A/N: Just want to reassure you guys from the get-go — Marilyn cannot do magic. She's not secretly a witch. This story won't end with her miraculously having magical powers. It would feel like a cop-out, and that's not where I'm going with this. Don't worry!

In the days that followed, Draco checked his own version of the pendant he'd given Marilyn more or less every five minutes. Perhaps the habit had a touch of paranoia to it, but he liked to think of it more as pragmatism. He could mentally berate himself for checking it so often all he liked, but the truth of the matter was that if he noticed that it had broken even five minutes after the fact, he would be five minutes much too late. Every time his fingertips brushed against the glass of the phial beneath his shirt, finding it still intact, a near-tangible sense of relief washed over his entire body. But it wore off quickly and soon he found himself touching it again. Any onlooker might easily think he was suffering from a heart attack by the way he kept pawing at his chest like some kind of lunatic, but the temporary peace of mind was worth it, even if it was only slight. Merlin, he even found himself checking it when he woke up in the middle of the night - on the rare occasion that he managed to sleep properly at all.

...But checking the pendant was also the easiest action he could take at the moment, and the only one that didn't leave him feeling horribly torn. It was like he'd taken up a shovel and began digging himself into an unfathomably deep pit from the moment he first met Marilyn Baxter, and only now was he realising he'd gone much too far to be able to climb out of it now. More troubling, perhaps, was the fact that he did not want to.

Before this...this hurdle (if he was going to dramatically downplay the latest turn of events), he would often half-heartedly tell himself that the kindest thing - the safest thing - he could do for Marilyn would be to disappear from her life entirely. All right, perhaps she might not appreciate it in the immediate moment if he just disappeared from her life with neither a trace nor an explanation, but it would definitely fall into the 'you have to be cruel to be kind' category. Sooner or later she would forget all about him, and live a much safer life for it. Nothing but selfishness could motivate his sticking around.

After all, What could she be getting out of this? The joy of introducing him to her entire film collection? Even if she argued that she enjoyed his company, that argument would be misguided at best, considering the glaring facts that she was not aware of - his family, the role they'd played in the war (the fact that the war had happened at all, really), even the fact that he was a wizard in the first place. The dilemma was this - did her lack of knowledge concerning all of that mean that she knew him better than those who did know it and consequently didn't give him a chance, or could she not possibly know him well until she was able to weigh what she did know against what she did not?

Draco liked to think the truth was the former. That not knowing all that he and his family had done allowed her to see him truly, as he was now and not when he was a teenager, without that sight being fogged by shock and disgust. There would be plenty, however, who strongly disagreed with that take. Maybe even Marilyn herself would disagree, had she known the truth. It was a strange sort of juxtaposition - the fact that she knew him better than anybody, and least of all both at the same time.

Whichever conclusion one came to regarding how well she did or did not know him, the end result was the same - that he was a rather terrible person when he was so relieved to hear Potter rule out the option of disappearing from Marilyn's life entirely the very moment it was suggested.

"It's a bit like closing the stable door after the thestral has bolted, isn't it?" Potter had sighed, shaking his head "It's too late for that. Okay, maybe they see it and take it as a sign that she's not important enough to go after...but, and this is the more likely scenario, they could also just see it as a series of unlimited opportunities to get to her. If anything, spending more time with her shows she's being guarded."

The four of them had all gathered, much to Draco's discomfort, in the home that Granger (well, now Mrs Weasley, but she would always be Granger in his mind) shared with her husband. Said husband had made no effort to conceal his distaste for having Draco in his home, watching his every movement as if he was likely to pocket a hideous knick-knack or two if left to his own devices for too long. Draco ignored it, though. He wouldn't be comfortable with Weasley in his home, either, and he had much bigger problems than a few glares on his mind. Said problems were why he'd agreed to meet here in the first place. Weasley's distaste for him was much easier to face than the paranoia that would come with meeting at either of the other mens' Ministry offices for all to see. It had been stupid enough of him to swan into Granger's, really.

"Or that they've chosen the right target, if he's too worried to be scared off," Granger grimaced "Which would only make them more keen."

"It all boils down to what they want. If it's a ploy to ward you off, maybe staying away would work," Potter sighed, scratching at his jaw "But if it's a real threat, staying away just gives them their choice of openings. Since we can't be sure which one it is, it's a game of consequences now. We have to operate under a 'worst case scenario' mind-set - there's more to lose if it's a real threat than if it's just somebody playing mind games."

"But why would they warn him? Why not just attack her and be done with it?" Granger picked nervously at the sleeve of her jumper.

"Mind games? Curiosity as to how he'd react? For the fun of it?"

So either of his two options had a chance of making things infinitely worse. Fantastic. Draco was less than impressed. If he wanted a series of half-baked 'what if's, he could have pondered the matter quite comfortably at home - and without Weasley doing his utmost to glare him down, too.

"And what can you do? In an official capacity?" Draco asked, only because he swallowed down the snarky comment that he did want to make.

"Nothing," Weasley muttered.

Draco huffed a laugh, now there was a surprise.

"Not unless you make an official report, which I suspect you want to avoid," Potter cut in.

Likely to salvage the good job Draco and Weasley had done so far of steadfastly ignoring-slash-tolerating one another. The redhead had made it clear from the onset that he was here at Hermione's behest, and only with the intent of protecting Marilyn - not of helping Draco. Draco, for his part, could ask for nothing more. Nor would he. Weasley still hated him for everything that had happened during school and he still disliked Weasley because, well, he was easy to hate. Was it petty of him? Undoubtedly. But he took some pride in the fact that his reasoning for his distaste regarding Ron Weasley was much better nowadays than it had been way back when. Baby steps and such.

But he knew what Potter was getting at - implying that he would want to avoid word getting out for the sake of his reputation, and not the danger it would cause. All right, he'd rather avoid both, ideally, and he was lucky enough that in this instance one went hand-in-hand with the other, but he wouldn't have the implication that his reputation and the Malfoy name was all he cared about here.

"It would only achieve the opposite of anything even remotely helpful, would it not? If you have to...to push for teams of aurors to patrol the streets of York because I'm concerned about a Muggle? Because a threat had been made against one for all the time she's spent with me? It would spread like wildfire. My father would hear of it before the paperwork even touched the desk of anybody of any significance. And that...well, that would pile calamity on top of calamity."

Merlin, how many times had he said those exact words as a teenager? My father will hear of this. Too many to count. It had been a convenient crutch at the time, and often a worthwhile threat. However their reputation had suffered since the war, it was still a promise that would hold no shortage of danger were he still inclined to use it. But he wasn't, and now - thanks to some sort of great cosmic karma that he might have found funny if he wasn't on the receiving end of it - he was the one who felt threatened by those words. He was probably lucky that his mother was now past the age of producing a spare...or unlucky, depending on how events unfolded.

Granger, though he'd never admit it aloud, had one thing right though - factually speaking, whoever was behind this was far more likely to be within his own social circle than that of Gryffindor's darlings. Maybe an appearance at one of his mother's gatherings was in order, that way he could see if anybody was acting strangely around him. There was no guarantee it would be worthwhile, though. Anybody ballsy enough to slip an image of the Dark Mark into Marilyn's handbag should be more than capable of faking a smile or two in his direction. But it made him feel like he was doing something, and it kept his mother happy if nothing else.

"What we can do is call in favours from people we trust. It would all be very off the record," Potter glanced towards his two friends "The way the Order did it, back in the early days following his return."

Draco fought the urge to look down, right hand itching to tug at his left sleeve and make sure it hadn't miraculously ridden up to his elbow.

"I could write to Neville, but I'm not sure he'd be able to get away from Hogwarts often now that the new term is about to start..." Granger sighed.

What was more tragic, he wondered, that they'd reached a day where Longbottom was in charge of educating the next generation of witches and wizards, or that Draco himself might soon be counting on his help, too? For his own sake, he hoped what he thought of that prospect didn't show on his face. He was on thin ice coming here for help as it was, so he had to be on his best behaviour. Under normal circumstances he'd much rather face whatever threats had been hurled his way. If the threat was only against himself, he would have taken his chances against a mystery assailant than come here. These circumstances, however, were far from normal.

"...Luna's travelling, but she might come back if we emphasise the seriousness of the matter. Ginny?"

"My sister isn't being thrown into this to help him," Weasley snapped "I don't even like you being involved."

"To help an innocent Muggle who knows nothing of all of this," Granger corrected "And I would think that's Ginny's decision to make, is it not?"

"I can't imagine her being pleased if we have a DA reunion and don't invite her," Potter muttered, but he seemed about as pleased by the prospect as his best friend was "We'll see. George, too, maybe. This isn't just about helping Malfoy. This is about stopping a fresh wave of these bastards and showing them that they can't get away with this again. Ever."

Draco sat silently in the corner, forcing himself to lean back on the plush red sofa in a show of ease that he absolutely did not feel. This wasn't a conversation he could take part in - he didn't know what most of their lot had done after the war, much less who might be available to help. Or willing, for that matter. He imagined that would be a shallow pool, indeed.

From there they'd done little more than hash out the details - when he would be able to be with Marilyn, when she would be alone (and therefore need guarded), what he knew of her schedule, and so on. Logistics. He'd left after grinding out a painful, very awkward 'thank you'; just those two words and nothing more, lest they get emotional and start a group hug.

The bright side was he liked the one piece of advice that Potter had seen fit to give; to spend more time with Marilyn. It was hardly a torturous task, and it allowed him to feel like he wasn't being quite so selfish by doing so. He was following the advice of the three people that the magical community would undoubtedly consider some of the most moral among them - certainly of his generation, anyway. It was his duty, not impulsive at all. Once those matters were settled, he travelled to the alleyway a ways away from her work - only after apparating from London to a country park on the outskirts of Glasgow, to an abandoned footpath leading to the Shrieking Shack in Hogsmeade, and then finally to a field in Oxford before heading to York. It seemed silly to take the precautions now - the toothpaste was out of the tube, there was no getting it back in now - but at least he felt like he was doing something.

There was also the small matter of the fact that all of the logistic-ing had allowed him to resolutely avoid thinking about the kiss. For any average, well-adjusted person it might've been the other way round. They would have pondered over the kiss, what it meant, and what trouble it may yet pose, rather than brooding over the larger, big-picture, life-or-death dilemmas. Draco didn't want to know what it said about him as a person, and what he'd been through, that the grim dilemmas involving the possibility of torture followed by a gruesome death felt like more comfortable, familiar territory. Problems he was more used to pondering, certainly.

Okay, he'd kissed women before. Pansy Parkinson, back in school. He'd dated around afterwards - partly because it was expected, and partly out of sheer boredom, but it never mattered. Not in the sense of where it might lead (even his mother didn't expect to have him already married off back then), not in the sense of what it might mean, and certainly not when it came to considerations of who might get hurt. There was never any risk of that on his end, and back then that was all that mattered. Back then.

Shaking his head, he turned his mind back to other matters. If he did not, he'd turn on his heel and walk away, losing entirely the nerve it took him to wait around outside Marilyn's work in the first place. After the meeting with Potter and his sidekicks, before he took his leave, he'd pulled Granger to the side and asked her if she had any thoughts on the letter he'd sent her before he ended up storming into her office.

"I…" she blinked at him owlishly "I thought that was a joke."

"A joke?" He frowned "How was it supposed to be funny?"

"I never said I thought it was a good joke," she said defensively "But what are you on about? Of course Muggles can't do magic. That's what makes them Muggles."

Draco rolled his eyes.

"Yes, I'm aware but…"

He paused, hesitating. This was his chance to drop the entire matter. To put it out of his mind as a minor curiosity and not voice suspicions that would both make him sound like an absolute idiot, and denounce everything his family had been saying about blood purity for centuries. But the more time went on, the more the latter didn't seem like something worth considering anymore.

And so he told Granger everything.

As the minutes ticked by - because he'd made sure to be early, lest somebody else be waiting out here for her before he got there - and the end of Marilyn's shift grew closer, he wrestled to keep other matters in the forefront of his mind…It was very much an uphill battle.

When this attraction towards her first reared its head, he convinced himself it was a trick of his mind. He'd gone from thinking Muggles inferior in every way possible, to realising they were just people. So the fact that Marilyn was a Muggle and not exactly awful looking exceeded his already low expectations and made her seem all the more tempting. Any Muggle woman who was even slightly pretty and could hold a conversation for more than five minutes would have had the same effect. Right?...Okay, he hadn't been able to sustain that line of thinking for long, despite his best efforts.

Now he had accepted the truth - that he was absolutely fucked. But accepting it and giving into it were two very different things. So when memories of how surprisingly eager she'd been when they kissed sprang forth, he battled them back with questions of what Granger was going to do with the information he'd given her. Research, she'd said. But what research? Books? Had research been done on such things before? If so, any findings would have been destroyed during the war.

That line of thought was swiftly intercepted by flashbacks of the way she'd smiled at him immediately afterwards, practically glowing in the warmth of the spark that had grown into a blaze between them...and how quickly she'd stopped smiling after he'd been unable to manage anything remotely resembling a conversation after she'd shown him that bloody parchment. Ordinarily he'd have left immediately just to avoid any awkwardness, but truth be told it couldn't pierce the terror that had struck him, and any desire to spare Marilyn the dire atmosphere that had enveloped them was overridden entirely by a rather more important desire to spare her from a slow and painful death.

While he knew, logically speaking, that there wasn't likely to be anybody outside just waiting for the moment he left in order to strike, it was a fear he couldn't shake. Sure, they'd already had a great many openings to do something - including the one they'd taken to slip the image into her bag - but he hadn't known about them then. If he went home now, he'd spend the whole night worried sick anyway. Better to stay now and be of some potential use, considering he was the only one here who could actually fight back if anything were to happen. It may have been awkward, but he'd take a strange atmosphere over opening the Daily Prophet come morning and reading about a house full of Muggles being attacked in the middle of the night. He couldn't profess to deeply care about her housemates or their guests, but he'd never be able to live with himself if something happened to the woman who sat silently by his side all because he would have rather slept in his own bed.

Entirely unaware of his inner turmoil, the few times he'd managed to draw himself out of his panic long enough to be in the present moment and look at her, Marilyn's (now lipstick-less) lips were pressed into a thin line and she would not look at him.

Groaning in annoyance at thin air at the memory, and receiving a few raised eyebrows and strange looks from passers-by in the process, he wrenched his mind back to Granger. She hadn't seemed very surprised by what he'd recounted to her, nor had she brushed it off as smoke and mirrors - a phrase he'd learned from Marilyn herself. In fact, the more he explained Marilyn's aptitude for these tarot readings, the more Granger's brow furrowed in thought. She wouldn't entertain something she thought to be absolute bullshit, and she definitely wouldn't do so for his benefit. So there had to be something there.

Before he was even aware of it, the questions in his mind morphed into ones concerning Marilyn instead. She was a little later than usual. What if something had happened? The phial around his neck was still there, perfectly whole, but after what had happened what if she elected not to wear it? Or what if something had happened too quickly for her to do so? It had been difficult for him to come up with some sort of alarm system that was easy to trigger but not so easy that it might happen accidentally, but maybe his solution hadn't been good enough. Or perhaps she was perfectly fine and was avoiding him because of what had happened.

...He'd poured everything into that kiss, though. The wonder at how, little by little, she'd managed to completely change his worldview and make him realise just how wrong his stance when it came to blood purity and the whole 'Magic is Might' propaganda that went with it was in less than half a year. The draw he felt towards her, and just how much he wished he didn't, paired with the relief of finally giving into it, even if just for a second. And how much he revelled in just how worth it it was.

Through the great big glass doors of the dance studio, he watched as she exited one of the practise rooms, buttoning up her coat as she walked. Draco buried his hands in his pockets, if only to feel the reassurance of his wand there. She looked a little tired, a few wisps of hair escaping the bun it was in, but she appeared unscathed - and, more importantly, as she reached up to wrap her scarf around her neck, he could see the silver chain of the necklace he'd given her. He felt his shoulders drop in sheer relief, although they tensed again when Marilyn smiled goodbye to the secretary...and then looked up to meet his gaze.

Her steps faltered only slightly as she looked like she only just managed to prevent herself from stopping dead in her tracks. For a fraction of a second she looked away, and then she forcibly returned her gaze back to his and forced any doubt off of her face - never one to be cowed. Draco had to resist the urge to smile, knowing it wouldn't be taken well.

Yes, he sighed somewhere in the back of his mind, she was worth the trouble. He just hoped he wouldn't change his mind on that matter any time soon.

A/N: Draco and Marilyn interaction in the next chapter, I promise!