In a silvery brocade gown, a lush winter fabric trimmed in black velvet to set off her fine, pale hair, Narcissa Malfoy sat in a comfortable but shabby armchair in Tim and Ann Granger's front room. Her long, thin fingers were folded around a teacup with the words "Granger Dental Surgery" stamped in blue on its warm, bone-coloured side.

"Thank you, Dr. Granger," she said. "What a bother I've been, getting lost on my way and turning up at your door in such extremity."

Ann scoffed. "Not at all, Mrs. Malfoy. You're most welcome here." She draped a woven blanket over Narcissa's legs - one they'd bought at a gift shop on vacation in Norway but which Hermione had never seen anyone actually use. Ann tucked the ends of the blanket into the cushion of the chair to keep her guest warm.

Narcissa clucked her tongue. "Please, our children are already such good friends. Call me Cissa."

Ann straightened up. "And unless you've got a raging toothache, we're just plain Tim and Ann."

"Ann - consider me in your debt for entertaining my boys over the holidays." Narcissa raised her teacup, as if toasting the Grangers. "We had provided for them to remain at school, but children's cravings for a family's touch at Christmas are irrepressible, I suppose."

Tim smiled rather pointedly at Hermione. "Ah, so their Christmas at school had been provided for. Of course it had. Interesting."

She shifted from foot to foot, twisting a lock of her hair, laughing uneasily. Ronald and Draco were exchanging nudges with their elbows.

"Yes, I should have known better than to let us be coaxed into traveling over the holidays," Narcissa said. "But now we've been called home early for a family emergency, and I'll be bringing the boys home with me tonight."

"Oh dear," Ann said as the young people whispered among themselves. "I hope everyone is quite alright."

Narcissa sighed and took a long sip from her cup. "It's my sister. A troubled, flamboyant soul with a knack from drawing the entire family into her misadventures. We'll be sorting her out well into the new year, I'm afraid. And since she's something of a public figure in wizarding society, we thought it best we all regroup."

She set her cup on the table at her elbow and began to unwind herself from the Norwegian blanket. "Now where have you stashed your things, boys. I'll help you pack and we'll be off."

Draco led his mother upstairs, to the guest room, Ronald following behind. She looked odd here, misfit as she moved through the Muggle house that, by now, felt almost normal to the boys. As the brothers ascended to the privacy of their room, their manners and decorum were perfectly controlled, though their emotions vibrated with questions about what exactly was happening, and why. They knew days ago that Bellatrix had escaped. Why was it only an emergency now?

The bedroom door closed behind them and Narcissa clutched desperately at both of her sons. "My darlings!" she said as she kissed their cheeks. "You're safe. Thank the stars. But hurry. There may not be much time."

As quickly as she had pulled them to her, she was pushing them away, toward their trunks, but they clung to her, questioning. "Mum, was any of that for real down there? What emergency? What sister?" Ronald was asking.

"I told you this was coming, Ronald," Draco said. "It's Bellatrix Lestrange, the Azkaban inmate. I met Nymphadora Tonks at St. Mungo's and she warned me."

Narcissa startled. "Yes, of course she'd know. It's true. Your Aunt Bella has escaped from prison and fled to the manor. Rodolphus too. We had heard they might come to us for asylum so we kept you away, for your own safety. That was the root of all of this. Bella was supposed to wait quietly at the manor until - someone came for her. But she won't. We couldn't stop her. She's out looking for you right now."

"Us?" Ronald said, stuffing his freshly laundered clothes into his trunk. "What does she want with us?"

"What they always want. To recruit you, to use you, to mark and consume you." Narcissa went to the window, peering out into the dark. "But she won't have you today. Not if we hurry. Your father is buying us time, distracting her, but she could arrive any moment. We need to get you both back to Hogwarts where they can't follow."

Draco wanted to hurry but his hands slowed as his mind grappled with what he was hearing. His aunt wanted him served up to the Dark Lord, but here were his parents, trying to hide him. Their first allegiance wasn't to some ravening dark wizard. It was to their children - not just Ronald, but himself as well. Draco's heart beat fast, but a little lighter than usual.

Hope - he had hope that his parents might hold him up and out of danger rather than dragging him down into it. But what was the danger? What exactly had Tonks meant by everything getting more dangerous for Draco? He was already helping them with Umbridge. Wasn't that enough? He shook the questions away, marshaling his mind back to hope. And as he did, Draco remembered something.

"The potion," he said.

Ronald gasped. "Right, the potion."

"Mother, Ronald and I have been working on a potion project for school since we've been here," Draco rushed. "And it's all going to be lost if I don't give Hermione some instructions on finishing it for us."

She frowned. "Your mad, wicked aunt is chasing you to offer you up to the Dark Lord, and the pair of you are worried about your homework?"

"It is our OWL year, after all - "

"Oh for stars' sake, Draco darling, hurry," she said.

He burst out the door, down the stairs, snagging Hermione by the hand and towing her toward the basement door. "Last minute instructions on finishing the potion," he called out to the Grangers as he tore past them.

"Mind the stairs," Ann called out.

In the basement, Draco was speeding through the instructions.

"Yes, yes," Hermione was saying. "Yes, Malfoy, I know all this. Stop. Tell me what Bellatrix is doing, and where your mother is taking you. Will I - " her voice broke. "Will I ever see you again?"

He dropped the parchment he'd been reading from onto the workbench and clasped her in his arms. "School," he said, his mouth against her ear. "She's just taking us to school, where Bellatrix can't reach us and deliver us to the Dark Lord."

She nestled her head into his chest. "Can she really be that awful?"

He pressed his chin to the crown of her head, shuddering as he remembered Frank and Alice Longbottom's eerily placid faces. "Yes, she can. We have to go. Now. But finish the potion, bring it to school, and we'll see you there in a week."

Her hands locked around his back. "I'll come with you now. I think I can convince my parents I'm going back early to study for OWLs."

He held her away from him, speaking into her face. "No, you have to stay with them, or they'll be unprotected. As soon as the potion's done, see if you can talk them into treating themselves to a ski trip somewhere they'd have to sleep away from here, just to be sure."

Hermione nodded. "Right, of course." She reached up to smooth his fringe. "Off you go then."

She crossed the room, stepped onto the bottom stair, but instead of leading him back up to where Ronald and their mother waited, she turned, her head still not quite level with his but their faces much closer than usual. He caught a glimpse of her expression as she closed her arms around his neck. Sad, scared and cradling his head, pressing her cheek against his.

"It's too soon," she said. "I'm not ready, Malfoy. I thought we had more time."

For a moment, he stood stunned, speechless. He already knew he touched her like no one else did. There was no hiding it anymore. But she had never stopped acting like she let him come close in spite of herself. She'd been so careful - telling Ronald they weren't together, not agreeing to any kind of future once they went back to their real lives full of Hogwarts house rivalries, Potter, Umbridge and her educational decrees, all of it. And now here was the same Granger, speaking openly about missing him. She was sighing into his neck, barring his way out of her house, not wanting him to leave her.

"All the books upstairs I never got around to showing you," she said. "I was going to teach you to Hoover, and fry eggs on the cooker, and take you to a Muggle movie theatre. You were just starting to like Muggles, weren't you? And Dad was just starting to like you."

He squeezed her around the waist. "What about you, Granger? Do you like me yet, or is it still just a fancy?"

He held her close as he waited for an answer, his eyes shut, breath held.

"Why can't it be both?" she said. "I rather think it's supposed to be both."

He leaned back, searching her face. "Well, is it then?"

She gave a melancholy little smile, like she was remembering the past few days, wistfully. "Mum said I was doomed. She was right. How could I not like you?"

He crushed her in his arms again. "There will be more time," he said. "I promise we'll make more time."

She craned her neck to kiss the end of his jaw, next to his ear. Dipping below his face, her mouth following the curve of the sensitive underside of his jawline.

He couldn't help but gasp. "I - I need to - go," he said as her lips marked a path descending to his chin. "It'll only be a - a week. Stars - Granger - "

As he'd spoken, she'd arrived at his mouth, her lips covering his, opening just as Tim's voice came from the doorway at the top of the stairs, not angry, but firm.

"Draco, son," he said. "Your mother is waiting."

With his hands on Hermione's waist, Draco shifted her aside and climbed to Tim's level. "Thanks for everything, Dr. Granger. I'm sorry for the trouble. Please be careful."

Tim nodded. "You and all."

Narcissa looked more out of place than ever, standing by the front door wearing an old ski jacket of Ann's, striped with diagonal lines in magenta and neon green. At least she'd be warm while they moved about town. She didn't want to discomfit the Grangers by disapparating in front of them, so she took their leave at the door before guiding the boys back into the street. She left Ann Granger with a pair of opal earrings as a gift of thanks which Ann refused four times before finally accepting.

"Never fear. They aren't cursed," she said, kissing Ann's cheek. "Do take care all the same."

Narcissus Malfoy took each of her sons' hands and disapparated from the Grangers' front garden. Their destination was not Hogwarts, but to Diagon Alley, to the Leaky Cauldron where they could access the Floo Network and arrive at the school from somewhere completely unremarkable and within wizarding London.

Without a word to the innkeeper, Narcissa directed the boys to the Floo. "Just say Hogwarts," she advised. "You're both students. It will let you in without resistance. I'll come last with the parent password."

The door of the pub crashed open and Ronald turned to see two heavily cloaked figures enter. One kept flickering in and out of view, as if they were under a Disillusionment spell but too noisy and ballistic to be contained by it. The other person also had their face hidden but they had a familiar, haughty posture, and a drawling voice Ronald would have known anywhere. He flipped his hood over his ginger head and nudged his mother.

"How should I know?" the drawing voice was saying, talking loudly, as if sounding an alarm of his coming. He was arguing with the partially Disillusioned person beside him as he steered them away from the fireplace to the back of the crowded room. "I expect it's nothing but some Muggle-loving fun on Arthur Weasley's part, including a space for 'dentist' on his clock...Yes, I told you. It's a Muggle occupation for caring for strangers' teeth...No, not blood magic, but I see why you would think so. No, it's medicine, a kind of healing...Absolutely not. It's impossible the boys are in Muggles London...Because it's all just a joke, I tell you. A bad joke. And even if it wasn't, there are hundreds of these dentists in the city, where would we even begin…"

There was a flash of green as Draco flamed out of sight. Narcissa, hidden beneath the hood of Ann's old jacket, was shoving Ronald into the fireplace behind him. "Hurry! Go!"

He called out the name of the school as loudly as he dared and the pub vanished from view. In an instant, Ronald was staggering, sooty, stepping into the Hogwarts Entrance Hall. Draco was already there, sitting on his trunk, his ash-smeared face positively heartsick. Standing above both of them was Professor Snape.

He sneered at Ronald, as if disappointed to see him. "Where is she?"

"She?" Ronald repeated.

"Your mother," Snape said, abandoning Ronald to speak to Draco. "Where is she? Is she safe?"

Draco nodded at the fireplace. "She was right behind us."

The three of them watched the low, orange flames in silence.

"It might not be as easy as just hopping through," Ronald said. "Right as Draco left, they came into the pub."

"Who?" Snape snapped.

"Father, and - " He stopped, not at all sure how to answer.

"And Bellatrix Lestrange," Snape finished for him.

Ronald nodded. "Yeah. I'm not sure if she saw us. Draco and I didn't stay long. And Mother was wearing a ridiculous, flashy Muggle skiing coat like a disguise. But - why hasn't she come through yet?"

Snape grimaced. "Do not move," he said, stepping onto the hearth himself. But at that moment, a new jet of green flame flared and Narcissa was tripping into Snape's arms.

"Severus," she said, clutching his robes as she caught her breath. "Change the Floo password. Do it at once before she follows."

Snape set her back on her feet. "She cannot use the password."

"No, but Lucius is with her. She may force him," Narcissa said.

The boys waited for Snape to laugh off the suggestion, to give his biggest sneer of the evening at the idea of that cranky witch, their auntie, half-starved from a long prison term, forcing their father to surrender the password keeping his family safe.

Snape did not laugh. Instead he drew his wand, waving and chanting. Flames came trailing out of the Floo, snaking along the floor, up his leg, down his arm, twining around his wand before shooting back into the grate.

Snape pocketed his wand. "There, Cissa. That is most inconvenient. We will have to notify every other parent, but there you have it."

She seized his hand in both of hers. "Thank you, Severus."

He let her continue to hold his hand as he spoke to the boys, as if it gave him even more authority than he already had as a teacher. "I am sure your parents have disciplined you sternly for leaving school without their permission. No doubt they have impressed upon you the importance of following their orders rather than romantic impulses to toddle after female classmates all over the country without thought to the wisdom or safety of your actions."

Narcissa had done no such thing, as Snape well knew. But his lecture did inspire her motherly concern. She dropped his hand and asked. "Oh, yes. Which one of you is in love with the bushy-haired Granger girl?"

It was a tactical move. She spoke the words and watched their faces to see which of them flinched the hardest at a description meant to sound unflattering. But each of them had great affection for Hermione's wild hair and neither of them flinched at hearing it described as it was. Ronald smiled crookedly to himself and Draco blinked dreamily, both of them looking at the floor.

"Oh, come now," she said. "This holiday sleepover wasn't an act of friendship."

There was no use arguing the point. One of them had to admit it. If Draco owned up to it, as the pure-blood heir of the Malfoy and Black lines, there might be a family crisis. If Ronald admitted to it, he would provoke disappointment and worry, but he probably wouldn't wind up locked in a cellar. They both knew it.

"Me," Ronald said. "It was me. Fancied her since second year. Sorry."

Snape's eyes narrowed, as if he was considering the events of the past three years. Yes, Ronald liking Granger was plausible, even probable. As for Draco - it should have been impossible, but something was strange there as well.

Narcissa sighed. She stepped forward and raised Draco to standing, kissing his cheeks before turning to Ronald. "We haven't got time to talk about this," she said. "I need to get back to the manor and report that you're here before anyone can tell I'm the one who brought you. But your father is going to hate this, Ronald. Find someone else."

He hung his head as she kissed him, patted his freckled cheeks, and turned back to the Floo.

"He won't hate it," Ronald protested. "He likes me to stay close to Harry. And Hermione is his other best friend so it's perfect. It brings us all closer together."

"Ronald, no," she said. "It is not perfect. And now I'll be leaving."

"Not without the new password you won't," Snape said, taking her aside to reveal it to her. They might have had more to say to each other, as they appeared from a distance to be whispering urgently into one another's faces.

Draco dropped a hand heavily on Ronald's shoulder as their mother flamed away. "Thanks," he said.

Ronald growled. "Consider it repayment for brewing the potion. G'night." he lifted his trunk and dragged it toward the staircase.

"Stop right there, Mr. Malfoy," Snape said, calling Ronald back. "Thanks to your foolishness, and the madness of her sister, your mother is too frantic and distracted to properly instruct you, so I take it upon myself." He shot a glare between the brothers. "Neither of you are not to leave the school for the rest of the holidays. Your aunt will be watching, waiting for it, cajoling your parents to call you out. You must think of every excuse to decline. You must remain here. Do you understand?"

Ronald dropped his trunk. "No, I don't," he said. "I don't understand any of this. All of a sudden, we've got this mad aunt who hunts us the way You-know-who hunts Harry. And we're supposed to be afraid of her and hide in here until - until the stars know when?"

Snape smirked. "Come, Ronald, it sounds as if you understand the situation perfectly."

"What do they want from us?" Ronald demanded. "We're not the boys who lived. We're not chosen ones. We're just a pair of spoiled F-boys."

Unlike most of the adults in the boys' lives, Snape believed children thrived best in a climate of hard, unyielding, frankly spoken truth. In the spirit of this, he swept his wand around his head and all the lanterns in the empty Entrance Hall burned so low it was almost dark. In the dimness, he raised his sleeve, baring his left arm, and the familiar black brand burned into his flesh.

"The Dark Lord has your father," Snape said. "And in that way, he has you. If they want a student operative in Hogwarts - and they do - they won't choose one at random. They'll choose from among the students with families already corrupted by this stain."

Draco had sunk to sit on his trunk again, his head in his hands.

Snape continued. "And when they choose from among those students, they won't choose dimwits like Gregory Goyle or Vincent Crabbe. They won't choose a delicate, motherless waif like Theodore Nott. No. They'll find the brightest, strongest student they can."

Ronald frowned. "Brightest - but that's - " he faltered. "That would be - "

Snape slid his sleeve back into place. "Yes, Ronald, that would be Draco. It's already begun. The needling of Potter, the support of Professor Umbridge - while you have played at heroics with Harry Potter, your brother has been shouldering the load of the Death Eaters, alone. If you cannot help him, the least you could do would be to thank him. Ronald Malfoy, you are at a crux where you must either denounce or defend your family."

Draco stood up. "No," he said. "Thank you, Professor, but no. This is not what I want. Stay a hero, Ronald." He was leaving, marching across the hall with his trunk, disappearing down the stairs to the Slytherin dungeon.

Snape shook his head, spun on his heel and swooped toward his own basement apartments, the lanterns returning to full strength as he went.

Ronald stood alone, and watched his brother go.

Narcissa arrived at the manor just minutes before Lucius came back with Bellatrix. She barely had time to vanish Ann's old coat and warm her hands and face over the fire, as if she'd been lounging in the drawing room, watching over a sleeping Rodolphus all night.

Lucius and Bellatrix told her how they'd been to the empty Burrow, had a drink at the Leaky Cauldron, roamed Diagon Alley looking for black dogs and dental offices. Narcissa blinked her bright grey eyes and innocently asked what in the world they meant by "dentist."

Then she told her own story.

"Yes, the Weasleys sent an owl not long after you left," Narcissa said. "Most unfortunate timing. But they said the boys were bored with being cooped up watching Arthur recover so they went back to school early to study for their OWLs. Draco is quite serious about them. Wants an O in everything, the darling boy. At any rate, they took the Floo network into Hogwarts tonight. I've confirmed it with Severus."

Lucius raised both his eyebrows. "There you are, Bella. Now all you need do is stroll into Hogwarts, right under Dumbledore's nose, and get them."

She snarled and fell to sit at the end of the sofa, almost crashing into Rodolphus's broken leg. "Dumbledore can't hide them in there forever. Our Lord will have them yet."

Lucius clucked his tongue. "If the Dark Lord's priorities are unchanged since our last gathering, if he still desires the prophecy and Potter more than anything, I have a plan to procure both for him without setting foot in Hogwarts. We can accomplish all our Lord desires within the walls of the Ministry itself, in the Department of Mysteries."

She scoffed. "You're all talk, you useless thing. Bringing the Dark Lord both the prophecy and Potter - it's beyond you. Why, tonight you couldn't even bring him your own children."

"Bella, hush," Narcissa scolded, taking Lucius's hand. "What a night you've had, darling, out in the cold chasing phantoms all over the country. Let's turn in."

The door closed behind the Malfoys, leaving the Lestranges alone on the sofa before the fire.

"Useless thing?" Rodolphus rasped, rolling his head from beneath a cushion. "I thought that was your pet name for me, dearest crone."

She swore dispassionately at him.

He was propping himself to sit. "I'll tell you something of use," he said. "That sister of yours, as soon as you left with her fancy man, she was off. Disapparated while she thought I was asleep. Didn't return until moments before yourselves. Came back wearing some flashy Muggle coat."

"Muggle coat - ridiculous. Mind your own business, Rodolphus," Bellatrix snapped. "What are you like? You've been lying here potioned out of your mind for days. I've a mind to keep you here like this forever."

He chuckled. "And I've a mind to stay this way. But mark my words, crone. There was no time for your sister to receive an owl between her coming and going. There was no word from the Weasley woman tonight. The one that got those boys safely to Hogwarts was Madam herself. She knew right where they were, and where they needed to go." He settled onto his back again. "Make of that what you will. And fetch me my draught."

Draco lay in bed in the empty Slytherin dormitory. After sleeping nose-to-nose with Ronald for days, it was lonelier than ever. He wondered how his brother was getting on, especially now that Snape had given him so much to think about.

He wished his parents would send word on where Bellatrix was, what she was doing - whether she was outside the Grangers' house about to rain hell on it, or whether they'd be safe tonight.

He should have stayed to protect them.

No, his presence was what was putting them in danger.

He had to leave.

Didn't he?

He kept going over it, every way, again and again. He didn't know what the best thing to do would have been, so he let his mother decide for him.

That had to stop.

One thing Draco did know for sure was that he missed Hermione. He missed her fiercely, like homesickness. They had lived together in that simple little house for six days. They had gone on long bus and car rides, done housework, worked magic on the potion, sat and done nothing at all and he hadn't been cross or bored with her through any of it.

In all that time, they'd been crowded and chaperoned so closely that he'd managed to properly snog her just twice, late on Christmas Eve and again over the potion. And even without a steady stream of kisses, he had connected to her anyway, liked her anyway - liked her better than ever before. This wasn't attraction alone. He had fallen for Hermione Granger.

What was it she had said to him, on the basement stairs as he tried to leave? How could she not like him? Was that the same as telling him that she did like him? It must have been. How would he know if he couldn't even see her for at least another week?

The lake overhead, outside his window, was dark and suffocating. He threw his covers off and sat up. He couldn't stay down here alone. He needed air and light, a walk up to the owlery to send Hermione a message, letting her know they had made it back safely. He'd use a school owl, not one someone from the manor might recognize.

He reached for the trousers he'd been wearing earlier, the ones that still smelled like the Grangers' laundry cleaning potions. The fabric was hot on one side. There was something burning inside the pocket.

He summoned it out to avoid touching it. There it lay on his bed, a galleon with a bow tied around it, as if it was a Christmas present. The bow was made from two ribbons twisted together, one red and one green. Hermione must have slipped it into his pocket, there on the stairs. There was no note, but Draco knew at once it wouldn't need one. This was a Protean charmed galleon signalling a message for him.

"Merry Christmas, Malfoy. Sorry your present is late. I've gone to bed with your modified perfume dabbed on my wrists, but it's keeping me awake. We are safe and wish the same for you, always."

It was signed without a name, just two hearts molten out of the galleon's metal.