The Half-Blood Princess

Chapter 6

The time passed through to Halloween rather uneventfully. The traditional Halloween party still went on, but was less boisterous than in previous years. Gwen and Draco slept in the same bed every night, merely holding each other, nothing more. The animosity between some of the houses continued to grow, resulting in an altercation between Gwen, Draco and Seamus Finnigan.

Seamus had finally snapped during NEWT Transfiguration and began to send a few relatively harmless curses towards Gwen. Professor McGonagall saw him doing it and called him out on it, giving him a week's detention with her. Once class had let out, he had sent a slightly more powerful one towards her, only to have it deflected by Draco who then proceeded to send Finnigan a Furnunculus curse, resulting in boils breaking out all over his body and Finnigan's being taken to the hospital wing to be treated for the boils.

Gwen was secretly rather embarrassed by the whole matter, but at the same time, she felt even safer with Draco. She knew that he would look out for her. After the Finnigan incident, no one crossed Gwen or Draco. There were a few cases of detention from the Carrows getting out of hand, but overall the general population at Hogwarts tried to stay out of everything. The students did as they were told and kept their heads down.

Once Christmas Holidays came, the castle all but emptied of everyone. Gwen went to Malfoy Manor with Draco for the holidays. Severus would occasionally visit with them, but spent a lot of his time working on getting some new information to Harry as best as he could.

Once break ended, they headed back to Hogwarts, they noticed a few people that were not back, but other than that, business continued as usual for the next month. Draco had put together a dinner for the two of them at Valentine's Day, hoping to cheer Gwen's spirits. He succeeded and in the process they finally consummated their relationship. Otherwise nothing happened until Easter holidays. They went back to Malfoy Manor. There were entirely more Death Eaters, including Draco's Aunt Bellatrix. They tried to stay out of the way, but that was near impossible with Bella there. The Snatchers led by Greyback came with a group of outlaws that they thought had Harry Potter among them. The group was led into the Drawing Room.

"What is this?" Lucius asked the group.

"They say they've got Potter," Narcissa said coldly. "Draco, come here." She commanded as he stepped forward with Gwen at his side. Greyback pushed Harry, who did not really look anything like himself, closer to Draco and Gwen.

"Well, boy?" rasped the werewolf.

Draco and Gwen continued to examine Harry, as the room became more charged by the moment.

"Well, Draco? Gwen?" Lucius finally interrupted. "Is it? Is it Harry Potter?"

"I can't – I can't be sure," Draco finally settled on.

"Neither can I." Gwen said lying through her teeth about the man in front of her that she knew to be Harry Potter.

"But look at him carefully, look! Come closer!" Lucius said excitedly. "Draco, if we are the ones who hand Potter over to the Dark Lord, everything will be forgiv-"

"Now, we won't be forgetting who actually caught him, I hope, Mr. Malfoy?" Said Greyback menacingly.

"Of course not, of course not!" Lucius said impatiently as he surveyed Harry closer. "What did you do to him? How did he get into this state?" he asked the werewolf.

"That wasn't us."

"Looks like a Stinging Jinx to me," said Lucius eyeing the face even closer.

"There's something there," he whispered, "it could be the scar stretched tight…Draco come here, look properly! What do you think?"

Draco went beside his father and looked at the face closer.

"I don't know," he said walking back to Gwen who stood by the fireplace.

"We had better be certain, Lucius," Narcissa said coldly. "Completely sure that it is Potter, before we summon the Dark Lord…They say this is his" she said handling the blackthorn wand "but it does not resemble Ollivander's description….If we are mistaken, if we call the Dark Lord here for nothing….Remember what he did to Rowle and Dolohov?"

"What about the Mudblood, then?" growled Greyback.

"Wait, yes, yes she was in Madam Malkin's with Potter! I saw her picture in the Prophet! Look, Draco, isn't it the Granger girl?" Narcissa said giddily.

"I….maybe…yeah."

"But then, that's the Weasley boy!" shouted Lucius, striding around the bound prisoners to face Ron. "It's them, Potter's friends – Draco, look at him, isn't it Arthur Weasley's son, what's his name - ?"

"Yeah, it could be." Draco said sounding more enthusiastic. Gwen's back was to the door as it opened.

"What is this? What's happened, Cissy?" Bellatrix said coming around to face the prisoners. Gwen could not take being in the same room as Bellatrix. She and Draco quietly made their way to the side of the room with a door that led out of the room. They escaped out with no one noticing their immediate 

departure. She turned the time turner that she wore hidden around her neck once with Draco at her side. They were transported back exactly one hour. They quickly cast an invisibility charm on themselves, and hurried to the front gate area of Malfoy Manor. They waited about five minutes before the group of Snatchers arrived with their bound prisoners. They silently took out all of the Snatchers except Greyback. Gwen sent a powerful stunning spell at him while Draco sent an Incarcerous spell at him. Gwen then took the invisibility spell off of Draco and herself and proceeded to make short work of the binding on the prisoners.

"What?" Harry said to her as she unbound and ungagged him.

"Harry, we don't have much time, we will help you finish off the Horcruxes." She whispered to him quickly.

"How - ?" He began to interrupt.

"Never mind. We will get Hufflepuff's cup as well as Ravenclaw's diadem. Nagini is another one, but we don't know where she has been moved. We don't know what the last one is."

Draco moved next to her. "You'll need to get away from here quickly. Gwen, go to the cottage and stay there for an hour. I'll try to get Ollivander and the Lovegood girl to you and then have Potter take away with him." He whispered quietly to him.

They got everyone unbound except for the Snatchers and Greyback. Gwen transfigured all of the Snatchers into bones and buried them in the forest on their way to the cottage in the forest. Draco went quietly back into the Manor and had one of Gwen's house elves follow him. He told the house elf to take the two hostages and apparate them and him to the cottage where he and Gwen spent time as children. The house elf followed Draco into the cellar room where he saw Ollivander and Luna sitting there.

"Shh." He whispered to them as he took each of their hands, and nodded to the house elf. They disapparated with a tiny crack. Draco took a sigh of relief as he saw Gwen with the Golden Trio, Griphook the Goblin, and Dean Thomas.

"Harry, we have to stay here, but take Luna and Mr. Ollivander with you. Take Zita, she will help you with what you need. Be careful." Gwen said rushing Luna and Ollivander to Harry's group

"Thank you." Harry told them, fully understanding now what they were doing.

"Go. It won't be long before someone notices that those two are gone." Draco said gesturing to Luna and Ollivander.

The group apparated away from the scene. Draco and Gwen stood there for a moment before walking back to the Manor. They roughened up their appearances to seem as they had been "busy" in the forest. They walked up to the Manor and were admitted. Narcissa greeted them at the door, surprised to see them at the door.

"What -?"

"Don't worry, mother." Draco said reassuringly as Gwen blushed a bit for effect.

"Draco that's hardly proper." She said scolding him for his perceived unseemly behavior.

"Mother, we're getting married soon, so it shouldn't surprise you with what we do on occasion." Draco replied shortly before walking away with Gwen towards the second floor, moving his hand down to Gwen's buttocks to give his mother something to complain about. They went up to Draco's room, and proceeded to take a long hot bath together, celebrating one crisis that had been adverted.

Author's Notes:

I own Gwen and Zita, and that's about it. I did use some direct passages from Deathly Hallows Chapter 23.

So how was that for a twist?? Didn't think Draco had that sort of mettle did you? Well, now he does. I think that it will be interesting to see Gwen and Draco take down two of the Horcruxes, don't all of you?

So how about some comments?

Reviews, positive or negative, would be appreciated!

Thanks,

DE : )