Potter vs. Malfoy: Bridging the Gap
By Jedi Tess of Gryffindor
Summary: Aware of the fact that her most beloved fic had in it a gaping hole, J.T. set out many months ago to make things right. Here (she hopes) is a ficlet that will satisfied any unsatisfied "War's End" readers and, indeed, finish forever the "Potter vs. Malfoy" saga.
A/N: So, gang, here it is. This is the final piece of "War's End". This will hopefully give a better idea of how the friendships and relationships between Ginny, Draco, Harry, and Blaise were developed. It also explains their involvement in the war against Voldemort, and why poor Harry appears to be so something in WE's epilogue. I have to add that if there are elements of OOTP in this, it is because I shamelessly borrowed them for my own nefarious purposes. This remains, however, an AU, written and completed in the pre-OOTP timeline.
This if been designed in three parts. The first two have been written. The third is in progress. I will post the first two a couple of weeks apart to force you all to savor it while I try desperately to complete the third – and most complicated – piece. The first two are fairly important and long, though, so never fear.
Thanks for your amazing patience and wonderful reviews! You are truly a fantastic bunch of readers. You're every writer's dream audience, I swear!
Loffs!
J.T. of Gryffindor
P.S. Looking for new D/G? Just so happens that I'm in the process of fixing up (a LOT) "Sometimes, I Even Amaze Myself" so that plot and technicalities-wise, it's up to par with "War's End" and "Bend It". I'm actually posting the new chapters on Fiction Alley, so if you'd care to read (and review ) it can be found here: Sometimes I Even Amaze Myself.
Disclaimer: I solemnly swear I am up to no good – er, I mean, I own nothing. Yeah... All characters and situations taken from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter canon are solely hers. Original, non-canonical plot ideas belong to me, Tess Williams, as of August 2002, when this piece was originally begun. I intend no copyright infringement by dabbling in the Harry Potter universe!
Part 1
One Month Later – May 1998
Draco Malfoy sat quietly at the scrubbed wooden table in 5 Inmind St. and stared into the fire.
"Something on your mind?"
"Potter, we may be reluctant comrades now, but the idea of confessing my innermost feelings to you makes me physically ill."
"Oh – daydreaming about Ginny again?"
"Sod off."
Harry sat down across from him, snagging the cup that sat untouched in front of him.
"She's got at least another year of school," he offered, taking a sip. "She'll be safe at Hogwarts."
"Do the words 'bugger off' mean anything to you?"
"Anyway, she'll be here at headquarters all summer, won't she? Plenty of time to – " Harry clutched his chest melodramatically – "confess you undying love for her."
"You sicken me," Draco told him, snagging the cup back, taking a sip, and wincing as the tepid Earl Grey slid down his throat. "I don't understand why you lot keep mashing us together romantically."
"'You lot' being Blaise and I?" Harry asked.
"You're both damned annoying."
"Thanks, we try."
"I'll never understand how the two of you hooked up."
"Me, neither."
Draco looked up and saw a faint frown crease his – all right, his friend's – face.
"I mean – Malfoy, it's weird!" Harry went on, his expression perplexed. He wore that expression well, Draco thought with an internal smirk. "I've never felt this way about anyone! Why Blaise? I have this vague idea that we've been together for a month and a half or so, but neither of us can remember exactly where it started."
"One night stand?"
"Please, we're seventeen! Who has one night stands when – oh, right. Never mind." Harry gave him a pointed eye-roll.
"I am a gentleman," Draco informed him haughtily. "I give it my all for at least a week."
"You chauvinist, you," Harry said.
"Shut up – what were you saying?"
"About Blaise and I not remembering exactly how we got together," Harry told him. He paused. "Well, we can remember parts of it. There's something about a troll – maybe I saved her life –"
Draco snorted derisively and gave him a pointed look.
Harry sighed.
"Or she saved mine," he amended with a look that said, "Happy now?"
"It's not half as weird as none of us remembering anything about Red Robes," Draco pointed out.
"Apparently, we brought her in," Harry said. "According to Dumbledore, the Unspeakables have her whole story away on record in the Department of Mysteries."
"Fat lot of good it does us there," Draco snorted. "We're not even grads yet, Potter. You think we'll rate that level of classification even two years from now?"
Harry shrugged.
"I'm not sure I want to know," he said bluntly. "I don't feel like I need to. Which is weird, because most of the time –"
"You're a nosy sod."
Harry grinned.
"True. But now . . ." He sighed. "It's the first time in my life when I almost don't think I should know. I feel like it's – well, it sounds mad – but I feel like it's someone's diary and I have the key, but obviously I know I shouldn't read it, you know?"
"Nope," Draco said. "I wouldn't have a problem reading someone else's diary."
"Right," Harry murmured, looking faintly annoyed. "I'd forgotten it's you I'm talking to. But since it's me we're talking about – "
"Right," Draco grunted, his own expression faintly contemptuous. "You feel morally opposed to getting into someone else's stuff. Keeping in mind, of course, that this isn't someone else's diary – it's your 'diary', since we're being all metaphorical."
"I know," Harry said quietly. "But I still don't want to know."
Draco was silent for a moment.
"You?" Harry asked at last.
"Dunno – haven't given it much thought, what with N.E.W.T.s to prepare for and a war looming on the horizon and all that."
They both knew he was lying.
"Well," Harry said, pushing back his chair. "Think I'll go get my books and join you – there's an Order meeting in here in an hour and I could really use your help with Potions."
"Like I'd help you."
They both knew he would because Draco loved knowing more than Harry, particularly about Potions. If it were knowledge he could flaunt, he would share it with Harry.
Harry returned a short while later with a tottering pile of books, his wand, parchment, quill, and ink. He dumped them unceremoniously on the table and groaned.
"Least it's not Snape supervising the exam," he muttered, in what Draco had come to think of as his 'Snape voice' (a mixture of disgust, anger, and annoyance). "Even you Slytherins have to admit that he's biased enough to fail everyone but you."
"I can't believe I'm saying this, Potter, but did it ever occur to you that there might be a reason Snape's such a tight arse toward the rest of you?"
"I know the reason Snape's such a tight arse toward the rest of us," Harry shot back, opening N.E.W.T.-level Potions – A Timely Review for Those Who Haven't Been Studying for N.E.W.T.s Since First Year. "That doesn't mean I have to like it."
Draco kept himself from asking how Harry knew Snape's prejudice and what it was with difficulty. He hated it when the Gryffindor knew something he didn't. He hated it more when Harry knew he did.
"So," Harry said, his eyes running down the page in front of him. "Liquor of Clarity."
They spent the next hour studying, their books, notes, quills, and ink slowly spreading to encompass the entire table and all of the chairs around them. It was how they worked – both got so involved in their work that they lost track of the mess they were making. Draco had a feeling that Harry had never really studied this hard at Hogwarts. He wasn't sure if it was a determination to get twelve N.E.W.T.s or simply the need to prove that he could study as persistently as Draco. But Harry would go at it and wouldn't quit until Draco suggested it.
Persistent, indeed.
On this particular occasion, Draco didn't have to call quits.
Molly Weasley came bustling into the kitchen, arms weighed down with bags.
"Still at it, dears?" she asked distractedly, dropping most of the bags to the floor and drawing her wand. Various groceries began to zoom around the kitchen, putting themselves away in different cupboard and cabinets.
"There's a meeting in here in a few minutes," she told them.
"We know – we're just leaving," Harry assured her, beginning to gather up scattered papers and books.
"I'm glad to see you both working so hard," she told them, turning to face them at last with nodding approval and a tired smile. "I'm sure you'll both do wonderfully on the exams." She turned back to her work as Draco and Harry continued gathering their belongings.
"Mrs. Weasley, will Professor Snape be here tonight?" Draco asked suddenly.
"I think so, dear," she said, and to his embarrassment, Draco could hear a distinct note of empathy in her voice.
Coming from anyone else, that sort of emotion would have authorized Draco to make a derisive retort. Molly Weasley was different. Arriving at the Order of the Phoenix headquarters a month ago, Draco had planned on being properly disgusted by the Weasley family. There was certainly no love lost between himself and Ron, nor did Draco hold Mr. Weasley in any esteem. After all, the man had attacked his father in a bookstore.
But Mrs. Weasley was – well, she was like Ginny. There was certainly the Weasley red hair, the Weasley stubbornness, the Weasley yell (oh, yes, Draco had been at headquarters long enough to hear Mrs. Weasley's dulcet tones when addressing Fred and George). But there was a quality about her that drew Draco. He wasn't quite sure what it was, but it felt – and he was loathed to admit it – safe. Draco had rarely felt protected at any time in his life, and here was a dumpy old woman who made him feel more secure than he had ever felt in his life.
Draco could understand why Harry spent so much time with the Weasleys. Having no proper family, Mrs. Weasley must have been like a mother to him.
Having been as good as orphaned a month ago by the desertion of his own father and mother, he could relate.
Relating to Harry Potter . . .
Draco sighed as he folded the last of his notes into a book. He should have been used to it by now – the Boy Who Lived had really only been such a good rival to Draco because they were so much alike. When they had first arrived at 5 Inmind St., it had been to a highly disapproving Mrs. Weasley and a rather surprised household. The house was large and housed many of the Order members who were at greater risk and needed a more permanent living situation. Sirius Black's appearance had caused quite a stir, in both Draco and Black.
Great, Draco had thought frantically. Housing criminals. What the hell am I doing here?
It taken the combined efforts of Remus Lupin, Mrs. Weasley, and Harry to keep Draco from running from the house and Sirius from throttling him.
In the end, Harry had had to sit down with Draco and do some explaining – a lot of explaining. In fact, their first night at 5 Inmind St. had been spent in explanations, questions, and the first real conversation they had had that had not degenerated into mindless bickering. Harry had told Draco all about Sirius' innocence and Peter Pettigrew, and bits about his parents and how Remus Lupin tied into everything. This had led to a lengthy discussion about what they both knew about their parents' school days, at which point Harry remembered that he didn't quite trust Draco and began asking him why he had come with Harry to begin with.
Draco had shrugged.
"I've known for a while I didn't want anything to do with You-Know-Who," he said. "I just didn't have a lot of choice – I wasn't really sure what the alternative was – I didn't know what Dumbledore was planning or if it was a good enough plan, so I didn't want to bother at first." He paused. "It was about halfway through sixth year that Snape came to me and started trying to talk me into picking a side. I didn't know, then, that he was a double agent. I mean, he's a close friend of Father's – I had kind of assumed that he was a Death Eater. But then he told me that he was a double agent and kind of left me to decide what to do with the information."
"So you decided to join the Order?" Harry asked.
"Nope, not then," Draco said. "I mean, I wasn't going to turn Snape in or anything." He gave Harry a hard look. "I'm not a rat – I respect the man and what he's doing. It started me thinking, anyway."
"So what made you decide to come?" Harry persisted.
"I honestly don't know," Draco said. "I think it was all the . . . stuff . . . that happened in the future. I guess seeing myself as a decent guy made me . . . I dunno." He paused, then bit out, "I'm better than a Death Eater, Potter. I'm not a follower and never will be. I don't want to wake up every morning wondering if the man I serve is going to kill me today."
"So you came with me," Harry said. "I expect it's safer here than at Hogwarts for you, isn't it?"
"I'm not hiding, Potter!"
"I didn't say you were," Harry retorted. "But if you're to be of any use to the Order, you need to be alive." He rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on, Malfoy! What's the big secret? Hogwarts is pretty safe – you could have waited to join the Order until after graduation."
Draco knew there was no good come back to this attack, so he thought seriously for a moment, came to an answer he didn't like, and tried to explain.
"It's like this," he said. "Remember what I said about seeing myself in the future?"
"Sure."
"Well, every time I try to think about it, it becomes a bit more vague. I mean, I can remember most of it still, but it gets hazy round the edges. It's almost like remembering a vivid dream now."
"So it's not just me!" Harry cut in with a sigh that was clearly relieved. "I've been feeling exactly the same way, but I thought maybe it was just my memory not being the best."
"And can you remember later bits more clearly?" Draco asked, leaning forward with narrowed eyes.
"Sure – right now, from about Bath onward is still perfectly clear, but anything before that is sort of patchy."
"Right," Draco went on. "So along with this weird memory gap thing, which started – for me, anyway – shortly after we left Dumbledore's office, came this really bizarre . . . fuck, I don't know! It's like a – like a nudge. It's like I'm being fed instructions. No, not quite – it's more like this little voice pops into my head and says, 'Draco, old boy, it might be a good idea right here to do this' and I feel like it might be right . . . so I do it."
"So the voices in your head told you to come with me," Harry said. His lips were twitching.
"Are you laughing at me, Potter?" Draco demanded dangerously.
"Absolutely not," Harry said, allowing a slow smile onto his face. "The voices have been talking to me as well."
Despite the smile, Draco could tell that he was telling the truth.
"Anything specific?" he asked.
Harry looked uncomfortable.
"It's been building since we left Dumbledore's office," he said quietly. "Something is going to happen and it's going to be up to me to make the right choice."
"Something to do with the conception of your son in a month or two?" Draco asked pointedly.
Harry turned a bit pink.
"Probably," he admitted. "It's not specific, but . . . " He leaned suddenly toward Draco, his expression pained. "Malfoy, what if I don't remember Cedric and the voices are trying to tell me something but I don't know what it means?"
Draco tried – he really did. But the grin was impossible to bite back.
"What?" Harry demanded, looking put out.
"It's just – the voices," Draco said with a cough to hide a bark of laughter. "We're hearing the voices and wondering if the voices are telling us anything important and . . ."
"It is a bit ridiculous," Harry agreed, his expression relaxing into a reluctant chuckle. The seriousness permeating the air had lessened a bit.
Draco would never admit it, but he had seen a very new side of Harry Potter that night a month ago. It was the final piece of the other boy that had utterly shattered Draco's formerly cherished image of his as an attention-seeking boy hero. Harry wasn't.
Well, Draco admitted grudgingly, except maybe the hero bit.
The idea soured his mood.
"Scowling at the wall won't turn it into a door, Malfoy," Harry pointed out.
Draco started and realized that if Harry hadn't spoken, he might have missed the door entirely; he had been so caught up in reverie.
"Sod off," he advised Harry for the second time that evening.
As he glared at Harry's retreating back, Draco's mind wandered back to his friend's comment earlier that evening - "I don't think I'll ever love anyone like I love her and I don't know why!"
They were both losing their memories – they had comparing notes almost daily and found bits of former events fading steadily. The only way they were able to follow the fading occurrences at all was by comparing their remaining memories, because they seemed to retain different details. For instance, Harry could remember the people involved in greater detail, whereas Draco seemed better able to remember places.
By the time they realized that the memories wouldn't merely fade, but seemed doomed to vanish, it was too late to record most of it. Draco had tried writing down everything he could think of relating to the event, and had kept a notebook in his pocket in case a memory suddenly came into his head. The trouble was, not only were the remaining memories fleeting, at best, but the notes seemed to be vanishing. He would write a note, slip his notebook back into his pocket, and when he would take it out again, the pages were blank, as though nothing had been written.
Draco's first impulse was to suspect Harry. After all, he and Harry spent the chief of their days together, and Harry saw Draco writing in the little book almost every day. Plus, they had been enemies so long, that it was really just force of habit. It didn't take Draco long to dismiss the idea, though. Harry wasn't any good at being sneaky, to begin with. Draco knew that he was often up late at night, unable to sleep, because Harry would try to get up and leave the room without making noise and would invariably trip over something on the floor, collide with his bed, or Draco's, or both, or not turn the door handle all the way and stub his toe on the door, eliciting much foul language and consistently waking Draco, who would tell him to shut the hell up whilst sniggering helplessly into his pillow. If Harry had been the one sabotaging Draco's notebook, the only possible time for him to do it would be at night. And since Draco slept with the notebook under his mattress and Harry couldn't go two feet in the dark without making a terrific racket, it simply wasn't possible that he could successfully steal Draco's notebook without Draco being aware of it.
So what was happening to his notes? After dismissing Harry as a suspect, Draco told him about it.
"Why haven't you let me see them?" was Harry's first question. Draco was amused at the hurt in his voice.
"Would you let me read your journal?" he retorted. "Anyway, it's not like anything stays in there long enough to be read. I write something down and an hour later it's gone."
Harry looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, then said, "Okay, try this. The next time you've a memory, write it down and then check on it every fifteen minutes."
"Why?" Draco demanded skeptically.
"I have an idea . . ." Harry said, rubbing his chin and furrowing his dark brows in a ridiculous way. "Just do it."
Annoyed at the cryptic reply, but undeniably curious, Draco did. A few hours after this exchange, they were tidying up their attic bedroom (under sharp order from Mrs. Weasley that it was to be kept clean, was that clear?) when Draco was seized with a brief illumination of memory.
Someone came forward and stood between he and Harry, withdrawing his wand from his pocket. Tapping Harry's head, he muttered an incantation before quickly transferring the wand to the top of Draco's head. An instant later, someone gasped as Harry's hair leapt from his head, leaving him totally bald. An instant later, Draco's did the same. The wigs floated over the boy – yes, it was a boy – who was still standing between them, and then supplanted themselves atop each boy's head.
Draco gasped, his hands flying to his head.
"Oh, thank Merlin!" he muttered, as his own thin flaxen locks met his fingers.
"What?" Harry asked, glancing up from his wardrobe, which he had been attempting to organize.
Ignoring him, Draco whipped out his self-inking quill and pad of parchment and wrote down the images. With them came the memory of a dark alley and a group of people standing around him and Harry.
By the time he had finished jotting it all down, Harry had moved to stand beside his elbow and was reading what he wrote.
In a dark alleyway, with two shops with dirty windows on either side, a group of people stand around watching three others who are grouped together between them. The boy in the middle is holding a wand, which is touching the head of a dark-haired boy, Potter. The boy in the middle taps Potter's head and then transfers his wand to the head of the blond on the other side, me. Our hair rises into the air, floats through the air above the boy in the middle, and then Potter's hair lands on my head and mine on his.
People I recognize: Potter, me.
"I remember that," Harry said vaguely, his brow wrinkling in deep thought. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers. "Cedric – the boy who switched our hair – he's my son!"
"Do you remember who was standing around us?" Draco asked eagerly, his quill ready. The neat thing about them remembering different things was that if one of them got going, the other usually started to remember different things about the same event.
"Yes . . ." Harry said, squinting at the paper. "Yes . . . Ginny was there, watching. And Blaise."
Draco scribbled down their names.
"And – three others . . ." Harry paused, then cursed in frustration. "Damn it! I don't remember."
"Think!" Draco urged. "The four of us were there – that makes some sense, since Dumbledore found the four of us in the Astronomy Tower and I'm pretty sure we weren't up there having an orgy."
Harry looked revolted at the idea.
"Moving on," Draco prompted impatiently.
Harry bit his lip.
"Son . . . my son . . ." he mumbled. "Something about that . . ." He trailed off. Then he brightened. "My daughter. My daughter was there as well! I don't remember her name, but she was one of the others standing around. And . . . and the others were friends of hers, I'm sure they were!"
"Any names?"
"Nope."
"Good enough for now, I suppose," Draco murmured, scribbling a bit more before closing the notebook.
"Give it fifteen minutes and then look again," Harry instructed, going back to the wardrobe with an absent expression on his face.
Fifteen minutes had never lasted so long, but Draco stuck it out, mostly because he had seen Harry's hunched prove more than once to be right over the last month at 5 Inmind Street.
When at last the clock on the wall said the time was up, Draco dove for his pillow, on which the pad of parchment sat, Harry right behind him. Draco opened it and they both stared in amazement.
It was like looking at a paragraph throughout which words had been erased or partially erased. Every word was slightly faded, as though it had been written years ago, rather than minutes.
"Weird," Draco said, gazing down at the writing.
"I thought so," Harry murmured, looking vaguely satisfied.
"Care to enlighten me?"
"Sure." Harry took the book from his hands, and the quill, and went through methodically circling the spots where a word was almost completely faded away. "One thing I do remember is that we're dealing with time, and the future. I've always known it, even when I couldn't remember how, who was involved, or why. Look at this sentence now."
Draco took the parchment back and read the paragraph.
In , with with dirty windows on either side, people stand around watching others who are grouped together between them. The in the middle is holding a wand, which is touching the head of a . The in the middle taps the head of the and then transfers his wand to the head of the on the other side. hair rises into the air, floats through the air above , and lands on the heads of .
People I recognize, me
Others, Potter's daughter, two others
"People are missing – except me," Draco said. "And the specific place. Why?"
"I think the only reason you're still there is that you would remember yourself above anyone else because you were seeing the whole scene from your own perspective," Harry said thoughtfully. "As far as the others . . . well, the only thing that makes sense to me is that the future is always in motion, isn't it?"
"Sure."
"So, every act in the present alters the future," Harry persisted. "So every time you or I or anyone do anything, we nudge the future in a certain direction."
"Right."
"So whatever we had to do with the future is probably already changing every day that we move into the future!" Harry looked excited. "Think about it. Between the time you had that memory and the space of fifteen minutes, certain things faded from the paper. Is it because those things you wrote down become less and less likely with every passing second because we're influencing the future differently?"
"I get it," Draco said slowly. "You're saying that since we're partially aware of whatever this future is, we're consciously making changes to whatever we originally did to create the future?"
"Exactly!" Harry actually clapped a hand on his shoulder.
"No touchy." Draco shrugged the hand off.
"Sorry," Harry said sheepishly. "Caught up in the moment."
"Please don't ever say that in reference to you and I ever, ever again!" Draco pleaded, looking revolted.
"That's getting you back for the orgy comment earlier," Harry told him smugly.
"So, this grand temporal theory of yours," Draco prompted with a sniff of attempted disgust.
"Like I said, you got it," Harry told him. "I mean, think about it. Our awareness of the pad of parchment with reference to the future couldn't have happened if we hadn't any knowledge of the future. Just that change could mean anything. I mean, imagine what we might have been doing if we hadn't been waiting that fifteen minutes to see what would happen with the parchment."
"Yeah – we could have been done cleaning the room by now, gone down to the kitchen, had a snack, and you might have choked to death on a chicken bone . . ." Draco speculated gleefully.
"Oh, shut it," Harry said, without much ire. "Anyway, now that we're here instead, it may be that while you're making your bed, the window mysteriously blows open and tiny elves come leaping in and carry you off to their den for supper."
This pointless banter had gone on for some time, but Draco had given up writing down his memories. An hour after, they looked again and the writing had faded completely. It was disappointing, but to Draco's surprise, also a bit of a relief. He accepted the flashes of memory, and he and Harry talked them over whenever they occurred, but they left it at that.
All this flashed through Draco's mind as he followed Harry up the winding staircase of 5 Inmind Street with his arms full of books. He sighed and tried to relax his brain, which felt as though it was seizing up.
"Suppose we'll be able to listen in on the meeting?" Harry asked as they climbed.
"You know Snape and Weasley's mum set up about fifty wards," Draco shot back, hefting his load on the landing.
"But Fred and George will be in the meeting tonight – bet they'd help," Harry pursued, with his usual dogged optimism.
Harry and Draco weren't official Order members yet, so Mrs. Weasley forbade their attending meetings. She said that when they were all graduated and officially grown up, their decisions would be out of her hands. But for now, they were two boys under her charge and were therefore subject to whatever she ordained.
She gave them the benefit of the doubt during the first meeting, but when Lupin caught them lurking outside the door, Snape was called upon to help Mrs. Weasley ward off the room. It was a proceeding the greasy Potions master took inordinate pleasure in. Probably, it was thwarting Harry that pleased him so much. It didn't matter to Draco – Snape, who had rather taken charge of him since he had gone into hiding with Harry, told him all the important stuff after the meetings were over. And Draco was pretty sure Snape wasn't the only mole. Black usually pulled Harry aside shortly after the meetings, under pretense of inquiring after him. Mrs. Weasley always looked mightily suspicious, but couldn't ever catch him, or Snape, divulging anything and therefore didn't speak on the subject.
For some reason, despite their inside sources, Harry always liked to try and get an earful of the meetings. He never gave Draco a good reason for his curiosity, and Draco's guess was that the boy hero was getting stir-crazy. After all, it was usually this time of the year that he was fighting evil with Granger and Weasley, and instead, he was holed up in a pleasant house with his former nemesis.
He complained surprisingly little, all things considered.
"Oh . . . all right, then," Draco sighed, as they reached the final landing and Harry nudged their bedroom door open with his hip. "But how do you plan on speaking to the twins without Mrs. Weasley jumping down your throat? She never lets them out of her sight when they're here."
"Hey, Fred and George are like my brothers," Harry said in mock indignation. "I have every right to go down and say hello before the meeting. Anyway, if she gets suspicious," and the dark boy's voice dropped, his expression turning more serious, "we can speak to Dumbledore. I've been meaning to anyway."
"Why?" Draco asked, depositing his books on a small desk in the corner.
"Because the last time he was here, he spent a lot of time talking with Mr. Weasley and Snape after the meeting," Harry said, straightening from his own desk and looking Draco square in the eye. "And he looked worried, which isn't normal."
"A war's brewing, Potter," Draco pointed out. "And he's the head of the most competent defenders of our great country. I'd be worried, too."
"That's not what I mean," Harry said in exasperation as they headed back downstairs. "Dumbledore's been heading up the Order for a long time – since my parents were involved, evidently. And I've never seen him look worried or get – well, get as emotional as he ever gets – except when he's talking about Hogwarts."
"You reckon Hogwarts is You-Know-Who's objective?" Draco was glad Harry couldn't see his face.
"It's always been his objective," Harry retorted. "I just thought –" He broke off suddenly, but strangely, Draco knew what he was going to say.
"You reckoned that it would be less of one without you there anymore," he guessed, feeling some of the old irritation creep back into him. "Typical, Potter. You're important, but come on! The castle was probably important long before you started there. It's Dumbledore's fortress – and everyone knows the one person You-Know-Who fears is Dumbledore. Crazy bat."
"Incredibly powerful crazy old bat," Harry corrected. "You're right. If he were to take Hogwarts and Dumbledore – although I suppose just Hogwarts would do – the confidence of the entire wizarding world would be shaken. I mean, if the most fail-safe building in Britain goes, anything could be next."
"What an irony," Draco murmured. He pursed his lips. "What do you want to bet that if You-Know-Who –"
"Voldemort – for god's sake, Malfoy, just say the name!" Harry snapped.
Draco winced, again glad that Harry, trotting down the stairs in front of him, couldn't see his face.
"Yeah, him," he resumed. "What do you want to bte that if he takes Hogwarts, he'll set up his base of operations there?"
Harry shivered, but the tone of his voice when he next spoke passed the shiver to Draco.
"He wouldn't dare."
Draco let the subject drop when they reached the ground floor, which was crowded with Order members. They knew that this particular meeting was only for members who were either inside sources or who had been with the Order from its beginning.
"Draco," a voice said at his side.
He turned and smirked up at Severus Snape (he never smiled genuinely at the man – wouldn't do to upset him, at his age).
"Professor," he said.
"Where's Potter slithered off to?" the Potions master inquired, his frown darkening as he clapped his hand briefly on Draco's shoulder.
Draco glanced around in surprise. Harry had been next to him a second ago. When he finally spotted his friend, he had made it all the way across the room and was talking animatedly to Fred and George. He caught Draco's eye and rolled his own, nodding the Snape, whose back was mercifully turned.
"He's talking to the twins," Draco said.
Snape snorted, looking as disgusted as Harry looked. Draco bit back a smile – just as Harry had a Snape-face, Snape had a Harry-face. It was all rather comical.
"Just as well – the less I see of that pathetic waste of flesh, the better," Snape sniffed. "How are your studies going?"
"Well," Draco said. "We try to do an hour or two every day."
"With the added motivation of Mrs. Weasley breathing down your neck, I imagine." Draco saw a trace of a smile on Snape's lip.
"That certainly helps," he conceded. "But, there are advantages, too. If we study in the kitchen, we get fed."
"You watch it, boy, or you'll inflate like those oafish friends of yours," Snape warned, shaking a threatening finger at Draco.
"Friends is such a strong word," Draco muttered disgustedly.
"Isn't it?" Snape gave him a hard look. "What do you mean by becoming so friendly with Potter, boy?"
"Honestly – I couldn't help it, sir!"
Draco tried not to look helpless, but he felt it was a lost cause.
"Oh, look!" he added, after the briefest of pauses. "The meetings starting. If Mrs. Weasley finds Potter and me anywhere near the door . . ."
"Spare me," Snape cut him off, with an unimpressed look. "I know you two will do everything you can to listen to those meetings."
"I don't know what you mean," and Draco walked deliberately away to Harry, who had long since given up talking with the twins and was bidding his godfather a rather pettish good-evening.
"I'm sorry, Harry," Black was saying. "You know if it were up to me . . ."
"It should be, as you're my legal guardian," Harry pointed out sulkily. He glanced up as Draco approached and a small smirk curled against his lips. It gave Draco a shock to realize that the expression looked more like it belonged on the blonde's face than on the brunette's.
"Well, it's been nice, Sirius, but I must dash. Draco and I have so much homework, you know," with emphasis on Draco's first name, which made Draco smile, because Harry never called him "Draco".
Turning back with Harry, they passed Snape as they ascended the long staircase again.
"Sirius? Severus?" Mrs. Weasley poked her head through the door of the kitchen. "Aren't you coming?"
Draco turned back and saw that both Black and Snape were watching he and Harry climb the stairs.
"After you, Black," Snape bit out, with no hint of politeness in his voice.
"I'd rather not have a traitor at my back, thank you," Black retorted, in a mock-pleasant voice.
"I'm not the one who spent twelve years in Azkaban," Snape reminded him coldly, before sweeping passed Mrs. Weasley into the kitchen.
"God, I hate him!"
Draco jumped as he and Harry spoke in unison. Harry turned back to him with a look of surprise and an unwilling smile.
"We could've turned out like them," the brunette said, shaking his head as he stared at the closed kitchen door. "Old, bitter, and partially incriminated."
"It would probably help if we could explain to people why we're suddenly on marginally pleasant turns," Draco pointed out.
"Damned if I know," Harry returned. "Let's just go with it, yeah? It would be hell living with you for months on end if we didn't get along."
"Sure," Draco said with a shrug. "So, did the twins help?"
"Oh, yes." Harry dug into his pocket and withdrew two strands of long, tan string.
"String Flossing Mints is going to help us listen to the meeting?" Draco said incredulously.
"Well, we'll have clean teeth, at least," Harry said sarcastically. "No, you git. They're pranks – sort of. New inventions of Fred and George's – Extendable Ears. You put one end in your ear and let the other hang over the banister."
"Won't they have sound-proofed the door?" Draco asked, taking a string.
"Nope," Harry said smugly. "George told me Mrs. Weasley sound-proofed a kind of mote thing around the door. So the back half of the hall is soundproof, but about a foot from the door isn't, because she wanted to be able to hear us if we tried to put our ears against the door. So there's actually a charm that increases the volume by the door. But with the extendable ears . . ."
"We won't be anywhere near the door," Draco finished, grinning in spite of himself.
"Exactly!" Harry said. "And we'll be able to hear in plenty of time if anyone comes to door. See, if we sit on the landing here, the Extendables should be long enough to reach the door."
"Wicked!" Draco got down on his stomach and stretched out on the landing.
"Budge up, Malfoy." Harry settled in beside him.
"No touchy," Draco mumbled, sticking the Extendable Ear into his ear and letting the end fall away. It was the perfect length and fell into the foot-wide gap in front of the door.
". . . SNAPE'S REPORT –"
The voice boomed from the ear, magnified three-fold.
"Ow! Fuck!" Draco howled, his ear ringing.
"Shut up!" Harry hissed. "What happened?" He hadn't yet lowered his own ear.
"Bloody sound-enhancing field," Draco said, sticky a finger into his ear and trying to unplug it. "Hold the string back from your ear a bit."
"No kidding." Harry smirked an 'I'm-so-much-smarter-than-you-and-would-totally-never-have-done-that-myself' sort of smirk. It was the kind of expression that, in former days, had made Draco wanted to scrape off his face with a blunt blade.
Now he would have settled for a rusty spoon.
"– in the best interest of the school." That sounded like Dumbledore.
"I heard he stole a Time-Turner," came George Weasley's voice.
"I find it amusing how rumors spread and tend to exaggerate themselves," came Dumbledore's placid voice, although Draco was sure that his bloody eyes were sparkling. Draco could hear the sparkle go somewhat out of them with his next words. "Which brings us to the original point. Severus, has Voldemort taken the bait?"
Draco winced at the name and was sure that half the assembled Order had as well.
"I cannot say," Draco's godfather said slowly. "I would like to think so, but with Draco's simultaneous disappearance –"
"Speculation?" came the short, clipped voice that Draco recognized only too clearly as Mad-Eye Moody's.
"He might – and I say might with some hesitation as it is – have believed Potter's expulsion to be genuine and that he really has returned to his aunt and uncle's, where he is known to have some protection," Snape said, and Draco could hear the grimness in his tone. "But with Draco's disappearance coinciding perfectly, I'm sure he suspects that they have been taken into protective custody and I'm quite sure he thinks you're behind it, Albus."
"I'm afraid it is my fault," Dumbledore said, heavily. "When young Malfoy asked to accompany Harry and accept his own expulsion for his part in Harry's adventure –"
"Oh, so now they're calling it your adventure," Draco hissed at Harry. "That's nice."
"I'm getting the blame for it, git," Harry hissed back. "Shut up!"
"– thought it wouldn't hurt and recognized some change in the boy that quite struck me," Dumbledore went on.
"Change in a Malfoy," Moody murmured, although with the amplified sound, Draco heard it perfectly. "As likely as Voldemort turning himself over to you, Albus."
"That's enough, Alastor!"
Draco was surprised to hear Molly Weasley's voice cut the venerable Auror off sharply.
"Draco's a fine boy," Mrs. Weasley said. "And I'll thank you to speak politely of him in this house. There is very definitely something different about him and I can say, having known his father when he was that age, there is little likeness."
There was a moment's heavy silence.
"I agree with Molly," Arthur Weasley spoke up, to Draco's continued wonder and incredulity. "Alastor, I work with Lucius Malfoy. I know very well what he is and how he operates. Draco tries, bless him, but he's –"
"Far more like his mother," Snape cut in quietly. "Narcissa was never quite able to pretend to be what she wasn't, either."
Another moment of silence.
"But surely the boys are quite safe here," came Arabella Figg's deep voice. "This is headquarters. You-Know-Who's about as likely to find this place as he is to break into Hogwarts."
"It is Hogwarts that concerns me," Dumbledore said quietly. "Severus, would you tell the Order what you told me before the meeting, please?"
"Certainly, Albus," Snape said smoothly. "The fact of the matter is this. The Dark Lord is fairly convinced, as I said, that Albus has Potter and Draco in protective custody. Where better to protect them than Hogwarts? They are under the watch of Albus and at least five other members of the Order at all times."
"How does he explain their expulsion?" came the voice of Bill Weasley, who had come up from London to hear the meeting. Harry had told Draco that the eldest Weasley wasn't able to come often.
"Simply a diversion, so that attention will be focused upon tracking them down outside of school," Snape said.
"Do you think he's planning to attack Hogwarts, Snape?" Moody demanded.
"I do."
The simple phrase sent the room into a fearful hush. Draco turned and met Harry's wide-eyed stare.
"But – but he'd never –" Harry faltered. "He fears Dumbledore, above anyone else. Hogwarts is practically impenetrable."
"Hush." Draco dragged his attention back to the meeting.
"– all measures will be taken to protect the students, of course," Molly Weasley said at last.
"Indeed they will," Dumbledore said, and Draco heard a sorrowful note in his voice that made his insides go cold.
"What are you going to do, sir?" Fred Weasley asked, and Draco could hear the foreboding apprehension in his voice that meant that he knew something unpleasant was about to be said.
"Starting tomorrow, we are evacuating the school," Dumbledore said heavily.
"What?"
The voice made Draco jump, because it came from Harry, who was right beside him.
"Jesus, Potter, keep your voice down!"
"They can't!" Potter went on, heedless of Draco. "They can't!"
" – sir, don't do it!" Draco heard Fred Weasley say mutinously.
"You know how much I love the school, Fred," Dumbledore said gently. "But I love the students within it far more and if Hogwarts is to be a target, I wish it to be an empty one."
"But how can you possibly do it without it becoming evident that the school's being emptied, sir?" Bill Weasley asked, sounding doubtful, but not particularly upset. Clearly, he saw the logic of it, as Draco was already beginning to. Although a massacre of an entire population of students would certainly raise the less active wizarding populace into a state of fury and action, it would also mean martyring of three hundred or so students. Dumbledore might have been insane, but the Dumbledore Draco knew and was perpetually annoyed by would never allow something like that, no matter what the reward.
He rolled his eyes. He'd have to explain all that over again to Harry later, since the git didn't have enough logic in his thick skull to choke an ant.
" – not as difficult as it might seem," Dumbledore was saying when Draco tuned back in. "I believe it will be best if most of the students are temporarily confined to safe houses located around the country. And although I would, under most other circumstance, not wish to stereotype my students, I'm afraid it should be done according to parental affiliation and Houses."
"Of course it should!" Fred Weasley piped up ('figures,' Draco thought sourly). "Half of Slytherin House has a Death Eater for a parent, at the very least."
"Perhaps it would interest you to know, Mr. Weasley, that ten Ravenclaw's, six Hufflepuffs, and two Gryffindors have similar familial associations," Snape said, his voice colder than Draco had ever heard.
"And Slytherin – surprise, surprise – still tops the chart with twenty-five," George Weasley cut in, his voice as cold and quite clearly demonstrating his resent of any slight to his brother. "So, Professor," and the change in his tone suggested that he was now speaking to Dumbledore, "how do you plan to do it?"
"It will be a simple operation, I hope," Dumbledore said, not commenting on the verbal jousting that had been going on moments before. Draco assumed the old man recognized the futility. "Because any of those students might be targeted at any time, they will be under the heaviest guard and will be put into Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall's care. They will be unconscious during their transport so that, should any of them choose to leave or somehow be taken, they will not be a danger to their classmates." Dumbledore's voice was hard, as if sending a silent message to any potential threats to his students that they'd better not try anything.
"And the other students?" Sirius Black asked, his voice grim.
"A few, whose parents are members of the Order, will be brought to Headquarters for protection or until their parents decide to move them," Dumbledore said. There was a pause, then, "There is also a suggestion I wished to make; I had hoped that you would all agree to house some of the higher-risk children of Death Eaters here at headquarters."
The uproar this caused nearly deafened Draco and he saw Harry jerk back from his own Extendable Ear.
"Steady on!" the Gryffindor grumbled, glaring at his earpiece, from which Draco could discern a high-pitched whine, similar to the noise his own Extendable was making.
"So much for saving the children," Draco muttered, feeling a swell of indignation toward the adults below. "What're they so worked up about? They're granting me asylum here and my dad's probably the most dangerous Death Eater they have to contend with."
"Well, you're just one bloke, aren't you? There're somewhere in the neighborhood of forty children of Death Eaters in Hogwarts. Figure at least half of them are high-risk. That's twenty additional kids wandering around 5 Inmind," Harry pointed out. "If any of them got stir-crazy and decided to make a break for it, they could land Order HQ in serious trouble."
"So guilty until proven innocent, then?" Draco demanded, anger replacing the indignation. "Potter, they're kids! They're going to be scared, and if you send them home – well, I think you know bloody well what will happen to them."
"Listen, Malfoy –"
"No, you listen, Potter!" he snapped. "They may be Slytherins, but you should know that most of them can be brave when they need to, just as most of them can be scared out of their minds. Wouldn't you be?"
"Of course, but –"
"If you put those twenty in with the other students, all of them, including the other students, will probably be slaughtered."
"What?" Harry demanded, turning right around to look at him for the first time.
"You-Know-Who is paranoid about his followers," Draco said sharply. "Either he has a guarantee that the entire family is behind him or he'll destroy that family."
"What about your dad?" Harry asked, with some trepidation.
Draco shrugged.
"My dad might get off with some form of punishment," he said, his voice rather hollow. "You-Know-Who knows that after what I've done, my father wouldn't think twice about killing me if he met me. Who knows? They might even be planning to use me somehow to get to you."
"How would they do that?" Harry wanted to know, his voice grim.
"Look, I'm sure Dumbledore's taken every precaution –"
"How, Malfoy?"
"Keep your hair on! I'm sure your precious self is perfectly safe –"
"It's not me I'm worried about, Draco!" Harry barked.
They both froze – first in surprise, then to listen and make sure none of the adults had heard anything. Silencing charms only worked in one direction, and although Harry and Draco couldn't hear anything that was happening in the meeting, those in the meeting could hear anything that they would normally be able to hear from the kitchen.
"Listen," Harry went on at last, taking a slow breath, "it isn't me – it's everyone else in the house, and – well," he paused, biting his lip, then sucked it up and went on in what sounded to Draco like mild exasperation, "Look, Malfoy, you're my friend, and I don't want to see anything happen to you, either. If you are in any danger, Dumbledore or someone here at HQ needs to know about it."
Draco took a deep breath as well, unwillingly touched by the reluctant concern his new friend had for his well being. It was a first, really, for although he and his comrades in Slytherin always stood up for each other against other Houses, everyone was fair game without the boundaries of Slytherin House. Having someone watching his back unconditionally was very new and, though he would never have admitted it, very comforting.
"I know that You-Know-Who connects the Dark Mark directly to the blood of the recipient," he said at length, his voice lower and his anger gone as quickly as it had come. "That means that there is probably some connection to the rest of the family as well. It's a brilliant scheme, really, because then he has some control over the entire family, to some extent. What that control is, I don't know."
"It's probably not effective within the Fedelious Charm," Harry said thoughtfully, his own voice quiet.
"What?" Draco stared at him. Harry had his "off in Harry-land" face firmly in place, which meant real trouble for Draco as far as comprehension was concerned.
Harry blinked, and shook his head. "Oh, I was just thinking that the only way in the world that Dumbledore would allow you into Order headquarters was if you were under Fedelious." He paused, and stared at Draco in his unnervingly intense way. "Dumbledore did give you a Secret Keeper, right?"
"Sure," Draco said blankly. A moment later, he cottoned on. "And since those under Fedelious are Unplottable, you don't think blood bonds of any kind would work, at least as far as tracking me through my father."
Harry shrugged.
"Stands to reason."
"So why not do that with all the other kids who come to stay, too?" Draco asked impatiently. "Then even if they did decide to bolt it wouldn't matter because no one would be able to find or really see then except their Secret Keeper."
"Well, it's not easy to find people trustworthy enough to carry the Secret, is it?" Harry said, sounding annoyingly as though he thought he was stating the obvious. "Finding twenty people is probably impossible. And it's only possible for a person to be Secret Keeper for one other person or place at a time."
"I know how Fedelious works, Potter," Draco snapped. "But isn't HQ protected by Fedelious?"
"Sure," Harry said. "It's not here that the bother starts. It's if any of them run, for some reason. Then they aren't protected by Fedelious."
Draco sank into a sulky silence. It wasn't often – in fact, it was almost never – that Harry out-thought him. Draco grimaced to himself – he didn't even have a good excuse for his anxiety regarding his Housemates, which was, ultimately, the reason for his inability to think logically. It wasn't as though he had any real friends within Slytherin.
But, he realized, he didn't have any enemies, either. And anyone who wasn't an enemy at this point was one more person not hunting Draco down.
Harry had his Extendable in place again and was listening. The high-pitched keening was now gone and Draco was able to listen without a migraine coming on.
" - any other choice," Dumbledore said. His voice appeared to be cutting off those of a good many other people, most of whom were probably arguing. "Those children must be protected, and if our headquarters are to safest place, so be it. We will implement measures to keep them from hurting others or themselves by – rash action."
There was a moment of silence, and Draco heard Harry sigh heavily. Draco kept himself from snapping at the Boy-Who-Lived – loathed as he was to admit it, the Gryffindor had valid reason to be concerned.
"If there is nothing else of importance this evening," Dumbledore said heavily, "our meeting is adjourned."
Draco heard the screeching of chairs and yanked his Extendable Ear up and over the landing. Harry had already done so beside him and silently, the Gryffindor sprinted up the stairs to their bedroom. Once there, they pulled on their pajamas and crawled into bed. Draco flicked his wand at the lights, which flickered and went out just as footsteps sounded in the hallway outside. An instant later, a wedge of light spilled through their doorway as Mrs. Weasley poked her head in.
"Oooh, aren't they precious?" came the quietly mocking voice of one of the blasted twins.
"Ickle angels, aren't they, Mum?" said the other, in a voice that made Draco very much want to throw something heavy in their direction.
"Don't you two start," Mrs. Weasley said sharply. "I know you helped them listen to the meeting tonight and if I ever find out how, you'll both rue the day . . ."
"Whoa, keep your hair on!"
"We've done nothing – why are we always the suspects? Why not Bill or Charlie?"
"It's as though she doesn't trust us, George!"
"You two . . ." Mrs. Weasley's voice was quite intimidating and Draco was glad that he was tucked up in bed and not under fire. He heard the bedroom door shut and the sounds of retreating footsteps and voices.
"Potter . . . psst! Potter!"
"What?" Harry said. Draco saw his shadow hitch in the dark as Harry rolled over and propped himself on his elbows.
"Close call."
"Indeed – although because it's Mrs. Weasley, the twins would have taken all the blame for 'corrupting innocent children'."
Draco snorted.
"The bloody twins cut up a lot of pranks, but they weren't expelled, were they?"
"It's kind of annoying that we can't actually remember why we were expelled, though." Harry chuckled ruefully, but there was no bitterness detectable in the sound as their had been at one time. He was coming to terms with expulsion, particularly since he had, since the end of his fourth year, apparently considered himself a danger to Hogwarts and being gone from the place rid him of some of that guilt. Plus, he enjoyed sharing the blame, though they no longer knew what for, with Draco.
"So," Draco said, when Harry didn't respond to his last comment beyond the chuckle. "If they are evacuating the students . . . well, Blaise is high-risk."
"And basically all of Ginny's family lives and works at HQ," Harry retorted.
"All I'm saying," Draco said, ignoring Harry, "is that if you don't want me in here anymore – I mean, I wouldn't want to embarrass your virgin self by overhearing anything untoward – "
A pillow hit him in the side of the head.
"Ow!"
"Ow? It was a pillow, you pillock."
"It's a down pillow. One of the feathers could have punctured my scull."
"Not much in there to damage, though, is there – oomph!"
"So, back to you and Blaise needing this room – and probably a silencing charm – "
"Are you really that daft or did you not notice my attempt to smother you a moment ago?"
"Virginity is nothing to be ashamed of, Potter."
"I suppose you would know."
"Well, there is a time I can remember – huh, that was back in third year, though."
"Ew – don't be gross, Malfoy!"
Draco sniggered, knowing that while Harry probably didn't believe the insinuation, he was also unwillingly curious.
"Anyway," he went on, and Draco could hear him rolling over onto his back, "Mrs. Weasley would skin me alive if Blaise came within a floor of this room."
"Hello? Do you actually use your Invisibility Cloak?"
"Yeah, that would be romantic. Oh, Blaise," he intoned dramatically, "I would shag you senseless but for the fifty yards of fabric separating us."
"And that my virgin ignorance makes me totally daft when it comes to –"
"Malfoy, your obsession with my supposed virginity is kind of creepy."
"Supposed, indeed!"
"Oh, shut up. I doubt you're such an expert. You're seventeen."
"He doubts me! I shall try not to take offense."
Harry snorted incredulously and his mattress creaked again as he shifted.
"Well, wonder-shag, do me a favor a shut it while I try to get some sleep." His tone darkened. "I think we're gonna have a busy next few weeks."
"And I'm trying very hard not to take that the wrong way," Draco said.
He only just ducked in time to avoid Harry's copy of N.E.W.T.-level Potions.
TBC