Harry hadn't seen Dumbledore all month. He had to talk to him, but McGonagall kept finding excuses to keep him away from the headmaster. Harry was beginning to get irate about being left in the dark. Even Hermione and Ron didn't know what to say. A whole month had passed and everyone was still avoiding him and Malfoy like the plague. Harry avoided people back, while Malfoy began dishing out punishments to anyone who started to whisper or gave him looks. They hadn't heard anymore about Voldemort's plans, but the dementors still swarmed around the school. Quiddich had been cancelled, which left Ron and Harry nothing to free their minds about the upcoming Hogsmeade visit. They'd passed all their mid-terms. Snape had taken away points for Harry and Ron's Polyjuice potion, saying that it was done too well. He'd accused Hermione of helping them and detucted fifty points from each. Even so, they passed. Neville's had failed, due to Blaise Zabini slipping rat hairs into the mixture while he hadn't been paying attention. He was sent to Dumbledore to discuss his continuation in potions. Hermione suggested they used that opportunity to ask Neville if he'd seen anything unusual in Dumbledoor's study. They waited in the common room for him to come back. When he returned, he saw Harry, Ron, and Hermione waiting eagerly. He turned to go back out the portrait hole, but they caught him.

"So? What happened?" Hermione asked him. He looked nervously at Harry.

"I'm not working for Slytherin, Neville! Stop believing the rumors."

"Then why were you with Malfoy? Everyone knows you supposedly hate each other."

"He's working for us." Ron sat him down in one of the chairs.

"How dumb to you think I am?"

"Pretty dumb, if you believe that Harry of all people would be working for Voldemort." Neville flinched at Ron's response.

"Sorry, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Think of all the things he's done over the past five years, why would he be working for him now, when he could've helped a dozen times before."

"Why is Malfoy on our side then? Harry working for him is easier to believe than Malfoy working for us."

"We still haven't quite figured that out yet. But Dumbledore won't see us to explain anything. We think he's hiding something from us. Did you see anything unusual?" said Hermione, with urgency in her voice. Neville paused for a moment and looked at all of them. He was quite defenseless, and there was nothing he could really do.

"He had some other people in there with him when I went up. Important people. Your father was there, Ron. I don't know what they were talking about though. They stopped when I came in. Some of them I recognized from last year." he mumbled.

"Well who were they?" Hermione sat down in the chair next to him.

"Well there was one woman with really bright pink hair. Lupin was there and Moody. The other two I'd never seen before."

"Tonks, Lupin, Moody, your father... they must be having a meeting!" Harry jumped up.

"Why wouldn't they call on us?" Ron asked.

"Was Snape there?"

"Yes, he came up to talk with Dumbledore about my mid-term, but he stayed after I'd left. What's going on you guys?"

"Nothing!" the three yelled in unison as they rushed out the portrait hole. They made it all the way to the statue, the farthest they'd gotten in a month, before being stopped by McGonagall.

"What are you three doing? Dumbledore's far too busy right now. Run along." she stated, her lips pierced tightly. She'd had to tell them to "run along" at least twice everyday.

"We have to see Professor Dumbledore. We know the Order is up there."

"And they're busy Go!"

"Peppermint snaps!"

"Lemon drop!"

"Cockroach Cluster!"

"Pea soup!" they yelled, trying to break the password. McGonagall started shuffling them away from the statue.

"Ten points from Gryffindor for each of you. I won't tell you three again!" they left, disappointed.

"We have to figure a way up there, before everyone leaves." Harry stated as the headed back towards Gryffindor tower.

"I know who's been seeing Dumbledore a lot lately." Hermione said, blushing a bit.

"Who?" Ron stopped, dead in his tracks.

"Why didn't you say anything before?" asked Harry, stopping as well.

"Draco. I've seen him go up there a lot to talk to him."

"Well didn't you bother to ask him what's going on?"

"He won't talk to me. He's been avoiding me as much as possible." she replied. They looked at her with annoyance then headed off in the direction of the Slytherin common room.

"They're not going to just let you guys waltz right in! We need to get the invisbility cloak. Honestly, you guys never think." she huffed and continued up the staircase to the Gryffindor common room. They ran to Harry's room and grabbed the cloak. Ron grabbed Hermione's arm and rushed her out with them.

"I don't really feel like going." she whined.

"Get over it, Hermione. Stop being such a...a-"

"A what, Ron?"

"A girl."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You don't want to see him, because you're upset that he won't talk to you."

"Shut up, Ron. If he doesn't want to talk to me, it's just a relief."

"You still fancy him!"

"You guys, stop fighting. We need Malfoy's help. If he won't tell us what's going on, maybe he'll at least tell us the password." Harry remarked, stepping between them before anything else, besides words started flying. Hermione moved as far away from Ron as she could underneath the invibility cloak and they headed back to Slytherin. They walked behind Millicent Bulstrode through the portrait hole and entered the common room.

"Where's the prefects room?" Ron whispered. Harry led them over to Prefect's common room and knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" they heard him ask from inside. They heard him cross over to the door and opened it quickly with annoyance. They pushed past him and closed the door. Harry threw the cloak off.

"Oh, if it isn't the dream team." he smirked.

"Why didn't you tell us you were seeing Dumbledore? McGonagall won't even let us near him." Harry snapped.

"For good reason too. Come on." he motioned for them to follow him to his room. He shut the door behind them, making sure that Millicent, who'd been elected the new Prefect Girl, hadn't come in and seen them.

"Voldemort's first priority is you right now. That's why the dementors are still here. He's been seeing me, because I've been spying on the conversations going on in Slytherin, for information. No one trusts me, and won't talk to me directly, but I still hear what goes on."

"Does he know what the viles were for?"

"Just your average undetectable poison from what he could tell, rare ingredients though. Dumbledore's decided that his plan was to poison you."

"Poison me? That seems so tactless."

"Get you out of the way, Dumbledore's Golden Boy. Without you around, he'll be undefeatable. Then attack from the inside. He's already been recruiting the others in Slytherin. He wouln't have had to touch you to kill you. Pansy was going to do it."

"Why hasn't Dumbledore done anything about it? Or even tell Harry?" Ron asked.

"Because we're using them to get information, I already said that."

"So he's going to let anyone walk up and kill Harry, during class?"

"No, Weasel. God you're thick. The teacher's are watching over him in class, and wherever you go, Dumbledore knows. He didn't want to tell you, because he didn't want you to start freaking out and getting paranoid like that damn Moody. Said you had enough to deal with concerning mid-terms and March."

"So his plan then is to still attack on the 12th?"

"It seems so. Hey, you know Granger, I think that's the first thing you've said since you've been here? This room bring back memories?" he smirked. Ron went to hit him, but Harry held him back.

"So has he told you anymore about what happened in the Chamber?" Harry asked, still struggling with Ron.

"I'm done talking, you can go now." Malfoy opened the door. Harry threw the invisibility cloak over himself, Ron, and Hermione. Malfoy grabbed Hermione's arm.

"Wait for me, I'll be out in a minute." she told them as Malfoy shut the door.

"He has some nerve." Ron huffed. They huddled towards the wall to keep passing by Slytherin's from tripping on them and discovering they were there.

"Would she hurry up?" Ron looked at his watch, irritably. It'd been a half hour. If they didn't get back to the Gryffindor common room soon, someone would notice they were gone. It was nearly curfew.

Hermione and Malfoy came out about five minutes later. Harry knew what'd happened, and decided not to question her. They followed Malfoy back out to the Slytherin Common room. He was stopped by a third year who questioned where he was going after curfew. He deducted five points and told him not to question a Prefect's actions again, then opened the Portrait hole for the three friends to sneak back out. When they got back to their own Common room, Hermione had a huge smile on her face.

"What are you so chipper about? Your boyfriend talking to you again?" Ron muttered.

"No, and he's not my boyfriend. The thing his father wanted him to do was to gain Dumbledore's trust and attack him when he least expected it, by using the killing curse. He wouldn't do it because he knew that he would be caught. He doesn't like Dumbledore, but he knows his power. He didn't want to have anything to do with it, when he refused, his father backlashed at him. He wouldn't tell me how, but it was at that point he turned on his father. That's how all this got started, it happened during the summer. Then his father gave him the plan to use me instead to find out more, and he'd use someone else to attack Dumbledore. He says that his father tried to contact him again the night before the incident in the Chamber and he told Lucius that he'd make sure that he was the first to be disposed of when Voldemort fell. He also told me how he'd threatened Crabbe and Goyle that afternoon. They know what he's capable of. He thinks that's why Crabbe was having second thoughts, he was afraid of Malfoy."

"So when Voldemort was trying to contact him... Lucius must've told him about what he'd said and knew that Malfoy was going to try and stop them."

"His whole concern now is getting back at his father for everything he'd done to him as a child. You would've thought Draco would be his pride and joy, but he only spoiled him, thinking that he was going to whatever he wanted him to when it came time for Voldemort to take power. He manipulated his own son, not unlike he had the ministry." she continued.

"So he's not really helping us against Voldemort. He's using us to get back at his father."

"He's doing the one thing that would hurt his father the most. Even so, I still think we're pretty safe in trusting him."

"How can you say that Hermione? You know that's probably the only reason he still puts up with you. What are we going to do once Lucius is done for? He'll have no interest in helping us, he might go back to the way he was before."

"Fuck you, Ron." she shouted, then ran off to her room.

"Did I say something?"

"I think you might have went to far in saying that was the only reason he was with her."

"It's the truth. He still talks bad about her and calls her mudbood all the time. You can't expect Malfoy to have true feelings for her. He's Malfoy."

"Even if that's the case, she doesn't need to hear that from us. We're supposed to be her best friends." Harry pointed out. Ron turned pink, realizing what he'd just done. They went up to bed, but Harry couldn't sleep. He stayed up thinking about all that'd happened. The twelfth of March was just little over a month away, and he was still in the dark about how they were going to defend Hogwarts.