Ok, this isn't exactly a long chapter for me. I'm sorry if you find this boring. I'm going to try to make the next chapter more exciting.

Naoku

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------

Chapter 13

"Alright class, here are the rules. You may go anywhere in Senscarica that the general public is allowed, however, you need to check in with either myself or McGonagall once every four hours.

"Pansy, when she stops talking we're going to make a break for it," Draco mentally told her.

"Why?" asked Pansy, confused.

"Because, we need to try to find Harmony and who knows who her kidnapper is?"

"You have a point, but wouldn't it be less conspicuous if we, say, wondered off with the rest of our class?"

"We don't have that kind of time. Besides, once the other Slytherin's get a hold of us, we won't be able to shake them."

Plus if I hear another wise crack about Harmony's disappearance I'm going to hurt someone, thought Draco to himself. At least, that's what he thought he did. Pansy smirked.

"I heard that."

"Grrr..."

"Why can't you just admit you love her?"

"I DON'T LOVE HER!"

"Keep telling yourself that Draco, just keep telling yourself that," Pansy smirked and closed the connection before she could get her head yelled off by Draco.

Draco stood fuming and glaring at Pansy for the rest of the teacher's explanation of the rules.

"Alright, you're dismissed," said Miss Griffinsin.

The group cheered and almost immediately smaller groups began to break away from the larger group, hurrying every which way.

Draco stepped casually away from the group and ducked into an ally to avoid his fellow Slytherin's, Pansy not far behind. They then turned and ran directly into the shadows, vanishing from the sight of all.

The ally dead ended just beyond the shadows, but Pansy, knowing this fact, ran straight at the wall, never slowing down and pulling Draco along behind her when he began to slow. She pulled out her wand and whispered a sorzard spell, aiming for the wall and praying that the spell would work. They continued running at the wall, but instead of hitting the stones, as Draco thought they would and thus prepared for the impact by raising one arm to cover his head, they went through the bricks, ending up on one of the many darker back passages that surrounded the city.

Senscarica wasn't dangerous, thievery among sorcerers was nil, so Pansy wasn't afraid to enter the darker regions of the city. After all, most of the city was shroud in darkness anyway. Very few sorcerers had a tolerance for light which was what made them so dangerous in the first place. Draco, on the other hand, felt nervous about being in such a dark area, but held a brave face so as not to be shown up by Pansy. He might have been afraid, but he was still an arrogant and egotistical male.

Once they were safely beyond the wall and on the other side of the ally, Pansy stopped and looked around, trying to figure out exactly where they were. Draco was bent over; his lungs were bothering him again. He didn't know why, but he had weak lungs, the doctors had said something about burns on the inside tissue or something like that.

"Pansy," he commanded between deep breaths. "Next time you do that, warn me. Please. You almost gave me a heart attack."

A snort was Pansy's response as she examined the street signs around them. "Don't be such a baby."

Draco threw a glare a Pansy, who pointedly ignored him and continued to look around.

Finally, she seemed to decide they were safe and pulled her robes over her head, revealing a pair of cargo pants and a tight tank top. She reached into her bag and pulled out a new robe, brown in color, which she slid on like coat and then clipped shut with a belt at her waist and across her chest with crisscrossing belts. She slipped a ring over the middle finger on each of her hands which were attached to bands she had slid on her wrists.

Draco watched Pansy in fascination for a few minutes until she tossed a robe identical to hers on his head and threw the belts over his shoulders.

"Put that on," she insisted. "You'll be less conspicuous that way."

Draco nodded and did as she said, replacing his black school robe with the brown –coat like one and sliding on the belts over the top of the robe.

"So where do we go now?" asked Pansy as she turned towards Draco, one hand on her hip and the other hanging by her side. She wasn't a tough as she appeared, but she could hold her own in a fight if the need be.

Draco shrugged and pulled out the map that he had found earlier with the disk and examined it. Pansy came to look over Draco's shoulder, her brow furrowed in confusion.

"Um, Draco, why are you examining a blank piece of paper?" she asked cautiously.

"Huh? You mean you can't see it?" asked Draco as he looked up at Pansy.

"See what? There's nothing to see," responded Pansy with a shake of her head.

"Yes there is, it's a map," insisted Draco.

"Hm," Pansy pressed the backs of two of her fingers to her lips as she tried to come up with an explanation aside from Draco hallucinating due to Hermione's disappearance. None came to mind. Unless... A thought came to mind. "Draco, you said you could do something special with your eyes right?"

Draco looked confused. "I never said that."

"Yes you did," insisted Pansy. "When you were six…" Pansy's words trailed off as she realized that Draco wouldn't remember such a comment.

Draco looked at her curiously. "Do you remember what I said?"

Pansy made a face and touched her finger to her chin. "Let me think….I believe you said that you could see something, energy maybe? Yes, that was it. You could see energy patterns from living and sometimes dead things."

A strange look crossed over Draco's face as he furrowed his brow. "Like the energy from the bat in that tree?" he asked as he pointed upwards.

Pansy turned and looked up. Sure enough, there was a black bat sitting, well hanging, up in the tree, sleeping. It was invisible unless you were looking for it, then it became only semi-invisible. After acknowledging that there was, in fact, a bat in the tree and that Draco was not seeing things due to some bout of insanity (she wouldn't have been surprised if he was seeing bats while going batty), it became clear that Draco could, indeed, see energy patters.

"Then perhaps that's what you're seeing," exclaimed Pansy. She seemed intrigued by this thought.

"Um...would you mind explaining what you're talking about?" asked Draco, who looked extremely confused and a little worried by the look in his friends eyes. "I mean, I get the part about being able to read the energy of other creatures, but what does that have to do with this map?"

"Well, when I was doing some study into sorcery a few years back, I read that certain sorcerers can see energy patters, as can some wizards, and back during the Wizard Wars, messages written in pure energy used to be used for communication so that even if the messages were intercepted, they would most likely be unreadable. I'm willing to bet Harmony did the same thing. What confuses me is why she would write it in pure energy when anyone in her house hold who found it could read it. If she didn't want to be found, why leave a map to her location?"

Draco shook his head. "No one in her house besides herself and Melody could read energy patterns."

"How do you know?" asked Pansy.

"I don't know," said Draco as he touched his forehead "It's like a vague memory. But its something I remember."

"I thought all of your memories before you were eight years old were gone," said Pansy as she gave him a disbelieving look.

"They are," explained Draco "I have no ready access to them. But since I was eight I've started having dreams about before. Their only dreams, and large pieces of them seem to be missing, but the parts I do dream of, I remember. However, they also fade like dreams."

Pansy nodded, understanding what he was talking about.

"So, where does the map say we should go?" asked Pansy, as she leaned against a wall to make sure her herbs and powders were in place along with her wand, which was in an inside pocket of the robe, and two small ritual blades which were hidden on either side of her thighs.

Draco again examined the map. A line led through what was marked as Aqumis, the forest around Senscarica he would guess, leading to what appeared to be a pool of some sort. He glanced around for a minute to examine their location before put the map away. It looked like they needed to enter the forest going north.

"Hey Pansy, which side of the city are we on?" asked Draco. He had gotten turned around when Pansy had sent them though the wall.

"The Eastern side," she replied as she made sure the blades were well hidden.

"We go that way," he said as he pointed up the street, and began to head for the point where they were supposed to enter the forest.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------

sorzard: a sorcerer spell which can be used by wizards.