Disclaimer-This is the 15th chapter, and you still don't know that HP belongs to the great JKR? I pity your family

A/N: This is mostly filler, BECAUSE I LOVE FILLER, but there is a VERY important plot bunny that will affect the rest of the story. Oh, and lots of romance, too. On that note, I'll warn you that there will be an implied male/male pairing between Neville and an OC. If that bothers you, there's a Back Arrow at the top of your screen. Click it.

Truth In Refuge

Harry finally sat down. A man he knew from the photograph to be Ted Tonks, with a dozen squeaking house-elves, had cleaned him up and repaired his glasses, which he hadn't even noticed were cracked on the nosepiece from landing so ungracefully in the fireplace.

And now he was sinking into a cool, bouncy armchair, watching as Ted and the elves cleaned up the D.A. members who had not been seriously injured. Harry was thankful to see that not many of them had been so. Most of them said "Hi" to him as they passed to rooms that Ted directed them to go into.

Ron had come after him successively. There was nothing wrong with him except he was covered in soot from the fireplace, and as soon as he had been scrubbed in the face with a wet towel, he had taken the armchair next to Harry.

After awhile, the D.A. members came with less frequency, and finally, Andromeda yelled up the stairs that there were no more coming, and that Ted should ask Jiji and Keely to put on a pot of tea.

Ted nodded his assent, and after he left the room, bellowing the names of his two kitchen elves, Andromeda came stomping up the stairs.

"What happened to Hermione?" Harry asked as he first caught sight of Andromeda's heart-shaped face, the face that a non-transformed Tonks had inherited.

"Yeah, and where's she and Luna? And why was Ginny already here?" Ron added.

"Relax, boys," Andromeda said, smiling at them. She sat down on the sofa. "All of the injured are being taken care of. And Ginny was here before any of you. When the school was attacked, Professor McGonagall—jeez, I still call her "Professor"—sent her to warn me that you would be coming. My house is one of the refugee houses. So's your house, Ron."

"The Burrow? MY house is a refugee house?" Ron exclaimed.

"Only since recently," Andromeda said. "When the 1st War started, your parents were still at Hogwarts. They didn't get the house until mid-1980, about a month before Bill was born."

"And you know all this…how?" Ron questioned.

"Oh, yeah, it appears only Harry and Ginny know who I am." She got up and walked to Ron, extending her arm so the back of her hand faced him. "I'm Andromeda Tonks, born Andromeda Black."

Ron stared at her hand, then at her smiling face. Awkwardly, he took her fingertips and kissed the back of her hand. "Ch-charmed, I'm sure."

Andromeda smiled even more brightly and gave a little chuckle. "Whenever a family we hadn't known before visited us, my father always did that to the ladies. I thought it was beautiful. Sirius thought it was hysterical."

A subtle tension fell on the room as she said her cousin's name. She seemed aware of it, and the tone of her smile changed though it did not fade.

She sank back into the sofa and drew a pillow to her chest. "I'm only about 7 months older than Sirius—I'm a late August baby and he was an early April baby—and we were much closer to each other than I was with my sisters and he was with his brother. Narcissa and Regulus were simpletons who couldn't help believing all of this pureblood nonsense, and Bellatrix, I think, agreed with it from the moment she was christened a Black. So when I ran off with my Muggle-born Ted, it caused quite a stir. All I can say is that I'm glad I pulled out all my money from Gringotts before the family could get to it."

She laughed a laugh that was both mocking and bitter. "We were nearly a year out of Hogwarts when Ted and I got married, and my father refused to walk me down the aisle. I wasn't surprised but I was very upset. So I asked Sirius to do it."

She paused, and then pressed on again. "That's why I couldn't—I never believed that he would've betrayed Lily and James and then kill all those people. Sirius was not a murderer. He was not a traitor. He participated in TWO mixed-blood weddings, mine and the Potter's, and he was godfather to TWO mixed-blood children. That's you, Harry, and my Nymphadora."

A house-elf approached her, bearing a tea tray. She took a teacup, thanked the elf, and then directed her towards Harry and Ron, who took the tea but did not drink it.

"We did try visiting him in Azkaban, but since he was so "dangerous" a prisoner we were only allowed Christmas visits every other year. My Nymphadora has known how to produce a Patronus since she was about 11 years old. That's how old she was when she first visited Azkaban. She was almost 9 when the murders—when he was imprisoned."

She looked at Harry and Ron and smiled. "My Nymphadora loved you two as babies, and at Hogwarts she was best friends with Bill. They were born the same year, you know."

Harry nodded, but Ron looked confused.

"Bill never said anything," Ron added.

"I guess because he used to have a crush on Nymphadora but she really didn't return the feeling," Andromeda said.

"How come I've never met you? I mean, when I was old enough to remember you?" Ron asked.

Andromeda sighed. "I guess mainly because I didn't believe Sirius had done it, and almost everyone else did. He would always come up as a subject when we got together and we would fight, fight, fight over it. We finally decided not to see each other anymore but we wrote back and forth for years until we just…fell out. I really…regret that now…"

She was silent for a moment, then cleared her throat.

"Anyway, what's done is done, and it's not like we can't ever be friends again. And I think it's time we all ate something. It's getting on in the evening. I'll ask Jiji and Keely to start making dinner."

"I'll go downstairs and see if anyone wants dinner," Ron offered.

"Thanks."

Ron walked past Andromeda and disappeared down the flight of stairs. Andromeda stood up and went for the door.

"Wait, Mrs. Tonks," Harry said

"Call me "Andromeda", Harry. And what is it?"

"Did you know my dad really well?"

"Yes, and your mum, too. Why?"

Harry thought of Snape's Penseive from his Occlumency lessons so many months ago. "What was he like?"

"He was human," Andromeda said, as though reading Harry's mind. "He was a wonderful student and an even better friend, and he was also a prankster and he did pick on Severus Snape a lot. The thing was, Harry, Severus was one of my relatives' "preferred playmates" for us. And you know how much Sirius hated everything to do with our parents, so he had no love for Severus. James was loyal to his mates, especially Sirius, so he took up the feud, too. But don't think it was one-sided, Harry. Severus was a lot like Narcissa and Regulus before he was 16, when he got that girlfriend. After that, I think they kept fighting just to keep up the pretense. It drove the prefects crazy; the lot of them hexing each other in the hallways. It bothered your mum in particular."

"Why did she marry him?"

"Because he changed, Harry. He grew up. He stopped being the instigator. It was at my wedding, actually, that they began dating. But what really made her see him as a possible husband was the very 1st battle of the war."

"Why then?"

"Well, the whole thing really started long before then. Voldemort—no, I'm not afraid to say the name, that's stupid—had been picking up followers all through the late 70's. There were no real battles but some horrific murders. The Ministry was looking for someone to blame and they picked werewolves."

"Werewolves?"

"Yes. They let it out that werewolves were rebelling and despite numerous testimonies and evidence to the contrary, they decided to pack up all the werewolves and ship them off to live in some concentration camp in Salazar's Pit. You know, that wasteland between the Rowena Mountains? And they took Remus, too."

She sighed. "Well, they had packed them all on the train and they were about halfway there when the real Death Eaters attacked under the pretense of setting the werewolves free. Most of them—not Remus, thank God—agreed to join the Death Eaters. They retrieved their wands from the train conductors and they took the battle into a city."

She paused again. "Well, when Hogwarts heard that, James, Sirius, Lily, and Marlene McKinnon, who was Remus's girlfriend at the time, took off to fight. It was a horrible, horrible battle, Harry. I was pregnant at the time and when I saw the damage I nearly miscarried from shock. And the city it was in was where James's family lived."

"My dad's family?"

"Yes, your grandparents, Timothy and Gloria, your great-grandmother, Miranda, and your aunts Belinda, Jennifer, and Rowena. They…they were all killed that day."

She turned away, covering her mouth, but her words weren't garbled. "Your mum and dad found them. Only Rowena was still alive, and just barely. She was out in the backyard. James…he sat on the grass and he held her and he talked to her to take her mind off the fact that she was going to die in a few minutes." She paused. "And then Lily knew who he really was, watching him rock his 10-year-old sister until Jesus rocked her instead."

Andromeda hastily swiped at her eyes to halt coming tears. "Anyway, Harry, your parents were very much in love. Lily never regretted marrying him, if that's what you're thinking. They belonged together, just as Ted and I belong together, and just as my Nymphadora and Remus will belong together one day soon."

She took one last swipe at her face. "Look at me, I'm getting all emotional. It's all this talk of dead people. I'd better make sure that dinner gets started before I really start bawling."

She turned and left through the door that the other D.A. members had left through, leaving Harry sitting in the armchair, reliving the aftermath of a battle he had never seen but had played a role in his even being born.

"Hey, Gin, do you know where all the wounded are?"

"Do you want to see Hermione or Luna?" Ginny asked, keeping the coyness in her voice to a minimum but still letting it eke out. She was in a chair in the small room they had landed in, leaning over a piece of paper, writing something.

"Why do you want to know?" Ron shot back.

"Well, you're in luck, they're in the same room, it's right through that door there, and you're in more luck, Pomfrey just finished checking them over and she went over to check on the other rooms. It's just the two of them in the same room, and Hermione's still unconscious, so you and Luna will have privacy."

"Who said I wanted to see Luna?"

"Who's dumb enough to fall for that?" Ginny retorted. "Now, go on, I'm working on this study guide."

"Study guide?"

"Even if we don't go back to school, they'll still give us an organized test, and I want to pass 5th year." Ginny waved him away.

"Study guide, shmudy guide," Ron said. "You're killing time waiting for Colin, aren't you?"

"Is that your business? Go to Luna."

Ron made a face at her, which she returned, and then he walked off and into the room Ginny had identified.

As soon as he shut the door, he heard a quiet, strangled voice say, "Ron?"

"Luna? That you?" he questioned.

"Yes."

Tentatively, he approached the bed where he heard the voice coming from. There were two canopy beds in this relatively small room, each occupied by one of the girls, and the one closest the door held Luna. He stopped at the side of the bed at the area of her side.

"Hello." Luna pulled herself upright. Her head was wrapped in bandages that made her thin, pale face look yellow and jaundice-infected. "Quite a day I'm having, don't you think? At least, I'm conscious. You had the time to wake me up before Madam Pomfrey told you that you should've let me rest."

"You feeling okay?" He sat down on the side of the bed. She moved her legs to make room for him.

"About as well as I can be. Madam Pomfrey says there wasn't any skull damage, just bleeding, and of course, the spell damage from when you Stunned me."

"Sorry," he apologized quickly, "but he got distracted and I had to save you from him, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did, and now that I'm properly awake I can thank you." She turned a small but brilliant smile to him. "Thank you."

"Yeah…wasn't a problem."

"You know, you have been such a good friend towards me. I know last year that you were very put out by me. Because I'm strange and unusual, and tagged on to that, I know that I'm strange and unusual and won't do anything about it. That's the true test of friendship, Ron, to see someone for what's in their heart and not what they read or talk about or dress like."

In a flash her hand had enclosed around his wrist. He gave an involuntary twitch and felt his face redden, but Luna apparently did not notice, or noticed and pretended she didn't.

"So I just wanted to thank you, Ron, for being friends with la soñadora."

"You're welcome," he said uncomfortably, "and la what?"

"Soñadora. It's Spanish for "the dreamer". It's just an old song Mommy used to sing to me before she died. It translates into "I; the autumn. I; the evening star—well, literally, it translates to "Venus", anyway…I have been an echo. I shall be a wave. I shall be the moon. I have been everything; I'm me. I; the summer. I; the ebony. I am the dreamer."

"Sounds like you."

"Mommy was an Empath. She could read souls. She could tell what was in a person's heart."

"That's really cool."

"Yes…" Luna trailed off and looked away. Her hand left his wrist.

"Luna, when we were on the Quidditch field," Ron started. He had been thinking about this for a few minutes. "When that Death Eater had got you, you were screaming about "gone to the Dark Side". What did you mean by that?"

"That he was taking me to the Dark Side," she answered swiftly. "That I was going to be kidnapped."

"And, I have to ask this, why wouldn't you let me kill that Death Eater?"

"Because I did not want him to be killed. I told you earlier, I don't believe in violence per se. Defense, yes. Killing, no. I did not want you to become a killer. It is bad enough that Harry has to be a killer."

Ron thought about the prophecy that Harry had haltingly relayed to them in the weeks following the funeral, and grimaced. "I guess I see your point."

But he couldn't help noticing that Luna seemed a little white-faced and distracted during her explanation.

"Anyway, Luna," he said, shaking the thought from his head. "Do you want me to send down some food? They're making dinner now."

"Oh, good, I am rather hungry," Luna said. "Why not eat down here with me, if the Tonks don't mind? I think Hermione will be out for a while, but I'm not a bit tired."

"Yeah, and she'll want to see Harry first, anyway."

"They are very much attached, aren't they? I asked them about it, and they say things just happen. I think that's true. My mommy and daddy were two very different people, but they were very devoted to each other."

"Yeah, my mum and dad are too," Ron said, thinking. "They've been married since Christmas in '79."

"I think that's wonderful. Don't you?" Her hand was on his wrist again.

He did not twitch but his face went red again. "Y-yeah. Look, I'm gonna see how dinner's coming along."

"I'll count the bumps on the ceiling tiles until you come back."

"Luna, this is a canopy bed. You can't see the ceiling."

"I'll just have to imagine them."

Ron bit the inside of his cheek and stood up. Throwing a glance back at Luna, who was now leaning into her pillow, staring at the canopy spread across the bedposts, he left the room.

As he shut the door behind himself he jumped. A quick, darting pain had just shot through him.

Neville sat in a small room, accompanied by Mary and Tony. He and Tony had taken armchairs and Mary was stretched out on the couch.

"Did you guys get a chance to…to battle?" Neville asked.

Mary shook her head.

"We were inside," Tony explained. "I was gonna go watch the match but they got there before I could leave, and the teachers blocked the exits."

"Did you?" Marry asked.

"No." He looked wistful. "I really wanted to, though."

"Oh, yeah, that Bellatrix chick, um…"incapacitated" your parents, right?" Tony asked, attempting and half-succeeding at tact.

"Yeah," Neville said, staring away from Tony and Mary miserably.

"What a sod," Tony said firmly. He grabbed Neville's arm. "What a complete sod. Kill her the next chance you get."

Neville jumped at the hand on his arm. "Y-yeah, I'll try."

"Good." Tony retracted his arm.

"So, uh, do you have any vendetta against any Death Eaters?" Neville asked.

"Me? Nah. I was thinking about joining, and Marcie talked about how she wanted to join and how much it would help the world and she sorta helped convince me to join up. She's a little weird; she was talking about how "we can get true peace by defeating evil and showing humanity the horrible consequences of war" and some stuff."

"How about you, Mary?"

"I just think they're sods and should be wiped from the face of the planet," Mary answered promptly, shaking her head so her hair went behind her shoulders.

"You were one of the first members, right?" Tony asked.

"Yeah."

"And you went to the Ministry, right?"

"Like a prat, yeah," Neville said self-disparagingly. "I got a bloody nose and a Cruciatus Curse."

"I think that was pretty brave of you," Tony said admiringly.

"Yeah, well…thank you," Neville said shyly. He was not used to praise, except the occasional encouragement from Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Most of the others, even people he counted as friends, even his grandmother, thought him to be slow and stupid.

"Mary, stop smiling," Tony suddenly ordered. Mary had a sly grin on her face, an "Aww, how cute" grin. "Look, I'm starving. I'm going to go see if dinner's ready. You wanna come, hon?"

"Nah," Marry said, flopping backwards.

"Who 'bout you, hon?" Tony addressed Neville.

"No thanks, I'm just going to stay here for awhile."

Tony's face flashed disappointment, but he waved amiably as he walked away.

Mary broke out in another grin, and this time, she giggled.

"What? What's so funny?" Neville asked, immediately running down the list of possible things he could've done to embarrass himself since he, Mary, and Tony had come to this room together. He could think of nothing, besides tripping over the threshold, and he didn't think Mary would still be thinking about that.

"You and Tony." She giggled some more.

"What about me and Tony?"

"Well, he was flirting with you, for one thing, and you were oblivious for another."

"He was FLIRTING with me?" Neville yelped.

"Pretty light flirting, but yep, flirting just the same."

"But-but…Tony's…he's a BLOKE."

"Are you that cut out from the world?" Mary looked indignant. "It happens. Tony's been that way since 3rd year. Guess you never knew, with him being Slytherin and all."

"So, Tony is…interested in me?"

"Well, duh. Oh, great, are you going to get all judgmental now? No wonder Tony only told the girls."

"Oh, no, I'm just…surprised."

"Surprised?"

"Well, yeah. I-I mean, not even a girl's shown any interest in me except for Ginny, but now she's dating someone, so that can't work out, and I had this thing for Hermione for a couple years but now she's with Harry so I guess that can't work out, either…" He trailed off, realizing that he was babbling. "It's just…weird."

"You'll have to deal with weird. I don't think Tony's going to back down. He likes you, Neville."

Neville did not answer. He looked at the wall, his thoughts becoming a violent whirlpool.

Petunia sat, wrapped in a blanket. This room was practically a closet compared to the house, especially since it was only her and Severus in it.

If the battle hadn't interrupted them, she wondered, what would she have told him?

"I'm still in love with you."

"Severus."

"Yes?" He turned his head to look at her.

"Before, just a few seconds before the battle you said…that you were still in love with me."

A flicker of some emotion she couldn't place crossed his face. Was it astonishment that she remembered? Regret that he had said it? She didn't know. Her insides were turning into a knot.

"Did you mean it?" she asked, her voice choking, feeling that her vocal cords were twisting. "Did you mean to say that the relationship we abandoned 24 years ago still means something to you?"

He turned his face away and remained silent for a long time. Petunia could practically see the blood racing through his veins. She felt her ears clog up and roughly massaged them open.

"Did you really mean it?" she whispered.

He turned to stare at her. His face was blank but his eyes…they were more alive than she had seen them at all since July. These were the eyes of the boy she knew at Hogwarts: young, vibrant eyes full of life and love.

"Yes. I did."

Her mouth dropped open. The truth had hit her entire body as if she was being pulled under by a wave, but suddenly she felt like the wave was receding, replaced by warm sunlight.

"Are you interested in starting back up again?" she asked.

"If you are, as well," he answered simply.

She had to smile. He had been just as bad at displaying his emotions in Hogwarts.

Hogwarts. How different would her life had been if she had never left? Would they be married and have children of their own? Would she have had son like Dudley, so like his father, Vernon?

Suddenly she gasped.

"What is it?" he asked, concern floating in and out of his words

Her entire face seemed to melt, and her eyes filled with tears. "Oh God, I'm such a tramp."

"What are you talking about?" He turned his whole body to face her.

"I've been widowed for a month! A bare month, with both my husband and son dead, and here I am talking about a new relationship. I'm a total tramp."

She saw something resembling fury pass through his face and he stood. He strode over to her, grabbed the armrests of the chair and bent over so his face was inches from hers.

"Don't you dare…" he breathed in a voice both menacing and comforting, "…call yourself a tramp. You put yourself on the same level as Narcissa Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange and I won't stand for it. Do you understand, Petunia?"

Her face was wracked with surprise and anguish. "But-but…"

"No protests. I never want to hear you liken yourself to those former Black daughters. I repeat: Do you understand?"

"Y-yes," she said in barely a whisper. She could not read his thoughts, otherwise she would know that he was thinking of his battle with Lucius, the insults he had thrown at her name, the attempted murder, and the arm lying abandoned on the Quidditch field as the reparation for all Lucius had done to Petunia.

"Good." He straightened and returned to his seat.

He turned his back, but he spoke as clearly as if they were face-to-face. "I'm tired of hiding the fact that you and I were a couple, and pretending that it meant nothing. I will not ask you to turn your back on your dead family, now or ever. You decide when you're ready. I'm in no hurry."

He felt a presence walk across the room, figuring that someone had walked in or she was walking out, and he nearly jumped when two hands were on his shoulders and she laid her cheek against his scalp.

"That's what I always loved about you…how pushy you aren't."

She shut her eyes, allowing herself to cry. And he allowed her to cry, as well.

Joan had been lucky enough to get a room to herself, which she desperately needed right now.

She had never really expected to come face-to-face with Voldemort, but as a future Auror and member of the D.A., she was going to have to defend the others, and that meant seeing him.

Briefly, she wondered if she should tell anyone about this blood bond between her and Voldemort. The blood bond that saved her from ever becoming a target for Death Eaters or being killed by Voldemort. The blood bond that made her the ultimate shield.

The blood bond she was ashamed to have.

She could just imagine her conversation with the others:

"Yes, guess what, guy? Tom Sr. left Mitzie Slytherin for another woman and had Voldemort's half-brother Alexander. Yeah, they met at Hogwarts and he was the only good thing Voldemort had going for awhile. And then Alexander married my grandma and had my mother, and she married my dad. Meanwhile, Grandpa dies because some overzealous witch-hunters find out he's a wizard and they kill him, therefore fueling the already unstable Voldemort's tendency to commit genocide. Yep, I'm Voldemort's great-niece. Isn't that quaint?"

Even in her head, she could imagine the reaction. People would panic. They might view her as a freak, or in the best case scenario, another tool against him, to be discarded at the end of the battle.

She propped her chin up on her fist, her elbow on her knee, remembering. Her mother, christened Nora Riddle, had haltingly relayed the truth about her ancestry two years ago when she had come home for Easter break. That both Tom Jr. and Alexander had been abandoned by their father, who was not the most faithful of husbands. Alexander was two years Tom's junior and they were close-knit, bonding over the loss of a father. Tom was mentally unstable and took potion after potion to try and fix himself, but something had gone wrong and it had made him worse. Alexander had him on a long rein but at least some kind of a rein, until he had died at the hands of Muggles long before Joan's birth. His death, combined with all those potions somehow overtook any shred of sanity Tom had left and made him into Voldemort. To this day, only Nora Riddle-Sunset, and Joan herself, were protected from him.

She had heard from a hesitantly-talking Harry during one D.A. meeting that Voldemort knew nothing of love, and that was why he was able to survive his attack in the Ministry. That wasn't exactly true. Tom had known love. He still had some kind of love for his niece and her daughter. It wasn't a sane, rational, or wanted love, and it wasn't enough to stand up to Harry's kind of love. Indeed, this love had been born of hate: hate for his father, and hate for the Muggles who had killed his only kin. But it was some kind of love all the same.

But who wanted that kind of love from that kind of person?

She wouldn't tell anyone. The Slytherins knew. They made it their business to know everything. But the Slytherins did not deign to run through the halls shouting about it, and for once she was thankful to have been sorted into Slytherin. Had she been a Hufflepuff, the whole school would have known the second day she set foot in Hogwarts.

It was no one's business but hers and her parents', and she intended to keep it that way.

Elizabeth didn't know why Ted had sent her to the same room where the unconscious Lynn was resting. He couldn't possibly have known their feud over Draco.

Though Lynn probably did not feel so strongly for him now. Word spread fast in the D.A., and Draco had apparently used an Unforgivable on her when she tried to help him.

Why in the world did Lynn like him? He was not Lynn's type at all. Suave, sarcastic, and dangerous. All the things that attracted Elizabeth would be definite turn-offs to Lynn.

In a way, Elizabeth was a lot like him. She could talk down a sailor and catfight like drunken tramps in a club. God knew she had taken care of Pansy. She doubted her cousin would ever want to fight her again.

'I would've made a good Death Eater,' she mused carelessly, 'I fight dirty enough.' Not that it mattered much. Her own ancestry was too diverse, and she was too proud of it to ever want to join with people who were out to kill anyone they deemed unworthy. She had joined the D.A. to protect that pride in her ancestry, and she would despite the cost.

She looked over at Lynn. Why had Lynn joined? Probably for the same reason. She was half-and-half, which should have made her Elizabeth's, a Slytherin, sworn enemy. Well, they had been, for a different reason. Over Draco. Lynn had liked him first, and then Elizabeth, and now Lynn probably did not like him at all.

That DID make Elizabeth amazingly happy, but there were still some qualms in her. Something about Draco was definitely off. Not just the fact that he was most likely a Death Eater. Something was off in his body. The inconsistencies of showing up in the morning for breakfast. How he often broke out into sweats in cool rooms. His pale face even whiter than it was just last year. He was the color of bread that needed more time in the toaster and that set off a knot of worry in her stomach.

Elizabeth sighed, and shrugged. It did no good to worry. If there was something wrong with him, she'd know it eventually. She was confident on that.

She looked back at Lynn. She probably wasn't her rival anymore, and Elizabeth could probably like her. They'd been nice acquaintances through Marcie before Elizabeth fell for Draco, and their rivalry was concealed and contained very few fights or even arguments.

Elizabeth drummed her fingers against her chin. Maybe Lynn's injury was a good thing in the long run. She was free to get Draco and free to have a friendship with her. Whether or not Lynn found someone else was up to Lynn. The most pressing matters now where staying alive and finding out whatever Draco was hiding.

My inspiration for this chapter just died, so I'll continue along this vein in chapter 16, and we'll see more action in chapter 17.

Oh, and the Draco thing? I'm going to draw it out. I might decide to do "Reformed!Draco" but that won't happen any time soon.