Hey guys! I hoped you enjoyed the reuniting chapter as much as I liked writing it. Thank you to Residentevil06 and Beauty422 for reviewing! I'm trying out a poll on my page for this story so check it out! I can't believe I posted the first chapter a whole year ago!

Sunday, July 3rd, 1999 (Same Day)

Popping into the Auror office at the ministry, Draco still had butterflies in his stomach from Aurora's company. With a new spring in his step he went directly to Phil Montgomery's office to begin his month long mission. He had no idea what to expect.

Arriving in the oversized office, Phil was waiting for him at his desk looking over some papers. This mission would just be another of the hundreds he had done, but for Draco it was the most important because it would tell if he would be a valuable Auror to have around.

"Ah, Draco. Just on time." Phil said as he put the pages he was reading down. "Are you ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be." Draco told him honestly.

"First we will apparate to where we are staying then discuss precisely what our tactics are for the next few weeks." Phil explained.

Draco nodded. Phil put his hand on Draco's shoulder and he felt that familiar squeezing and sick feeling of apparition. A moment later he popped into what seemed to be a cabin sort of home. The walls and floor were all wood and from what he could see were two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a living room.

Knowing they would only be there to eat and sleep he hardly cared what it looked like. He could see his suitcase and a familiar bird cage with Lucille in it in the bedroom he assumed would be his.

Phil took out a map from his pocket and spread it out on the table. Draco went over to him to look over the map.

"We're here." Phil pointed to a little dot on the map. "Hogwarts and Hogsmeade are here." He pointed a few inches to the right.

"The reason why we are here is because we were tipped off that Fenrir Greyback and Antonin Dolohov are working together a few miles from here. It is not clear why they are working together or their exact location." Phil explained to him as he surveyed the map.

"They both have similar backgrounds when it comes to motive, from what I remember Dolohov being a cruel man with no regards toward women. And of course there are numerous accounts of Greyback sexually assaulting women." Draco said, trying to recall memories of Dolohov.

"Do you think it could be the reason they are working together?" Phil asked.

"I can't be sure. They have more similarities that might've caused them to team up. Either way they would be very destructive together." Draco said, thinking about the close proximity to Hogwarts. Their target couldn't be the students, could it?

"That's for sure; there has been two known deaths of muggles in the area. No doubt their work." Phil informed him.

"How could you tell?" Draco asked almost not wanting to know.

"The victims were both young women, both sexually assaulted, and killed by the killing curse." Phil told him sadly.

"That sounds like Greyback alright. Do you think the close proximity to the school has something to do with their location?" Draco asked.

"Unfortunately yes. I think they're looking for revenge and kids are the easiest target. School hasn't started yet and it seems like a good time to nip this in the bud." Phil explained.

"They will be very powerful together considering the dark magic Dolohov knows and Greyback being a werewolf." Draco said. He was doubtful that the two of them would be able to take them out on their own.

"That is true, but also the reason that when we do find them we will send for backup and prepare to attack them and capture or kill them." Phil said bluntly.

"Where do we start?" Draco asked.

. . .

Monday, July 4th, 1999

Aurora yawned as she walked into Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes at seven in the morning for another long day of work. No matter how much sleep she had gotten the night before Aurora was always exhausted when it came time to go to work.

After turning on all the lights, Aurora went back to the storage room to restock the store for the next few days. One of the good things about working at WWW was business was always good, there was rarely a time when they weren't busy. Aurora knew that she wouldn't work there forever; eventually she wanted to own her own store. A bookstore perhaps.

Going through the store while restocking the shelves and shelves of potions and prank toys, Aurora thought to herself about Draco's whereabouts. She was honestly worried for his safety knowing the ways of death eaters and the people associated with them. Draco knew what he was doing, surely. He had months of training, Aurora hoped that it would be enough to keep him safe.

She hadn't expected to hear from him yet knowing he was probably settling in to where he was and planning out a plan of action, her brother Ames took at least a week to contact her. Somehow she was less worried about Ames now that he had been gone over a month and she knew nothing bad had happened to him.

After a while she heard the familiar squeak of George's office door and the sounds of footsteps on the stairs. Moments later a fresh faced Angelina came into view.

"Good morning." Angelina greeted her as she walked over to her.

"Morning, how are you this fine day?" Aurora asked cheerfully.

"I'm great, how are you?" She replied as she began helping her restock.

"Wonderful." Aurora said while smiling.

"So, are you going to spill about Saturday night?" Angelina asked playfully.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Aurora teased while placing love potions in the shape of a heart.

"Don't be coy; we both know you heard Ron." Angelina stated.

"Indeed I did hear him." Aurora continued avoiding the subject playfully.

"Oh come on just tell me what happened, there's nothing I can't handle." Angelina said honestly.

"Nothing really happened, I mean I went over there we made up and that's it." Aurora said not wanting to reveal the more intimate part of the night.

"What do you mean that's it? You're telling me you didn't do anything?" Angelina asked as if surprised she didn't do anything that sexual with him.

"Yes, I'm telling you we didn't do anything like you're suggesting." Aurora explained.

"Ok, I believe you. I'm glad you're not rushing into things." She admitted.

"Thank you. I appreciate your support." Aurora said while finishing up stocking the shelves.

"You're welcome, you know as much as George doesn't like to admit it, he's glad you're happy with Draco." Angelina revealed. "I think he's realized that he's not the same boy he was when we were in school."

"Well that's good, I'm glad I don't have to really hide anything with him then." Aurora said, relieved.

"Doesn't mean he's not going to tease you about it." Angelina laughed.

"That goes without saying." Aurora snickered with her.

"And what is so funny, aren't you both supposed to be working?" George said as he sauntered in.

"We are working! We've finished restocking." Angelina argued lightheartedly.

"Yes, but you never told me what was funny." George toyed.

"Oh nothing." Aurora said.

"Fine then." George said giving up.

Since it was a little past opening time customers began coming in and the three had to stop conversing and actually start working. On Mondays Aurora worked at the cash register, she found it to be a rather tedious job. The only part she liked about it was that she didn't have to clean up any messes. Usually.

That day business was rather slow and there was hardly ever a line at the register. By the time six o clock rolled around Aurora was glad to leave. She said her goodbyes to Angelina and George and headed for home.

Upon arriving at Ollivander's she observed two young twins buying their first wands. Just as she walked in one of them shattered the glass on the mirror adjacent to the register. This had happened many times over the course of the year she had been living there. It was always a fifty percent chance something was broken.

Aurora made her way up to her solitary apartment, and opened the door to a pleasant surprise. Draco's owl Lucille was sitting on the window frame above her kitchen sink with a letter in her beak.

Smiling Aurora quickly went over to the bird, petted her head and took the letter. Her hands trembling with excitement she opened the letter.

Aurora,

Hello darling, I just wanted to tell you that I made it here alright and that it will be safe for us to send letters back and forth. I already miss you and can't wait until I return home.

Love,

Draco

Aurora's heart melted at him calling her 'darling'. His letter was short and sweet, it made her day to know that he was safe. Without hesitation she wrote a little longer of a letter back to him. She gave it to the owl and opened the window for her to deliver it.

. . .

Draco lay exhausted in his designated bed after a long day of mapping and searching out the area around them. There was no sign of Greyback or Dolohov, they probably didn't look far enough out yet. They must've searched at least five miles out each way for any sort of clue.

At around lunch time he was able to quickly scribble a letter to Aurora to make sure she knew he was alright. It was important to him for her to be able to trust that he alright, now having to worry about two Aurors, her brother and him. There were so many protective barriers around the cabin he would be amazed if Lucille could find it again easily.

It must've been around midnight. The moon was shining through the window onto the floor. There was no sound except for the faint snoring coming from the other room.

Honestly, Draco was nervous for when they did find the two death eaters. He knew they were both very dangerous and together they were a deadly weapon. They would have others with them no doubt, less powerful death eaters probably.

After another few minutes of contemplating the mission, Draco gave in to his exhaustion and fell asleep.

Tuesday, July 5th, 1999

Draco awoke early in the morning to the sound of birds chirping and the sun shining through the window. Almost immediately after waking up he noticed a letter sitting on his side table and Lucille back in her cage dozing. She must've come back sometime in the night.

Rubbing his eyes and sitting up he took the letter in his hands and read the familiar dainty scrawl on the outside of the envelope. It was from Aurora.

Draco,

I'm so glad to hear from you and to know that you are safe. I miss you already too. I hope this letter didn't wake you up, it is rather late. Are you doing alright so far? Everything here is the same as usual. I hope you stay safe and return soon.

Love,

Aurora

Smiling he folded it back up and set it on his bedside table. Knowing he couldn't respond to her at the moment he hoped she wouldn't get too worried if he didn't respond for a while.

After getting dressed, Draco left the bedroom out into the kitchen. Phil was already eating a simple breakfast of cereal and looking over numerous papers.

"We're going to find something today, I can feel it." Phil said as he intently read through old documents.

"I hope so; there isn't that much area to look through. There must be something close." Draco commented as he poured himself a bowl of cereal.

"I'm not really sure what to look for at this point. Their headquarters is most likely an old abandoned home that no one knows of. That or they've set up some sort of camp." He suggested.

"They would definitely have a lot of protective barriers around it. Guards of some sort perhaps." Draco suggested.

Finishing up their breakfasts they cleaned up and started their day of searching just north of their headquarters. There was about a fifty mile radius around their cabin where they could possibly be. After getting to know the area a bit they could apparate around easily.

About an hour in they must've been ten miles from their headquarters and hadn't seen a thing. No trace of any sort of magic around. Basically their job was to rifle through every bit of woods for any type of evidence of Greyback and Dolohov's presence. After a full day of searching they would map out where they had been and what was in the area. It was a lot less eventful than Draco had envisioned.

Monday, July 11th, 1999

Almost a week later they still had found nothing. Draco wondered to himself if they would find something within the time slot originally given to them. He was anxious to find something and get it done so he could get home.

Arriving back to headquarters early one night he looked at the letter sent to him almost a week ago from Aurora that he had been too exhausted to respond to. Figuring this would be the only time he had he wrote a longer letter trying to put his feelings on paper. Easier said than done. When he was finished he let Lucille out of her cage and opened the window.

"Now don't wake her up if she's asleep, wait until morning." He told his owl as if she could understand what he was saying.

After closing his window, Draco lay on his bed under the quilts and blankets. For the first night he actually had time to think. Immediately his thoughts went to his last night with Aurora. When she had arrived he was glad he only had one drink. Who knows what he would've done if he had been drunk.

His cheeks flushed with embarrassment remembering his obvious sign of arousal. There was no way she didn't notice it, but she didn't pay it any mind or mention it. With Aurora if she didn't say when she wanted to stop, he wouldn't.

He knew he had to be careful with his advances towards her because she had never done anything like that before and he didn't want to scare her off. But right now he liked the pace they were going at, nothing was happening too soon.

Whenever he thought of her he felt a pang in his chest because he honestly missed her and wanted to get home to see her. He had never felt this way about someone, in his mind he knew he was quickly falling for her.

. . .

Tuesday, July12th, 1999

In the early hours of the morning, Aurora lay restless in her bed. She must've only gotten a few hours of sleep before waking from a terrible nightmare. Since it had been almost a week since Draco replied to her last letter she was becoming more and more worried by the day. Even though she knew he was busy and probably didn't have a lot of time to contact her, she still worried for his safety.

This was the same way she had reacted when Ames first left. He was the only family she had left and couldn't bare losing him. Over time her concern faded, Ames knew what he was doing and so did Draco. They were both equally trained. But still, Death Eaters were ruthless and didn't care who they hurt or killed.

Knowing she wouldn't be getting back to sleep anytime soon, Aurora got up from her bed and went to the kitchen. The little window above her sink had shown the empty streets of Diagon Alley. There was always the occasional drunk stumbling down the street but not tonight. It was a cloudy night so the streets were almost completely black.

As she put a kettle of water on the stove for tea, Aurora yawned. It was going to be a long three weeks.

While drinking her tea and flipping through late night channels, Aurora settled on a muggle cop show. Though she was familiar with how criminals were caught in the muggle world, non muggle born witches and wizards would be utterly confused about how it worked. Some wizards said that the technology that was being used was similar to magic. Not quite.

Being muggle born had its advantages; she knew what muggles were like and how they lived. Knowing so much about muggles made it easier to hide magic from them. It was honestly amazing they didn't discover their world during the war considering the damage done by Voldemort and his death eaters.

After finishing her tea, Aurora decided to try and get some sleep. She definitely needed to make a sleeping draught after work. She could get all the ingredients from across the street anyways. Thinking about the long day she had ahead of her she persuaded herself into sleep.

At precisely six thirty in the morning Aurora's alarm clock beeped loudly in her ear. She rolled over and groaned. Exhausted from lack of sleep, Aurora could barely pull herself out of bed to the shower. She turned the water on high heat and got in.

The nearly scalding water flowed over her fatigued body. She slowly woke up while washing her hair.

After lazily putting on her uniform, Aurora finished getting ready and headed off to work.

. . .

With nearly two hours left of her shift, Aurora yawned as she stood in the stock room taking note of what products they were low on. She had nearly fallen asleep during her break. It was good that she was just working the stock room and retrieving potion ingredients for George that day, she would've fallen asleep at the register.

George had been extremely busy that day with making potions and other various products so he didn't notice the change in her usually lively behavior. Angelina hadn't been around most of the day because she had felt sick.

In her place, Ginny came to help out behind the counter. Aurora always enjoyed Ginny's company; she was always friendly and rather amusing. Neither Harry nor Ron had left for a mission yet, she figured it would be soon though; they were both highly respected in the Auror department.

At around three o clock Angelina came downstairs to the store.

Checking off the last of the products on the list, Aurora posted the list on the clipboard next to the door. She finished in perfect time for her next break. The break room seemed so inviting to an exhausted Aurora.

When she went in Ginny was sitting on the couch reading a fashion magazine and eating an orange. Aurora sat down on the adjacent couch and tried to relax a bit.

Noticing Aurora enter the room Ginny looked over to her and saw the obvious dark circles around her eyes. "Are you ok?" She asked.

Sighing and opening her eyes, Aurora replied. "No, I'm exhausted. I've hardly slept the past few days."

"Why not?" Ginny asked while putting down her magazine. Over the past week the rest of her friends knew the basics of her and Draco getting back together. At this point they all had accepted the fact that they were together.

"I know it's only been a week, but I'm just so worried about Draco." Aurora admitted as she ran her fingers through her hair.

"I understand, but he knows what he's doing." Ginny attempted to comfort her.

"Yeah, I know. I just can't help thinking of all the things that could happen." She told her.

"It's hard not to think about it, trust me, I know. I'll probably be acting the same as you when Harry leaves. I'm still not sure how I made it through my sixth year while no one knew where they were or if they were still alive." Ginny said, opening up to her.

"It's alright when I hear from him but I haven't for almost a week. But I know I would get some sort of notification if something did happen to him." Aurora said trying to convince herself everything was ok. "I'm sure I'll feel better about it in time, which was the case when my brother left."

"I'm sure after the first mission you'll feel more comfortable with it. I know that no matter what I'll always be worried but it lessens over time." Ginny assured her.

"Do you know when Harry will be leaving?" Aurora asked.

"In a couple weeks. He can't tell me where though. The mission itself is supposed to last a little more than a month, but that's always just an estimate. When they complete the job they were assigned to do they can come home. But that rarely happens earlier than the time estimate." Ginny explained her knowledge of the Auror system.

"That makes sense." Aurora concluded.

"I better get back to work, Angelina still feels a little sick so I should go help her. You get some rest tonight." Ginny advised her.

"Alright see you later." Aurora said as she closed her eyes again to rest.

Aurora hoped that Ginny was right and she would feel less worried after the first mission was over with.

. . .

Finally when her shift was over, Aurora quickly packed up her things and left. She tried to get through the streets of Diagon Alley as efficiently as she could.

Ollivander was busy at work helping a woman whose wand had been broken. She said hello and passed them up the stairs and into her apartment. She sighed in relief as she set her bag down carelessly and went to her bedroom for a nap.

Hours later, Aurora woke up and felt well rested. Looking at the clock she noticed it was nine o clock. Even though she had taken a long nap she knew she would still get a full night of sleep. Getting up from her bed she stretched a bit and decided she should probably eat something.

As she walked into her kitchen she was shocked and elated to see the familiar sight of Draco's owl sleeping on her window sill with a letter lying on the floor. She quickly ran over and picked it up. The handwriting on the back addressing the letter to her was obviously Draco's.

Aurora sighed in relief. Finally she knew that he was alright. With her hands shaking she opened the letter with care.

Aurora,

First I want to say that I'm so sorry for not responding for five days, I'm ok, we've just been working all hours of the day and there's little to no time to write. Everything is going fine, right now were not in any sort of danger. I miss you so much. The first thing I want to do when I get home is see you. Don't be alarmed if I don't respond within a week everything is ok.

Love,

Draco

Aurora's heart soared with joy as she reread the letter. She was so relieved that he was ok that every worry she had was gone. His sweet words gave her butterflies in her stomach.

Wanting to let the owl rest from its long journey Aurora decided to wait until morning to send back. Sitting down at her kitchen table she went to work writing a reply. Knowing she wouldn't get to speak to him much she tried to get everything she wanted to say down on paper.