After the Weasleys had slipped off of the castle grounds, it had set Dolores Umbridge into a rage and with the new term came a new slew of rules and regulations from the Ministry, everything from "Teachers are not permitted to speak with students on matters outside their expertise" to "Boys and girls are not permitted within ten centimeters of each other". Ordinarily, these restrictions would have had Evanna grinding her teeth into nubs like the rest of her classmates, if not for the fact that her father's greatest enemy knew who she was and what she had done.

The first morning back, she had felt Albus Dumbledore watching her carefully from the High Table. When she looked up, it was to icy blue eyes staring her down.

How did I not see it before? She looks so much like Tom.

Evanna sent him a glare of her own until he turned to say something to Professor McGonagall. But, more often than not, she caught him studying her during mealtimes. The old man had to be planning something, she knew, but Umbridge's tight grasp on Hogwarts kept him from doing something about his knowledge. Still, Evanna knew it was only a matter of time.

Over the break, she had come to the resolution to tell Harry who she was and to stay away from the prophecy, whatever it might say. He could not go up against her father. She could not go up against her father. But what choice did she have? Lure someone she cared about to his death under Dumbledore's crooked nose? Or disobey direct orders from her father when her birth mother was just looking for a reason to toss Evanna out?

"Ev, Professor Snape just asked you a question," Ginny mumbled at her side. Evanna started and looked up to see her professor looking rather irritated in front of the classroom.

"I'm sorry, Professor," she said. "Could you repeat the question?"

"I asked what you were doing with the unicorn tail," he asked.

"I was preparing it for the potion?" she said, though it came out as more of a question. She heard a few of her classmates giggle behind her.

"And what potion would that be? Because the rest of your classmates are making Pepperup Potion," he drawled smoothly.

Evanna flushed as there were several more giggles around the room. "Maybe I thought the patient would enjoy having rainbows shoot out their ears instead of steam," she said even as she pulled the bicorn horn out of her bag in an attempt to rescue some of her dignity. Ginny snorted beside her.

"Charming, Ms. Malfoy," Professor Snape said in a bored voice. "Do try to stick to the recipe in the future."

He moved away to go and berate the odd-smells coming from Colin Creevey's cauldron.

"Damn, sometimes I wish I was a Slytherin," Ginny muttered.

"Well, green would look nicer with your hair," Evanna mused. "The red rather clashes."

"'The red rather clashes'," her friend mimicked in a rather insulting high pitched tone. "Seriously, though, you're lucky Snape likes you. You've been rather out of it this week."

Evanna did her best to ignore the way her friend was looking at her.

"Yeah, well, Snape is on the warpath for Weasleys. Apparently your brothers-"

"Charmed his chair to let out a huge fart every time he sat?" Ginny interrupted. "Yeah, I gave them that idea."

Evanna suppressed a snort. "You would never have survived in Slytherin. You Gryffindors are all children."

The girls fell silent as Professor Snape levelled a glare at them. Despite her earlier mistake, Evanna finished the potion before Ginny did and left a few moments earlier, just in time to feel something heat up in her pocket. The DA galleon.

"Thank Merlin!" Ginny said as she caught up to Evanna. "I almost thought that all the new Umbridge-isms had scared the irksome three into discontinuing the DA!"

"They wouldn't stop on their own, though your big mouth might make that happen," Evanna replied, reading the date on the side of the coin. They were to meet at the end of the next week. She tried to squash the anxiety the thought of being in the Room of Requirement with Harry again caused.

"And then you wouldn't have the opportunity to break Dumbridge's boys and girls rule," Ginny said in a light voice. "Even if you didn't take the moment I gave you at the end of term. Unless you are lying to yourself that you don't like Harry."

Evanna whirled on her friend, eyes wide. Ginny had an odd look in her brown eyes. They were not near as warm as Evanna was used to. They were almost calculating. Suspicious. Without consciously deciding on it, Evanna reached her mind forward.

She still acts like the old Evanna. She even still likes Harry.

Evanna frowned at the thoughts, not knowing what to think of them. Before she was able to say anything however, Bridget was standing in front of them.

"Hey, Ev, think we could talk?" she said.

"Don't you two have Arithmancy or some other nonsense?"

"Yes, and you have Care of Magical Creatures. We don't stand the risk of having our arm torn off," Evanna said snootily. The girls had often teased each other about their choices in electives.

"Only pompous arses run that risk," Ginny quipped. "See you around."

Once Ginny was out of earshot, Bridget turned to her. "You have a problem."

Evanna frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Not here," Bridget said, eyes darting in the hall. She grabbed Evanna's hand and pulled her to a nearby broom closet.

"The hell, Travers?"

"Did you really kill Lucius?"

Evanna froze in place, not sure how to respond. Her father had said only the Death Eaters in the room could know about Lucius' death right now, that Bellatrix's ability to impersonate him was too important. And Bridget's father was far from the inner circle. But then again, Dumbledore knew, and Evanna knew that Professor Snape had not told him. Security was not as tight as her father believed.

"How do you know he is dead?"

Bridget pinched the bridge of her nose and muttered a few choice curse words. "So your brother was telling the truth."

Evanna's guts turned to ice. She knew Draco was beyond angry with her and when she was being honest with herself she knew he had every right to be angry. But to go blabbing these things to other people? That was dangerous for both of them.

"What happened?"

"I think you should be telling me that."

"Don't make me pull rank, Bridget."

"My father is the Death Eater," Bridget said coolly. "Not me."

"That's-"

"I swear to Merlin, Ev, if you don't start acting like yourself instead of whatever the hell this is, I'm going to scream!" Bridget snapped. "I understand all you've been through and all that the Dark Lord has done for you, but that doesn't make him a good person! He's still murdered innocent people and he's trying to make you just like him!"

"You're dangerously close to treason, Travers," Evanna said.

"No, you're dangerously close to evil megalomaniac!"

The two girls glared at each other a moment.

"What would you have me do? Run to Dumbledore and beg asylum?" Evanna finally said. "Lucius deserved to die."

"And what about the next person your father sets you after? Did Cedric deserve to die?" Bridget demanded. Evanna was shocked to see tears in her normally stoic friend's eyes. Diggity had been Bridget's housemate, always kind and sincere to everyone he met. "Did Ginny's dad? Does Harry? You aren't judge, jury, and executioner, Evanna-no matter whose daughter you are."

Evannna balled her hands into her robes before asking again, "What happened? When did Draco speak to you?"

Bridget gave her a hard look that made Evanna wonder if there was just as much power in her friend's hazel-y brown eyes as there was in Evanna's own violet.

"He came to the Castle Centre while the rest of us were there the first night back," Bridget said in a low voice. "He told us that you killed his father."

Evanna clamped down hard on the panic she knew was just waiting to come to the surface. Ginny knew. Luna knew. How many others?

"Did he reveal who my real father is?"

"Not while Luna and I were there, but Ginny asked us to let her speak to him alone," Bridget said. "Ev, I'm worried."

"I know, my identity being known could ruin all our pla-"

"I already told you I'm not a damn Death Eater-I'm worried about my friend who was just ordered to kill the man who raised her, no matter how much he deserved it!"

Evanna swallowed, unsure of what to say. Then, the bell rang.

"I've got Arithmancy," she said quietly, ducking out of the broom closet before Bridget could say anything else. She slipped into the classroom just as Professor Vector finished writing the instructions for the day's project on the chalkboard. She took her seat next to Luna as she glanced over the instructions. It was a more complex array than Evanna had ever seen, that could be altered by the smallest deviation from the equations of magic. For that reason, each person had to plug in a different rune depending on their age, star and moon signs, and the materials that made up their wand.

"You have the rest of class to work," Professor Vector said. "Feel free to help each other. You will be demonstrating you array at the start of next class."

There was a rustle as people pulled out their books and parchment and star charts. Evanna forced herself to concentrate on the work in front of her, rather than the thoughts of what her friends now thought of her, of what her brother was doing, of what Dumbledore was planning. The schoolwork in front of her was all that mattered…. All that mattered….

What about the next person your father sets you after?

Evanna's quill went through the parchment, leaving a ragged hole with black spreading from it. She blinked, slowly pulling out another piece of parchment.

"You've the same wand core as I do," Luna said, glancing over at Evanna's equations as the class worked.

"I'm sorry?" Evanna said.

"Unicorn hair," Luna said, pointing at the symbol on her own page.

"Interesting," Evanna said, trying to focus again on her schoolwork.

He was unarmed and shaved and already beaten and you killed my father anyway!

Her hand was shaking as she copied out the symbols for a yew wand.

"They say that what a wand is made of determines what kind of magic it can perform well," Luna continued. "A unicorn hair wand will resist Dark Magic. Or so it is said."

"You know the spell, Evanna"

She whispered the words and the entire room lit up green as he fell with a dull thump-

"Well, that is stupid," Evanna said. "I've only ever had trouble with Light magicks,"

"I have a different theory," Luna said, looking at Evanna with owlish eyes. "I think that it has more to do with the person than the kind of magicks they use. I think that those with unicorn cores can use Dark Magic and not be tainted by it."

Evanna studied Luna, her most innocent friend, and yet also the friend who had seen the most tragedy. She had watched her mother die, Evanna knew; blown apart by her own experimentation. Later, Luna had been Petrified by the Basilisk their first year at Hogwarts, not to mention constantly being bullied by her Housemates (though that happened less and less as the other three became less concerned about House points and detentions). Luna did not have even a hint of deception in her face. She told the truth, as she saw it, always. Evanna almost envied her for such a simple life.

"How did you come up with such a theory?" she finally said.

"I knew a girl who had been taught the Darkest of Dark Magick," she said. "But, with her unicorn wand, she made the most lovely, softest pair of shoes I ever owned."

There was something hot and prickling behind Evanna's eyes and her hand shook. Without so much as a word, Luna reached out and placed a hand on Evanna's, stilling her.

Luna had to leave quickly after class to attend to some project she had started in the Ravenclaw Common Room, leaving Evanna somewhat raw to venture her way down to dinner. She was lost, dazed in her own world of swirling memories, when she bumped into someone.

"Evanna!"

She looked up into deep green eyes. His mind was on one memory, right at the surface, impossible for her to miss.

"It is not me you should beg, one who lays claim to your life stands behind you."

Lucius turned, eyes wide. Then, he seemed to relax.

"You don't have the strength, girl," he sneered.

There was barely a movement and the barest hiss of a curse and Lucius was screaming, writhing on the floor. The girl stood utterly still as her tormentor screamed.

"I-I've been trying to find you," Harry said, nervousness in his voice. "I was-worried about you."

Evanna didn't say a word. She turned on her heel and lost herself in the crowds of Hogwarts, blood thundering in her ears. Luna was wrong, she knew. She had been tainted, to the very pits of her shredded soul. Who else could stand there and torture a man with no expression whatsoever on her face than someone who had been immersed in darkness? And Harry Potter, the great savior of the Light, worried about her, the daughter of Lord Voldemort.

She curled herself into an alcove deep in the dungeons and tried to remind herself of the girl who had made a pair of shoes.

A/N: Thank you to my guest reviewers and all my reviewers! Hope you enjoy!