A/N. Okay, see, I hope you guys forgive me, but I have to say it…

AND SO THE PLOT THICKENS.

God, I'm glad got that off my chest.

…~oOo~…

Chapter Nine: In Which They Make Headlines

All of the kids were gathered in the dining room for supper, spread out over three large round tables. It tended to be separated between young and older children, but they sometimes mingled to tutor one another or talk Quidditch. There were about twenty-five students over all, between the older ones who left Hogwarts prematurely and the two years of muggle-borns exiled from formal wizard education.

Hermione, Luna, Neville, Harry, and Krum all sit at the teachers' table. Hermione was biting her nails nervously.

"Well, Harry, say something to them," Neville said, still shocked from Hermione's announcement that the kids had to go home.

"Me?" Harry said, his eyes popping open wide. "Why does it have to be me?"

"You're their role model," Neville said. "Merlin knows they like you the best."

"That's not true," Harry shot back. "They all like Hermione."

"No, they don't," Hermione rebuffed. "I'm the one who assigns them detention."

"Exactly why you should tell them, really," Harry said matter-of-factly. "They expect bad news from you."

"Ugh!" Hermione growled, pressing the heels of her hands into his eyes. "Viktor, can you tell them?"

"I do not think they know vat I am saying, most of the time."

"Sure, use the language barrier excuse now," Harry muttered, rolling his eyes.

Viktor smirked and shrugged, as if saying, I am Bulgarian, what else can I do but use it when it suits me?

"I think it would be best if you told them, Hermione," Luna said gently. "You started this school, it only makes sense for you to be the one to bring an end to it."

Hermione sighed heavily but knew there was no way around it. She stood up, clinked her glass to get all of the kids' attentions and began to speak.

…~oOo~…

"This is so unfair!" Adam said, kicking the chair so hard it toppled over.

"Can you stop hurting the furniture?" Yvette said, walking across the sitting room with a huff to right the chair, putting its legs into the correct dents in the carpet.

Chelsea just sat on the sofa Indian-style, looking at her hand.

"Really, dumbass," Margot said, glaring at him. "No one wants to listen to your temper tantrum. The school is closing. There is nothing you can do about it."

"Sure there is!" Adam said, throwing his hands in the air. "There has to be something!"

"Well, there isn't," Margot snapped.

"I'm excited about going home," Yvette said, throwing in her two knuts.

"No one cares, Yvette," Adam whined. "We all know you hate it here, blah blah blah. Well, guess what? I like it here. I don't want to go home. And neither does any other muggle-born in this house. You just want to go home because you suck at magic."

"I do not!" Yvette said indignantly, her shoulders straightening and standing to her full height. "My wand and I have gotten on quite good terms, I'll have you know. The only reason why I'm a little behind is because it took a while for my wand and I to get along."

"Sure, blame the wand," Adam said sarcastically.

Margot even smirked at that.

"You're nothing but a bully, Adam Nolan!" Yvette shouted.

"Well, you're nothing but a spoiled brat!" Adam shouted back.

"Better a spoiled brat than an obnoxious waste of space!"

"I'm the waste of space?" Adam scoffed. "I'm still trying to get over the fact I have to breathe the same air as you!"

"Stop it!" Chelsea exclaimed, looked deeply stressed.

Everyone stopped and looked at her. Self-conscious once more, she took a throw pillow and hugged it to her chest, pressing her face into the top of it.

"Chelsea, I don't think I've ever heard you talk that loud," Adam noted in awe.

"Are you okay, Chelsea?" Margot asked, sounding slightly concerned.

Without saying anything else, Chelsea stood up and, taking the pillow with her, walked out of the room. Chelsea felt nauseas and the news of the school being closed only made it worse. Where was she supposed to go? The summer before her and her father lost their run-down little flat because they couldn't pay the rent and last she heard from her father he was still driving a cab and sleeping in the back seat when he could.

She was constantly worried about her father and he was finally making some money now that he didn't have to worry about where she would sleep or when and if she'd eat. She didn't want to become a burden to her father. And, as sad as it was to think, she didn't want to be homeless. She enjoyed having a bed and fireplaces to keep her warm and knowing when her next meal would be. Three months after her mother had died they were evicted and, she was very small, but she remembered the month of sleeping on spark benches while her father couldn't pull himself out of his stupor long enough to stop drinking and start working. She didn't want to go back to that place of cold and sadness.

She was happy at the manor. She was learning, she made a few friends, she had a mentor in Professor Granger. She missed her father, of course, but was wise enough to know they were better apart.

"Chelsea!"

Chelsea turned to find Margot jogging to catch up with her. "I think I know what is wrong," Margot said, looking at Chelsea with concerned blue eyes.

Chelsea shook her head. She doubted it Margot understood the full extent of what was going on in Chelsea's head. She was seeing things and people and visions, her dreams were sending very clear messages about Malfoy, and now she had to worry about being a burden to her father.

"The school is closing and you cannot go home, yes?" Margot said in her clear, concise English.

Chelsea nodded slowly. She might have mentioned to Margot that her father had lost their flat. Chelsea and Margot sometimes talked about their single parents. Chelsea had lost her mother at a young age and Margot had lost her father at young age, so it felt like she was the only who understood sometimes.

"Well, to be frank, I am sick of living with Malfoy," Margot said with a grimace. "And I am sick of Snow checking in on me every few weeks for no reason. I was planning on running away once the summer came and classes were over, but with the school closing now…" She shrugged. "Would you want to…come with me?"

Chelsea felt her eyes bug. "Run…away?"

Margot nodded. "England is not safe. Neither is France or Scotland. And things are not well in the East. The Ukraine has been –"

"The Ukraine?" Chelsea repeated, feeling her heart jump.

"Yes," Margot said slowly. "Just this morning in the Prophet, there was an article about riots breaking out in Ukraine."

"Civil war in the Ukraine," Chelsea breathed, feeling her blood run cold.

"Not yet," Margot said, her brow furrowing. "Just riots, so far."

In her dream. Newly appointed Minister Malfoy had said, "…we have reformed our justice system and prevented a full-blown civil war in the Ukraine." It was true. Her dream was real. There was no way she could have known about the unrest in Eastern Europe and now… Now she knew it was beginning. Before long Malfoy would be Minister and blood supremacy would rule wizarding. What was to become of them? The muggle-borns?

Malfoy did not yet have that scar through her brow, but it was only a matter of time.

"Yes," Chelsea said quickly. "Yes."

"You'll come with me?" Margot clarified, a little surprised to hear her accepting.

Chelsea nodded, but then hesitated for a moment. "But… the others…"

"They 'ave families, Chelsea," Margot said. "They'd be safer with them. They will live like Muggles and never be suspected. But my face is known because of my mother. And you 'ave no home."

Taking a deep breath, Chelsea nodded. She was so afraid. And she knew Margot was right.

"We will move faster on our own, anyway," Margot said.

"Where will we go?" Chelsea asked.

"Fiji," Margot said with relish, smiling.

"That's… really far away," Chelsea said, furrowing her eyebrow.

"Or somewhere like it," Margot said, waving it off. "Somewhere tropical. Warm. We can live on the beach. Somewhere away from all this madness."

"Alright," Chelsea said with the best conviction she could manage. "That sounds…good."

She just hoped Margot wouldn't hate her when Chelsea started slowing them down with her visions which were increasing in frequency and intensity.

But they would be away from Britain and that was all that mattered.

…~oOo~…

Potter Back from the Dead?!

He is Risen! Harry Potter!

Could it be true?

Rita Skeeter's article on Harry Potter had been published and the wizarding world was in an uproar. And so was the Dark Lord.

"HOW WERE THESE LIES PUBLISHED?"

The chief executive of The Prophet hit the ground, screaming in agony. Draco barely blinked, just kept himself calm by forcing himself to breathe regularly. His focus was entirely on his lungs, that was the key. He stood by his father who was actually less composed than Draco himself.

They were in the catacombs beneath the Ministry. Where revels were hosted, meetings were held, and captured Muggles were brought to be played with and, ultimately, killed. But now it was a temporary prison for everyone who was Marked and a few from the staff of the Prophet.

"I-I-I I am unsure, my lord," Angus Johnson stammered, now on his hands and knees after the harsh hit of the Cruciatus. The poor man's last thin strands of hair stuck to his shiny, sweaty head while beads of sweat ran down his face, mingling with his tears. "It never w-w-went through any e-e-e-editors, just ap-p-p-p-appeared at the p-printers…" He was trembling uncontrollably. His secretary and head editor stood behind him, holding each other's arms and shaking as bad as him, closing their eyes as Angus was hit with another Cruciatus.

"Who…wrote it…then?" Voldemort hissed, bending down to grab Angus's chin and dig his nails into the man's jaw, breaking skin. Blood dribbled down Angus's neck and he cried harder.

"We don't know," Angus's secretary spoke up when her boss clearly could not force out the words. She was crying as well, biting her lip and barely holding herself up.

That had been Malfoy's touch. Rita Skeeter, as stupid as she was, had put her name on the article. Of course she wanted the fame, but she was too daft to see that she'd be signing her own execution warrant. She'd wanted the fame, naturally, that's what she had been in for the entire time – but Draco was the one who put it through to the printers without anyone noticing and he wiped her name off of it.

"It was like a ghost did it," the secretary whispered, her voice dying in her throat. "No one saw anything."

Voldemort straightened up to his full height. His glowing red eyes shifted from Angus to the secretary. He seemed to be calculating something in his mind. "A ghost…you say?" he said softly, his voice like a hiss.

The secretary nodded shakily.

Voldemort picked up one of the copies of that morning's Prophet from the ground and slowly walked towards the young secretary who grew paler as he drew nearer. He held the paper up to her face, clearly showing the picture of Potter holding his own newspaper with the date on it to prove he was alive.

"Potter… is the ghost," Voldemort said, his voice deceptively soft. "He. Is. Dead. This picture has been…manufactured. Faked. It is a hoax. You will find who wrote it and you will recover exactly how it got to the printers with no one's notice or else you will die a more painful death than your boss."

Angus was about to squeeze the word "no" from his last breath when he was hit abruptly with an Avada Kedavra from the Dark Lord's wand.

The secretary closed her eyes, sobs wracking her body silently, but nodded jerkily. "Yes… yes, my lord."

"Good," Voldemort spat, shoving the newspaper into the girl's chest roughly. "Goyle and Goyle. Escort our editor and secretary out, would you? Oh, and before you go…" He looked at the two Prophet employees with a piercing gaze. "In the next few days, you will do two things. Headlines tomorrow will be confirming that this disgrace of an article is a hoax. And you will print something distracting, something exciting…" He considered this, looking around the room before satisfying satisfactorily on Draco. "Ah, yes. The announcement of Undersecretary Malfoy's upcoming nuptials to Miss Greengrass. That will do. Do a large print about it. Make it interesting and make it as distracting as possible."

The Prophet employees nodded silently before being half-dragged out by Goyle Senior and his son.

"Burkhart, I want you to find out how a photograph could be faked," Voldemort barked to one of his Death Eaters. "And Parkinson, you'd be wise to have good news for me concerning Wormtail."

"I'm doing all I can to track him, my lord," Parkinson said, his hands folding in front of him. He was obviously the genetic reason for Pansy's unfortunate nose. "All I know is that he left France more than a year ago and has likely returned to England."

"Likely?" Voldemort whispered. "Parkinson, I do not care for 'likely'. I need facts."

"I have no other information for you, my lord," Parkinson said, bowing his head.

"You have had the same scraps of information for the past month," Voldemort hissed. "Either you are completely useless or just an idiot. Which is it?"

Parkinson couldn't seem to answer. And when Voldemort's question was followed by nothing but silence, a sparking green light his Parkinson in the chest and he hit the ground like a sack of flour.

Two dead bodies on the floor. The body count was rising fast and it was becoming less and less safe to be standing in that room.

It was going to be a very long evening.

…~oOo~…

"Mr. Malfoy is getting married?" Adam exclaimed, his eyes wide as saucers as he examined the front page of the Prophet two days later. "But…but he can't!"

"What are you talking about?" Yvette demanded, stretching her neck to read what he was.

"Look!" Adam said, throwing down the paper in the middle of the table. Chelsea stretched her neck to see the paper and her eyes widened as well. Front page, standing side by side, was Mr. Malfoy and a blonde woman. The same blonde woman, as a matter of fact, as the one from Chelsea's dream. The one who'd kissed Malfoy after his speech and rubbed away her lipstick.

Her name, according to the article, was Astoria Greengrass, second daughter of the Greengrass family. Apparently the Greengrasses were rich purebloods, although Chelsea wasn't sure there were any other kinds of purebloods, really. Except for the Weasley family, but somehow she felt they didn't count. They weren't like the wizards who went to great lengths to keep the bloodline pure. According to the Professor, pureblooded families were known to inbreed in their pursuit to continue the purity.

It was sickening, really. Professor Granger said all purebloods were related somehow, which meant Malfoy and Astoria Greengrass were likely distant cousins, just like how the Weasleys were distant cousins to the Malfoys, the Blacks, and even the Potters.

It would be fascinating if it weren't so disgusting.

Chelsea had seen the family tree tapestry at Grimmauld Place, all the names, all the branches intertwining. The history was rich, cruel, and disturbing. There had been faces struck from that tree, left as nothing but burnt holes. Apparently casting aside family members wasn't uncommon in pureblood households, purity be damned.

"How could he do this?" Adam said to no one in particular.

"What's going on over here?" a new voice joined the conversation.

Adam, looking up to see Professor Granger, snatched the paper from the table and put it right under his bum. "Miss Hermione!"

Professor Granger arched an eyebrow at Adam. "What was that?"

"Nothing," he said, shaking his head. "A newspaper Nigel leant me. Dull stuff. Quidditch stuff."

Granger held out her hands wordlessly, giving him a look, and waiting patiently.

Heaving a sigh, Adam took the paper from beneath his bum and dropped it into their professor's hand.

They all watched her face closely as he eyes skimmed the page. They were expecting some kind of response. A gasp, bugging eyes, even just a crinkled brow. But there was nothing. Just a plain look like she was reading about something boring like the stock market. After a moment she handed it back to Adam.

"You all should write Mr. Malfoy congratulations," Miss Hermione said. "I have nice parchment in my office you can write it on and I'll make sure he receives them immediately. I'll see you all in class." And then with a small smile, she walked away.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," Margot said.

"She's heartbroken," Chelsea breathed, a pang in her own chest as he eyes followed her professor out of the classroom.

Adam looked doubtful. "She barely blinked, Chelsea. That's not the reaction of someone who's all torn up."

Shaking her head, Chelsea didn't explain. He wouldn't understand. Professor Granger was crushed and she wasn't going to let anyone see. Standing up, Chelsea walked out of the dining room in the same direction that her teacher had. Chelsea had a feeling she knew where she'd be.

When Professor Granger was overly stressed or upset she threw herself into her work. So when Chelsea walked up to her office door and pressed her ear to it, she was not surprised to hear both the scribble of a quill but also her teacher's quiet sobs.

…~oOo~…

~ So Long And Thanks For All The Fish ~