Author's Notes: I repeat, I can't tell you anything about Draco and Harry! You'll have to wait and read. However, expect a *huge* confrontation fairly soon. Thanks again for all the reviews.

Disclaimer: See part one.

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Nathalie was sitting sullenly on a box when Draco found her. She was swinging her feet so that her heels smacked against the box thud-thud. She had an air of restrained anger about her that made Draco shiver unconsciously - she was very like Harry. He'd felt like that a lot before he'd...

"What are you doing up here?" he forced himself to ask, feigning an air of casualness that he didn't feel. "Students aren't allowed up here, you know."

She shrugged. "I'm not a student - I'm never going to be - so that's alright."

He joined her on the box. "I'm sorry if we scared you off, Nathalie."

She gave another not-quite-nonchalant shrug. "S'okay. Papa has arguments with people all the time about him and Never. Well, not all the time. Most people don't know about it." She put her head on one side like a bird, considering. "Actually, only me and you and Rachel and Godric and Sal'zar know about it," she conceded. "Though I think grandmamma might know too - she's smart. And maybe Rowena - she's smartest of anyone I know. 'Cept maybe Papa. "

A small smile tugged reluctantly at Draco's mouth for a moment. "Still, I'm sorry. I want you to know me, not get scared of me arguing with your Papa."

She turned her grey eyes to him with a practiced air of innocence. "Papa said that's why he left. Because you two argued. Because he's a Necromancer."

Draco shivered again. Nathalie wasn't just like Harry - she was like him also. "That's part of it," he agreed neutrally. "But you'd better ask him about that."

"He won't talk to me about it," she brushed the comment aside. "He says I'm too young to understand. But I'm not. Not really. I've seen things that most adults would run from."

"You're still only nine years old," Draco reminded her. "Maybe your Papa is right...you probably wouldn't understand why we broke up."

"I would so," she pouted, and he suppressed a smile. "I'm nearly ten years old, I'm not a baby!"

"Nathalie." For a moment he was lost for words. "I know you're not. But...but I don't even really understand why we broke up. It was...it was a lot of reasons."

"Well, if you tell me what the reasons are, I'll help you understand!" Nathalie pointed out triumphantly, the pout replaced with a wide grin. Draco chuckled, knowing he was defeated.

"Alright, little bit, I'll try to tell you. I can't promise anything," he warned. He sighed, and leant back against the wall. "Well...part of it was because he's a Necromancer. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you about the prejudices there are against the Necromancers - and I...I believed their lies to be truth. Harry...he hadn't told me what he was, I found his ring in a drawer one day." He glanced down almost automatically at Nathalie's hands, balancing her on the edge of the box, and he was surprised that no silver skull could be seen.

"I don't have one yet," she explained, seeing where he was looking. "We get them when we come-of-age. That's when we're fifteen. Only Papa got his when he found out that he was a Necromancer, 'coz he was seventeen then."

"Right," Draco muttered. "Anyway, I got angry at him. We both said things we shouldn't have. We never worked it out. That's about it."

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't fill her head with nonsense." Nathalie and Draco both looked up to the end of the hall, where Harry stood, framed in the light. He wore his cloak, which Nathalie knew was not a good sign. "Nathalie, please go and fetch your cloak," Harry continued. "Meet me in the entrance hall - you remember how to get there?"

Nathalie silently nodded, slipped off the box, and disappeared past Harry without a backwards glance at Draco, who was watching Harry with some strange emotion in his eyes.

"We're leaving," Harry said curtly. "It's not safe for us here anymore, even with the barriers. The Others will try for me again, and I can't trust in Dumbledore's protection."

"I won't let you take her away from me, not again," Draco told him crisply. "She deserves to know me, and I want to know her."

"You know nothing about her, or what she needs," Harry snapped. "You can't say that you can protect her. The only way she'll be safe is if we keep on running." He paused. "And besides, you get both of us or neither of us. And I can scarcely think that you'd want anything to do with me, now."

Draco stared long and hard at his ex-lover. "I just want to know two things," he said finally. "Did you ever love me, and do you love Never?"

Harry flinched, and looked away for a moment. He wasn't able to speak; he didn't have answers for Draco anyway. Not any answers that Draco would care to hear. Then he took a deep breath, and met Draco's grey eyes again.

"I loved you - I still love you," he admitted in a low voice. "I've never stopped." Draco blanched. "But I...Never and I...it's not love, because he's incapable of human emotion as we see it. But it's...it's the equivalent."

A long, tense moment of silence. Then:

"That's all I needed to know," Draco said tautly. "Goodbye, Potter."

He rose, and walked down to the other end of the hallway, then slipped through the door. Harry watched him go sadly.

"Goodbye, Malfoy." His whisper was absorbed into the stone walls around him. Then he turned and stalked through the halls to the entrance hall, thankful that there was no-one around to see the strange glistening of his eyes.

Nathalie was waiting for him, her hood pulled up so that he couldn't see her face and the cross, sullen expression he knew she was wearing. He looked at her for a moment, then pulled his own hood up.

"We'll walk to Hogsmeade, then Apparate," he told her after a moment. "I don't know where we're going - out of England, certainly - so don't ask, please."

"What did Daddy say?" she wanted to know, her voice muted. Harry could have cursed himself; she had been crying.

"It doesn't matter," he told her quickly. "Come along, cherie. We have to go."

He moved to the heavy oak door, and pulled it open.

Three Aurors were walking up the steps; they saw him, and cried out. Harry unfroze and slammed the door; pressing himself against it, he looked at Nathalie.

"Aurors," he said swiftly. "We'll have to go the back way."

"No time, I'm afraid." Dumbledore had joined them. "I've been owled; Aurors have surrounded the school, they know you're here."

"They don't know all the secret passages," Harry reminded him. "We can get out through one of those. The one into Honeydukes."

"Where then?" Dumbledore asked gently. "How long are you intending to run, Harry?" Harry was torn; he glanced at his daughter, who was standing next to him, looking for a moment very fragile.

"Come to Malfoy Manor," Draco said from the staircase. Harry looked up wildly. "The wards there were created to hide Dark magic, like Necromancy. You'd be safe there for weeks, if not longer."

There was banging on the door. Nathalie's hood fell back; she was gazing intently at her father.

"Please, Papa," she said softly. "I don't want to run anymore."

Harry closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were steely with resolve. "Fine," he snapped. "Malfoy Manor." He nodded at Dumbledore, then, with a hand on Nathalie's shoulder, he followed Draco through the school to the old statue of the witch. Draco pulled out his wand and muttered the password; they slipped in, and left Hogwarts.

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To be continued.