Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or its characters. I do, however, own Professor Park and a new character this chapter! So there! And a couple others! At least, I hope I own them. Just in case I don't, I'll disclaim them too.

Whew guys, a lot's happened since I was gone. Obviously the biggest one is the announcement of the release date of Half-Blood Prince, but other stuff too. I hope all of you had an excellent holiday! Here are responses to your reviews, although odds are you don't remember what the reviews said by now.

Purebloodprince – Well, if it's not very good that's alright as its still fun anyway! It's fairly convoluted though, yes.

Brittney – Yes, once I heard Godric's Hollow was a village I thought it would be fun to incorporate that in and stuck it in there. As to the Potter guys, well, I wouldn't know.

LivingImpared – Ah, the update's come as fast as possible.

High Serpent King – Godric's Hollow is certainly becoming a rapidly-expanding subject, yes. Also, it appears that you've been busy on your story while I've been gone. I should be catching up soon, I'll review when I do.

Dreamcaster-me – Thanks a lot! Sorry that there was a break almost as soon as you started reading! Well, don't worry, I've only had two of those in the past five months(!) of writing

Emily – Ah yes, creepy kid's an interesting guy…

Dancerrdw – Thanks for your staunch support!

Esrb99 – I know that feeling a little too well, in fact before writing this I had to backtrack through the past few chapters to recall exactly what was going on.

Thanks for all your support, as always! And without further ado…

Chapter 35 – The Deputy Headmistress

Draco, cursing under his breath, re-oriented himself. Stupid portraits. They've got attitudes. Now, which way is McGonagall? Draco quickly recalled where his N.E.W.T. Transfiguration class was located and started sprinting madly, furiously dodging the smaller first, second, and third-years that were milling about in the corridors. There was no way I was that short back then. The Transfiguration class door came into sight but the floor suddenly started getting slick. Draco, slipping, wildly flailed his arms about. Filch! The bastard! Quickly pulling from the agility that the had built up during the years of playing Seeker, Draco slid up to the door on the slick soles of his shoes and grabbed the edge of the doorway, making what he thought was a particularly smooth and suave entrance. Oh yeah. That's the way we do it.

Of course, these things generally went unappreciated by Transfiguration teachers.

"Mr. Malfoy? If there isn't a problem, I would request that you would not use the Hogwarts floor as a skating rink."

"Sorry, Professor." Draco mumbled with a touch of resentment. Teachers just don't understand style. "If you could spare the time, I'd like to talk to you about extracurricular activities." Draco tried hard to look like there was some hidden meaning behind his words. Which there was.

McGonagall didn't show any signs of catching the underlying meaning behind the words, but nodded anyway. Her face stayed impassive, as usual.

"Very well. Come this way." McGonagall gestured towards her office and started going, with Draco following her behind.

McGonagall's office was almost exactly how anyone would imagine it. Everything was in prim and proper order. The Deputy Headmistress's stark office was almost completely bare of any objects. A solitary desk with several orderly stacked papers was set in the middle, and there was a smallish file cabinet (magically expanded on the inside, of course) in the corner that presumably held all the papers of all the classes McGonagall taught.

McGonagall effortlessly waved her wand and the door closed behind her.

"Mr. Malfoy?"

"Well, Professor McGonagall, it's about the Order. I went to the meeting."

"Yes?"

"It was extremely short. Voldemort came in with one of his cronies, a man who stayed in the shadows that I couldn't recognize. The man brought out a prophecy. Voldemort said something about considerable benefits being a possibility and asked if anyone knew anything about a 'child of Sterling.' No one spoke. Then he asked if anyone had seen Pettigrew lately, but no one had. He stormed out, and the meeting was adjourned." McGonagall's eyes widened immensely, especially once Malfoy mentioned a Sterling.

"Also, Professor, there's something else. Lucius has noticed the absence of the Malfoy Ring, which I've broken. If there's no way to put it back together, then I need some way to counterfeit it believably."

McGonagall nodded. "Yes, I can help you. Do you have the two pieces?"

Malfoy dug the two pieces out of his pocket. Lucius had been closer to the ring than he had known. McGonagall muttered a quick spell and waved her wand. The two halves somewhat crudely formed together. Such powerful magic obviously couldn't be reformed perfectly, but the ring was at least together now, and believably enough too. It just couldn't stand up to close scrutiny – Draco knew that Lucius would notice in a minute if he saw it at any shorter kind of distance.

Draco sighed with relief and put it into his jacket pocket.

"You wouldn't like to put it on?" McGonagall seemed to find this odd.

"I'd really rather not," Draco explained nervously. McGonagall sent him a strange look.

"Well, in that case, you may proceed as normal. Do what you wish."

"But wait!" Draco cried out, frustrated, as McGonagall started to leave. "Don't I even get to know what's going on? You know something you're not telling me."

McGonagall stopped abruptly. When she spoke, her voice had the frostiest tone Draco had ever heard. "Mr. Malfoy, you may be spying for the Order. However, it will take more than that to earn my trust." McGonagall left speedily, leaving a speechless and stock-still Draco standing in her office.

Who does she think she is? Draco fumed. Nothing seemed to be going right today. Patience. Dumbledore might tell you. Draco calmed down fast though. It's not like I don't deserve it. I'm responsible for the death of two men. Or at least, I thought it was two men, but it's beginning to seem a lot more like one…

Draco suddenly looked at his watch and started sprinting towards the locker room. He had called a Quidditch practice that was supposed to start five minutes ago to prepare for the upcoming game. Looks like this Order stuff is going to cram up my schedule a bit…

Alright guys, here's your new chapter. I'm having more fun writing Draco than I thought I would, which you guys might've noticed as all the last chapters go into fairly good detail about him. I'm sorry about this, as all the other major characters are in fairly critical situations right now (Harry at the HQ, and Hermione with the Weasleys discussing Ron) but since Draco's the easiest character to write for I wanted to deliver a chapter as fast as possible. It's not really a very good chapter, but whatever. I try.