"Stuck with the brat again" Ron moaned said glumly

"Hermione needs to finish up her research, " Harry muttered back, "The faster she does it, the sooner we can leave. He's getting stronger; we've run out of time. Besides admit it, you enjoy hanging out with the so-called brat"

Ron fumed, "Yeah. Well. I've always wanted to be an older brother. It's just my luck that I have to live that dream through Draco—Malfoy, oh hell, Draco, now.

"What are you on about? You've got Ginny."

"Yeah, but she's a girl"

"Is that such a bad thing?" Harry smirked at Ron

"Ugh Harry, I know you're dating my sister and everything but could you please not remind me every chance you get" The red head groaned

The boy-who-lived shrugged, "Sorry man."

Ron grunted.

"I can't help it that I love her so much"

"Oh come on!" Ron moaned and Harry burst out laughing

"Harry! Ron! I'm done setting it up!" Draco called

There were only a limited number of things one could do in a place like this and so the three boys found themselves once again huddled around the chessboard. Harry opted to watch instead because he was never good at wizards chess so that left Ron and Draco to battle.

"Alright, no cheating this time!" Draco warned Ron

Ron gaped at the child, "That was one time! And you got me in trouble for that if you can recall"

Draco rolled his eyes then turned to Harry, "Harry are you sure you don't want to play?"

Ron snorted, "He doesn't. He'd absolutely horrible at it"

Harry threw his best friend a dirty look, "Well at least I don't cheat"

Draco giggled. "See?"Harry said, "Draco agrees"

Now it was Ron's turned to roll his eyes, "He giggles at everything"

"Nuh-uh" The Slytherin said indignantly

"Yeah-uh" The Gryffindor mocked the kid

Harry shook his head. Leave it to Ron to argue with a four-year-old. The boy-who-lived broke the argument just waiting to happen and the Slytherin moved his piece first. The game was moving quite slowly because Ron took forever deciding what to do with his pieces. He was not about to lose to the likes of Draco Malfoy again. It was humiliating enough losing to the Draco Malfoy but to lose to Draco Malfoy at age four was just cruel.

"Is there a time limit for this?" Draco asked lazily as he cupped his face with both his hands

"Why you lithe so-"

Ron's retort however was cut short by Hermione's entrance, "Harry may I speak with you?"

Harry nodded and told Ron that he'd tell him everything later and to just stay with Draco. Ron looked watched the two leave before returning back to his game only to find that the Slytherin had abandoned his position and was now fiddling with something under the coffee table.

"Oy! What do you think you're doing? I still have to beat you" He ducked under the table to look at what Draco was doing

"What's an i-p-o-d?" Draco said completely ignoring Ron's outburst.

"A what?"

"This" Draco said reappearing from under the table and showed Ron a thin silver rectangle of an object, "i-p-o-d!"

Ron squinted at the object and instantly recognized it as Hermione's. Of course it did help that there was an engraving on it that said, H. Granger, "It's Hermione's. I think it's for listening to music."

"Music? How does it work?"

"Hmm, Let's see" Ron said prying the thing off Draco's tiny little hands and he tried to remember what Hermione had told him about this contraption,"Muggles and their crazy inventions"

"Muggles?" Draco asked wide-eyed as he backed away from the object

"What? Is little baby Draco afraid of a muggle toy?" Ron teased

"I'm not a baby!" The Slytherin pouted before speaking in a guarded voice, "Father said that I shouldn't associate with anything muggle. He says they're bad"

Ron groaned and rolled his eyes. He had completely forgotten about Draco's horrid father, "Yeah, well, you like Hermione right?"

"Yeah, so?" Draco furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, "She's really nice to me"

"Well, Hermione is a muggle-born" Ron told the four-year-old

Draco's eyes widened even more, "But father says-"

"Look kid, I don't what you father says and frankly I don't care" Draco gasped. "But the fact of the matter is, you like Hermione and you admit that she's nice. Did finding out that she's a muggle-born change your mind?"

"No…I guess not" Draco said slowly, "I like her better than father and mother sometimes"

"See? It's that simple-this isn't potions class. Now get your butt over here and help me figure out this thing"

The Slytherin looked at the gryffindor with a pained expression.

Ron sighed, "Look if it makes you feel any better your father won't hear about this. Our little secret, okay?"

At this, the little boy's face brightened as he nodded. Draco crawled onto Ron's lap and they both huddled over the object with curiosity. While the Slytherin was engrossed with the muggle contraption, Ron stole a glance at him and smirked. I better not tell him we've been feeding him muggle food. Poor kid's going to have a heart attack.

xxx

"I've got it," Hermione whispered as they ducked into a broom closet.

She looked like she had been run-over by the Knight Bus. Her hair had grown significantly bushier and two quills stuck out of them—a well known sign that she had probably forgotten that she already had one up there when she decided to stick the second one. Harry reached for it and pulled them both out.

"Thanks Harry. I was wondering where those were"

Harry grinned.

"The Deathly Hallows. That's the symbol that keeps appearing in this book. The Elder Wand, The Cloak of Invisibility and the Resurrection Stone." Hermione said cutting right to the chase and showing him the children's book pertaining to the legend

"Are you actually insinuating that this story is real—"

"We all know that you are the owner of the Cloak of Invisibility. The Resurrection stone had disappeared ages ago. But the wand," Hermione said frantically, "Don't you see Harry? That's what Voldemort was after: The most powerful wand in the world. That's why he targeted Olivander.

"But Olivander didn't have the wand"

"No, because someone already possessed it"

"Who?"

Hermione drew in a breath, "Think. Who do you think is—was the most powerful wizard in the world?"

Harry's heart sunk. Just a few days ago news broke out that Dumbledore's grave had been disturbed. The body lay as peaceful as ever but there was something missing—the wizard was stripped off of his wand.

"He has it" Harry said softly, "You-Know-Who is the master of the elder wand"

"Not yet" Hermione said gravely, "To be the master of the elder wand you have to disarm the wizard that holds it. Think Harry, who defeated Dumbledore?"

"Snape"

Hermione shook his head, "Yes, Snape killed him. But Dumbledore was already disarmed by someone else"

Harry's eyes grew wider, "Draco"

Hermione nodded solemnly, "Draco is the master of the elder wand. Don't you see? It's all starting to make sense. Why Draco Malfoy was left to die that day."

At this Harry's mind was running wild. He contemplated what Draco being alive meant in this situation.

"What bothers me though is why You-Know-Who didn't just kill him with the killing curse. Why play it out that long?" Hermione cut through Harry's thoughts, "He wasn't even disarmed when Professor Lupin found him."

"What happened to his wand then?"

"Well Tonks said that when they'd brought him in he was clutching on to it. They couldn't pry it out of his hands so they just decided to leave it there since he was unconscious anyway. When he turned four the wand just vanished"

Harry remained silent for a while.

"We have to move" Harry said suddenly finding his determination, "Ron and I have to leave. Tonight. After everyone has gone to bed."

"What? Harry. No."

"Hermione, he was punishing him," Harry said quietly

"What?"

"You-Know-Who, he was punishing Draco"

"Why-"

"That night on the tower. I heard Draco tell Dumbledore that he was chosen for "this task". He failed. He didn't kill Dumbledore. Snape did."

Hermione's lips tightened into a line, "The legend did say that they had to defeat the owner of the wand in battle. I should have expected You-Know-Who to translate that to murder"

"So, you understand then?"

"But Harry, how do you know the wand's loyalty hadn't already—"

"It hasn't. Draco is still alive. And other than that you said that they couldn't pry the wand off of Draco. He was neither disarmed nor defeated."

Hermione closed her eyes and tried to fight back her tears. Tonight is too soon.

"Hermione, were ready. Were more than ready. We've spent months preparing and planning for this. We can do this."

"Harry—"

"No—"

"Just!" Hermione exclaimed, "Just be careful okay?"

Harry smiled and nodded and brought her into a hug.

"And, Harry?" Hermione whispered, "I know how to destroy the Horcruxes."

xxx

It was almost dinnertime when Harry and Hermione walked back into the sitting room and found the redhead and the blonde still perusing the little silver gadget. They had finally gotten it to work and were now sharing an earpiece each, listening to all the songs they could.

"Hermione!" Draco's face lit up when he saw his favorite guardian, "Look this makes music!"

The Gryffindor raised her eyebrow at the four-year-old, "Yes I know. It's mine."

Ron cleared his throat self-consciously and Draco smiled sheepishly, "Sorry Hermione. But I found it under the table. And besides I'm only four," He said exasperatedly, "You can't expect me to see weird things and not be curious about them"

Harry chuckled, "He's got you there, Hermione"

Hermione sighed knowing that arguing with Draco when he's this incredibly adorable was pointless, "You're lucky you're cute"

Draco tilted his head back to look up at the Weasley as he grinned triumphantly.

"How do you always get away with everything?" Ron said incredulously

The four-year-old smirked.

"And there's the Draco Malfoy I know" the redhead rolled his eyes, "I was wondering when you were going to show up"

"Huh?" Draco looked at Ron, dumbfounded

Harry laughed and spoke to little boy, successfully distracting him from asking more questions, "You know what's more fun than listening to music?"

"No, what?" Draco said excitedly, his eyes widening with anticipation

Harry took the iPod and suspended it in midair. He then pointed his wand at it saying, "Sonorus!" Soon the whole room was filled with the *upbeat tempo of a muggle artist and Draco jumped up with glee. Hermione laughed and shook her head as Harry started dancing.

"Harry what are you doing?" Draco giggled

"I'm dancing"

"I've never seen that dance in my mother's ballroom before" Draco said hypnotized by the awkward dance moves Harry was pulling

"It's easy. You just do whatever you feel like doing" Harry said

Hermione laughed and grabbed Draco, which caused him to squeal, and placed him on the coffee table. Then she took both of his hands then started dancing with him, making him do random movements.

"Ron! You have to get up and try this!" Draco said as he looked at the last guardian still sitting on his bum.

Hermione let go of Draco, who continued dancing on his own and she and Harry hoisted the Weasley up, "Alright, Alright! I'm up" the redhead said in defeat.

"Kids! Dinner's—oh my, what's going on here" Molly said stopping by the entryway, smiling in amusement at what the four were doing.

"Molly come and join us!" Hermione exclaimed taking the hands of her surrogate mother, the five of them momentarily forgetting about dinner.

Hermione stopped to catch her breath, her heart still racing from having moved a lot. She watched the small group that she had come to associate with as her family in this horrible war. Harry was dancing like a complete dork, Draco was still on the coffee table waving his arms and wiggling his butt and Ron and Molly, mother and son, were laughing as they failed miserably trying to dance with each other. The Gryffindor Princess' heart broke because she knew that tonight might be their last night together and she tried to remember this night in perfect detail, wherein all that she loved and cared about were laughing and smiling in perfect bliss.

Tonight is too soon, she thought again.

A/N: Hello! I just wanted to take this time to thank everyone who followed/favorited my story—especially those eleven people who reviewed. I wasn't planning to put this story up here at all until my sister talked me into it, so seeing your kind words really made my day. Thanks again! :)

*I wrote this with the song Mug Shot by MAX in mind—even if this song didn't exist then.