In the Gryffindor common room, just before dawn, Ronald Malfoy slept on the sofa, his head on Hermione Granger's shoulder. Her head was tipped against his in return, her hands slack around the knitting she'd worked at until she couldn't stay awake, couldn't wait any longer for news of what had become of Arthur Weasley.

"Where is he?" The portrait covering the entrance from the corridor banged against the wall outside as Graham Montague came crashing into the tower, shouting. "Harry Potter, where is he?"

Ronald and Hermione startled awake, Ronald swearing and rubbing his eyes, Hermione clutching her knitting to her chest, as if they'd been caught at something.

"Bloody hell, Montague, you're not supposed to be in here," Ronald said, pulling his dressing gown closed and pointedly not rising to his feet. "How did you - "

"I'm asking the questions here, Malfoy," Montague snapped. "I got special clearance to enter from High Inquisitor Umbridge."

As Montague made a second demand to see Harry, Ronald was making a show of ignoring him, craning his neck to see who he'd brought along. "There you are, Draco. Get him out of here," Ronald said when he spotted his brother watching from over Montague's shoulder. "Make this thick git understand that Harry's been gone for hours."

Draco stood with his jaw and fists clenched, glaring at the braided rug at Hermione's feet, saying nothing. She was standing up, her head down, about to walk to the staircase to the girls' dormitories.

"Where do you think you're going, Mudblood?" Montague spat.

Ronald was swearing again. "Leave her be, and get the hell out of here."

Someone uttered a bitter laugh behind Draco. "Get out? You don't have to tell me twice." This third person in the party of invading Slytherin prefects was now retreating through the portrait hole.

"Pansy?" Ronald hopped up from the sofa, calling back at the sound of her voice. His look of anger transmuted into fear, mouth falling open. glancing at Hermione, at the flat spot on the side of her head where she'd been leaning against him in her sleep. What did Pansy think she'd seen?

"Get back here, Parkinson, we're going to need someone to check the girls' dormitory," Montague barked after her.

She swore in reply as the portrait slammed shut behind her.

"Parkinson!"

"I'll get her," Ronald said, sidestepping Montague.

"Not so fast, Malfoy," Montague said, his hand on Ronald's sleeve.

Ronald was squaring up but Draco took Montague by his other arm, whispering. Montague didn't look happy about what Draco suggested, but he did say, "Fine, I'll bring her back myself." He left, the portrait flapping unclasped, leaving Draco alone with Ronald and Hermione.

"It's the truth, Draco," Ronald said. "Harry was violently ill and they whisked him off to Dumbledore in the middle of the night."

Draco folded his arms, still saying nothing.

"Go on upstairs and check, if you don't believe me," Ronald said. "You can probably still smell the stench of sick in the bedroom."

"Oh, I believe you," Draco said. "Who can I trust if not my FAITHFUL brother? So LOYAL. It's not like you'd ever give me the wrong idea about something on purpose. YOU wouldn't do that. Not you, Ronald."

Hermione stood squirming in the doorway to the spiral staircase. Draco wasn't here for Umbridge - not anymore. He wasn't mad about missing Harry. He was mad at her for falling asleep head-to-head with his brother.

Well, how dare he?

Ronald was frowning himself. "What're you on about, mate?"

"Nothing at all. Now tell me why the Weasleys were evacuated with Potter if he was simply sick. It makes no sense," Draco said.

"I don't know myself. Not really."

"Ronald - " Hermione began.

"Weren't you bent on leaving, Granger?" Draco interrupted.

"Yes, but - "

"I need a word in private with my brother, since bringing the Weasleys into this makes it a family matter," he said. "The two of us can talk here or, if you insist on staying, I can take him somewhere more private, like Professor Umbridge's office."

"Like I'd go there with you - "

"It's fine, Ronald," she said in a tight, angry voice. "I'll be upstairs."

Ronald could still see her feet moving on the steps when Draco resumed questioning. "Why are the Weasleys involved in Harry getting sick? You'd better tell me before Montague gets back and takes over the questioning."

"It's nothing," Ronald insisted. "Just a vivid nightmare Harry had where Arthur Weasley was in danger."

Draco scoffed. "All this fuss - Dumbledore and McGonagall running around, Umbridge ordering a search of the castle in the middle of the night - all of this over a dream? How can that be?"

"Come on, Draco," Ronald said. "Sometimes a dream isn't just a dream. Don't act like you're not at the top of the class in Divination."

"Potter had a vision?"

"I don't know what it was. You can keep me here asking about it until dinnertime and I still won't be able to tell you."

Draco unfolded his arms. "Why didn't they bring you along?"

Ronald let himself fall onto the sofa. "Why would they? I'm the Weasleys' fairweather family member, not a crisis-worthy family member - not like Harry is, apparently."

Draco sat beside him. "I hope that doesn't make you sorry. Unlike Potter, you have a family."

"I know that," Ronald sighed. "Frankly, I think that's part of why I was excluded, what with Harry telling everyone Dad's a Death Eater all the time."

Draco coughed. "Reformed Death Eater."

Ronald groaned into his hands. "Not according to Harry. He doesn't say it in front of me, but I know he believes it all the same."

They needed to change the subject, immediately. "To tell you the truth, Ronald, when I heard your holiday hosts had vanished, I was afraid you'd left with them and wouldn't be back before the holidays. I was afraid I'd missed you."

Ronald shifted. "You swore you didn't want to come to the Burrow with me."

"I don't. But that doesn't mean I want to be alone." Draco stretched out his legs, crossed his ankles, looked at his shoes before saying, "Speaking of the company we keep, it seems you and Granger - "

"Get up, Draco." Montague was bawling through the portrait hole again. "Potter's been spotted at St. Mungo's. The search of the castle is called off."

Both Draco and Ronald bolted to their feet. "The Weasleys too?" Draco asked.

Montague was already backing out of the portrait hole. "Yeah, their father was admitted to the hospital last night, some accident at the Ministry. He's hurt but not to death. Come on, Umbridge has decided she wants us out before the rest of the Gryffindors wake up and go spare."

Draco ducked to leave, and as he did, Ronald laid a hand on his elbow. "Hey, thanks," he said. "And about the holidays, we'll work something out. Wherever we end up, we'll make sure to spend them together."

Molly Weasley needed air. The narrow lane just off the dirty, busy London street outside St, Mungo's hospital wasn't a fresh or scenic place, but at least the noise and gloom and smell of the Dai Llewyllyn Ward for Serious Bites was behind her for a little while. The children had already come and gone from visiting Arthur and he was sleeping again - an effect of all the venom and blood loss of the night before.

Arthur's care could easily consume all of her time and energy, but there were also the matters of the children and the holidays for her to attend to. Throwing a bash for a large family was an immense job, one everyone put their hopes into and no one appreciated properly. It didn't make Molly unhappy, but it did make her weary.

She took a deep breath of the streetside air, thick with Muggle car exhaust, and set about rethinking all the plans she'd made. They wouldn't be able to pass the holidays at the Burrow. Arthur would need healers' care here in London for several more weeks. Sirius was very welcoming, offering to have them stay with him. But his house elf refused to serve blood traitors, even when they were Lucretia Black Prewett's grand-niece and her children, so it would fall to Molly to cook and clean for everyone at Grimmauld Place.

A few gifts still needed finishing and posting. Bill, Charlie, and Percy wouldn't be coming which, while sad, was now a blessing in disguise. That left just the twins and Ginny. Oh, and Ronald.

Ronald!

She had promised the Malfoys they would take him for Christmas. She had even offered to take nasty little Draco. Well, there was no way those promises could be kept. It wouldn't do to bring Lucius Malfoy's children into an Order of the Phoenix safe house.

She'd owl Narcissa the bad news. But she didn't trust herself to write a civil letter about it right now, not when Arthur had almost met his end trying to keep Death Eaters out of the Department of Mysteries. She was still too furious, too terrified.

Closing her eyes, Molly tipped her head, her wool hat cushioning her skull from the brickwork at her back. "Calm, calm," she chanted to herself, just to be startled by a backfiring car.

Only it wasn't a car. Instead, there was a flash of low winter sunlight on a polished silver handle, and above it, Lucius Malfoy's ivory sculpted face pausing to appreciate its own reflection in the window pane of the false front of the hospital disguised as a derelict department store. He was just about to speak the password to step through the glass when, without wand or words, Molly stuck his feet to the pavement - an old mothers' trick to keep children from wandering off.

Lucius glared at the pavement, pulling at his boots, frowning.

"That's it, you stop right there, Lucius Malfoy," Molly said, stepping out of the lane to where he could see her.

A look of shock crossed his face, then something almost like a smile. "Molly?"

"Don't you dare smirk at me," she warned. "You're going to regret laying eyes on me today, of all days. You've come down here to gloat, haven't you?"

When she was close enough to grasp the lapels of his cloak, she unstuck his feet and tugged him into the lane. Her hands and arms were strong, but if he'd fought her off in earnest he surely could have escaped. Instead, he allowed himself to be dragged along.

"Gloat? No, I'm a leading patron of the hospital, here for a board meeting," he said. "Whatever would I be gloating over?"

He let her force his back against the hospital's brick wall, holding him there as she pointed a finger into his face. "Hiding behind your pocketbook, as usual," she said. "Well, WE know what you've been up to - you and your people."

He sputtered for a moment, that almost-smile still flickering over his features. "What people?"

The smile made her angrier. She was rising higher onto her toes, into his face. "Your people, him, his snakes. All of them animals you can't control, the same way they were out of your control when Fabian and Gideon died."

His smile vanished completely at the mention of her brothers murdered in his cellar. "See here, Molly," Lucius said. "What is it you're accusing me of? What's happened? Is it the children? I'm quite alarmed. You must tell me."

She took in a huge breath, preparing to lay into him about his complicity in Arthur's attack. She looked directly into his face, his pale blue eyes focused on hers, not with the heavy need of her children's eyes, or of Arthur's or Harry Potter's. He was not looking into her for what she could give, but looking to see what he could give her. How long had it been since anyone had looked at her like that? When she opened her mouth, it wasn't a scathing rebuke that came out, but a sob.

"Hush now," Lucius said, pressing her cheek against the front of his cloak with the palm of his hand on her hair. "You're exhausted. You've been here all night, haven't you?"

She nodded against him, still sobbing.

"Are your children ill? Is that it?" he asked, settling both his arms around her.

The thick layers of his winter clothing were like quicksand she couldn't help but sink into, only they were warm and soft and smelled like - what was it, and why did she like it so well? She tried to shake it out of her head as she told him. "Not the children. Arthur - nearly died."

Lucius cooed, tutting. "Nearly? He's expected to recover then?"

She nodded, her sobs quieting to sniffles.

"What happened to him?" he asked again, this time in a low, sonorous voice spoken against the top of her head.

She blinked away her tears. "You honestly don't know?"

He smirked. "Of course not."

Her arms were bent between them and she formed her hands into small fists, beating them weakly against his chest. "Oh, you don't know, do you?" her tone was loud, sarcastic. "You don't know what happened to Arthur, alone after work yesterday? Just like you knew nothing the last time a giant snake attacked one of my family members?"

Lucius was still holding her, but frowning. "Giant snake? At the Ministry? After hours? What was Arthur doing there alone? How was he rescued? How did he survive?"

Molly's face blanched. If she answered any of these questions, she'd reveal far too much about the Order's affairs. Her anger at the Death Eaters was swept away by her anger at herself for risking everything Arthur had suffered just to satisfy her urge to scold and punish Lucius Malfoy. It was not unlike the other incident between them, at the Prewett cemetery almost seventeen years earlier. That day, spurred on by the Milletus pollen, she had lost control, slipped, and created chaos for innocent people, all over him. This time the intensity was the same only it was a fit of anger not…

She pushed herself out of the quicksand. "Get out of my sight," she said. "And don't send us Ronald for the holidays. We'll be stuck here in London while Arthur recovers, guests at the home of a friend, not in a position to take anyone else in - not even our own son."

Covering her face with her hands, she rushed out of the lane, leaving Lucius to watch as she disappeared through the glass, back inside the hospital to where her wounded husband waited.

"Our own son," Lucius repeated. The words themselves meant nothing dramatic. Molly could have been speaking of a son of hers and Arthurs, or of hers and his - or of all of theirs. Maybe he only imagined it, but there was something besides the words, something in the way she said it...

Lucius eyed the tear stains on his cloak. Arthur Weasley attacked by a snake - the Dark Lord had made a move against the Ministry without taking the Death Eaters' counsel first, such was his impatience. His snake was subtle but also a rash creature, not at all tame. The Dark Lord himself had returned with a new animalistic wildness about him, a distance gaping between himself and his former humanity.

Lucius was less sure this time how best to serve and satisfy him - how to appease him so he wouldn't threaten Narcissa and the boys. One thing was for certain. The children could not come home to the manor. If Lucius had any doubt of that Arthur Weasley, still bleeding into his bandages, still drinking anti-venom potions for dear life, had been kind enough to put those doubts to rest.

Professor McGonagall had let Hermione come along with Ronald to the meeting where she explained the snake attack and its consequences. Harry's dream had been a vision indeed. Arthur, who was lucky to have survived the attack, would be recovering for weeks, and there would be no one at the Burrow to take Ronald in over the holidays.

He was all sighs as they left McGonagall's office.

"Relieved, are you?" Hermione said. "I know I am. Amazing that Harry not only saved Mr. Weasley but then got away from here in the nick of time, right before Umbridge got hold of them."

Ronald sighed again. "Yeah, brilliant. I just wish - I wish I was more relieved. Arthur and I - there's this weird gap between us. I should be happier that he's safe but…"

"Oh, who's to say how you should feel right now?" she said, batting his arm. "Not a lot of people live to see their bio-dads attacked by snakes. You're the only expert on it that I've ever met."

"Biological fathers," Ronald muttered. "That reminds me: I need to find Draco and tell him we're both spending the holidays here at school."

Hermione stopped walking, pulling on Ronald's arm until he stopped as well.

"About your holidays," she said. "I couldn't help overhearing the pair of you talking about it this morning - "

"Oh, couldn't you?" he said.

She smirked. "Well, the point is, I'd like to invite you both to spend Christmas with my family in London. You're my best friend, Ronald, and I've spent holidays in the Burrow with you and Harry before, so it's only fair I take my turn hosting you."

Ronald raised his eyebrows. "And Draco?"

She nodded at her feet. "I heard what he said to you this morning. I understand the pair of you are a package deal, I accept that."

"You might be able to accept it, but he never will. Draco Malfoy holidaying in Muggle London for two weeks - unimaginable. Thanks, but it's no use," Ron said, shifting miserably on his feet.

She was sighing now. "Let me have the first crack at inviting him. If he tells me 'no' once, he might feel like he has to say 'yes' to you when he's asked a second time."

Ronald bent to kiss Hermione roughly and noisily on the top of her head. "You're the most wonderful person I've ever met. Now where, at long last, is my ice cream?"

It was late in the evening, nearly time to close up, when Hermione found Draco exactly where she expected him, in the restricted section of the library, scowling over potions books.

He glanced up from his notes as she stepped over the rope. "Granger. Still up after your long night yesterday?"

She took a chair and set it close to him before sitting down at the table. "You can't be mad at me for falling asleep on the sofa comforting your brother after his bio-dad was bitten by an enormous snake, Malfoy."

"I can't? Is that a fact?"

"It is," she said. "What I offered Ronald last night was an act of friendship, or motherly affection at best."

Draco scoffed, snapping his book shut. "That's just how he likes it."

She rolled her eyes. "Don't start with that creepy Muggle doctor and his mother theories again."

"Fine."

"Look, I don't know what you think you saw this morning," she said, "but Ronald is nothing like my boyfriend."

Draco wrenched his bag off the back of his chair, nearly breaking his quill as he jammed it inside. "Not yet, he's not."

"Well, you aren't wrong about that," she said. Draco had finished hastily repacking his bag and was about to stand when she stopped him with a hand laid gently on his knee. Every one of his muscles froze. "But two kisses doesn't make you my boyfriend either, Malfoy."

He threw his bag on the floor, gripped the wrist of the hand laid on his knee, and pulled her out of her chair, into his lap. His arm was around her waist, his forehead against her temple, his lips brushing her ear as he spoke. "No? Then how many would it take?"

He was holding her loosely enough for her to break away, but she didn't move. His breath was moving fast against her ear, raising a shiver down her neck and all along her arm. She had imagined kissing Draco Malfoy again - that and more, truth be told. But she had never imagined him confessing he wanted her. And if she had, she wouldn't have imagined it being anything as abrupt and visceral as this.

That was what was happening, wasn't it?

She couldn't be sure, but she could be careful. She turned her head to speak to him, her forehead pressed to his. "We won't work, Malfoy," Hermione said, her voice quiet and pained, breathless. "It's impossible when we're on different sides of a national conflict."

He swallowed. "Ronald and I have never agreed on politics either. But there's enough affection between us for it not to matter much."

She clenched her eyes shut. "This isn't just politics. The conflict is based on whether I'm fundamentally inferior to you, whether I have any right to be a part of your society."

He brushed his nose against her cheek. "No, it's not that. It's really just about money and property, and while my father would give the world for that, I don't even care. I do what he asks of me as the son and heir of his house and the rest is rubbish. The blood status nonsense is just an ideological smokescreen for keeping hold of all the old money and land."

"Well, it's far more than smoke to me," she said, drawing her face back. "You heard how Montague spoke to me this morning. It was viscous and personal. And you've used that word against me yourself."

"I'm sorry," he said, bowing his head against her shoulder. "If I've neglected to say it before, I'm saying it now. I'm sorry for what I said, Hermione Granger. It wasn't until you got petrified in second year that I understood how dangerous that talk could be. But by then, I'd already said it. I'm sorry. I was a stupid kid."

She closed her arms around his neck. "Did you come to gawk at me while I was a petrified thirteen-year-old?" she asked.

He shook his head. "No. Pomfrey and the rest had the good sense to forbid it. I did comfort Ronald after he came back from visiting you in the hospital wing. Awful…"

She patted his back. "There, there, I'm safe now."

He pulled her hip sideways, hard against his stomach. "Don't you use that maternal tone with me, Granger."

She lifted her chin. "I will for as long as you keep acting like a naughty child who sabotages me at every turn."

"How do you figure that?" he said. "I don't sabotage you. I enable you."

She shouted a laugh.

"Think about it, Granger," he insisted. "Who talked you through fixing the Protean charmed galleons even though I could tell they were meant for passing messages around Potter's secret society?"

She jumped in his lap, sputtering. "That is not what the galleon was for."

He forced a laugh. "Oh, give over, Granger. And who stays close enough to Umbridge to keep her off your trail?"

She took her arms from his neck and folded them across her chest. "Umbridge does as she pleases. It's got nothing to do with you."

"No? Well what about Montague? I paired up with him last night when I heard he was taking responsibility for ransacking Gryffindor Tower, and I kept him from stepping more than a metre into your common room, didn't I?"

She huffed.

He was still talking. "And what about the first time Montague came for you, in that vanished room on the fifth floor, when I turned my whole life completely upside down by kissing you into hiding?"

"Well, I'm sorry that was so horrible for you - "

He cut her off, taking her face in both of his hands and kissing her mouth. She clamped her hands on each of his shoulders and leaned into him until his chairback creaked threateningly behind him. He ignored the sound, raking his hands into her hair, curls coiling around his fingers. For the first time, it was her pushing his lips open with her tongue, his voice sounding in surprise and satisfaction. By the stars, she was perfectly made for him to kiss, and he had to keep kissing her or he might do something stupid like moan those words into her mouth.

She broke away, leaving his mouth open and wet, unfinished. "Here is how you will prove your Muggle-tolerant heart to me," she whispered into his face, tracing his cheekbones with the pads of her thumbs.. "You and Ronald will spend the holidays in Muggle London at my Muggle parents' house with me. You will drive in cars, and cook, wash up, watch television, and take out the wheelie bin. There will be no magic and plenty of chaperones for two weeks."

He had regained his composure enough to tip her back, as if he was dipping her during a dance. "Easily done," he said, his eyes staring into hers as she clung to his shoulders to keep from falling out of his lap. "And since Ronald is coming, the visit will give you a proper chance to choose which one of us you truly want."