original documents, from the creation of this…underground...group, I guess would be the word, until present times, are kept in the possession of the head of the top clan. Unless, Amon had someone break into his vault after he got captured, they should still be in there" Blaise finished.

"Why didn't you say this before?" Kingsley rushed.

"I honestly didn't think about it, I'm sorry."

"You didn't think about it! We could have been done with this case months ago, could have saved over a 100 people's lives!" Blaise shouted; the clang of his chair connecting with the tile floors rang throughout the room.

"Sit down Zabini" Kingsley demanded. "We have all been busy, with a lot on our minds. It was a mistake that has been rectified. If I shouted at you over looked a detail about a case, we would be one less Auror by now" he finished with a glare.

"Can you get into that vault?" Potter asked.

"No. The pater familias is the only one who can access that vault and technically now, its mater familias" Zain finished, looking at Amalthea.

"You're fucking crazy if you think I'm stepping foot into that place! They'll be waiting there for sure!"

"I thought you said…"Draco interjected for the first time since the conversation started.

"I said I couldn't be caught as a prize any more. That doesn't mean that they can't or won't capture me to try to get the information in the vault!"

Silence hung heavy in the room.

"It's our only plan though isn't it?" she sighed in defeat.

"NO! There has to be another option." Draco yelled.

"Draco, please don't make me take you off of this case" Kingsley sighed. "Please."

Draco jerked his head in Kingsley's direction, staring him in the eye. He's completely serious….

Growling, he got up and walked out of the kitchen.

Paranoia, fear, and a strange sense of thrill filled her body.

She looked at the remaining gentlemen, her eyes resolute.

"I'll do it. BUT, we must proceed with caution. There has to be a defined battle plan; every insignificant and minute detail covered, nothing left for question. If we aren't aware, if we so much as stepped one toe out of line, give them so much as a whiff of weakness, they will pounce in a heartbeat. We have to beware."

It wasn't exactly clear what was going on, but they had to start somewhere.

"Alright, here's what's going to go down" Draco came back in the room, determination set in his jaw, eyes devoid of any light.