Author: J.A.K.

Rating: R

Author's Notes: This story starts in the middle of Tonks and Harry's relationship. There will be a few flashbacks alluding to situations and events that happened in the past between the two, but I felt it best to start here because the crux of this story lies in them being together not in how they came to be together. I also wanted to warn everyone that this is a darker Harry; less like the one written in books 1 through 4 and more like the Harry written in book 5.

AN 2: This chapter comes after an EXTREME case of writer's block. Actually it was more like writer's snag. I knew what I wanted to write but it seemed like nothing I wrote captured how I wanted to convey my characters. And yes, even though I know that these are JKR's and Scholastic's character's by law, when I write stories I tend to make the different people my own. To Steve: whatever dude. I hope you enjoy this chapter b/c it's going to be one of many more to come. To those of you who would like to check out my live journal or perhaps put yourself on my friends list you can find me at livejournal dot com/users/kallie1385. Also, don't forget to check out Crack by Solarisday which can be found at ff dot net.

Please read, review, and most importantly enjoy!

Chapter Eight

Draco's knowledge of the muggle world was as vast as the depths of a thimble. Though he often prided himself on his superior intelligence concerning most matters, the aforementioned was a subject that he gladly chose to accept ignorance. The only muggle invention he had ever found to be of true value was the increasingly addictive fags. Their scent was intoxicating, their affect was immediate.

Draco took another long drag and felt his previous anxieties blowing away with the exhaled smoke. Tapping it a bit, to get rid of excess cinders, he slowly crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall adjacent to the window he was staring out of.

It had been more than three months and he still hadn't gotten anything, information or otherwise, that could be deemed as useful against the enemy. Draco paused in his musings and looked over his shoulder at the girl who lay sleeping in his borrowed bed. Confusion settled on his face. The girl was undeniably a Weasley; her bright red hair, which was starkly visible against the alabaster sheets, proved that. Arthur Weasley had always been one of his father's enemies; Ron Weasley would always be one of his. But was this girl, one who had quickly become less of an irritation and more of a tolerance, "the enemy"?

Questions like these plagued his mind most nights. They were the cause of his insomnia, which was in turn, the cause of his ill tempered moods. He had never been one to ask too many questions, always aware that inquiries of any type were reserved for those who were either know-it-all's or wastrels.

Draco was neither.

He was a Malfoy. His name had and would always define his essential character.

He paused again, inhaling even deeper this time.

But did the name Malfoy define the core of who he was?

Draco glared sullenly at the still figure who was all but mocking him with her inviting pose, and turned his attention back to the arms of a more welcoming night.

His questioning mind hadn't been the only cause for his sleep impoverished nights. Post coital intimacy had and would never be one of his finer points. He enjoyed the act well enough, but snuggling up with anyone after said act would be like him giving his father a hug—wrong on both ends and extremely awkward. Draco preferred the distance. Solitude, even as incomplete as it was now, was comforting.

Abruptly, he was pulled out of his musings. But this time it was not of his own volition. Two thin arms had wrapped themselves around his waist, a warm body pressed against his back. Draco did not return the embrace. Instead he continued smoking his fag annoyed by the sudden invasion of space.

Ginny sighed pressing her face against his left shoulder blade.

"Must you smoke those god-awful things.?"

Draco lightly snorted in response, his face the perfect example of composure.

"I must," was his short reply.

She slowly pushed up the thin cotton shirt he was wearing and swept her fingers over his abdomen. His muscles tensed slightly. Ginny stopped her actions, becoming a bit more serious.

"The warnings on the box say that they can kill you and from what I read, they're a slow and painful death."

Draco shook his head, more amused by her statement than anything. He craned his neck slightly so he could make out her eyes.

"And I suppose I should be touched by your concern."

She pulled away from him with a jerk. The action wasn't too sudden, but it was enough to let him know that he had somehow managed to hurt her feelings. Draco turned back to the window, took a final drag, then put his dying fag out. He did the entire act while stifling a sigh of irritation.

Ginny had, in a few short months, become a pro at lying to herself. In the interim of that time, moments such as these arose when she wished fervently that the world could be a simpler place. That people like Draco didn't exist; a person whom she wanted desperately to hate but couldn't in spite of everything that he had done. Ginny sighed as she made her way back to the bed.

Although she had been and was continuing to do an excellent job of fooling herself, in spite of that, she was no fool. Ever since her first-year encounter at Hogwarts, when her strings had been pulled by the puppeteers who'd turned out to be the senior most Malfoy and the Dark Lord himself, she had always stayed wary of the intentions of others.

Draco was no different.

His father served the Dark Lord and he would, unequivocally, remain loyal to their side, as she would always remain loyal to hers. Nothing he said or did could ever change her position on that particular matter. That very same affirmation had made her long since realize that nothing she could ever say or do would change his. She sighed again as Draco moved his way behind her and snuck his arms around her waist. The truth was, Draco was probably using her to find out whatever information he could to please his father. A small knowing smile formed on her lips. The truth also remained that she was using him as well. Not for the same reasons, but he was useful in helping her keep her mind off of the historical events that were taking shape right outside the walls of Hogwarts.

Hermione and Ron had always had each other to help deal with that. And up until recently, she had thought that Harry leaned on their friendship as well. Now she knew that Harry had come to find comfort in another type of relationship.

That thought somehow gave her a hard slap back into reality.

"Draco no," she said spinning around in his arms. She shoved him a bit, and walked over to where her clothes lay on the floor. "All we've been doing for weeks now is fuck each others brains out." Ginny hooked the clasp of her bra and pulled on her pants, sliding the zipper up and fastening her button. "That was good for me a few hours ago," she turned to face him as she closed the final clip on her sweater. "But it doesn't work for me right now." She strolled passed him, her shoulder brushing his. "Not when I can't continue pretending that we have something real anyway."

Ginny had not meant for him to hear. Her words had been muttered softly underneath her breath. Somehow, however, he had heard everything.

His grip was viselike around her wrist as he caught the limb of her retreating form. In a matter of seconds she was facing him, his eyes hard and unmoving.

"What do you mean when you say 'not when you can't pretend we have something real?'" Ginny had no desire to voice her emotions, but something in his face read: challenge. She wrenched her hand out of his. "I mean that when we're in the throes of passion at least then I can pretend that what we share is special, that it's worth taking all your bullshit and lying to my friends. But in the end I'm wrong. I've always been wrong. However much you help in taking my mind off this goddamn war, is all negated by the fact that you are an insufferable git." Ginny's outburst was unexpected, even to herself, and she abruptly cut short whatever else she was going to say.

Draco was slightly caught off guard by her words; being who he was, however, he quickly recovered.

So, he reasoned, this mouse not only had a spine, but she also had a brain. She hadn't let herself get as deeply entrenched in his lies and half-truths as he'd thought she had. Well, at least now he knew. Realizing that, however, was not what currently incensed his ire. What really enraged him was the comprehension that not only had his words been virtually ineffective, but that she'd been using him as equally as he'd been using her.

Ginny saw his surprise and relished it. One didn't get too many chances to render Draco speechless, and every silent second was like a victory cry to her. She couldn't help the smile that formed on her lips.

"I really don't know why you have such a smug looking grin on your face when all you've done is state the obvious. So you can just go ahead and wipe that off, take your things, and get the fuck out." Draco didn't have the time or the energy to go into another long and drawn-out argument about what the meaning of their relationship was, in so being he decided to preempt any further words on her part by proverbially shutting her down.

Ginny had become use to his insalubrious outbursts and didn't feel in the slightest way cowed by his exclamation.

She stepped forward enough so that her face was almost touching his.

"You know, it's sad really when people have to mask how they're feeling by throwing disagreeable and might I add childish temper tantrums."

Draco simply stepped back and rolled his eyes, tired of hearing these same old words coming out of her mouth. He crossed his arms over his chest showing her how very boring he found her to be at the moment.

"Well...don't you have anything to say about your foul behavior?"

Draco lifted his shoulders in a movement that was far to refined to be called a shrug.

"Yawn," he deadpanned, eyes unwavering.

Ginny threw her hands in the air, unimpressed by his antics but wary of them all the same. She turned around and picked up her bag which lay lonely and forgotten by the nightstand, and readied herself to depart.

"Draco, before I go, let me leave you with a bit of knowledge that you've probably been lacking up until this point."

He sighed exaggeratedly.

"Must you?"

Ginny gritted her teeth to prevent herself from screaming the expletives that were currently running through her head. Instead, she quickly put the sack over her back and stepped closer to him until she was standing but a few paces from his reach.

"As unpleasant, and manipulative, and malicious as you are," Draco readied himself for what she would say next. He opened his mouth in mock preparation, assured that he could follow her words by heart; after all, many girls before her had said the same things. All of them convinced that he was merely misunderstood; and all of them overtly wrong.

"I assure you that I can be just as unpleasant and manipulative and malicious, so don't you fucking think that you can say whatever the hell you want to me and get off scott free.

Draco felt a smile forming on the corner of his mouth.

"Oh, you mean like the fact that I have to pretend I'm seeing Phylis Baraff's face every time I fuck you."

Ginny knew that Draco was skilled at using words as a weapon. She had also found that whenever he was confounded or unresolved by a particular subject, that he used said words to make the other person give a hasty retreat and leave him alone. Unfortunately those rational thoughts were the last things to flash in her mind as her hand swung back and slapped him hard in the face.

"I hope the next time you're whining like a bitch in heat that you go to Phylis Baraff, and let her relieve you." His smile promptly flew off of his mouth at her words, but Ginny's back was already turned. She didn't see the dark expression that formed in his eyes or the violence that strongly emanated from his form.

At that moment, Draco wanted nothing more than to wrap his hands around her neck. His fingers itched with the desire to carry out his impulse, but he contained himself. The last thing he ever wanted to do was become his parents, in any capacity. There was many a night—or day even—when he had walked in on his parents fighting. Their fights had always resulted in his father beating the shit out his mother. Of all the terrible things that he had done and of all the more terrible things he was destined to do, beating a woman would not be one of them—that he had promised himself since childhood.

He fisted his fingers and stalked over to the stand where his precious fags lay. He violently pulled one out and lit it with his wand. In another few quick angry strides he was by the window again, puffing away like an overworked train. Draco didn't look back to the person who stood behind him. When the door nearly flew off its hinges, he cursed her underneath his breath for probably waking all of Hogwarts. As he brought the fag to his lips again, he dimly processed that his fingers were trembling.

Draco leaned against the wall, studying the planet Venus as she revealed herself against the early morning dusk. He had been dangerously close to losing control. His father had taught him that in the face of one's enemy, one must never give away that power. Battles were won and lost based on that premise, and on this late night, he had very nearly lost.

In his previous relationships, when things had escalated to this point, he would end it right then and there. But this was different. He had been assigned a task; one which he would complete by any means possible.

Draco continued to study the sky. He was at the end of his fag, catching the last rings of nicotine and preparing himself to snatch a few hours of sleep, when a shape caught his eye. The shape was modeled like a star, but infinitely more familiar. As he continued to squint against the bluish hues of the heavens, reason finally came to mind as he figured out exactly what he was staring at. There, in the early morning sky, like a testament of doom, was the dark mark.

So he reasoned, Voldemort had actually gone through with it. Tranquility flowed through his body as he waited for the alarm bells to be sounded in Hogwarts; as he waited for the rest of the world to realize that the Final War had begun.

Hermione felt the heavy book fall on her face and instantly sprung awake. Grumbling incoherently under her breath, she conceded to her body's wishes and busied herself with the task of preparing for bed.

The final tests of the semester were quickly approaching and as always she wanted to have a head start in her studies. Every year since her first one here at Hogwarts she had done this. Now however, was the first time that she felt totally and completely overwhelmed. The O.W.L's had been a major source of anxiety during her fifth year, but that anxiety was nothing to what she felt now every time she thought of her N.E.W.T's. Those particulat exams would be the determinant for what she did for the rest of her life.

Hermione stopped her actions to gaze at the rising sun. Watching the stars and clouds roll and reshape into new forms had always been a calming agent when she felt this kind of panic. Silently she focused on the star that didn't twinkle and realized dimly that it was a planet. Tranquility washed over her as she leaned her head against the cool glass of the window. Being Head Girl had its benefits. For one, her odd studying habits wouldn't disturb her roommates, like they had for the past six years. The other was that no one would question behaviors such as the one she was currently displaying. Granted, if she were sharing a room with other girls, she would most likely be the only one awake, but just so. Having no one other than yourself for company was sometimes comforting.

Hermione stifled a yawn with the back of her hand. Time for bed she thought as she made to turn away from the window.

Though her mind was foggy, her eyes were still sharp, which explained why she lingered at the window pane, squinting against the morning's dim light. After staring at nothing for several moments she shrugged, deciding that perhaps it was just a trick of the light. Wait, a voice told her. All will be revealed if you stay just a second longer.

And to her horror she could see why. Hermione befell a sight which she had only seen once in her fourth year, but one that she would not forget for decades to come.

There, not too far from school grounds, was the Dark Mark shining in all its malevolent glory. Hermione felt a wave of apprehension wash over her at what the Mark's appearance meant. He had come out from hiding. From here on in he would carry out his death sentence's himself.

Hermione quickly grabbed a top and ran for her door.

Someone had to inform Ron and Harry of what had just occurred. Someone had to tell them the war which they had all dreaded happening, had begun.

It was all falling apart. Every facet of every lie that they'd ever told to the world was crumbling around them and now all they had was each other. The fact that it took all this time to come to that oblique understanding was a twist so ironical that it almost took Harry's breath away. Things had been said and done between the two of them. Words could never be taken back, and pride was the only emotion that kept him standing. Pride in his control. Pride in his approach to everything that had been thrust upon him thus far.

Pride kept him from her.

Tonks gave Harry a wary but measuring look. He was as aloof as he had ever been with her. The presence of his nonchalance almost brought her to her knees. Before, when he'd cared, his emotions—whether they'd been need, lust, or anger—had dictated his actions enough to assure her that he still thought well of her. But within the last week, and especially within the last few days, his stoicism was the only face he'd shown her. A determined set to his jaw matched the dispassion in his eyes, as if he were silently telling her that he knew exactly how he was acting and he wanted her to know it too. He wanted her to know that his behavior was deliberate. Perhaps everything they'd shared, everything that they'd ever had was truly lost.

Perhaps they'd never had anything at all.

His legs were sprawled, his composure relaxed, all of which contrasted with the turmoil he felt inside of him. Harry wanted so much to hold her to talk to her, but again pride kept him from getting up, kept his tongue still.

So he waited.

And she waited too. After all, the depth of her pride was one to be equally measured against that of Harry's. They were both hurt, they were both sorry, but neither of them was willing to admit it to the other.

Harry's gaze swept from her face to her stomach and back again. The way the material of her sleeping gown hung on her breasts, which were slightly fuller now, then curved to match the sloping angles of her body made his body stir. They hadn't touched each other in two months…hadn't had sex in three. He wanted her, a fact which was inescapable. But there was more to it than that. He wanted to hear her say it first. He wanted her to tell him that she was wrong. That she had always been wrong.

Then again he had been wrong too.

And she wanted him to hear him say it. He was always the first to apologize, why should now be any different. Tonks got up from where she sat, perched against her desk and made her way to him.

If the war started tomorrow, if the war started tonight, now was probably all they had. The thought reconciled her previous musings and moved her. She was older than him. She was the adult. She would take the first step.

Tonks awoke with a startled gasp.

Her dream was one of a succession of nightmares that had been abusing her mind for the past several days. They tortured her with whispered visions of a future that could never be…of a reality that would never come to pass; because certain things had been done that could not be undone. The ball had been put into motion and nothing short of a catastrophe could ever undo them.

Fate again must have been laughing at her, as it was simply too ironic that she should come upon those thoughts at the very moment in which the catastrophe of which she'd just contemplated, had indeed taken place.

AN 3: All questions, wanderings, and misgivings about this chapter will be cleared up in the following update. And by the way...Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!