Disclaimer: I now owna character! Yay! I invented him! But all the others...that's J.K. Rowling. As if you didn't know.

One month earlier:

He was here. This was the place Harry had thought about ceaselessly since the night Dumbledore had died. He was standing just inside the front door of the house that held such meaning for him. The house he had been born in. The house he had been cursed in. The house his parents had been murdered in.

This was Godric's Hollow. And it was not like Harry had expected. He had no real memories of this house, just feelings. But those feelings were of warmth and comfort and this shell of a home held neither anymore. It was the middle of summer, but the house was chill. From the look of the clutter and furniture, nothing had been moved since…since that night. A thick layer of dust coated all surfaces. The room Harry was standing in was a large kitchen with a round table in the center. It was dark and damp. Lifeless.

He was alone here, but not really. Ron, Hermione and an escort of Order members waited just outside. They were giving him time by himself and he was glad for it.

He made his way slowly across the wooden floor, being careful not to disturb anything. It didn't feel right to touch anything. He made his way further into the house, passing through the first doorway into what looked like a living room. A couch and chairs were centered around a wide stone fireplace.

Contrary to the amount of gold his parents had left in Gringotts, this house was simple and homey. James and Lily Potter had certainly not lived extravagantly. Harry liked that.

There were doors to the left and right, but Harry was drawn instead to a battered wooden door straight ahead. Judging by the vines that were creeping in under the crack, Harry guessed that it led outdoors.

He twisted the rusty doorknob and pressed the door outward. Indeed, this was the backdoor. Harry stepped out onto a thick blanket of vines and grasses. He was standing in a small clearing surrounded by thick, tall oaks with gnarled, twisting roots and moss-covered limbs. Sunlight trickled through between the leaves and cast shadows over the ground. It had a mysterious feel to it.

Harry's breath hitched in his throat at what he saw to the left: two gravestones, covered in vines, held under the shade of a large oak.

He had known the graves would be here…but that hadn't prepared him for actually seeing them. He walked over to them slowly, his heart racing. He knelt on the ground between them, and gently pulled the vines away.

He felt the burn of tears in his eyes as he looked at their names inscribed in the stones. His parents. They were lying right beneath him. Lily and James. Dead.

Because of Voldemort.

Harry's body was soon wracked with sobs, his hands twisted into the vines covering the ground. His heart was burning with bitter pain.

"I'm going to kill him," he whispered to his parents between sobs. "I'm going to destroy every last bit of his soul and kill him."

Suddenly, a kind of crackling energy, unheard, unseen, and unfelt, but somehow sensed, filled the air behind Harry. His breath drew in sharply and before he could even turn—

"Anger is not the best strategy," said a deep voice from behind.

Harry spun around—and saw no one.

"Who's there?" he said. He stood up quickly and brushed the tears from his face. He yanked his wand from his robes. No one answered. "I said who's there!"

"Calm yourself," said the stranger's voice from no apparent direction. "You are in no danger here."

Harry was standing in one spot, looking in all directions. He could not tell where the voice was coming from.

"Who are you?" he asked, straining his ears.

"My name is Maven," said the voice. "And you are Harry Potter. It has been requested of me to help you."

Harry didn't know what to say. All he could think was, this is a trap, this is a trap, this is a trap. "Let me see you!" he called.

There was a pause.

"As you wish," said the voice. And then a dark-clad figure appeared out of thin air ten feet in front of Harry. He was thin and pale, with a dark ponytail tied at the nape of his neck. He had the palest, strangest blue eyes Harry had ever seen. He looked to be maybe forty, judging by the slight grooves around his mouth and on his forehead.

"What do you want?" asked Harry, pointing his wand at the man.

He regarded Harry with a strange expression. "I don't want anything," he said. "I've been sent to assist you."

"Sent here? By who?" asked Harry.

The man was silent for a moment, staring intently at Harry. "Your parents, Harry. Albus. Sirius."

It was at that moment that Harry realized he could see the sunlight streaming through the man's body. A gasp of air caught in his throat.

"What are you?" he asked in a whisper, taking a stumbling step backwards.

"Do not fear me," said the man, Maven. "What I am is not what's important here. Just know that I am…somewhat of a half-being. Not quite a ghost, and not quite alive—" he stopped abruptly. "The girl is coming."

"What?" asked Harry.

"Harry!" called Hermione's voice from the front of the house. "Harry, can we come in?"

Harry didn't take his eyes off the stranger.

"There isn't much time, Harry, but I need to explain," said Maven. "We know you're going to go looking for Voldemort, and we know we can't stop you…but you must let us help you. All we ask is that you wait. At the end of August, come back here. I'll be waiting. Until then, let the Order protect you. You must stay with them."

Harry was so confused. He had so many things to ask, but his tongue couldn't make words.

"The end of August, Harry," said Maven. "Don't forget."

And then he was gone. Completely vanished. Harry was left staring at the empty space in his wake, completely speechless.

Almost immediately, Hermione stepped through the back door of the house. She took one look at Harry's tear-stained face and ran to hug him.

"Oh, Harry," she said, embracing him around the middle. "It's alright."

Ron followed moments later. "You alright, mate?" he asked tentatively.

Harry glanced once again at the place where Maven had vanished. He nodded at Ron. "I want to leave now," he said faintly.

That encounter haunted Harry's thoughts and dreams for the next few weeks. Several times he had himself convinced that the whole thing was just an hallucination and Maven was not real. Mostly he just put it out of his mind and tried not to think about it.

But now it was fast approaching the end of August and Harry had a decision to make tonight. Should he return to Godric's Hollow? He struggled and struggled over it. What if the whole thing was some sort of trap? What if Voldemort was behind it? What if he was walking straight to his death?

But at the same time—despite all reason, logic, and caution—he knew he had to go and that there was no way around it. He felt the knowledge deep in the pit of his stomach, every time he thought about the strange man with the pale blue eyes.

He had to go and find out the truth, even if it killed him.

Hermione was just a wreck. She was still standing against the wall in the hallway, her wand gripped tightly in her hand. Malfoy's door had closed probably five minutes ago. She felt paralyzed, almost. Frozen with the remembered feeling of being trapped by him.

And the feeling of giving in to him. Yes…that's what she had done. She had given in to Draco Malfoy.

She could only be glad that he seemed to have more self-control than she did. It was horrifying to think that if he had wanted to kiss her—if he had really wanted to, and had actually gone for it—she wouldn't have stopped him. The thought made her sick.

She would have let him kiss her.

It was obvious and so terrifying that she couldn't even deny it, even though she wanted to. She wanted to be able to tell herself, "You're Hermione Granger. You wouldn't let Draco Malfoy within ten feet of you. You just wouldn't." But that would be a lie. She knew she wanted to be close to him. Her whole body seemed to scream it at her every time he came near. She had never felt this way before.

How could she hate someone so much and want him so badly at the same time?

Hermione shook her head to clear her thoughts. She felt unclean. She walked quietly to her room at the end of the hallway and gathered her things to take a shower.

Draco was feeling highly unsettled. He was in his room, sitting in one of the wooden chairs, bent over with his head resting in his hands. His eyes were closed.

As much as he was trying to change the subject in his mind from Granger, he couldn't. Her face would float up from the depths of his thoughts, and he would shake his head violently, and curse her inwardly, and try to think of something else. And thirty seconds later, she would be back. Glaring at him. Mocking him. Laughing at him. Waiting to be kissed by him.

He wanted very much to throw one of these chairs at her.

He'd had enough. This was it. He couldn't keep having these close encounters with her. His willpower was at an all-time low. He felt diminished.

Here he was, back to health (pretty much), looking like himself, wearing his own clothes…exactly what he had been dreaming about since he got here! And all he could do was sit here in his little chair and think of Granger. He wanted to throw a chair at himself.

What is wrong with me? he thought over and over.

And then it hit him.

His wand.

His head snapped up at the realization.

He needed his wand to be himself again. He needed to find it, and escape this place, escape Granger. Then he could be Draco Malfoy again.

Hermione was sitting between Ron and Harry at the dinner table in the kitchen, eating supper with Tonks and Lupin.

She felt much better after her shower, having changed into an old pair of muggle jeans and a comfortable gray T-shirt.

The mood at the table was somber, though. Harry remained distant despite Ron's attempts to pull him into a quidditch discussion. Lupin looked pale and tired. Even Tonks was quiet. And Hermione, of course, had a great load on her mind. There was a heaviness in the room, a gloominess.

With a good two-thirds of his dinner sitting untouched on his plate, Harry said abruptly, "I think I'm going to go to bed now."

Hermione exchanged a glance with Ron as Harry pushed back his chair and stood up to leave.

"Do you feel okay?" asked Tonks.

"Yeah, fine," said Harry. "Just tired."

"Are you sure?" asked Hermione, her brow creasing in concern.

"Yes, absolutely positive," said Harry, this time with a familiar edge to his voice.

"Okay," said Hermione. She had the compulsion to ask again, but managed to stop herself.

She watched him as he walked briskly up the stairs and out of sight. She exchanged another glance with Ron. They were both thinking the same thing: Harry's acting strange.

Hermione was lost in thought for the rest of the meal.

What is Harry up to? she wondered repeatedly.

She decided that after dinner she would quickly look in on Malfoy to make sure he wasn't dead and then go to check on Harry. She ate quickly and then excused herself from the table.

Walking up the stairs, she felt very nervous about seeing Malfoy again so soon after their last…episode. Nonetheless, she walked right up to his room and opened the door—

And looked around. And looked some more. And walked down the hall to the bathroom and looked in there. And checked her own room.

He was gone.

Her first thought was: I have to tell Harry.

She ran down the stairs, through the hallway, past the stairs leading to the kitchen, past the library, past the dining room, and down the darkest, innermost hallway that led to Harry's room.

"Harry—" the name died on her lips as she opened the door.

Malfoy was standing just inside…holding a wand. His own wand. And he was pointing it directly at her.

Her breath hitched in her throat. "Where's Harry?" she asked, taking a step backwards.

"How the hell should I know?" he replied.

Her first thought was that he was toying with her. But she knew his toying-around voice very well…and this wasn't it.

"He wasn't in here?" she asked, her heart beginning to race.

"No," he said. "Now get out of my way."

Her began walking towards her, his wand outstretched and—

Footsteps.

Outside the door. Hermione spun around and at first saw nothing. Until, to her horror, she noticed the footprints rapidly imprinting themselves in the carpet down the hallway.

Harry was invisible.

And he was running.

"Harry!" she cried, immediately breaking into a run down the hallway. Malfoy was, for the moment, forgotten. Past the dining room, the library, the lower stairs, the upper stairs—

—the front door slammed shut just as she got to it.

"Harry!" she called, flinging the door back open. She raced down the three stairs to the sidewalk and looked left and right. There was no sign of Harry. She made a quick decision and began running to the left, her wand held out in front of her.

Suddenly she became aware of footsteps directly behind her and a moment later, before she could even turn to look, she felt the air being knocked out her lungs as someone caught her around the waist and flung her to the ground.

"Granger, you—idiot!" snarled Malfoy from atop her. He yanked her to her feet by her wrists. "You're a sitting duck! Get back to the house!"

He began pulling her back down the sidewalk from where she had come, glancing all around him for possible threats.

Hermione heard a crack in the distance and knew it was Harry Disapparating. Almost immediately, and without any reason, two words broadcast themselves so vividly in her mind that she thought she could see them spelled out right in front of her face:

Godric's Hollow.

She stopped forcefully in her tracks, causing Malfoy to jerk backwards. Without a second thought, she raised her wand, filled her mind with the thought of Godric's Hollow, and spun on her foot.

It happened so quickly. One moment Draco was pulling Granger back to the house…the next, everything went black and he felt like his eyeballs were being sucked out of his head. Then, abruptly, cool night air rushed in around him and tiny raindrops began falling on his face. He still had an iron grip on Granger's arm.

"Damn it, Granger!" he yelled at her, realizing with fury that she had Apparated him.

But her attention was elsewhere, her eyes focused with terror on the masked figure that stood in the center of the clearing they had just appeared at the edge of.

It was a Death Eater.

Draco reacted with amazing speed, yanking Granger behind a wide oak just as a jet of red light flew past their heads.

"Where the fuck are we!" he yelled at her, as more spells were fired off around the tree.

But once again, her attention was elsewhere. She was looking past his shoulder, her eyes wide.

"Harry," she said under her breath. Then she bolted away from him, towards whatever she had seen.

Draco was about to follow her, but thought better of it. He was enraged. He had no idea where the fuck he had just been magically transported to, his guide had just frolicked off into the woodlands, he was being attacked by Death Eaters with only a tree as his shelter—and it raining on him, to top it all off.

He kicked the dirt furiously and swore. He wondered how many Death Eaters were in that clearing. He poked his head quickly around the tree, narrowly avoiding a jet of red light that streamed past his head.

There were two of them.

With skills taught to him by some very experienced Death Eaters, he began throwing curse after curse around the tree trunk. He heard a moan, and then a thud, and after several more well-aimed curses, another moan and thud. He leaned around the tree trunk. They were both down, but not dead.

His first instinct now was to go after Granger. There were probably more Death Eaters where those two had come from, and she obviously did not have her wits about her. She wouldn't be able to defend herself from a surprise attack.

But this was his grand escape. He should be halfway around the world by now. He should be starting over, leaving his past behind. Granger was in the past. Who cared if she died?

I don't, he told himself resolutely.

And so, burying whatever musings of heroism he had lapsed into thinking, he began making his way quickly and quietly through the trees. After a few minutes, the rain began to fall heavily. Luckily, the insides of his robes were lined. His clothes would stay dry in this fiasco, if nothing else. He had no idea where he was. The next clear spot he came to, he would Apparate.

And then he heard something that made the blood in his veins shiver.

Granger was screaming.

Without thinking twice, he ran towards the sound, not caring how much noise he made in the process. He ran as fast as his legs could carry him until his sides burned fiercely and his lungs were aflame. He stopped and looked around, heaving for air. He didn't know where he was going, or if he was still running in the right direction. He wished with every fiber of his being to hear her scream again. It would tell him where to run and, more importantly, it would indicate that she was still alive.

He couldn't risk calling to her. He knew that he shouldn't, that it would bring Death Eaters from all directions. But he felt a desperation welling up in his chest that couldn't even attempt to explain. He wanted to scream her name and hear her scream back to him.

Suddenly, a strange kind of crackling filled the air around him. A dark figure appeared in front of him in the rain.

"She's this way," called a man's voice. "Follow me quickly if you want to save her."

The figure began to move. Draco hesitated only a moment before following. He had to run as fast as before just to keep up with the man. Low-hanging branches slapped at his face as he raced through the forest, dodging in and out of trees, squinting his eyes in the rain, trying not to lose sight of the man. This was insane, but he didn't care. He had to find Granger.

He passed an enormous, dark, ancient tree covered in thick mosses and vines. Beyond it was a small clearing. And there she was, bound at her wrists and ankles, her mouth gagged, sitting at the base of a tree in the middle of this downpour.

"Behind you," said the strange man, who hovered at the edge of Draco's vision.

Draco spun, and shouted, "Expelliarmus!" before the Death Eater standing behind him with a raised wand could curse him. "Stupefy!" he called, and the Death Eater collapsed to the ground.

Draco ran to Granger and sank onto his knees beside her, his hands moving automatically to untie her. When her wrists and ankles were free, he reached behind her head and untied the gag. He resisted the strange urge to hug her.

"Why did they tie you up?" he said, still gasping for air, pulling her to her feet.

She was shaking all over and her eyes were wide with fear.

"Who is that?" she asked, regarding the pale man in dark clothing who stood off to the side.

"I am Maven," offered the man calmly. "And the reason Harry has come here tonight. He is safe."

"Where is he?" blurted Granger immediately.

"Safe," said the man patiently.

She took a few quick steps toward him before Draco caught her by the arm.

"Where is he!" she repeated angrily.

Maven shifted his attention to Draco. "There are many more Death Eaters here tonight. Do not Apparate, or they will follow. Do not run in the open. That tree is hollow," he said, pointing to the enormous, ancient tree Draco had passed only seconds earlier. "Hide her inside and stay there until the way is clear."

And then he was gone. Just…gone. Literally vanished into thin air.

"No!" shouted Granger. "He has Harry!"

Draco grabbed her by the hand and pulled her over to the tree.

"He has Potter safe," said Draco in a harsh whisper, still trying to catch his breath. "Shut up or they'll hear you."

"We have to find Harry," she said, her voice on the verge of tears.

Draco kept her hand clamped in his as he pulled a clump of vines aside and stepped into the enormous, dark cavity within the tree. He pulled Granger in after him. The strange cave-like hollow was maybe the size of the bathroom at Potter's house. It was somehow illuminated, though Draco could not tell how. It was darker outside than inside the tree. It was almost like the walls were glowing.

"Let me go!" cried Hermione, struggling against the grip of his hand. "I saw Harry! Right when he got here, I saw him go off into the trees—"

"Shut up!" he whispered urgently into her face.

But she wouldn't. She was panicking, trying to escape from his grasp, making all sorts of noise, yelling about finding Harry.

They're going to hear her, thought Draco with dread. They're going to hear her, they're going to hear her, they're going to—

And then, overtaken with the thought of shutting her up, completely overlooking the consequences, he jerked her in close to his body by her shoulders and bent his head down to crush her mouth with his own.

The second their lips touched, he felt like twenty thousand volts of electricity were coursing through his body.

He felt the shock of it from the hairs of his head to the very tips of his toes, a searing heat that spread over his body like wildfire. His hands and his lips were smoldering, seared firmly onto her. For a moment, he couldn't pull himself away.

And when he did, wrenching his lips away from hers and snatching his burned hands from her shoulders, he couldn't breathe. His chest rose and fell with short, panting gasps as he stared down at her.

She certainly wasn't yelling anymore. Maybe he had kissed some sense into her.

She was swaying slightly, staring up at him with shocked but sane eyes, breathing hard. He saw the way she shivered, the way her wet clothes clung to her body. The way she might collapse at any moment.

He couldn't keep himself away from her.

He rushed forward at her, this time wrapping his arms around her waist, finding her lips again and pressing onto them urgently. He caught a glimpse of her surprised features before shutting his eyes. She was so soft, and so small in his arms, and so—

—so not resisting him. The realization hit him very suddenly as he felt her lips pressing back against his. Then he felt her hands press against his chest and slide up slowly, maybe hesitantly, around his neck. A shiver ran all the way down his spine.

He pulled his lips away for a moment to take in a lung-full of air and she did the same. Their eyes met for a brief moment, filled identically with churning, contradictory emotions. Then they crashed back together, meeting in the middle, Draco hauling her body tightly against his with arms that wrapped possessively around her torso. He had never kissed a girl this way before, with so much passion and intensity. It consumed him, made him dizzy. He could feel every curve of her body pressed into his, every staccato beat of her heart, every breath that she managed to inhale and exhale. He wanted more of her, all of her. He slipped his tongue through her open lips with as much caution as he could muster at this point (which was not much).

She tasted like innocence, sweet and soft, as he explored her mouth. His hands roamed feverishly over her back, trying to pull her in tighter though he had long since closed the space between them. He couldn't get close enough.

But suddenly a very sharp feeling of foreboding invaded his chest. They were in danger here. This place was treacherous. He was going to lose his senses and a Death Eater was going to be able to sneak up on them. They were exposed, though hidden.

He pulled his lips away from hers with the same hesitation that goes along with getting out of bed on Saturday morning.

She opened her eyes and looked up at him.

"We have to leave now," he said. But he said it drunkenly, without much conviction. His voice surprised him. It was heavy and dark, almost a groan. This is what Granger did to him. He didn't even sound like himself after kissing her. And he could hardly catch his breath.

She nodded up at him, and the look in her eyes was that of Hermione Granger, not the twittering, frightened girl from before. He took a second to really look at her. She was soaking wet, trembling all over, probably freezing to death. She had run out of the house after Harry wearing just jeans and a T-shirt. Draco disentangled his arms from her body and took off his robes to swing around her shoulders. The insides, at least, were dry and would probably keep her warm.

When he looked down into her eyes afterwards, they shared a look that roughly communicated, "I don't like this situation one bit either, but there's nothing we can do about it."

He grabbed her hand in his and pulled back the clump of vines for them to step through. They began making their way quietly through the forest, dodging from tree to tree in the darkness.

A/N: Yeah. There it is. It happened, finally. I hope you liked it? Review and let me know. Sorry for the slow update.