Disclaimer: I do not own anything. But I am one of the many people that wished they owned Draco. ^_^

Thanks to all that have reviewed! I'm sorry it took so long to update. I know all of my chapters are short, and I'm sorry to say that this one is a wee bit shorter. I'm also going to apologize for it ahead of time because its not one of my best ones. I promise the next one will be more entertaining. Well, I hope it will. Anyways, I'll stop babbling and let you read…:-D

~*~*~
After Mrs. Figg had left, Dumbledore sat staring at the newspaper she had given him. He examined the pictures again, taking in all the damage that the earthquake had caused. Even though he had felt sorrow for those that had died, he felt even more for a certain witch that could have been involved in the creation of the disaster.

Dumbledore decided it would be a good idea to send some wizards there to help look for any survivors, so he pulled out a quill and a piece of parchment out of his desk drawer and scribbled down a short message to the Order.

Order Members,

It has been brought to my attention that Voldemort is responsible for the earthquake in the Muggle city Bam. Send Aurors there immediately to help search for survivors in the rubble.

Albus Dumbledore

"Fawkes," he called out across the room. The phoenix left its stand by the door and perched itself on Dumbledore's desk. "Take this to Grimmauld Place," he said as Fawkes took the rolled up parchment in his beak. With a small burst of light he was gone.

~*~*~

Once again, Draco and Hermione found themselves in the same eerie room with Voldemort. The only thing different this time around was that they were standing before a beaming Voldemort, which only made his features more repulsive, if possible.

He praised them through his crooked smile, "I must say that I am extremely impressed with the two of you. You both exceeded my expectations tremendously." He walked over to the younger wizards and turned his attention to Hermione, which caused his twisted smile to grow. "Miss Granger," he began, "you have defiantly proved once and for all where your loyalties lie. I can see now that you will be a very reliable asset to our side. By the way, how are things coming along with Potter? I trust you'll have him for me soon?"

"Yes, My Lord, I have everything planed out and will start working on it in a few days."

Voldemort's smile slowly faded and was replaced with a look of slight irritation. "I've never thought of you as a procrastinator, may I ask why you must wait a few days. And why you haven't even begun to put these plans into action yet?"

As Hermione spoke, she kept her face neutral, hiding the fear that his anger caused. "Because, My Lord, he still believes me to be in Paris with my family. If I come back early he will suspect something is wrong."

Voldemort's smirk reappeared on his revolting face. "Yes, we can't take any chances now, can we? Very well, you two are dismissed."

Draco and Hermione were greeted by Lucius when they arrived back in the drawing room at Malfoy Manor.

"The two trouble makers return," he drawled from his chair. "Hermione," he began in a softer tone, "you just don't cease to amaze me. First you join the Dark Lord and now look at you, you seem like you've been a Death Eater for years!"

Hermione blushed slightly at the older wizard's comments while Draco eyed him skeptically. "Thanks, Lucius, but I didn't do it on my own, Draco helped too," she said as she flashed a smile in Draco's direction.

 "True, but I doubt his assistance was needed." He turned his attention to his son with a grin. "Draco, I must say, this is the proudest I have ever been of you. You've done something right for a change."

"Thank you, Father." This was the closest he had ever heard Lucius come in giving him a compliment. Compliments from Lucius are a very rare occasion on itself. The older wizard then turned his attention back to the witch.

"Young, beautiful, intelligent, and talented; Draco, you could learn a thing or two from Hermione."

Draco gritted his teeth while Hermione's lips turned into a shy smile on her reddening face. If we were still at Hogwarts, when we still thought of her as a Mudblood, you would be cursing her name, not praising it, Draco thought to himself.

Seeing that this conversation had the potential to witness more flirting between his father and Hermione, Draco thought it would be a good moment to excuse them from the drawing room. "Well Father, it's nice to see you back at home more, but we must head to our rooms to wash up for dinner. Am I correct to assume that you will join us again tonight?"

Lucius let out a small chuckle. "You don't know do you? The ministry is too busy at the moment to have a bunch of Aurors out looking for me, so I've decided it safe to come back home."

"That's good to hear," Draco said with no hint of enthusiasm in his voice, while Hermione said, "That's great," with much enthusiasm.

"See you at dinner," Draco said as he and Hermione left the drawing room.

As Draco and Hermione walked to their bedrooms, Draco broke the silence that had fallen between them. "He is married, you know?"

"Who is married?" she asked.

"My father, who else would I be talking about?"

Hermione let out a small laugh. "Yes, I know that Lucius is married. Why would you ask me such a silly question?"

"Well, if you know that he is married, why do you always start flirting with him?"

Another laugh escaped Hermione's lips. "If I didn't know any better, Draco, I'd say you're jealous!"

Draco rolled his eyes. "Why would I be jealous of a prick like Lucius?"

"I don't know. Why do you always accuse me of flirting with him?"

"Because you do," he snapped."

"Well then, my answer is because you are," she snapped right back at him.

They stood there glaring at each other for a few moments before Draco let out a frustrated growl and stomped off to his room.

Once Draco had shut the door to his bedroom, he walked over to his bed and fell onto it. Damn that woman can be so damn irritating.

After thinking of a million different things he'd love to bash her head against, his thoughts brought him back to the other night. If he was a crier, he would be crying right now, knowing what he did. He knew he was a lot of dire things, but a murderer wasn't one of them. That night he didn't even try to cast the spells everywhere and when he did cast them, he didn't put enough power into them for them to do actual damage. This means that most of the damage that happened in Bam came from Hermione. He knew that Hermione showed signs of being a powerful witch back at Hogwarts, but he never imagined she would become this powerful. For a former Gryffindor bookworm, Hermione was beginning to become pretty scary. He never thought he would see the day whenever she would be happy to see Muggles dying, especially since she had grown up with them until she was eleven. Yes, he still thought that Muggles were inferior, but that didn't mean they deserved to die.

Draco didn't know how long he had been lying on his bed, or even if he had fallen asleep, but they next thing he knew was that Minnie, his house elf, was pulling at this pant leg.

"Minnie was sent up to send Young Master down to dinner."

Great, now I am is back to being called "Young Master". Draco kicked the house elf for, "stretching out his pants," and then headed down to the dining room.

~*~*~

A week had passed since the earthquake. The Aurors sent to help find Muggles trapped in the wreckage had succeeded in finding at least 100 surviors.

~*~*~

Harry and Ron sat in the living room at the Burrow; both were concentrating so hard on the game of wizards chess in front of that they were to preoccupied to heard the owl tapping on the window.

"Check," Harry said with a triumphant smile.

Ron sat staring at the board for a moment before his face lit up. "Check Mate," he said, looking at Harry with a smirk.

"I almost had you this time!" Harry yelled as he threw his hands in the air in defeat.

"You always say that," Ron said laughing.

It wasn't until now that they heard the owl rapping on the window. They both turned to see whose owl it was.

"Whose owl is that?" Harry asked as Ron got up to retrieve the letter it carried.

"I don't know," Ron said as he opened the window to let the owl in. He took the letter from its beak and the owl was off with a loud squawk.

"It's from Hermione!" Ron shouted.

Harry rushed over to the red hair boy who was now reading the letter. "Well, what does it say?" Harry asked impatiently.

"It says that she is back from her trip and would like to meet us at the Leaky Cauldron for lunch tomorrow." Ron looked up at Harry with a confused face. "That's funny; I didn't even know she was on a trip."

Harry rolled his eyes; Ron was sometimes slow on the up take. "She didn't really go on a trip, Ron. She was becoming a Death Eater, remember?"

Ron's face fell a little. "Oh yea…" he said solemnly. "Do you think it's safe to go and meet her?"

Harry shrugged; he honestly didn't know what to say or think about this.

~*~*~

Draco had so many thoughts running through his mind that night; he found he couldn't fall asleep. To clear his mind, he decided to go for a midnight broom ride.

He closed his eyes and let a smile play on his lips as the cool night breeze hit his face and ruffled through his hair. Earthquakes, Death Eaters, Voldemort, The Order, Hermione, everything was pushed out of his head as he let the sensation of flying take over him. Draco spent about an hour soaring through the air, cutting barrel rolls and flips every now and them. Once he had landed on the ground, he headed back inside the manner feeling more refreshed than ever.

While he passed Hermione's room on the way to his, he thought he heard a sobbing noise coming from behind her door. He put his head against the door to be able to hear better, but since he was still holding his broom it made a loud 'clink' on the door, causing whatever noise behind the piece of wood to cease. He took a step back and stood there staring at the door with a raised eyebrow as he strained his ears to pick up the sound again. He heard nothing but silence. He shrugged and walked back to his room, where he was finally able to fall asleep.

~*~*~

 It was only Draco and Hermione at the breakfast table the next morning. Lucius and Narcissa had headed into Diagon Alley to do some early morning shopping.

"Hermione, I thought I heard you crying last night," Draco stated out of the blue, not even looking up from the Daily Prophet in his hand. If he would have, he would have seen the bright shade of red her face turned.

"Oh…I had received news that Crookshanks had died."

Draco put down the newspaper and looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Who is Crookshanks?"

"My cat; unfortunately he was hit by one of those damned Muggle cars."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Draco said with no hint of sincerity in his voice as he returned to his paper. "Was he a ginger color?" Draco asked from behind his paper.

"Yea," Hermione answered before taking a sip of her orange juice.

"I always thought he belonged to Weasley."

"Yea, I can see where you would get that," Hermione said as she stood up from the table.

Hearing the clatter of the silverware hitting the plate he put down his paper to look at her. "You're done already?"

"Mhmm," she said as she wiped her mouth one last time with her napkin before throwing it onto the table.

"I have to go into Knockturn Alley to find some Knarl repellant; the house elves say they've tried everything to rid the gardens of them, but they keep coming back. Do you want to come along so that you're not stuck in an empty house?"

"No thanks, I already have plans," she said as she headed for the door.

"Oh really, and may I ask what these plans are?"

"Yes, father," Hermione said playfully. "I'm going to the Leaky Cauldron to meet Harry and Ron for lunch."

"Why are you meeting them for lunch?"

Hermione smiled at him before she said, "You should know the answer to that."

Meeting Harry for lunch couldn't possibly be her big plan in capturing him. "If this is your secret plan in getting Potter, then why are you meeting Weasley as well?"

"You sure do ask a lot of questions."

"I'm a curious person," he said with a smirk.

"Well, if you must know, if I had invited one and not the other, they would be suspicious and ask why. Besides after lunch Ron has to go help out at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes; leaving Harry and me alone."

Draco just remembered something that should put a damper on her plans. "I thought you and Harry had this big fight and you weren't speaking to him."

"See that's the beauty of it, he will defiantly show up and whenever Ron takes off we can 'talk things out'."

Draco ran out of questions to ask. This was not looking good; he would have to tell Dumbledore immediately. "Well, good luck then," he said with what he hoped sounded genuine. "Remember, I'm only in the next alley if you run into trouble," he added.

"Right," she said as she left the dining room.

Draco waited about five minutes before leaving the dining room himself. He went straight to the drawing room and locked the door behind him. Taking Floo powder from the bucket on the mantel, he threw a handful into the fire. Before stepping into the emerald flames he yelled, "Dumbledore's office."

Draco arrived in Dumbledore's office, but only to find it empty. So he turned around and threw some more Floo powder into the grate and yelled "Severus Snape's office." Loosing his footing, he stumbled into his former Potion Master's office; only to find his empty as well.

Where the hell is everyone? Then he remembered that it was a Saturday and most of the professors and students were in Hogsmeade. Not thinking about her surroundings, he walked out of Snape's office, up the stairs to the main entrance and was almost to the great oak doors until a voice from the past stop him.

"Mr. Malfoy, may I ask what you are doing here?" asked a stern, but only too familiar voice. He turned around to come face to face with a curious looking McGonagall.

"I needed a word with Dumbledore, do you know where I might find him?" he asked in a business-like voice.

"Yes, but I'm sorry to inform you that he is away on business."

"Where did he go?" Draco asked, a little more eager than he would have liked.

"I'm sorry that is confidential."

"Then could you tell me where to find Professor Snape?"

McGonagall eyed him skeptically. "I believe he is in Hogsmeade. What affairs do you have, Mr. Malfoy?"

Draco smirked at his former Transfiguration teacher. "Professor, I am no longer a student here, therefore it is not your business of my affairs at this school."

"Well being headmistress comes with certain duties and with those duties comes the responsibility of this school while the headmaster is away. Part of that responsibility is to know who comes into this castle and why. That, Mr. Malfoy, makes it my business."

Draco glared at the older witch. "Since I'm leaving, I don't see why it matters anyways. Good day, Professor," he said as he pushed his way through the great oak doors.

Unfortunately, Draco's luck didn't improve any in Hogsmeade. He couldn't seem to find Snape anywhere. Noticing that it was nearly noon, he gave up and returned to Malfoy Manor. Looks like Potter is on his own…

~*~*~

Thanks to all that have reviewed and have stuck with the story!

Dead Lenore- No Luna isn't a Death Eater. Luna is suspected to say a lot of strange things in the books. I was just showing that Draco's decision was a weird one, even if it had came from Luna. Sorry for the confusion. :-D.

Burgundyred- I'm glad you enjoyed the Lucius Hermione moment and yes I'm going to try to make some of this D/Hr, so don't worry. ^_^

Le Bel- Draco is undercover, so he might have to do things so he won't blow it. He didn't really want to kill them. :-D