Harry

Harry stared at the Daily Prophet that Draco held. He couldn't contain the rage that filled him and before the blond could stop him, he lunged at the paper, hissing and ripping it apart with his claws. When nothing was left and he was panting for breath he backed away from the mess he made.

He heard someone laughing behind him and turned around to see Draco Malfoy flat on his ass, laughing so hard he was gasping for breath. Harry stood there watching him for about 3 minutes before he got annoyed and walked over and scratched the blond's ankle.

"Fuck!" The Slytherin cursed, ripping his ankle away.

"That's rude, you know," the other teen muttered before pulling himself up so that he was kneeling a few feet away from Harry. "So don't like the idea of your memorial?" Malfoy asked, and Harry took a step back.

How the hell had Malfoy known? He thought as he debated how fast he could run out of the other's room.

"Speechless? Really Potter?" the blond asked with an eyebrow raised. Instead of running, Harry wondered if he could get away with digging his claws into the annoying blond's face.

He settled for hissing at the other teen, who just snorted.

"You know at first, I thought I was losing it." Draco said, shifted to sit on the floor. "You know it wasn't just you. Uncle Sev never admitted you were dead. Then I heard about a new cat in the Manor that both him and my father are taking care of, it was odd but not out of the norm. Not until said cat wanted to fly, and kept reading over my essays like I wouldn't notice. Stranger still was how you never attacked the flying parchment like it was a toy or how you react when people talk to you. I mean Potter, you nodded to me when I asked if you wanted to go for a walk," the blond snorted, 'how has the Dark Lord or father not figured-" Malfoy stopped his eyes growing wide.

"Father knows," he whispered, it suddenly hit him how weird his father had acted around the cat. "Bloody hell," the blonde shook his head, "that's what the whole strawberry thing the other day was, wasn't it? He was messin' with you." Harry started to get worried when Draco's face got more pale than usual, "He'll kill him," the other boy muttered, sounding terrified.

Shit, Harry thought, Draco thinks Voldemort is going to kill his father for keeping this a secret.

Harry rushed forward and bumped his head against the Slytherin's chest. It was like Draco didn't feel it, not really but his hand came down and found Harry's head and he started petting him absentmindedly. The other boy seemed so lost in his panic that he didn't even react when Harry licked his hand.

Not sure what else to do, Harry opened his mouth and bit the other boy's hand. Draco cried out and fell backwards.

"The hell was that for!" Draco glared at him.

Harry just huffed and turned towards the bedroom door. It didn't take more than a second for Draco to get to his feet and follow Harry out of the room. Harry made his way to the elder Malfoy's room and looked back at Draco.

The blond looked confused as hell as he knocked on his father's door.

Thankfully Lucius was in there and alone. The man gave them both a look over before raising his eyebrow and Harry choked when Draco looked panicked when he realized he had no excuse for why he was knocking on his father's door.

Both Malfoy's looked at him and Harry sighed, before he darted between the elder Malfoy's legs and into the man's room. He worked his way to the side of the bed and jumped onto it. When both blonds came in he gave Draco a pointed look and then looked at Lucius.

The younger Malfoy shook his head. Harry hissed at him. Draco shook his head again. Harry let out a frustrated sound, why was Malfoy being an idiot, he hissed again and this time Draco glared at him. Harry stared at him. Draco stared back.

Finally they were broken apart by Lucius saying, "are you two going to finish anytime soon?"

They both jumped and looked at the man. Draco dropped his head and looked down at the floor. Harry rolled his eyes and gestured his head toward the man's son. Lucius seemed to understand him.

"How did you know?" he asked his son as he sat on the edge of his bed.

Draco lifted his head and started to tell him the same thing he had Harry about how he figured it out. Harry, having heard it before, ignored them and moved close to Lucius, shoving his head under the man's hand until he started petting him. The two Malfoys talked for a few minutes before Harry started to drift off.

"You what?!" He heard Lucius say his voice suddenly quite loud. Harry opened his eyes to see Draco's cheeks pink and him looking anywhere but at his father. Harry nudged the man's hand, trying to figure out what he missed.

Lucius looked down at him, "He took you flying?" the man looked upset about it. Not that Harry understood why. He nodded his head.

The man cursed, in several languages, he moved away from them and started pacing. Harry looked at Draco, maybe he would understand what the hell was going on, but Draco looked just as bewildered as Harry.

"Father?" the other boy said after a few moments.

Lucius' shoulders dropped and he turned to look back at them.

"You can't do that again, Dragon," the older man sighed, "if he had fallen," he shook his head, "he can't use his magic to save himself." Harry hissed at the man. He may be stuck as a cat but he wasn't helpless, and no way was he giving up flying, not when he finally found a way he could do it, just because Lucius was worried.

The man glared at him, "if you died and it was his fault, do you know what would happen to him?" the man snapped, "not just at the hands of our Lord, but your Godfather? Your friends?" Harry snapped his mouth shut. He hadn't thought about that. Not that he understood why Voldemort cared. But Padfoot and Moony. He could see them going after Draco. Maybe not if someone explained it correctly, but he wasn't sure his godfathers would give them a chance.

He let out a soft meow and dropped his head back on the bed.

He heard Lucius exhale. "Pott- Harry, I understand how hard this must be. You are trapped. Unable to do much of anything, including eat on your own. You can't do things you would normally do to alleviate your boredom and that has to be frustrating. I will see what I can do about that. But for now, no more flying." The last bit was directed at both him and the younger Malfoy.

Harry nodded his head and Draco muttered, "yes father."

"Father?" Draco said a second later. Both Harry and Lucius looked at him. "Why haven't you told our Lord?' he fidgeted as he asked and sent Harry an apologetic look.

"I have my reasons. By mainly I am waiting to see if Severus finds a cure." the man said.

"Aren't you.." Harry watched as Draco bit his bottom lip, "aren't you afraid he will be upset?

Lucius looked at Harry and then at Draco, an uncertain look on his face. Harry got the impression the man wanted to have this conversation alone. Got up and jumped off the bed.

As he raced out of the room, he thought about it and he was pretty sure Lucius wasn't worried because of his close relationship with the Dark Lord. Harry wondered if Draco knew about it? Or if he was about to find out.

Severus

He had been summoned, by owl, to another Order meeting. He was getting rather sick of them truthfully. It seemed Dumbledore was calling the group together more and more often and yet the old man never really said anything new.

He didn't want to go but knew that he couldn't miss it. Besides he was sure it was about the Memorial for Potter and he was curious what precautions the headmaster was going to take to stop an attack that wasn't going to happen.

When he entered Grimmauld Place it was to some very loud shouting.

"You can't be serious!" Charlie Weasley's voice carried down the hallway.

"It's what's for the best!" Molly shouted back at her son.

"It's bullshit!" the young man snapped back.

Severus walked into the dinning room, Molly and Charlie were standing a few feet about yelling at each other. Arthur at his wife's side trying to calm her down. Bill stood behind his brother, but he seemed more intent on watching them interfering. The twins thankfully were closer to the entrance and he was able to slip in next to them unnoticed.

When he was at their side, he whispered, "what happened?"

The twin closest to him snorted, "Mom and the headmaster want Ginny to talk at the memorial. Some nutty idea that she should address the people and encourage them to keep fighting. Says it's what Harry would have wanted."

"Charlie told her she's lost her mind," the other added in a gleeful tone.

"Dumbledore is sounding desperate." he muttered. Both twins looked at him with an eyebrow raised and he wondered if they noticed they each had the opposite brow lifted.

"He wants to use Harry's death to get as many people to follow him as possible. First, he released the story, then the memorial, now this with your sister." He looked back at Molly. She was shaking her head and giving Charlie a very disappointed look. He looked back at the twins, and gestured his head toward the stairs.

It was easy for them to slip away head up the stairs and into the twins room. Casting privacy spells as he walked into the room, he waited until the wards were up and the door was closed before he finished his thought for before, "Something didn't go the way he wanted."

"You mean with the article?" One of the twins said.

He nodded, "I think Albus believed that would be enough. Just getting the word out that Potter was dead. It should have driven people to him. He is after all the last light Wizard alive capable of killing the Dark Lord."

"Only it didn't work," the other twin said, again he nodded his head.

"So the memorial-" they said together,

"only again something about it-"

"Isn't going the way he wanted-"

"And he wants Ginny to make a speech-"

"About fighting-"

"To get them to follow him." they finished as one.

"Correct." he said. He tried to think about it. Why the people weren't flocking to Dumbledore like he, and truthfully like Severus himself, thought they would? There had been outrage the day after the article came out. People storming the Ministry, Diagon Alley, even the gates of Hogwarts itself, demanding answers.

But after a few days it died down.

When the memorial article came out and he had expected the same kind of reaction. Only there hadn't been. Sure he heard people talking about it when he had been out, but not to the same extent as the previous article. Why weren't they reacting like the scared people they should have been?

There was a knock on the door. Severus cast a disillusionment charm over himself as one of the twins opened the door.

Lupin stuck his head in. "You three need to come back down stairs," he said before turning to walk away. The twins looked at him again with their opposite eyebrows raised, now he was sure they did it on purpose.

He cancelled the charm, "he either smelled me or already knew I was here," he answered their unasked question.

They made their way down stairs. Albus standing at the end of the kitchen table papers and parchment spread out across it. Even from across the room he recognized the layout of Hogsmeade.

"We need to set up anti-apparition wards and block portkeys from anywhere inside Hogsmeade," the man stared once he saw everyone was there. "We can cast a few protection wards over the stage area. But I believe our best chance is to have our people spread out amongst the crowd, watching and looking out for any known or suspected Death Eaters."

The group started talking about finding ways to stop Death Eaters from coming and it turned into an argument. Severus found his attention slipping. He let his eyes drift first over the group at the table and then to the ones that were positioned farther away from it. Lupin and Black were standing in the doorway between the dinner room and the kitchen, their heads close together as they whispered back and forth.

The twins were in a similar position off to his right, only they were looking over some kind of notebook. Charlie it seemed, wasn't in the room, his older brother however was.

Bill wasn't watching the table, no, he was watching the others just like him. The cursebreaker seemed focused on Black and the twins. He kept looking back and forth, like he was looking for something and wasn't seeing it.

Severus watched him for a minute before the redhead must have felt eyes on him. His head snapped up and he locked gazes with Severus. He tilted his head to the side, like he was asking the younger man what he was doing. Bill narrowed his eyes and looked back at his younger brothers.

The man shook his head and looked back at the Order members around the table. Severus was a little surprised at the disgusted look that filtered across the other's face before it was hidden away by a rather bored look.

His attention on Bill caused him to miss the twins moving closer, a nudge against his arm had him looking down. It was the notebook and it was open to a page where he could see a couple spells written out in excruciating detail along with two potions.

He took the notebook and looked over the potions, if he had to guess it was the Canary cream potion and the spells at the top where the part of how the twins made their candies. The second potion was changed here and there and he assumed it was what had worked to give Harry back his body, temporarily. There were also a few notes off to the side, and as he read over it he realized the twins had fiddled with that potion.

He looked at it and started calculating and shifting their potion around in his head. He summoned a quill and crossed out, powered toadstool, and changed it to minced winter mushrooms. Both ingredients were mushrooms but toadstool's were usually poisonous and could have a negative effect on potions. He had found over the years the winter mushrooms were the best to work with. He reread the potion, then the spells at the top.

The twins truly were impressive, the transfiguration spells at the top, were well crafted and he if he had to guess a twins original as he had never seen either before. The potion was a different take on a common one used for 6 year students used to shift into a specific animal. Similar to a polyjuice potion.

It was often used so that they could go further into the forbidden forest unnoticed, it used to be part of the DADA class. It allowed the students to study the creatures that lived there without having to fear for their lives. It hadn't been used in the last few years as none of the DADA teachers had wanted to make the trip.

The twins had tweaked it enough that they could create the animal the person who ate them to turn into instead of an already existing animal. It truly was an amazing piece of work.

He put his quill away and handed the notebook back to the twins.

Their whole exchange was missed by everyone except Lupin and Bill. Lupin just raised an eyebrow in question, while Bill studied them.

He shook his head at Lupin and smirked at Bill.

When the meeting was over, he was hoping he could head back to the school and finish going over the stack of horribly written 1st year essays on his desk. But he was quite literally dragged out of the room by the twins. Lupin and Black grinning as they followed behind.

He noticed Bill watching them and could tell the curse-breaker wanted to follow. He stopped, halting the others, and really looked at the oldest Weasley child.

"Do you trust your brother?" he whispered to the closet twin. The two identical boys exchanged a look and then looked at their eldest brother.

Then they waved him over, "come with us." they said as one.

Black snorted when Bill just nodded his head and followed them up the stairs. Lupin somehow ended up in front of them, the werewolf led them into his room.

Severus didn't pull his wand. Instead he watched Bill as the twins drew theirs and started casting spell after spell. Their brother looked confused at first then surprised as the spells they cast grew stronger and if Severus was any judge just shy of dark.

When they were done, Bill closed his eyes and pushed his hand out. To Severus and the others in the room it looked like he was touching the air, but in reality he was sensing the magic and wards his brothers had just placed. Not many had the skill to do that, and Severus was a little envious.

"You two could make a killing creating wards." Bill muttered when he opened his eyes. He smiled at his brothers for a second before looking at the rest of the group, "Where is Harry?" he asked.