Well it's certainly been a while since you've heard from your fellow Harry Potter fan that just won't quit. I'm now one quarter life crisis later and not an ounce wiser, but I sure do have a bunch of adult responsibilities now! I've luckily gotten somewhat better at managing them and now feel settled enough to return. Thank you so, so much to everyone who was checking in to make sure I was okay. I am in fact not dead - just severely overworked, and a teensy bit stressed given the state of the world. However, leaving this story was really beginning to eat away at me, especially since we got so close to the finish line, so I've decided to give it my absolute best effort and finish this up.

I really, really hope you guys are all well and staying healthy in this insane time.

P.S., lawyering (and adulting generally) is hard - please bear with me as I try to create some sort of posting schedule (likely much less aggressive than the weekly schedule I had before) and try to remember how to work this beautiful website.

~ Anna =)


"Were you with the Slytherins last night?"

I could tell from the look in Harry's eyes and the firmness in his voice that this was not a flippant question. My eyes slid to the Slytherin table once again. Empty.

"Yes."

"Why?" Harry demanded.

Perhaps he would still make it - he could have been stopped by Blaise or Daphne or anybody else that was bothered by a rattle in the status quo. Perhaps he needed me to buy him time.

"Can I have some breakfast before we do this?" I asked.

"No," said Ron firmly. He was flanking Harry with his arms crossed, looming over me with an expression of disbelief and disgust. I couldn't resist another hopeful glance sideways.

Still empty.

"Why were you with the Slytherins last night?" repeated Harry.

"What is this about, you two?" asked Hermione, looking confused. She stepped in front of me. "Why are you interrogating her like that? I've honestly had just about enough of the animosity you two are—"

"I went to the Slytherin common room to look for my brother," I admitted, cutting through Hermione's attempt at intervening on my behalf. "It turns out my family has some sort of genius plan to send me away. I wanted to find out what Blaise knew."

A shadow of confusion crossed all three of their faces.

"What do you mean your family has—"

"So why are people saying that Malfoy kissed you last night?" demanded Ron, interrupting Hermione's question.

"Because he did."

I said it matter-of-factly; like it was normal for us. In that moment, as I glanced one last time towards an empty set of doors, I wished it wasn't. I switched my gaze back to the trio, who looked almost more frustrated than surprised. "Oh don't worry, you three," I said with a casual wave of the hand. "It meant less than nothing."

"How?" pressed Harry. "How's something like that supposed to mean—"

"Because it wasn't about Malfoy at all. I did it so I could get back at my brother."

"You kissed Malfoy to get back at your brother?" said Ron, exchanging a confused look with Harry.

"Yes, Ron. I kissed Malfoy to get back at my brother - and I use the latter term loosely," I said in the starkest tone I could muster.

Ron looked no less dubious than before.

"So to get revenge on Zabini you're snogging Malfoy? It doesn't make any bloody sense!" he insisted. "Does this make sense to either of you lot?"

Neither of the other two seemed to know what to say and all of them were now standing neatly in a row, staring at me with open puzzlement. I glimpsed from face to face, wondering if they'd ever address what I perceived to be the only point worth addressing.

"Did any of you other than Hermione actually hear what I said? They are trying to send me away. They're pushing me out of the bloody country! I haven't even done anything! If Blaise thinks he and my dad can take away my friends—"

"So that's why you kissed Malfoy…" chimed in Hermione, gears clearly turning. "I understand, I think."

"Do you?" asked Ron, no longer looking angry but instead entirely bewildered.

She didn't, of course. It was a last-minute cover story, but it was the best I had to make this whole saga - the entirety of this monumental mistake - go away.

"Yes, but — oh, I don't know, Heidi… you have to be careful… Malfoy's not exactly—"

"Never mind that for a second," interrupted Harry, who also looked less angry than he had at the start. "What did you mean when you said they have a plan to send you away?"

Finally, a breakthrough.

"They're plotting to have me transferred to Ilvermorny for seventh year. Against my will if that part wasn't obvious," I added as I plopped down at the table, fed up with the interrogation and more than a little disappointed at the fact that I had to face it alone.

Looking visibly less furious, however, Harry lowered himself down across from me. Ron and Hermione followed suit.

"But…why?" pressed Harry.

I shrugged darkly, avoiding their gazes while I picked at my nail polish the way I always did in the face of distress.

"I don't know," I concluded after a moment's thought. "I know I'm not perfect, but I really don't think I did something to warrant deportation."

Hermione looked at me with evident sympathy.

"Well what did your brother say about it?"

"I still have to talk to him. Never got a straight answer out of him after…"

But the moment with Malfoy was forgotten to everyone at the table besides me. I supposed it was a relief - confirmation that they prioritized my well being above anything to do with him. They didn't know, of course, how ensnared the two notions had become.

Hermione put a reassuring hand on mine. "Don't worry, we won't let you get taken anywhere." She looked around at the others. "Will we?"

Harry hesitated for a moment, before shaking his head. "No. Of course not."

"Of course not," Hermione repeated, more resolutely. "Find out what you can from your brother. We'll think of a solution."

D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&DD&D&D&D

I hadn't gone to my brother. In fact, my brother was the last thing on my mind as I stood at the top of the Astronomy Tower, awaiting the arrival of the first.

"In your defence, Malfoy, it is seven o'clock," I called out as his silhouette finally ascended up the the stairs to the observatory. "But I think you've got breakfast and dinner more than a little mixed up."

"Am I in danger of getting hexed, Zabini?" he asked with a shadow of a smile.

The humour in his voice grated against me so badly it was as if somebody was running sandpaper over my skin. Malfoy must have caught on, because he straightened up and changed approaches. He reached to take my hand. I yanked it away, staring at him all the while.

"Zabini, please believe me when I say that something came up. I'd never have missed it if it weren't for something just as important coming up," he explained, his voice somber.

"You mean something more important," I corrected him.

"There is nothing more important."

I rolled my eyes.

"Oh don't lie, Malfoy. I'm not doing this if you lie."

"I'm not lying. Heidi, there is nothing more important." He said my name in such a serious, sincere way that it almost made me want to believe him for the hell of it. Luckily, I wasn't that far gone yet.

"What was it that kept you from coming, then?" I asked.

He shook his head. A pleading shake. 'Don't ask'. I probably didn't want to know.

"What was it?" I repeated.

"I can't say."

"Why not?" I snapped.

"Zabini, you know why not."

His left hand twitched despite his attempt to hold his arms stiffly by his sides. I threw my gaze at the black sleeve covering his left arm, and he twitched again, as though he were self-conscious. He looked a little small just then — a little defeated. I resisted the need to get him back to his natural, confident demeanour one kiss at a time, for there was always something perverse in seeing Draco Malfoy act sorry.

"Did you and your friends talk?" he asked, sounding faintly reluctant.

"We did, Malfoy," I said with a nod. "We did. They're a little bit more predictable than you, you see. I can usually rely on them to be exactly where I think they'll be to say exactly what I think they'll say."

"And what was it that they said?"

I crossed my arms.

"That they couldn't understand it. Why I'd ever let you touch me. You know, with me being me and you being…you."

He flinched at this, like the words had gotten to him. I couldn't see how. If he had cared, he'd have shown up in the first place.

"So what did you-"

"I fixed it," I said plainly.

Malfoy's eyebrows furrowed into a most satisfying expression of anxiety and tumult. I was thrilled that he was feeling what I'd felt all day. All year.

"What do you mean you 'fixed' it?"

I shrugged. "Took a bit of the passionate glow off the situation. Re-adjusted the reality of it."

"Zabini, what did you say?"

"Well, for starters, I ensured they understood that I wasn't your girlfriend — that at most I was your girl friend; we've really progressed this year, you see. And then I explained that you had only kissed me to help me infuriate my brother, since he was helping to plan my transfer to Ilvermorny and I wasn't all too happy about it."

A muscle in his jaw flexed distinctively. "So you lied?"

"You'd think that's what it was. But I think now, after looking at you and having it register that you once again have your priorities completely backwards — I think now that I might have been telling the truth."

Malfoy looked like I'd just punched him somewhere deep in the gut.

"What are you saying?"

An impatient hiss flew from behind my teeth.

"It's not what I'm saying, Malfoy, it's what you're saying. Don't you understand? Every time I convince myself you'll be there for me when I need you and you don't show up, you are saying something to me."

"I already told you I was sorry for not showing up today. I don't—"

"No, you didn't," I said, almost victoriously. This one simple fact reassured me that I wasn't crazy for feeling this way.

"What?"

"You didn't even say that you were sorry."

Malfoy sighed, looking guiltier. "Well I am sorry, Zabini. And I'm sorry that I didn't say I was sorry. I'm sorry for all of it. For seventeen years of—"

"Oh, would you stop telling me that! I'm not interested in hearing it anymore!" I took a step towards him, an unmistakeable buzz of electricity in the air. The scent of his cologne, that spiced amber scent, the one that Pansy gifted to him and consequently knew by heart, was wrapping around me like an embrace. Or maybe more like strangulation. "Stop telling me you're sorry and learn to show me. And I'll learn to show you, if you feel that I haven't enough, that is. And then we'll be able to go to my friends and to Blaise and tell them that I really am your girlfriend, and that it really does work."

Malfoy's face twisted into an incensed expression.

"Sure. Sure, Zabini, because those instructions aren't vague at all. 'Show me you're sorry, Malfoy'. What the fuck does that even mean?" he snapped, a defined frustration in his voice. I wasn't offended; it wasn't malicious. He used the same tone to scold passages in his textbooks for not being easy enough to understand and quick enough to digest.

"It means I'm sick of words. I want actions, Malfoy. A lot of them."

He paused only for a moment before reaching to embrace me, having once again drawn the wrong conclusion. I stepped back, dodging his touch before he made it impossible for me to let myself do so.

"Not that."

He cleared his throat, looking awkward. "Then what?"

"We go to Dumbledore. Now. You turn yourself in and… and I'll beg him to let me come with you if he tries to send you to some sort of safe house. I'm not going to Ilvermorny, if that's still being forced on me. I'll go with you. I promise."

But he was giving me a look again, a pity-filled look that told me that I was deluding myself in my plans.

"What's wrong with what I just said?" I asked.

"I… can't just now."

"But you said that you'd do it! You said that I didn't need to beg!" Alarm was creeping into my voice.

"And you don't, Zabini," he said hurriedly, grabbing me by the shoulders to level with me. "You don't need to beg, I swear."

I pried his hands off my shoulders, not taking my eyes off of him.

"Then why—"

"My mother's in treatment. In France. Whatever you said to her, Zabini, whatever miraculous, wonderful things you said to her worked. But if I go now, the Order will have to contact her too. She'll abscond just to go where I'll be. She's in no state to- it's still so fucking volatile. I need her to stand a chance. We need to at least give her a chance."

I took a step back from him, my frown deep, my thoughts frantic.

"No. No, Draco. We agreed—"

"Zabini, please. It won't be long at all, only a few more weeks. Maybe a month or two. It's too soon for her to— I could barely get her to see enough reason to consider it. And you, you helped brilliantly. You're always so fucking brilliant, Zabini, and I don't deserve you at all. But I love—"

He stopped himself, as if snapping out of whatever insanity he was currently in. I could feel my face change at the shock of such foreign words slipping off his tongue.

"You… love? What do you… love?"

"My family."

"Your family?" I repeated. "What are you- what are you saying? It sounds like you're saying that your family matters and that I don't."

He shook his head. "No, that isn't what I—"

"Then what?"

"You matter. And our families matter. Both of our families want what is best for—"

My mouth dropped open at the gall.

"No they do not! How dare you say that when my 'family' is hatching a plan to put me god knows where with god knows who! How could you possibly say something like that!" I exclaimed.

I only had to look at him to know — didn't even need to hear it. I knew just by looking at him that what I had suspected was true. I took a step back in disbelief.

"You want me to go."

"It isn't as simple as—"

"Yes it is. You want me in America. You don't care how I feel about it, you just want me gone."

Malfoy threw his hands up in the air in a familiar desperation. "Christ, Zabini, does everything always have to end up black and white? Is there no room for grey in that damn head of yours?"

I laughed at the absurdity of what he'd asked. If only he knew. All I ever saw was grey lately - slate grey, looking right back at me.

"I have made far too much room for grey, Malfoy," I snarled, before grabbing my schoolbag. "Thank you for coming. Glad we resolved it."

Just as I had turned to storm off, his hand shot out and gripped me by the arm.

"Nice try, Zabini, but we don't do the dramatic exits anymore. Satisfying as they are, they're not so good for romantic resolution."

"There is nothing romantic about this," I replied, shaking him off.

"Then at least have the guts to end it directly instead of speaking in veiled sentences, demanding things you don't understand the extent of, and storming off."

I couldn't believe what had just escaped his mouth.

"Have the guts? You're lecturing me about cowardice? You couldn't even manage to show up and support me as a silent onlooker today, that is how incapable you are of owning up to your actions!"

Malfoy said nothing in response. Nor did I. It seemed we both knew we were treading down a dangerous path with the tone we were taking.

"Are we done then?" he asked after an extended silence.

My heart seemed to be working overtime to fill my veins with dread, and it showed no sign of easing up as I contemplated the question.

"Is that what you want? You want this to be done?" I asked, flinching in spite of myself. There was that glacial gaze again.

"Not even a little."

Relief. Pure, unadulterated relief.

"Then what are you going to do about it?" I challenged, having found my brazenness again.

Malfoy sighed and yanked the sleeves of his shirt down, as if in preparation for battle.

"Well, darling, I'm going to go do right now what I should have done this morning. I'm going to go have a chat with all your friends."

"A chat with my friends?" I repeated.

"A nice, long chat, to finally put it all on the record. One of us is obviously better at doing that than the other."

"You're putting… what on the record, exactly?" I asked.

Malfoy smirked, not missing a beat. "All of our little transgressions." I barely noticed him slip my hand into his. "You're welcome to join, you know - as a silent onlooker. Although I don't dare dream that you'd ever look on silently."