Disclaimer: I own no characters in this story; they all belong to the
fabulously wonderful Joanne Kathleen Rowling.
Chapter 11
The walk home was silent, although each boy was glad Hermione was safe, all knew she must have been very distraught after hearing of Voldemort's plans for her. Hermione walked between Harry and Ron, her head bent down deep in thought, a tear slowly spilled down her cheek, without glancing up she reached her right hand out to find Harry's and her left to find Ron's, she grasped both hands tightly and cried silently until they reached Draco's hotel room. She stopped outside the door and didn't make any attempt to enter.
She gave Harry and Ron both a hug, "Thank you for everything," she whispered to both of them in turn. "But I think I need to talk with Draco for a few minutes, in private, I'll see you inside in a minute."
Harry and Ron did as she bid although with a tinge of reluctance. Once both boys had disappeared into the room Hermione looked at Draco unsmiling. "I'm sorry" she whispered her eyes downcast, "I just needed some time, I'm not sure what for, or why I wanted you to..I just.. I think need to cry.." her voice broke and she shut her eyes letting the tears fall down her face, she was breathing heavily and for a moment Draco didn't know what to do, unfortunately he was never very good around people when they were upset, generally because he was the cause of it and he wallowed in their pain. He took a step towards her, which was enough for Hermione, she grabbed him and pulled him into a hug, she snuggled her head into his shoulder and cried. That was it, she just cried.
"I feel like such an idiot, nothing even happened" Hermione said, finally looking up at Draco.
"You're not an idiot. I think the thought of Voldemort doing something like that would make anybody cry." Draco said with an attempt at an encouraging smile.
Hermione smiled, still crying, "You're no help!"
"What are you talking about, I'm always helpful."
Hermione, who was still standing very close to Draco, snaked her arms behind his neck and pulled herself into him. "Be helpful. Kiss me." she whispered into his ear.
"My pleasure."
Their eyes locked for a second before her lips touched his ever so softly before she pulled away again and stared into his eyes. Draco smiled and this time it was he who leant in to kiss her, this time she didn't pull away but pulled her body closer to his, trying to remove every bit of space between them, if she didn't get closer, she feared her heart would burst. She pushed him against the wall and kissed him passionately.
"Whoa, Hermione, steady on," he said pulling his lips away, "may I remind you, we are in the middle of the hallway and your two constantly-mad-at-me, surrogate brothers are in the next room."
"Sorry, before we go in, I just wanted to know, what we are?" she asked resting her cheek against his chest.
"What do you mean?"
She looked up at him. "Are we friends who occasionally enjoy a good snog every now and then? Or are we enemies? Or," she hesitated, "are we together?"
"Oh. I see." Draco paused for a second turning this over in his mind. "Well, I don't want to be your enemy anymore, I want to be your friend."
"Oh. Okay. Friends." Hermione, who was dangerously close to tears, turned to head inside.
"Hermione, I wasn't finished."
"You weren't?"
"No, I was going to say. I want to be your friend, but if it's alright with you, I'd like to be your boyfriend too." Hermione's face lit up and she grinned at him.
"Meanie!" she declared, hugging him tightly, "how could you do that?"
"What can I say? Aren't I awful?"
***~~~***
Hermione who had already relayed her rather short and uneventful tale of woe, while in the clutches of Voldemort, to the boys, was sitting quietly listening and watching as Ron, rather dramatically flicking his wand about the place, retold an exciting game of hide and seek cursing (a wizard version of hide and seek chasey) he, Harry and Sirius had had while Remus was out shopping. By the way Harry was laughing and shaking his head at Hermione, she guessed, perhaps, Ron was exaggerating a little. Draco, who, under normal circumstances, would have sat there and grumbled about what a baby game it was, was actually enjoying the story as well, so much so he didn't notice that familiar feeling run up his spine.
"And then!" Ron exclaimed, pausing for effect, "I stepped out of the bushes and shouted... WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA!!! Harry was..." Ron stopped instantly. It wasn't Harry that flew up into the air, as Ron was about to tell everyone, it was, in fact, Mr Lucius Malfoy, who as luck would have it had just apparated in, hoping to make a grand entrance and scare the pants of everyone, but was instead left wondering why on earth he was floating up near the ceiling. This moment of confusion on Lucius' part was just enough time for Harry, Hermione and Draco to grab their wands and shout curses.
"Expelliarmus!"
"Pertrificus totalus!"
"Avada Kedavra!"
(A/n: if you are any sort of a Harry Potter fanatic you will know who says what.) All four Hogwarts' students stared at Lucius whose wand was now in Harry's hand and was now staring back at them with his lifeless eyes.
"Draco, what have you done?"
"Later. We got to get out of here; if he found us chances are the Dark Lord will too." Draco exclaimed, while gathering up his stuff.
"No kidding, Sherlock!" Ron mocked him.
"Hermione, you know that spell for changing muggle money into wizard money, don't you?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, I do. Where is the money?"
Hermione worked her magic on the money she found in the muggle office where she and Draco had hidden and they were soon off on the Knight bus again (see a/n at the end re: Knight Bus) back to London. The trip was quiet and uneventful, they just caught up on some much need rest. Nothing was said about Draco's father. Ron and Draco, who turned out to be quite the competitor, played a rather fierce game of wizards chess, the chess board was provided by Ernie, the driver, Ron, as always, came out the victor.
The leaky cauldron was quiet when they arrived, but Tom of course didn't mind the late night check in and agreed not to mention their arrival to anyone. Draco sent an owl to Dumbledore immediately and they all settled into bed. All except Ron, who was unanimously chosen as the first sentry.
It was pretty quiet and Ron had taken to playing chess against himself with a chess set he found in the cupboard, which, not surprisingly wasn't working too well. Occasionally he would drop ice down his back and quietly jump about a little from the cold, just to wake himself up. He was jumping around the room for the 4th time that hour and, unfortunately, hit the corner of the table rather painfully. He swore from the pain waking Hermione from her light sleep. She sat up and pulled the covers back so she could get out and, without out a word, she walked over to the bathroom sink and wet the hand towel with cold water and rung it out.
"Sit down you big baby," she ordered Ron. She folded the towel and placed it on Ron's bleeding knee, which was very quickly turning into a purple bruise. "Better?"
"Much, thank you," he replied, "How you holding up?"
"Fantastic," she said sarcastically, with a weak smile. "I don't get it. They didn't even touch me, except Lucius Malfoy," she faltered when saying his name, "yet I'm so drained and weak and every time I think about Voldemort and everything, I feel so empty, so..used."
Ron gave her an encouraging smile and slipped his arm around her pulling her into a hug. "Oh, Hermione, you'll get through this, I promise. And even though it seems like you'll never feel normal again, you will. Every time you think about this you will feel this emptiness and if you let it, it'll consume you until there's nothing left. Or you can take that feeling and you can put it away and forget about it. One day, you may find it again, but won't last long. We love you. Me and Harry, we do. Don't you ever forget that."
"What about Draco?" she asked quietly. Ron knew this would come up sometime.
"Well, I can tell you right now," he said with a mischievous smile, "I do NOT love with Malfoy."
"Ron!" she growled, playfully punching his stomach, "you know what I mean!"
"Malfoy is..well, he's Malfoy. I wouldn't so go as far as to say I like him. And after," this time Ron faltered, "I dunno, I guess we can't bug him about it. We should just wait for Dumbledore."
"I don't know if we should tell Dumbledore, I mean he could go to Azkaban," she said, "I think he wanted to do that - for his Mother. And him too, I guess."
"Well, leave that up to him. If he wants to keep it a secret, our secret, I reckon we could do that."
"Oh, Ron," she whispered, "I love you too." She kissed his cheek, "you should get some sleep."
"I do believe its Malfoy's turn to guard."
Hermione crawled back into bed, while Ron went over to wake Draco.
***~~~***
"She's so beautiful," Draco whispered to the silence of the dark hotel room, "I wonder why I never noticed before?"
"Probably because you had your head stuck so far up your arse your entire life you didn't notice anyone but yourself," Harry answered for him, he had woken up in the night and was having trouble getting back to sleep.
"Yeah, I probably deserved that."
"Probably?"
"Don't push it Potter."
"I still don't trust you, Malfoy."
"I know and I'm not asking you to, not just yet anyway. For what it's worth Potter, I'm sorry." Harry was silent for almost a minute, deciding first of all if he should believe what he was hearing, and second of all whether or not he should accept his apology.
"For what? The names. The fights. The dirty tricks. Um.. Am I missing something?" Harry was cold. Malfoy, his eyes downcast, didn't say a word. Staring at Draco, Harry realised what a big step this was for him and Harry was ashamed of how much harder he was making it for him. "Thanks," he said, "I'm sorry too. I'm not sure if I can be your friend just yet, but for what it's worth Malfoy," Harry said, mocking him, "I no longer count you among my enemies."
"Here," Draco said, passing Harry some chocolate, "I bought this yesterday, I'm a bit of a chocoholic actually, helps me cheer up, and this muggle stuff's not half bad."
"Thanks." Harry took the clump of chocolate Draco broke off for him and they ate in silence for a bit.
"Hey, Malfoy," Harry began, getting his attention and grinning at him, "you are such a prat,"
"Where did that come from?"
"That, my friend, was something that needed to be said a long time ago. Thanks for the chocolate; I'm going back to bed."
***~~~***
Draco Malfoy was extremely irritated to be woken at 7.30 the following morning. He was having a very nice dream about his childhood, one of his few happy memories. Before Lucius turned him to killing, there was so many people, so many nightmares. But not tonight, he thought that was because of Hermione, because he had finally done what he never had the courage to do, he had finally killed Lucius. His dream was about the park he showed Hermione. He remembered that day so well, Lucius was at a meeting and his mother took him to that park and he played on the swing with another little boy. Then suddenly he was curtly awoken by a sharp nip on the ear by a tawny owl baring the logo of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The owl had a note attached to its talon, Dumbledore's reply. Draco swiftly unhooked the note from the owl and read.
Mr Malfoy,
I understand that you would prefer to speak to me in person, I apparated to the leaky cauldron this morning and I have taken the liberty of ordering a rather large breakfast for you and your friends. We will talk after breakfast. I will be waiting for you downstairs, when you are ready.
Albus Dumbledore.
Draco breathed a sigh of relief when he knew Dumbledore was here. He glanced around the room to see the others asleep in what looked like rather uncomfortable positions. Harry was on the floor, he must have fallen asleep while he was guarding. Draco had done this himself, so he made a point not to make a big deal of it. Ron was squished up against the wall, Draco wondered why, since there was nothing forcibly holding him there. And Hermione, she had rolled off the bed in the night and was lying crumpled on the floor near Harry.
Half an hour later, they were all awake and packed and heading downstairs to breakfast. Dumbledore had indeed prepared a rather large breakfast for them. None had had a decent meal for a few days, so they were all grateful for his efforts.
"Welcome," Dumbledore smiled at them, "please sit."
"Thank you, Sir." Hermione said, and took her seat. The boys nodded their thanks to Dumbledore and they too took their seats.
"Help yourself," Dumbledore gestured to the food. "We'll discuss matters later."
It was a fairly small table packed with pancakes, toast with all sort of different spreads, bacon, eggs, sausages, some strange looking slop that Harry assumed was porridge but was not brave enough to try, as well as two large jugs of pumpkin juice. The meal was eaten in silence, occasionally Tom came over to see if everything was okay. Once they were all finished Professor Dumbledore beckoned Tom over to the table and subtly requested a place where they could talk in private. Tom lead them down a long familiar passage, the same narrow passage Tom lead he and Cornelius Fudge down almost four years before. It was a different parlour which the five of them were lead into, much bigger, from memory, Harry thought the other would have much too small to fit them all in comfortably.
"How are you all?" Dumbledore asked.
"We're all fine, Professor, but Voldemort, he's in Venice," Hermione began, "he's in an old warehouse, I don't remember the street name but I - I could show you." Draco grabbed Hermione's hands which were moving frustrated in front of her. She closed her eyes tightly, Draco let go of her hands and placed one of them on her cheek. She opened her eyes and looked into his, "I don't want to cry anymore," she whispered.
"I know," he answered.
"I know you don't want to talk about this, but I really need to know exactly what happened, you will only have to say this once, I will talk to your families about everything afterwards. I believe Hermione and Draco need to start the story-"
With input from everyone, the story was relayed to the Professor. It wasn't until they reached Draco's encounter with his father at the hotel, did their story begin to falter.
"And the Lucius Malfoy apparated into the room and I accidentally levitated him into the air, and Hermione and Harry and Malfoy all cursed him and-"
"And?" Dumbledore prompted Ron, who had stopped halfway through his explanation.
"And the force of all the curses knocked him out and we just ran away." Ron finished.
"I see," Dumbledore said. "I suppose you came straight here afterwards?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Well, you can not keep all of that money. But I am still unsure of what to do with it."
"I know what to do with it," Harry said, glancing at Ron, "but I'd rather tell you in private."
"Harry, I think that's a wonderful idea. I shall send for each of your families. Draco- perhaps not yours just yet. Is there someone you can stay with?"
"No, not really."
"He can stay with me and Sirius' in Godric's Hollow."
"Perfect!"
~~~***~~~
The rest of the summer holidays weren't as bad as Harry thought it would be, he and Draco became somewhat friends and Ron and Hermione came and stayed for a few days, but their families preferred them home. This under the circumstances was understandable. The news got out that Lucius Malfoy had been murdered although the killer was unknown. Draco was somewhat tormented by Slytherin house once he began to associate with Harry and Ron and especially after it became obvious he and Hermione were an item. Still he would last the year. It was after all only a year. What could happen?
***~~~***
A/N: Well my friends, my dear, beloved, faithful readers and reviewers, that's it. Its finished. There may be a sequel. There may not. I dunno. If there is it may not be for a while I think I'm going to concentrate on school for a while. Nerdy little me, I know! Love and best wishes to all. And God bless. Lozza. XXXOOO
Re: Knight Bus: In chapter 9 Harry and Ron use the Knight Bus to travel to Venice from Godric's Hollow. There was a reviewer who queried about the use of the Knight Bus in this chapter. According to the reviewer the Knight Bus is unable to travel over water, which may be true, I did look that up before I wrote the chapter and both Cari and I agreed that we could use the knight bus. "'So - so this bus,' he went on quickly, hoping to distract Stan, 'did you say it goes anywhere?' 'Yep,' said Stan proudly, 'anywhere you like, long's its on land. Can't do nuffink underwater.'" Page 31, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
I suppose it can be interpreted many ways.
Chapter 11
The walk home was silent, although each boy was glad Hermione was safe, all knew she must have been very distraught after hearing of Voldemort's plans for her. Hermione walked between Harry and Ron, her head bent down deep in thought, a tear slowly spilled down her cheek, without glancing up she reached her right hand out to find Harry's and her left to find Ron's, she grasped both hands tightly and cried silently until they reached Draco's hotel room. She stopped outside the door and didn't make any attempt to enter.
She gave Harry and Ron both a hug, "Thank you for everything," she whispered to both of them in turn. "But I think I need to talk with Draco for a few minutes, in private, I'll see you inside in a minute."
Harry and Ron did as she bid although with a tinge of reluctance. Once both boys had disappeared into the room Hermione looked at Draco unsmiling. "I'm sorry" she whispered her eyes downcast, "I just needed some time, I'm not sure what for, or why I wanted you to..I just.. I think need to cry.." her voice broke and she shut her eyes letting the tears fall down her face, she was breathing heavily and for a moment Draco didn't know what to do, unfortunately he was never very good around people when they were upset, generally because he was the cause of it and he wallowed in their pain. He took a step towards her, which was enough for Hermione, she grabbed him and pulled him into a hug, she snuggled her head into his shoulder and cried. That was it, she just cried.
"I feel like such an idiot, nothing even happened" Hermione said, finally looking up at Draco.
"You're not an idiot. I think the thought of Voldemort doing something like that would make anybody cry." Draco said with an attempt at an encouraging smile.
Hermione smiled, still crying, "You're no help!"
"What are you talking about, I'm always helpful."
Hermione, who was still standing very close to Draco, snaked her arms behind his neck and pulled herself into him. "Be helpful. Kiss me." she whispered into his ear.
"My pleasure."
Their eyes locked for a second before her lips touched his ever so softly before she pulled away again and stared into his eyes. Draco smiled and this time it was he who leant in to kiss her, this time she didn't pull away but pulled her body closer to his, trying to remove every bit of space between them, if she didn't get closer, she feared her heart would burst. She pushed him against the wall and kissed him passionately.
"Whoa, Hermione, steady on," he said pulling his lips away, "may I remind you, we are in the middle of the hallway and your two constantly-mad-at-me, surrogate brothers are in the next room."
"Sorry, before we go in, I just wanted to know, what we are?" she asked resting her cheek against his chest.
"What do you mean?"
She looked up at him. "Are we friends who occasionally enjoy a good snog every now and then? Or are we enemies? Or," she hesitated, "are we together?"
"Oh. I see." Draco paused for a second turning this over in his mind. "Well, I don't want to be your enemy anymore, I want to be your friend."
"Oh. Okay. Friends." Hermione, who was dangerously close to tears, turned to head inside.
"Hermione, I wasn't finished."
"You weren't?"
"No, I was going to say. I want to be your friend, but if it's alright with you, I'd like to be your boyfriend too." Hermione's face lit up and she grinned at him.
"Meanie!" she declared, hugging him tightly, "how could you do that?"
"What can I say? Aren't I awful?"
***~~~***
Hermione who had already relayed her rather short and uneventful tale of woe, while in the clutches of Voldemort, to the boys, was sitting quietly listening and watching as Ron, rather dramatically flicking his wand about the place, retold an exciting game of hide and seek cursing (a wizard version of hide and seek chasey) he, Harry and Sirius had had while Remus was out shopping. By the way Harry was laughing and shaking his head at Hermione, she guessed, perhaps, Ron was exaggerating a little. Draco, who, under normal circumstances, would have sat there and grumbled about what a baby game it was, was actually enjoying the story as well, so much so he didn't notice that familiar feeling run up his spine.
"And then!" Ron exclaimed, pausing for effect, "I stepped out of the bushes and shouted... WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA!!! Harry was..." Ron stopped instantly. It wasn't Harry that flew up into the air, as Ron was about to tell everyone, it was, in fact, Mr Lucius Malfoy, who as luck would have it had just apparated in, hoping to make a grand entrance and scare the pants of everyone, but was instead left wondering why on earth he was floating up near the ceiling. This moment of confusion on Lucius' part was just enough time for Harry, Hermione and Draco to grab their wands and shout curses.
"Expelliarmus!"
"Pertrificus totalus!"
"Avada Kedavra!"
(A/n: if you are any sort of a Harry Potter fanatic you will know who says what.) All four Hogwarts' students stared at Lucius whose wand was now in Harry's hand and was now staring back at them with his lifeless eyes.
"Draco, what have you done?"
"Later. We got to get out of here; if he found us chances are the Dark Lord will too." Draco exclaimed, while gathering up his stuff.
"No kidding, Sherlock!" Ron mocked him.
"Hermione, you know that spell for changing muggle money into wizard money, don't you?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, I do. Where is the money?"
Hermione worked her magic on the money she found in the muggle office where she and Draco had hidden and they were soon off on the Knight bus again (see a/n at the end re: Knight Bus) back to London. The trip was quiet and uneventful, they just caught up on some much need rest. Nothing was said about Draco's father. Ron and Draco, who turned out to be quite the competitor, played a rather fierce game of wizards chess, the chess board was provided by Ernie, the driver, Ron, as always, came out the victor.
The leaky cauldron was quiet when they arrived, but Tom of course didn't mind the late night check in and agreed not to mention their arrival to anyone. Draco sent an owl to Dumbledore immediately and they all settled into bed. All except Ron, who was unanimously chosen as the first sentry.
It was pretty quiet and Ron had taken to playing chess against himself with a chess set he found in the cupboard, which, not surprisingly wasn't working too well. Occasionally he would drop ice down his back and quietly jump about a little from the cold, just to wake himself up. He was jumping around the room for the 4th time that hour and, unfortunately, hit the corner of the table rather painfully. He swore from the pain waking Hermione from her light sleep. She sat up and pulled the covers back so she could get out and, without out a word, she walked over to the bathroom sink and wet the hand towel with cold water and rung it out.
"Sit down you big baby," she ordered Ron. She folded the towel and placed it on Ron's bleeding knee, which was very quickly turning into a purple bruise. "Better?"
"Much, thank you," he replied, "How you holding up?"
"Fantastic," she said sarcastically, with a weak smile. "I don't get it. They didn't even touch me, except Lucius Malfoy," she faltered when saying his name, "yet I'm so drained and weak and every time I think about Voldemort and everything, I feel so empty, so..used."
Ron gave her an encouraging smile and slipped his arm around her pulling her into a hug. "Oh, Hermione, you'll get through this, I promise. And even though it seems like you'll never feel normal again, you will. Every time you think about this you will feel this emptiness and if you let it, it'll consume you until there's nothing left. Or you can take that feeling and you can put it away and forget about it. One day, you may find it again, but won't last long. We love you. Me and Harry, we do. Don't you ever forget that."
"What about Draco?" she asked quietly. Ron knew this would come up sometime.
"Well, I can tell you right now," he said with a mischievous smile, "I do NOT love with Malfoy."
"Ron!" she growled, playfully punching his stomach, "you know what I mean!"
"Malfoy is..well, he's Malfoy. I wouldn't so go as far as to say I like him. And after," this time Ron faltered, "I dunno, I guess we can't bug him about it. We should just wait for Dumbledore."
"I don't know if we should tell Dumbledore, I mean he could go to Azkaban," she said, "I think he wanted to do that - for his Mother. And him too, I guess."
"Well, leave that up to him. If he wants to keep it a secret, our secret, I reckon we could do that."
"Oh, Ron," she whispered, "I love you too." She kissed his cheek, "you should get some sleep."
"I do believe its Malfoy's turn to guard."
Hermione crawled back into bed, while Ron went over to wake Draco.
***~~~***
"She's so beautiful," Draco whispered to the silence of the dark hotel room, "I wonder why I never noticed before?"
"Probably because you had your head stuck so far up your arse your entire life you didn't notice anyone but yourself," Harry answered for him, he had woken up in the night and was having trouble getting back to sleep.
"Yeah, I probably deserved that."
"Probably?"
"Don't push it Potter."
"I still don't trust you, Malfoy."
"I know and I'm not asking you to, not just yet anyway. For what it's worth Potter, I'm sorry." Harry was silent for almost a minute, deciding first of all if he should believe what he was hearing, and second of all whether or not he should accept his apology.
"For what? The names. The fights. The dirty tricks. Um.. Am I missing something?" Harry was cold. Malfoy, his eyes downcast, didn't say a word. Staring at Draco, Harry realised what a big step this was for him and Harry was ashamed of how much harder he was making it for him. "Thanks," he said, "I'm sorry too. I'm not sure if I can be your friend just yet, but for what it's worth Malfoy," Harry said, mocking him, "I no longer count you among my enemies."
"Here," Draco said, passing Harry some chocolate, "I bought this yesterday, I'm a bit of a chocoholic actually, helps me cheer up, and this muggle stuff's not half bad."
"Thanks." Harry took the clump of chocolate Draco broke off for him and they ate in silence for a bit.
"Hey, Malfoy," Harry began, getting his attention and grinning at him, "you are such a prat,"
"Where did that come from?"
"That, my friend, was something that needed to be said a long time ago. Thanks for the chocolate; I'm going back to bed."
***~~~***
Draco Malfoy was extremely irritated to be woken at 7.30 the following morning. He was having a very nice dream about his childhood, one of his few happy memories. Before Lucius turned him to killing, there was so many people, so many nightmares. But not tonight, he thought that was because of Hermione, because he had finally done what he never had the courage to do, he had finally killed Lucius. His dream was about the park he showed Hermione. He remembered that day so well, Lucius was at a meeting and his mother took him to that park and he played on the swing with another little boy. Then suddenly he was curtly awoken by a sharp nip on the ear by a tawny owl baring the logo of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The owl had a note attached to its talon, Dumbledore's reply. Draco swiftly unhooked the note from the owl and read.
Mr Malfoy,
I understand that you would prefer to speak to me in person, I apparated to the leaky cauldron this morning and I have taken the liberty of ordering a rather large breakfast for you and your friends. We will talk after breakfast. I will be waiting for you downstairs, when you are ready.
Albus Dumbledore.
Draco breathed a sigh of relief when he knew Dumbledore was here. He glanced around the room to see the others asleep in what looked like rather uncomfortable positions. Harry was on the floor, he must have fallen asleep while he was guarding. Draco had done this himself, so he made a point not to make a big deal of it. Ron was squished up against the wall, Draco wondered why, since there was nothing forcibly holding him there. And Hermione, she had rolled off the bed in the night and was lying crumpled on the floor near Harry.
Half an hour later, they were all awake and packed and heading downstairs to breakfast. Dumbledore had indeed prepared a rather large breakfast for them. None had had a decent meal for a few days, so they were all grateful for his efforts.
"Welcome," Dumbledore smiled at them, "please sit."
"Thank you, Sir." Hermione said, and took her seat. The boys nodded their thanks to Dumbledore and they too took their seats.
"Help yourself," Dumbledore gestured to the food. "We'll discuss matters later."
It was a fairly small table packed with pancakes, toast with all sort of different spreads, bacon, eggs, sausages, some strange looking slop that Harry assumed was porridge but was not brave enough to try, as well as two large jugs of pumpkin juice. The meal was eaten in silence, occasionally Tom came over to see if everything was okay. Once they were all finished Professor Dumbledore beckoned Tom over to the table and subtly requested a place where they could talk in private. Tom lead them down a long familiar passage, the same narrow passage Tom lead he and Cornelius Fudge down almost four years before. It was a different parlour which the five of them were lead into, much bigger, from memory, Harry thought the other would have much too small to fit them all in comfortably.
"How are you all?" Dumbledore asked.
"We're all fine, Professor, but Voldemort, he's in Venice," Hermione began, "he's in an old warehouse, I don't remember the street name but I - I could show you." Draco grabbed Hermione's hands which were moving frustrated in front of her. She closed her eyes tightly, Draco let go of her hands and placed one of them on her cheek. She opened her eyes and looked into his, "I don't want to cry anymore," she whispered.
"I know," he answered.
"I know you don't want to talk about this, but I really need to know exactly what happened, you will only have to say this once, I will talk to your families about everything afterwards. I believe Hermione and Draco need to start the story-"
With input from everyone, the story was relayed to the Professor. It wasn't until they reached Draco's encounter with his father at the hotel, did their story begin to falter.
"And the Lucius Malfoy apparated into the room and I accidentally levitated him into the air, and Hermione and Harry and Malfoy all cursed him and-"
"And?" Dumbledore prompted Ron, who had stopped halfway through his explanation.
"And the force of all the curses knocked him out and we just ran away." Ron finished.
"I see," Dumbledore said. "I suppose you came straight here afterwards?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Well, you can not keep all of that money. But I am still unsure of what to do with it."
"I know what to do with it," Harry said, glancing at Ron, "but I'd rather tell you in private."
"Harry, I think that's a wonderful idea. I shall send for each of your families. Draco- perhaps not yours just yet. Is there someone you can stay with?"
"No, not really."
"He can stay with me and Sirius' in Godric's Hollow."
"Perfect!"
~~~***~~~
The rest of the summer holidays weren't as bad as Harry thought it would be, he and Draco became somewhat friends and Ron and Hermione came and stayed for a few days, but their families preferred them home. This under the circumstances was understandable. The news got out that Lucius Malfoy had been murdered although the killer was unknown. Draco was somewhat tormented by Slytherin house once he began to associate with Harry and Ron and especially after it became obvious he and Hermione were an item. Still he would last the year. It was after all only a year. What could happen?
***~~~***
A/N: Well my friends, my dear, beloved, faithful readers and reviewers, that's it. Its finished. There may be a sequel. There may not. I dunno. If there is it may not be for a while I think I'm going to concentrate on school for a while. Nerdy little me, I know! Love and best wishes to all. And God bless. Lozza. XXXOOO
Re: Knight Bus: In chapter 9 Harry and Ron use the Knight Bus to travel to Venice from Godric's Hollow. There was a reviewer who queried about the use of the Knight Bus in this chapter. According to the reviewer the Knight Bus is unable to travel over water, which may be true, I did look that up before I wrote the chapter and both Cari and I agreed that we could use the knight bus. "'So - so this bus,' he went on quickly, hoping to distract Stan, 'did you say it goes anywhere?' 'Yep,' said Stan proudly, 'anywhere you like, long's its on land. Can't do nuffink underwater.'" Page 31, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
I suppose it can be interpreted many ways.