Lie Lie Lie

Take my hand and lets end it all,

She broke her little bones

On the boulders below,

Take my hand and lets end it all

Jenny

9/1/10

9 p.m.

When I woke up, it was dark outside, so I hurried downstairs as fast as my sore body would allow, unsure what to expect. I had missed something; the mood in the kitchen was full of tension. "Ah, Jenny," Kingsley greeted me crisply, as if we were good friends. "I trust you are well rested?" He asked, and a big red warning flag went off in my head.

"Well enough." I said flatly. I had made myself a promise; I was only going to address Kingsley with a flat, dry voice, and a lifeless expression. He wasn't worth much more. Kingsley seemed smug as he turned back to most of the adults in the kitchen. They all wore stony expressions.

"Excellent. You see, Jenny, we've run into a little roadblock. Harry, Ron and Hermione were left a mission from Dumbledore, and wanted to be on their way." He paused and I interrupted him.

"If this is about them, then why aren't they here?" I asked, and Kingsley shot me a venomous glare, but continued, even though all the adults in the back were suddenly swapping dark looks.

"Considering the fate of our world is at stake here, we want to make sure that they are…on the right track, if you understand me." Kingsley emphasized the 'we', and when I realized what he wanted me to do, I crossed my arms, my elbow making a quiet popping noise, but I ignored it.

"You want me to spy on them." I said as chillingly as I was able. "You want me to spy on my friends and report back to you."

"Mind, this is just an idea. We haven't voted on this decision yet." Mrs. Weasley said firmly, and she and Kingsley eyed each other for a moment.

"If they'll be traveling with magic, and Apparating, I won't be able to follow them." I spoke flatly again, practicing my poker face.

"Well, we came up with two jobs for you. There's the one Kingsley suggested, and then we have another plan that would involve you posing as a Squib in the Ministry and being an assistant to Mr. Weasley. You're stealthy, so you could easily slip away and with a Disillusionment Charm from Mr. Weasley, or you could pretend to call in sick, but spend the whole day gathering intelligence." Tonks said.

"And I think it's a bad idea. You won't be able to find much at the Ministry; it will be too well protected! And they certainly won't hire a Squib!" Kingsley said angrily. "If we wanted information on what the Dark Lord was doing, we'd have to get someone recruited as a Death Eater!"

"Last time there was a double agent, it backfired, remember? Snape murdered Dumbledore for the Ferret Boy upstairs. And Jenny couldn't fill that position because she cannot carry a wand." Lupin said flatly from the corner.

"Well, she's got magic in her now, doesn't she? If she could perform magic convincingly enough to be a Death Eater, or any kind of witch, she could fit in much easier into magical situations." Tonks spoke up energetically.

"And where would she get a wand from, hmmm? It's not like Ollivander has them anymore, Gregorvitch is all the way in Germany, and there simply isn't another wand maker out there!" Kingsley was starting to get mad, I could see it. Tonks threw her wand at me, and I caught it out of reflex. It felt odd in my hand, like I was holding a dowel, but one that had been in a microwave. It was surprisingly warm.

"Try waving it around, a swish and a flick, that sort of thing," Tonks said encouragingly into the now deadly silent kitchen. Feeling rather foolish, I waved my hand around, making lots of twists and flicks with my wrist. After a moment, tiny blue sparks came out the end of the wand and Tonks cheered enough to make the moment a giant anti-climax. "Yes! See? If she can do it with my wand, one random wand out of the hundreds of thousands out there, surely she could try magic, as a backup plan to her job at the Ministry."

"But she would need her own wand to be registered as an employee." Mr. Weasley said quietly, and everyone deflated a little.

"What if we would place a Disillusionment Charm on her and just let her search the Ministry whenever we need more information? Arthur could take her through the Floo Network, and no one would suspect! She would report to his office at the end of the day, and she'd come home with him." Tonks said quickly before Kingsley could speak again.

"It certainly rules out her needing magic, which was our main concern. Let's give it a test, shall we?" Mr. Weasley stood up, came over, and after tossing Tonks her wand again, rapped me sharply on the head with his wand. A queer sensation sprung from that spot, like a cold slimy liquid was getting poured all over me. When I looked down, I had suddenly turned into a human chameleon, invisible. "Now go poke Lupin without any of us hearing you get there." Mr. Weasley said to the air, and I instantly backed way to the doorway of the kitchen, testing to see if I left a shadow. Happy to find that I didn't, I crept like a cat across the farthest wall from Lupin, then wormed under the table and through chairs as everyone besides Lupin moved around the room.

I hesitated, then climbed onto the table as Mrs. Weasley walked by. Suddenly, Kingsley whirled around and fired a spell across the room, making me lay flat to avoid it. "What did you do that for?" Lupin asked angrily from in front of the sink. "You could have Stunned her."

"I doubt it, we didn't hear her fall." Kingsley said snootily, and continued pacing meanly around the room. I braced myself and jumped high, flipping over everyone's heads to land silently in a squatting position next to Lupin, who didn't react to my landing. I poked his arm and he flinched.

"Nice going," he said to the air as I climbed like a crab over the sink to the other side and sat on the counter. "Now, where are you exactly?" He pulled his wand and felt carefully in the air until he brushed my shoulder, then rapped me on the head again. I felt sudden warmth as I returned into visibility.

"Well, I think that just about settles it. Tomorrow, you can go with Arthur to the Ministry. Just scout around, try a few things out. Based on our needs, we'll start sending you to investigate the Death Eater's at the Ministry." Tonks looked pleased. "Bring back anything you think is important that you can get away with taking. We'll Disillusion you with a bag on, so you can snag things." I just nodded. Kingsley snorted and left.

"But…where are Harry, Hermione and Ron?" I asked after a moment of silence, stretching out my still sore muscles from the flip over everyone. Everyone sort of stiffened, looking at each other.

"We don't know. They disappeared this afternoon with a note saying that they were going on their mission from Dumbledore." Mrs. Weasley said flatly, then left the room, leaving me with my surprise, Lupin and Tonks. They spent a good hour or two reviewing and refreshing my information on important wizards and wizarding things I should know. Finally, Tonks told both Lupin and I to go to bed, saying that we looked 'terrible'. I gave them both a kind of shy smile and slipped out of the kitchen. After climbing the stairs and lying in my bed awhile, staring at the ceiling, my thoughts turned to Harry, Hermione and Ron.

Where were they? What were they doing? Where they safe?

Draco

9/2/10

3 a.m.

I was jerked out of my dreams again, lightly trembling. Every night I dreamed of the night she was changed. Every night it repeated itself in my head. I could remember it so well, even without seeing any of it…

I bolted awake as a terrible wracking scream pierced the silence of the house, echoing up through the stairwell to the attic. For a second, I only stared at the ceiling, confused. I didn't know what it was, until I heard people getting up and moving down floors as the scream happened again. Even though she sounded like she was dying, the scream was female, and only one person in this house would be screaming. Every scream pierced my body like a knife, a constant reminder of what I had let happen.

"What is happening to me?" I heard her scream, each word saturated with a level of pain I had never heard in my life. Of all the tortures I had ever heard the Dark Lord perform, these screams seemed to contain all that pain and more. Terrible guilt rose inside of me until I retched.

She was probably dying. No wizard could survive that kind of an attack, never mind a Muggle. I hadn't killed her directly, but that would have been better than this. I listened to her screams start to die, and I knew she must be as well. I knew I was only worth that as well. Why should I be able to stay here after all the things I had done, all the people I had let die?

With a shiver, I got up and looked out the window at the grimy houses of London. In my attempt to escape, seeing her alive had given me such a shock, I didn't react when she did, kicking me so hard in the face, I fell into the banister. Then later, when I was in the attic, her words hurt me more than her punches…

"Did you ever stop to think, 'Hmmm, the girl he attacked is three floors down, maybe we should let her fucking know?" I heard her shout.

"We didn't want to bother you with it-" I heard someone mutter, but her furious voice cut them off.

"You didn't want to bother me with it? You found it easy enough to give me the ultimatum you did, you were just fine casually dropping by to say, 'Hey! You're a fucking werewolf now, sweetie!' You said I had no options—" I had frozen just inside the door, stupidly realizing that she had survived, but became a werewolf. More guilt flashed through me, chilling me. I listened harder when she spoke again.

"I'm sorry, that was so wrong of me, to react with violence, and to yell at you all. I just didn't want anyone to get hurt."

"Your reaction was perfect. That's what you'll have to do to protect yourself. Once you are feeling up to it, we'd love to see what you can do." Kingsley said, and I felt uncalled for hate suddenly appear in my chest for him.

"…I can't. I'd need someone to fight against, and I won't attack anyone here. I would need a target." She said distractedly, sounding slightly in pain, pain I had caused.

"You can use the ferret boy in there." Kingsley said casually, making me freeze.

"Sorry?" She asked in shock.

"You can use the Malfoy boy. If you could attack him twice now, you can do it again." Kingsley said easily, and more hate sprung for him.

"Absolutely not! All of my fights have been evenly matched and necessary, I can't just beat him up for you! He's your captive, not your-"She was defending me? Since when did she care, care for the person responsible for her pain?

"You aren't in a position to negotiate. You work for the Order now, and an order is an order. When you're fit enough, you will show us what you can do on ferret boy so we can assign you a mission."

Old hate for him rekindled slightly in my chest like a burning match. It increased as I remembered clearly the day when she beat me up…

"This is wrong," She said firmly, her eyes cold. I stood there with as much poise as I could muster while my heart beat frantically in my chest.

"I gave you an order." Kingsley unflinchingly retorted, responding instantly "Go on." He smirked, and her fists tightened with her anger.

"Fine, do you want me to beat him up, seriously beat him up, beat him until an inch of his life, or should I just kill him for you, Kingsley?" She snapped, and I felt blood drain from my face.

"I told you to show us what you can do, that's all." He raised an eyebrow, challenging her. She turned stiffly to face me and advanced slowly at first, then faster. I didn't dare move. Without warning, her hands were around my waist, and she picked me up and slammed me into the ground. She didn't move as she let me get back up, pain and determination in her eyes. I went weakly to hit her in the same spot, and she instantly grabbed my wrist, jerked my arm around, and threatened to pop my arm out of it's socket until I gasped from the strain. She let go, spun and jumped, and kicked me in the back. Suddenly she was flipping, and then one arm snaked around me and forced me to stumble back into the middle of the room. Then in one jump, she kicked me in the nose, on the cheek, and then whirled sideways and kicked me right in the side of the head.

She threatened Kingsley, yelled at him, and tried to get in his face as I winced upon getting on my feet. My cheek was sore, my nose was tingling unpleasantly, and a headache was growing where she kicked me.

"Oh…by the way… I wasn't sure if you were keeping track, but it's a full moon tonight. You'll be leaving with Lupin." Kingsley taunted, making her stop, stiffening. "Oh, and for disobeying a direct order, you can transform tonight without the Wolfsbane Potion." Kingsley added, and Lupin started to speak up, but when Kingsley glared viciously at him. "Hopefully, this will keep you from disobeying me again." Kingsley said; a veiled threat under his words.

And then when I had seen her when she came back, looking stiff and waxen, it just added to my guilt. Her voice had topped it off; as cracked and hoarse as it was. It never occurred to me that I was thinking about her too much…