A/N: Yes, I'm well aware that I suck. So sorry for the delay. Life happened.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Olive didn't even have time to register her surroundings before there was another loud pop and she was being yanked forward.

"Don't play games, Bastian," came the voice that grabbed her and she looked up to see Dreagan. His jaw was tight.

"Oh come now, I had to make sure you'd show up," Bastian argued. "I'm not an idiot, if I hadn't have done it you'd have been long gone by now."

Dreagan's silence only confirmed the fact. Olive looked around and found they were standing in an entryway of some sort. A huge wooden staircase dominated the right side of the room and she looked up to see four or five floors above.

A house. They were in a house. Probably the biggest she'd ever been in – even considering Malfoy Manor. But the wallpaper was peeling, wooden boards were splintered here and there, and – quite honestly – it didn't look fit for habitation. And that was saying something considering she had spent the better part of a year in a tent.

"As I thought," Bastian said with a sigh. "Your room is untouched. Mother never could bear going in there after you ran off. I gave her a sleeping draught before I left, but she knows I went to find you and she'll be expecting you in the morning."

Olive was hardly listening. She couldn't take her eyes from the grime that seemed to cover everything.

Dreagan's hand moved up to the back of her neck. A protective measure she wouldn't argue with, not while surrounded by such dismal walls.

"We'll speak at breakfast," Bastian said. Olive could feel his eyes on her and she looked up to him. He had a peculiar smirk she wasn't sure she was comfortable with. He nodded in farewell as he turned and made his way up the creaking staircase, much to Olive's surprise. It didn't look like it could support much more weight than a feather, let alone a grown man.

For the longest time the two of them just stood in silence, well after Bastian's footsteps had faded. "What is this place?" she finally asked, not bothering to hide the disgust in her voice.

"Where I grew up," he said, his own distaste matching hers. "Until I ran off to stay with my aunt."

At that Olive looked up at him over her shoulder. Dreagan's jaw was tighter than just a few moments ago, but his face oddly void of expression.

"We can just leave?" she suggested, her voice betraying a note of hope.

The hope she felt was diminished when his mouth set in a thin line. "He was already settin' the wards as I got here," he said, lifting his free arm. Blood covered the side of his hand, having rolled down from inside the arm of his jacket. Dreagan turned his arm to reveal part of his jacket torn and frayed, a large patch of skin peeled off beneath. "Not as quick as I should have been," he added.

Dreagan lowered his arm and again the two of them stood still in the entry hall, just looking at the disaster surrounding them.

"So," she said. "We're basically being held hostage in your own home."

His fingers tightened a bit on the back of her neck. "This is not my home," he said darkly, then pushed her forward toward the stairs. "Come on, then," he said.

Out of all the things Olive had been through since Dreagan entered her life, setting one foot on that staircase was without a doubt one of the scariest. At the bottom she hesitated and Dreagan stalled, giving her a funny look.

"Will it…hold both of us?" she asked, apprehensive. It didn't help matters that, now closer to the walls, she could see some sort of small insects crawling along the faded paper.

Dreagan's hand on her neck loosened and she looked up over her shoulder at him. There was a tired smile on his face, the first positive emotion he'd shown since they arrived. "It'll be fine," he assured her.

Olive looked away from him and back to the stairs, her apprehension evident. With a sigh, he dropped his hand from her neck and moved to stand at her side, grabbing her by the elbow.

"C'mon, scaredy cat," he teased, tugging her up on the first step. The wood moaned under their weight and she snatched onto the bannister.

At that he had to laugh and Olive found it a welcome sound.

"Out'ta all the things we've done, Olive, and you're scared of a fuckin' staircase!"

Olive set her jaw and tilted up her chin. "In my defense, it's the dodgiest looking staircase I've ever seen in my life."

With that she took another step, just wanting to get it over with. A few creaking stairs later and they were safely at the top.

As with the entry hall, they stood in silence for a moment and took it all in. Chunks of plaster were missing from the ceiling. In their silence, you could hear some sort of animal – whether rodent or bird – scuffling around inside the walls. Here and there along the floor, boards were splintered or altogether missing.

"Hasn't changed a bit," he said darkly. Olive looked up to see his moments of playful banter were gone. Now Dreagan's face had returned to the grim sight it had been downstairs.

The staircase continued up another two floors, but she was glad their destination was on their current floor. Dreagan, without a word, slid his hand down to hers and led her through the maze of busted floorboards.

At the end of the hall – which seemed to stretch on forever – there was a single door. Dreagan swung it open, the act dramatized by a great deal of dust falling to reveal a narrow staircase. Olive let her eyes follow from the bottom to the top. This set was far better maintained.

As in the entry hall and on the second floor landing, they stood still in silence for a moment. She wondered just how long it had been since he'd last been here and why he was so discontent to be back. Though the dismal state of the place was reason enough, Olive couldn't imagine growing up in such a filthy place.

"Come on," he muttered, leading the way and dragging her behind by the hand. She was glad to note those stairs didn't groan and creak as the others had.

The stairs led up to a small room, almost loft-like, though overlooking nothing. There was a single window, but it had grown too dark to see what it looked out over.

Olive looked around, her face unreadable. "This was your room?" she asked. It was strange seeing that small slice of him. Everything was so him, just younger.

Dreagan only hummed in reply. His expression was just as unreadable as hers.

Olive dropped his hand and crossed the room, looking around at his things. Dreagan started tending the wound on his arm, though his eyes never lingered far from her.

The bed was still rumpled from whenever the last time he'd slept in it. The walls were plain plaster, decorated only by a few photographs and a giant moving poster of some quidditch team. She'd never been into quidditch – she figured it was because she didn't grow up with it. The players in the aging poster wore grey and white robes and were weaving on and off the poster on their brooms. Near the top it read: Falmouth Falcons. In smaller print at the bottom it said: Let us win, but if we cannot win, let us break a few heads.

A small smile perked up the edges of her mouth.

"What?" he asked, voice even. Though there might have been a note of tension. Olive looked over at him. While she inspected the poster, he had only watched her, a bit of spare fabric – maybe an old shirt – pressed against his arm.

"It's just…very you," she said, nudging her head toward the poster. It was only then that Dreagan looked at the poster. He merely hummed in reply, then peeled the fabric away. It already looked to be doing a lot better.

God, he seemed tense. Olive wasn't quite sure she'd ever seen him like that before. It was a mix of nerves and apprehension. She didn't comment on it – the behavior was too odd for comment. Instead she went back to her inspection of the room.

The bed was a double, though there was no frame. Just a box spring and mattress on the floor. From the head of the bed to the wall opposite was a line of books propped against each other.

Dreagan still just watched her as she cocked her head to the side and read the titles. Now, she had never thought him a simple person, he was far too clever and manipulative for that, but Olive was genuinely surprised with the depth and complexity of subjects he'd read up on. A lot of it was advanced dark arts.

"I didn't know you liked to read so much," she noted, not looking at him.

There was a beat of silence. "Don't 'ave time for it anymore," he said. "But I used to read a lot, yeah."

Olive could picture it, moody teenage Dreagan locked away in his room, pouring over books to escape what an awful place he lived in. She'd done the same, though it was the outside world she was hiding from.

The row of books ended at the wall and she took to looking at the photographs along the next stretch. The first she saw seemed to be a family picture. Four teenagers, all dressed in Hogwarts robes, stood around a woman. All five of them looked alike. On the left were two boys who looked exactly the same – their height and build so similar it bordered on eerie. Even their hair was in the same stage of growth, just laying past their ears. Olive knew one of them had to be Dreagan and the other Bastian, though which was which was indecipherable. The older woman was in the middle, her dark eyes unamused. Bastian and Dreagan's expressions matched hers. On the right was a girl who was a spitting image of the woman and next to her was a stockier boy, shorter than the others. They were the only two smiling.

"Notice anything about the picture?" he asked her. Olive realized then he'd closed the gap between them and stood directly behind her.

"Your brothers and sister, I'm guessing," she said. "And mother?"

Dreagan laid a hand on her shoulder and leaned around her, pointing at the picture with his free hand. He pointed first to the boy's tie on the farthest left. Ravenclaw. The next boy – Slytherin. His finger skipped over their mother to the girl – Hufflepuff. The stockier boy – Gryffindor.

"We were the second of only two families in Hogwarts history to have four siblings in four different houses at the same time."

Olive let her eyes trail over the picture again. "Who is who?"

"Me on the far left, then Bastian who you just met. Mum in the middle. Then my sister Mira and brother Gaspar. They're fraternal twins."

Olive's eyes went to the teenage Dreagan…specifically the Ravenclaw tie around his neck. It was not something she expected. Not that it was something she'd ever thought about, but it was both unexpected and fitting.

"What?" he asked, curious with her silence.

"I just never thought about you at Hogwarts," she said. "I suppose I figured you were Slytherin."

Dreagan's hand trailed up to the back of her neck as he'd done at the stairs. "Why?" he asked, tone teasing. "Because I'm the bad guy?"

"Because you act on self-interest," she quickly retorted.

At that he laughed and she turned to look at him. "Fair enough, I s'pose," he said. Olive couldn't help noticing his mood still seemed dark besides the laugh. "To be fair, I was a hat stall between Ravenclaw and Slytherin."

Olive's stomach twisted. She recalled her own humiliation at being a hat stall, stuck between those exact same two houses. "I was a hat stall, too," she admitted.

It was odd. They'd spent so much time together, done horrible and decent things to one another, created a child, and yet they didn't know something as simple as which houses they'd been in. But it was a war – Hogwarts houses seemed silly in comparison. What did it matter in the end?

"Which houses?" he asked, small grin growing across his face. "Let me guess which one you were put in."

"Same two as you," she said. Dreagan didn't seem surprised.

"Slytherin," he said quickly. Olive's eyebrows shot up sky high and she laughed, offering him a small shake of her head. "Ravenclaw? Really?" he asked.

It seemed he was having the same weird moment she had.

"What made you think I was Slytherin?" she asked.

A satisfied smirk pulled across his face. "Because you act on self-interest," he mocked.

Olive couldn't help the grin that crossed her face. "The hat asked me which I preferred," she said. "I didn't know anything about the houses. I told it I wanted the blue table because a few boys at the green table were laughing at me for taking so long."

That earned a chuckle out of Dreagan, who moved his hands to her shoulders and turned her toward the bed.

"Same," he said. "I chose Ravenclaw because I didn't want to be in the same house as Bastian."

At the foot of the bed he dropped his hands from her and pulled out his wand. With a few flicks of his wrist, the sheets and pillows were freshened up.

"So, we're impostor Ravenclaws," she noted.

"We're both pretty smart," he said without looking at her. Instead he sat on the edge of the bed and started unlacing his boots.

It was eerie how similar the two of them really were. It was more eerie thinking that she easily could have sat in the same chair he'd once sat in or used the same desk, all before she knew him.

Olive walked back to the picture and looked over teenage Dreagan again. He looked to be fourteen or fifteen, but already he was quite handsome. Now that she was really looking, she could see a trace of the discolored hair at his crown. When she smiled, the teenage Dreagan smirked at her. God, there was no denying who he was, hadn't changed a bit.

She walked another step or two, eyes glued to the next picture. It was Dreagan again, perhaps a year or two older. Like the previous picture, he looked unamused. The brunette girl next to him, not his sister, was smiling though.

Olive wasn't sure what to think about her stomach twisting at the sight, other than finding it worrisome. What should she care about some girl he'd not even looked happy taking a picture with? But still, the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. "Who is this?"

She could feel Dreagan looking, but didn't dare turn her head and give away her face.

There was a long silence. "Lysia," he said dismissively and it nearly lodged a knot in her throat. Lysia, the name he sometimes mumbled during his nightmares.

Olive couldn't bring herself to say anything else. Or look at more pictures, for that matter. She stood awkwardly for a moment, unsure what to do with herself, before lifting a foot and trying to unlace her boot. It gave her something to focus on, especially as it was difficult with her swollen stomach. Plus it allowed her to keep her back toward him and buy herself a moment to gather her emotions.

Behind her, she heard Dreagan sigh. She did not turn to look at him.

"It was a long fuckin' time ago, Olive," he said. "I don't want to be here anymore than you do. I never wanted you to see this place, didn't want Bastian making fuckin' eyes at you."

The laces were nearly undone and she lowered her boot, putting the toes of her other foot on the heel and pulling her foot free. Something in his voice bothered her. Irritation, sure, but a small note of panic. It made her forget the photo for a moment and turn toward him, her other boot forgotten.

Dreagan's face made her mouth tug down at the corners. His own mouth was set in a grim line, but his eyes looked miserable.

"No one is making eyes at me, you idiot," she said, teasing. She lifted her other foot and tried to unlace the boot. Much like the first, she got it loose enough to pry her foot out.

In all that time, Dreagan said nothing. He just looked at the wall blankly.

"Hey," she said. His eyes darted up to hers. "It's fine. We'll do what we have to do and leave, alright?"

Still he didn't answer and she frowned.

Olive's eyes darted to the picture of him and Lysia once more before she turned away. That was years ago, enough of an excuse to help her push the thought away. Besides, since the bathtub incident it had been Olive's name he mumbled as he tossed and turned.

Good.

Her fingers went to her neck and she unfastened the top few buttons of her shirt before turning toward him. Dreagan still stared at the wall, lost in thought. It wasn't until she was sliding the shirt off her arms that he finally looked at her, standing before him bare from the waist up. Olive's pregnant belly stuck out over her trousers.

"What're you doin'?" he asked, the ghost of a smile perking his lips up.

Olive unsnapped the button on her trousers and they fell down to her knees. She stepped out of them before answering. What undergarments she had before were either lost or destroyed. Now she stood stark naked before him with nothing save her socks.

"You're not happy," she said simply.

Dreagan's eyes roamed her body. "No, I'm not," he said.

"Then let me make you feel better."

That was not something he was going to protest, nor was it a request. The photo of Lysia pushed Olive to secure her place. Not that she would admit that to even herself.

Thoughts of her reasoning were pushed aside just as quickly as thoughts of the photograph. There was no room for doubt, not when her bare knees stepped to fit between his – not when her fingers worked to unfasten the buttons at his collar.