A/N: And so, after a mere few hours (and a James Bond movie), I return yet again to the computer to type chapter 4. Also, this is no longer going to be a romance fiction. There will be fluff and stuff but I'm not sure between who yet, I'm kinda gonna play it by ear. Mostly because today I got some new ideas that work better with romance on the side, similar to the way J. K. Rowling threw in romance but not quite. Sorry for any disappointment that I may have made.

Disclaimer: I only own my own ideas and copies of books one through six. J. K. Rowling is the wonderful creator of the series and owns it.

Shadows of Anonymity: In chapter 1 Harry and Hermione didn't go to the Dursley's with Harry as stated at the end of book 6 because of the Dursley's. Mostly they didn't wanna upset Uncle Vernon the family and of course what sleeping space would they stay in, Harry's room is much too small.

Also, I'm not really making Draco misunderstood, more like rebellious in a sense... sorta. Perhaps misunderstood. I'm not really sure what I'm doing with him, though I will say I don't plan on killing him, really that would kill the plot... probably.

Chapter 4: Bad Day

Draco scowled as Moody, Tonks, and Professor McGonagall led him through the muggle world, the nerve of McGonagall. The group stopped in front of a house and McGonagall went ahead of the group and knocked on the door. A large man appeared at the door along with his bony wife and rather large son, who was wider than he was tall. Upon seeing McGonagall the man's face took on a scowl and it seemed that as she talked he looked rather scared.

It seemed that despite his anger at the Headmistress he had been convinced. A flicker of pain crossed Draco's face as he felt Moody and Tonks walk towards the house. The two of them were both supporting a good share of his weight so he couldn't really complain to either of them lest he wanted them to instantly drop him on the ground, and he had the impression that both would do so give the slightest hint of a chance.

The two led him through the door (McGonagall in the very lead much to the large man's displeasure) and around up a set of stairs and then into a small room in which Moody and Tonks (mostly Tonks) pushed him onto a bed, which wasn't that comfortable. He looked around the room, it was rather small with only a bed, a small closet and a small desk on which stood a lamp.

"Now then, Mr. Malfoy," he heard the Headmistress say, "you will be staying here until I find a better place for you. You need not fear Lord Voldemort, this place has a Secret-Keeper now so he can't harm you."

"What about Mother, have your oh so great auror's found any trace of her yet?" Draco scowled.

"Mr. Malfoy, you will be the first to know if any traces of her whereabouts appear, until then I advise that you be patient and be good. Also, though I'm leaving you your wand I highly advise that you don't use any magic unless the situation is dire, elstwise you may alert Lord Voldemort of the vicinity of in which your residing in. Don't worry though, you should only be here for another three weeks if all goes well, if not the latest you'll be here is until school starts. Goodbye, Mr. Malfoy, have a pleasant summer," said McGonagall in her usual stern voice.

Draco scowled at her words, him have a good summer when he was stuck living with muggles.

"Also, all healing potions and such are right here, I have instructions attached of when you're to take each and how much at a time. If anything major should arise send and owl. If it's to immediate for an owl I'm sure I'll already know, if not figure something out," said McGonagall with a twinkle in her eyes that reminded Draco of Dumbledore's twinkly eyes. "Oh, and your trunk is inside of the closet if you need anything from it. I shall come to take you for your school books when your booklists come."

"And Malfoy, if you think you'll need to know you're at number four Privet Drive with the Dursley's. They've kindly agreed to take you in for a bit so you'd better be good, especially since they're muggles, if I hear that you're making a commotion I can guarantee a few hexes and howlers will be sent your way," added Tonks with a smirk.

Draco watched grimly as Tonks, Moody, and Professor McGonagall all Apparated with a loud 'crack', leaving him to the people that he was to stay with.

He looked over and saw a fat face poking through the door, looking at him.

"What the bloody h--- do you want?" he asked irritated, though he wasn't surprised that the boy was staring at him, he must look a wreck. His clothes were dirty, torn and bloody. He was also pretty sure that blood and dirt were all through his hair. "Well, if you don't have any reason to be here I'll hex you."

The boy looked at him, smirking. "That woman said that you weren't allowed to use magic. You're one of the people at that school that Harry goes to, aren't you?"

"Not to bright are you, mudblood," said Draco, even more annoyed than he had been before. "So these are the mudbloods that Potter stays with," he thought to himself grimly while closing his eyes. He watched as the boy lamely tried to figure out what sort of a word mudblood was and weather to take it as an insult or a compliment.

"You know while you're here you'd better listen to everything that I say, or I'll beat you up. And by the looks of things you don't really have that much muscle, whereas I'm junior boxing champion. You're just some weird punk," smirked Dudley again.

Draco opened an eye and looked at the boy standing now beside the bed that he was on, he vaguely wondered what boxing was... "Oh, and you're a mudblood and I'm a pureblood making you inferior to me in every way." Despite his words Draco really didn't want to end up being the boy's punching bag.

"Father, he threatened to hex me!" complained the boy when his father passed. The meaty man walked into the room and towered over Draco.

"You!" he roared, "had better not do a thing to my son! You're here on our hospitality and had better be grateful for it. You will call me Uncle Vernon, her Aunt Petunia, and him Dudley. And you'd better not even so much as mention that ruddy school that you go to. While you're here everyone thinks that you're an acquaintance of Harry's from St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys! You hear, not a mention of that school that you go to!"

"You mean Hogwarts School of-" began Draco, but he was cut off as Uncle Vernon grabbed the front of his shirt and lifted him into the air.

"You will never mention that under our roof!" spat Uncle Vernon as his face flushed with anger and turned various shades of red and purple.

Draco felt scared and pressed his lips shut, he would not portray fear to them, they were mudbloods, he was greater than them. His body hit the bed hard as the man dropped him and abruptly turned and marched out the door, followed by his son.

"Finally," thought Draco.

A woman poked her long, horsey face through the door. "Oh, and if you sleep through breakfast don't expect anything until lunch. And before breakfast tomorrow you'd better shower. If any dirt or blood (she looked slightly disgusted as she said this) gets over my floor or chairs consider yourself dead," she said and then turned and shut the door behind her.

"Whatever," thought Draco as he closed his eyes and sleep consumed him. He awoke to pain throbbing through his head and body. He looked at the clock on the desk and it read 6:00 A.M. He forced himself to sit and then stand. He felt his legs tremble beneath him and then fell to the floor. Slowly he crawled towards the closet and opened the door. He pulled his trunk from it, moaning quietly as pain seared through his arms as he did so, and then opened it. He pulled out an outfit and then yet again tried to stand, using the closet door to support most of his weight.

After a few minutes he had made it into the hallway. He looked up and saw "Aunt Petunia" walking down the hallway. "The bathroom's that way at the end of the hall," she said, pointing to a door at the end of the hall, "and do make sure that you're clean before you come down. And you'd better be able to do your own laundry."

Draco nodded at the woman, actually he'd never done laundry before in his life and had no clue of how to. He limped the rest of the way to the bathroom, leaning against the wall for support.

He had made it there, and then taken a warm bath, taking care to wash all the dried blood and dirt out of his hair and off his body. He then emerged, forty five minutes after he entered, clean and dressed in a pair of clean clothes. He had his hair styled the same way as he did in his third year and all the years since then.

He made his way back to his room and threw his dirty clothes into the bottom of the closet. He collapsed onto the bed and laid there catching his breath for a few minutes before he glanced over at the number of potions sitting on the desk that was next to the bed. He was supposed to drink one cup of one and a half cup of another at seven. He grabbed the measuring cup that McGonagall had left by the bottles and slowly measured out a cup of the first potion and then laid down again, drifting off into a light sleep. He woke shortly after and the clock read 6:59 A. M.

"Close enough," he thought while taking the cup that he had measured earlier. He drank it's contents, trying very hard not to spit it out and then measured out a half cup of the other potion, it tasted even fouler than the first.

He felt tired and laid back on the bed, soon he was asleep again. When he awoke hours later after a fitful sleep the clock read 1:00 A. M. and Dudley was standing near the bed again.

"Darn, I missed both breakfast and lunch," Draco thought, he was hungry though he felt he need not tell any of these mudbloods. And to top it off the taste of the potions he drank was still in his mouth.

"What the bloody h do you want?" he asked Dudley, tiredness sounding through his voice.

"One, don't talk to me like that, and two, I was just wondering if you're the slightest bit hungry, seeing as you missed supper yesterday and both breakfast and lunch today," said Dudley tauntingly while munching on a piece of cake. "And three," he added with an extra edge of triumph in his voice, "what all the screaming and crying was about."

Draco glared at the boy. "First, I owe you no answers and may talk with you in whatever way I please, and secondly, I did not scream nor did I cry."

Dudley smirked, his gaze full of contempt. "You were crying, feel your face, that's why it's all wet. And you were screaming, I heard you."

"Like I care," responded Draco with a glare that rivaled Snape's. A punch met his jaw and he felt his body hit against the wall, he moaned as fresh pain surged through his body, making all his injuries hurt even worse.

"Sissy boy," taunted Dudley as he walked out of the room slamming the door behind him. Draco scowled and picked up another potion.

He forced himself to drink the foul potion and then limped over to his trunk. He opened it and after digging for a moment pulled out three chocolate frogs. He tore the wrappers off of them and ate them quickly, glad that the flavor of chocolate replaced the flavor (if you could call it that) of the potion.

Many miles away in The Burrow Harry was speaking with Hermione, Ron and Ginny.

"Dad said that McGonagall decided to send Malfoy to stay with muggles! Can you believe that, Malfoy living amongst muggles!" Ginny exclaimed.

Harry, Ron and Hermione laughed as they heard this, each one imagining how Malfoy must be reacting.

"Oh, but you haven't heard the best of it," Ginny gleefully said with a bigger grin appearing on her face. "Malfoy's living in number four Privet Drive with the Dursley's!"

Ron and Harry burst into new rounds of laughter.

"Really, from the way that you describe them I can hardly imagine how McGonagall convinced them to let Malfoy stay," said Hermione.

"Yeah, a git like him it's really a wonder!" exclaimed Ron.

"She probably threatened to hex them, or maybe she did hex them... You know, if Malfoy wasn't an enemy I'd almost feel sorry for him, but really I don't," said Harry, he was still furious at Malfoy even if it wasn't entirely his fault that Dumbledore died. It was mostly his fault though, since he let the Death Eaters in and started up all the commotion. Though thinking about it, it all traced back to Voldemort, giving Harry only one more reason to hate Voldemort and wish to kill him.

A loud cracking sound was heard and the quartet quickly all stopped laughing and turned to see their visitor. "Mr. Potter," said the voice of Professor McGonagall, "you must decide your Secret-Keeper now! Urgency is important. The aurors have just lost all track of Snape and fear that soon he shall meet with Lord Voldemort. Quickly you must choose someone!"

Ten minutes later number twelve Grimmauld Place had a Secret-Keeper.

Harry, then remembering Kreacher, quickly called his house elf, who immediately began to diss Harry.

"Kreacher, shut up!" commanded Harry. The elf was silent. "I want you to mention to no one other than myself of everything that took place inside number twelve Grimmauld Place ever since members of the Order of the Phoenix entered into there."

The elf looked for a loop-hole and bowed it's head in misery when it found none.

"Go back to the kitchen at Hogwarts' now," commanded Harry. The elf Disapparated. "Goodbye and good riddance," mumbled Harry, much to Hermione's displeasure.

"I've got an idea!" exclaimed Ron after supper and he ran up to his room.

Twenty minutes later Draco received a letter. He had just finished spending a miserable supper with the Dursley's who had pretended that he didn't exist through it, with exception at the beginning in which Uncle Vernon had yelled at Harry for not showing up for breakfast or lunch after Petunia had taken the time to cook for him.

An owl was perched on his window. Draco walked over to it and instantly recognized it as "pig", Wesley's owl. He grabbed the piece of parchment from it's leg and read it.

Malfoy,

Greetings from The Burrow! How was Azkaban, were the dementors nice to you? Too bad they didn't give you a kiss, really I was looking forward to a year at Hogwarts without you, it would have made the school nicer.

Honestly, what sort of a spell did you cast on Fudge and the rest of the Ministry in order to make them not send you back to Azkaban.

And remember your manners at the Dursley's. Over there you'll have to quite acting like a git and actually drop your obnoxious ego if you wanna survive. I do hope Dudley punches you. And remember, no magic talk (unlike here where we aren't amongst muggles).

Sincerely,

Ron Weasley

Draco threw the letter to the floor, it was really the last thing that he needed. He then picked it up and took a separate piece of parchment from his trunk and a quill and ink as well.

Weasley,

1. I didn't cast any spell on the Ministry.

2. I'm not a git. You are. Potter is. The mudblood is.

3. You've got your wish, Dudley did punch me, happy?

4. Say hello to the mudblood for me. (And Potter as well so he doesn't feel left out.

5. I'm going to hex you next time I see you.

Draco Malfoy

Draco tied the letter to the owl's leg and pushed it through the window. He then opened up the two potions that he had to take. Judging by the tastes of the first three these two were going to taste horrid. This time he had a chocolate frog sitting on the desk waiting for him. He drank the two quickly and then began to eat the chocolate slowly, savoring the flavor. He laid down on the bed and again fell into a fitful sleep.

A/N: Well it's another so-so chapter... not as good as I expected it to be... but it was a quick update. And I do realize that I didn't mention who the Secret-Keeper is, I did that on purpose. Also, as of now I have 71 hits but only 8 reviews... it would be nice if those who read would review, even if it's a short review or expressing dislike to my story. Well review and I'll update soon!

Nanie-san