Hi everyone! Thanks for the great welcome back response, and thank you to everyone who has left me a review. Here's a short filler chapter before the last bit of action starts. Enjoy!

I expect him in the Hospital Wing by Friday.

-Your Friend

Pansy crumpled the note quickly, the ink already fading from the parchment. She glanced around and noticed Blaise and Daphne quickly engage in a conversation, the latter shooting one last look at her. Besides them, no one else at the table seemed to be paying her any mind.

She'd received the first note on the Hogwarts Express, seemingly stuffed into her bag by someone on the platform. It had read:

Draco Malfoy will be hospitalized within the month or the truth comes out. Let's keep this between us.

-Your Friend

She'd thought to tell a teacher, even leaving her friends in search of someone who would help, but the ink had disappeared moments after she read the signature. More notes followed, listing the people who would be aiding her in the terrible task, telling her when to strike, and threatening to expose her family's secrets to the world. Despite her best efforts, Parkinson could never figure out who was sending them but was beginning to suspect it was someone outside Hogwarts.

Now there was this new demand. How would she have time to contact the three brutes she gave orders to? Did she even have the strength to put someone she once considered a friend in the hospital wing... again? When Draco had been moved to Gryffindor, she was relieved, believing her involvement would be over. Evidently, she thought wrong.

Standing quickly, she shouldered her bag and made a hasty exit from the Great Hall that was beginning to fill with students coming down for a late breakfast. Daphne looked at Blaise who nodded grimly, and the pair stood to follow closely behind.

On the other side of the castle, Hermione was waiting for her first class, Advanced Potions, to start. The Hufflepuff who usually shared her desk was sick on Friday, and it seemed she wouldn't be in class today either. Much to her surprise, it was a blonde boy in Gryffindor robes who took the seat next to her.

"Granger."

"Malfoy."

They didn't speak to each other for the rest of the class, just listened to Slughorn's lecture. At least, Hermione did. She scribbled notes quickly, while Draco doodled absentmindedly.

At the end of the class, he packed his things away and left quickly with a nod to his deskmate who returned a small smile. Dean and Seamus looked over at her with their brows furrowed in confusion, and she only shrugged, just as confused as they were about the whole thing. Confused, but not unhappy. It seemed that Draco was becoming more comfortable with her, she decided as she tucked her notes away. He was beginning to forgive himself.

Walking out of the classroom, the former Slytherin was just as confused about his seating decision. He found he didn't much mind her being around these days. After their talk, he realized that she provided a calming presence when the rest of his life was in chaos. The letter he'd sent his mother today said the same, explaining most of what had transpired since his hospitalization and subsequent move to Gryffindor house.

"Enjoying some quality time with your girlfriend, were you Malfoy?" A voice growled, interrupting his thoughts about Hermione Granger.

Pounce emerged to his right, a crony on his left, and two others behind him. The hallway was crowded, so much so that the hordes of people created a sense of privacy.

"She is pretty," he mused. "It isn't hard to see why you Death Eaters might want to... well, you know."

Malfoy was silent, eyes fixed firmly in front of him as his hand curled around the wand concealed in his pocket.

"Come on Draco, tell me about it," He mocked. "I bet you looked at her and thought about how easy it would be? I bet you promised to keep her safe for as long as she-"

All the air seemed to go out of him mid-sentence, and he fell silent.

"As long as she what?" Ginny demanded from behind them.

Her wand poked unforgivingly into the boy's back, emitting an uncomfortable heat that made Pounce feel like his skin was about to catch fire.

"Maybe I can't take all four of you, but unless you want to know what having bat bogies feels like, I'd move along," she continued, not waiting for him to answer.

With an angry snarl, Pounce beckoned his gang away, smartly recognizing that the four of them were no match for the witch that was Ginny Weasley.

"Your turn to be on Malfoy patrol?" he asked her dryly.

"We don't run Malfoy patrol until after dinner," she answered smartly. "We thought you'd be safe in a crowd of students. Clearly, that assumption was wrong."

"I was never in danger, Weasley," he protested, stopping at the door where his next class was held.

She stopped with him.

"If Pounce makes you angry enough that you turn your wand on a student, you will be expelled... and it's no secret where you go if you're expelled," Ginny replied simply, before walking away.

Draco stood in the hallway for a moment, working to regain his composure after her blunt words and Pounce's bullying. It occurred to him that this is how the trio must have felt every time they encountered his biting words, and again, he felt the increasingly familiar emotion of guilt.

Pounce had no interactions with Hermione, Draco, or their friends for the rest of the week. Ginny's threat seemed to have worked; her bat-bogey hexes were legend around the castle.

Meanwhile, Blaise and Theo were having no luck with Pansy. When Daphne and Blaise had approached her and bluntly asked if she knew anything about Draco's attack she seemed uncharacteristically fidgety but denied her involvement. After that conversation, there was little doubt in any of their minds that she was unwillingly behind the attack on their blonde friend.

On Friday night, the calm that settled over the four Gryffindors, three Slytherins, and one Hufflepuff was shattered. In the Gryffindor common room, Harry and Ron were hunched over a board, engrossed in a competitive game of Wizard's chess when Malfoy hurried out of the dorm room and out the portrait.

"Who's supposed to be watching him again?" Ron asked.

"Nott and Zabini are waiting outside. They're going flying," Harry answered absentmindedly, focused entirely on their game.

He hadn't beaten Ron at chess in ages.

Hermione was alone in the library. Curfew for the eighth years wasn't until midnight on weekends, and they were allowed to use the library unsupervised. Madam Pince had protested, but the Headmistress had wisely pointed out that if they'd trusted these students to fight in a war, they could trust them not to steal or damage books.

The curly-haired girl had her mass of curls in a loose bun to get it out of her way. These advanced healing potions had no simple ingredients or instructions, and she'd have to make one Monday.

"Draco!" A voice called. "You here?"

Theo emerged from around the bookshelves.

"Seen Malfoy around?" He asked her.

She looked up and smiled at the Slytherin who was rapidly becoming someone she considered a friend. Malfoy did usually spend Friday nights alone in the library, working as far away from Hermione as he possibly could while ignoring her completely.

"Not today. I thought he was going out with you and Blaise tonight."

"Right," Theo seemed to be thinking about something. "Well no one really knows where he is, so maybe you can help us look?"

Hermione squinted at Theo with a curious look, then packed her things away quickly.

"Sure, let's go."

They walked out of the library, and Hermione checked to be sure the door was locked behind her. She kept her wand clenched tightly in her hand, concealed in the sleeve of her jacket. If the war had taught her anything, it was that usually when something felt wrong, something was wrong. And something about Theo certainly seemed wrong.

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