Monday is going to be a day that I will dread. My tutor is reassuring me about everything, but then again he doesn't understand anything about the AP exams (he's from a country which doesn't have AP exams) and he hasn't been tutoring me enough to really know me… And I get an A in the class if I pass the exam so I NEED this grade. Grrrr! I just want to rip my hair out! But during my free time (meaning time I should have been studying… heh…) I was able to write this so all's good I hope. It's longer than usually because of the long time since updating (and that I couldn't end it at a good time). Have fun!

Thank you everyone that told me good luck, I really took them to heart!

Hope to an End

"Narcissa, how lovely to see you again."

"Ah, Severus, it has been too long," she reached up to give an air kiss to each cheek. It had always bugged him that she would treat him like some acquaintance she needed to impress. They had known each other since their own Hogwarts schooling for God's sake, but she started acting all of to him once she married Lucius. But even that he didn't make sense of as he was Lucius' friend, if he used the term loosely. "Where would my Draco be?"

"I am here to tell you that taking Draco away from Hogwarts would be the worst decision possible. What would Dumbledore think?"

"I don't care about that fool, Severus, you should be aware of that."

"But what if we give Draco a leg up on the competition? You should know that once Draco leaves the grounds, given the situation with Lucius, Dumbledore won't even allow himself to trust the boy. We need more spies, Narcissa, I cannot do twenty things at once. And you know how much spies are to our Lord. If we make Draco one, not only will he be valued higher in the ranks, but he will be able to gain valuable information not available to me about that dreaded Harry Potter."

"My Draco do that?" It was quite clear that the idea excited her greatly; she was practically bouncing with emotion. Exactly as planned. Now just to make sure she'll do what he needed.

"The only thing standing in our way would be Lucius. I have already spoken with Draco and he has seen the error in his past ways and will indeed join us in our quest."

"Oh, I'll handle him. Don't worry at all about that." She went back to her aristocratic disposition. Her previous break in her mask was unacceptable and the only thing in her favor was that it was only Severus who had seen it. Lucius would have been furious if it had been anyone else. "Just make sure my darling will be ready for his marking whenever our lord sees it fit."

"Oh no! He cannot get marked. Dumbledore is putting in place a safety regulation which will ban any person marked with the Dark Mark. The only reason why I'll be able to stay is because Dumbledore thinks I'm his spy, the madness. We cannot allow Dumbledore to know."

"Oh of course," she cried out, nodding in agreement, "he cannot know. But does our lord know of this?"

"Do not fret your pretty little head, my dear, over this, I have everything under control. I am speaking with Him soon, later this vary day in fact. You are just to return home, not making it known you were even here, and inform Lucius on these decisions."

"Yes of course, I'll see to it that it is done!" She leaned into kiss both his cheeks again in farewell and swiftly disappeared down the darkened hallway. Severus was convinced she would do as told like a good little puppet and convince Lucius all that needs to be done. And now it's his job to convince the same of the Dark Lord. It was in this moment that he wondered why in the world he was trying to do such a task. Ah yes, Draco.

A task he was regretting with each step.

"Harry? You know this would be much better if you would just answer… because right now I feel really, really stupid and that isn't a nice feeling. I know that you've been going threw a tough time, but I don't understand how locking yourself in a wall could be helping…" she thought about the whole wall issue only to be even more confused about the whole thing. She shook her head, "but you know that we're here for you, Ron and me," looking around she found that Ron was on the other side of the common room, knocking on the walls, "well, he's not right here right now, exactly… but he's really looking for you…

"Oh Harry, why won't you answer!" Hermione called out, throwing her arms up into the air.

"Because it is very funny listening to it."

Hermione frantically searched for where the voice was coming from. The problem was that the Common room's design caused the sound to reverberate off the walls and disguise the direction. If he was in the wall, then that would have muted the voice, so it was coming from the room itself.

"Boy, Harry, how did you get all the way up there?" He was pointing over Hermione's head to an amused Harry looking over the edge of the high window. But even saying he was amused was stretching the truth. It showed on his face that he was very limited sleep and was distressed to a very high point while he was still awake. It pained her to see him in such a state. He was a powerful wizard, the savior of the world, but power was something he would give up to take away the pain of loss. She had felt the point of loosing Sirius, but it couldn't even be compared to the loss that Harry had felt. The loss of a caring home, the loss of a caring adult, even if it was just the loss of Sirius as a person, and maybe even a stranger, would have dug a hole in his heart. He brought Harry happiness even though they only got a few days to be together. Harry hadn't even smiled for the longest time. They had to get him back…

"Oh I was on my way up to our dorm when I looked out the window and decided to look at the stars. This seemed to be the best place to view them so I climbed onto that beam, jumped down to that ledge, and finally walked across that beam. Now I just need to know how to get down…"

"Was it a good view, mate?"

"Yeah…" A hazy look passed over his face concealing whether he was happy or sad about his stargazing. They desperately hoped it was a good thing. It had been too long since they had seen a true smile from him to the point where they believed he just could no longer. "You could see the Dog Star from there."

"Oh…" both Ron and Hermione seemed to say at the same time.

"I felt as if he was so close to me and was trying to reach out to me again. He was just there, talking to me. He wants to come back to me but that bloody veil won't allow him. Oh why did I have to follow Voldemort's vision? He would still be here! I'm really an idiot!"

"Harry, I thought we had gone over this, it's not all your fault," Hermione called up. A depressed person high up in the air wasn't a good combination. If they got him off the ledge then it would be no problem but its getting in to that point that she really had to think about. "All of us that went were fooled, not only you. Now before you try to blame yourself another way, something else could have happened instead, something worst. You could have been killed, and I know you don't see yourself to be an important person, but think of all the people that could die!"

"Hermione!" Harry interrupted jumping up to swing on a beam a fourth of the way down from the ground. "I already got over that. It's just that seeing the star reminded me of the importance of Sirius in my life. I need him back."

"At least we could get him back…" she finished weakly.

"And we are working on it mate, we'll get him back."

"And I have a way that might work."

Harry dropped to the ground; well actually he slipped once he heard Hermione and fell half of the way, right in front of her. She had screamed and ran over to where he was, checking all his vital organs. But he wasn't caring for his own safety and grabbed her shoulders yelling, "How? When can we start? What do you do?

"Calm down!" Ron restrained him from totally tackling the poor girl. "We'll start as soon as possible, but the point is we won't give upon him."

"We'll have to wait for the next full moon to get the moonstone out of the forest and we had one just yesterday, but we'll start the solution now. There is a potion and spell that we could use if you are related to him in any way."

"But what if I'm not?"

"Well that's not the only way, remember, but it would be the most simple plan. Either way, we'll be searching for another way just if the first one doesn't work."

"But when will the potion be completed?"

The only sound ended up being from people returning from breakfast as Hermione calculated her answer. If she made a date which was too soon, then they were setting themselves up for disappointment, but they didn't want to guess too far away because they wanted something to look foreword towards. "We will try it out at the end of October, to find out how you are connected in whatever way, and then the actual process would be a week later. But I have to warn you," he added cautiously, "this might be the way to use…"

"I know."

No one spoke, not even the then other Gryffindors returned from breakfast. And no one bothered them; probably because of the concentrated look they were giving the fireplace. They didn't know what they were talking about before but they knew it must have been important considering what they had gone though the past five years. They became even more confused when Harry said softly, "We have twenty-seven days to complete it."

He opened the doors to his chambers as slowly and quietly as humanly possible. It was late and he didn't want to be the reason for Draco to be too tired for school the next day.

"So what happened?"

He was a fool to think Draco was asleep in the first place. "He won't be bothering us anymore. Your mother sprung to the challenge and Lucius was molded under her fingers, I wasn't worrying at all about that. It was the dark Lord who was presenting the problem in my plan. I don't, under any circumstances, want you to have the mark on your arm. Not only will it haunt you for the rest of your days, but it's a pain you will not be able to get used to."

"I've felt Cruciatus, I'm not some weakling!"

Severus sighed painfully, kneading his temples, "I know you have, but one: I do not want you to feel it again as you would if you were called to a meeting, and two: this pain cannot be compared to Cruciatus or even two of them. Lucius is a cruel bastard for putting you through what you have, but he would not have used the curse to its full extent without risking his only heir's sanity."

"But I'll still be His servant?"

"Unfortunately yes, but you will not be brought in front of him, if all goes as planned, you'll just move your information though me. Meaning, you are to do as a normal student would and pay attention to your studies. I don't want you to be concerned about this and fall behind. I'll get all the information we need from Dumbledore. But its getting late, why don't you go back to sleep and I'll give you all the details in the morning?" He turned off the light again and started for the door.

"What about Sansone?"

"What about him?" was snapped back.

"Are you going to tell him?"

Silence fell hard, suffocating the occupants. It was an issue which hadn't been brought up since Draco was told in the first place. Whether it was because they were too busy with school stuff or just didn't want to cause problems between them wasn't known and neither mattered. The fact was it wasn't brought up and it caused some problems now. What would he do? Would he tell Potter the truth and risk bodily harm from a crazed student but have it off his chest? He wouldn't kid himself, he know Harry would experience a high rage and mostly likely destroy his office. The state of Dumbledore's office had caused some questions around the staff and shock when they heard the culprit. A truly powerful student, he felt some sense of pride of the fact. However, that did not give him comfort in either decision. If he were to find out, in whatever way, the destruction to his office would undoubtedly be greater. It was the lesser of two evils, and both were too high to choose. "I don't know yet… He knows of my position in the Death Eaters, but my relation to him might be too much to bear. No one wants to be connected with the Dark Lord any more than he is now…"

"Is now?"

"Nothing, nothing, just a mad man's ramblings. Go to sleep, we have a big day ahead of us." He left without waiting for a response. However, a response wouldn't have been made anyway as Draco was deep in thought. The slip on Harry's excess connection with the Dark Lord brought up questions of what and how this connection had. Was it more than the prophecy he had heard so much about in the summer? And then again, how did they get connected, their first encounter or at the rebirth? And would this connection disrupt the plans Severus made to insure his safety? It would be easy for Harry to accidentally let slip their position. Or much easier for him to take revenge on them. It would be in his best interest for the two of them to grasp their relation… a plan was already forming.

Athena Dumbledore: you actually liked the book? My goodness, you must have a strong love for books. Okay, maybe I'm being too harsh as it wasn't horrible, but it just didn't seem to have a plot. It just kept going and going and going. And the point that he was being expelled from his fourth or fifth school kind of bugged me as I take school in very high regard. But what other books do you like? Maybe I've read some (though I don't read that much), I'm very curious about what you like.

Wytil: When I read your review I was amazed beyond all else. Other than the point that you are very good at constructive criticism (which I usually am very offended with, but not that time interesting enough…), knowing that you are probably about three times older than me is very interesting. It was kind of interesting to know that someone who could easily go to the store and buy an already proven good book would actually read my fanfic and care enough to review it. I actually don't know what I want to do when I grow up (grow up, my goodness, its only in a few years) and its kind of freaking me out. Because then I don't know what type of school I want to go to and everything. SATs I don't think I'm so scared about because I took the PSATs and got a good score (or at least people tell me it was a good score) but you never know… I just really want to do well on my AP test because then I get an A in the class which will bring my grade point average up. I just have to pray to every deity until then… Thank you again.