Disclaimer: Let's hear it for JK Rowling for her original plot that helped mine out, also to Brad Paisley for his song that led to the title and plot of my story, and to The Pierces for their song "Secret" which I used for the title of this chapter.

Author's Note: I just had to go back and fix a few spots in the last chapter, I apologize if I missed them in the chapters before that but I just remembered that I am writing them at 16. Having just remembered that sixteen year olds are not legally allowed to do magic outside of school I had to make them do everything by hand. Oopsie. Hehe. Also, I am aware that they were not at Grimmauld Place during the summer between fifth and sixth years, but since I already wrote it that way I decided to just keep it rather than changing every little mention of Sirius' house.

Chapter Five – Got a Secret, Can You Keep It?

It had been a full week since Draco had been brought to The Burrow and put under the care of Hermione Granger. A full week where he had been questioned mercilessly by her two companions and by everyone else that stepped through the front door of the house. A full seven days since he had seen the outside world. A full seven days on bed rest. Not just bed rest, but completely bed ridden.

"I don't suppose there's anyway you are going to allow me to get up and shower?" he asked as Hermione walked into the room carrying a bucket of warm water and a sponge. "I know I'm not supposed to stand or get these cast things wet, but surely there are spells for that. I can sit in the tub and you can put a spell on the casts so they repel the water. I know you're capable."

"I am capable. But you must have forgotten. We're not actually old enough to be doing magic. I would much rather have to go through the misery of bathing you personally than being expelled from school. So if you don't mind, could you please shut up and let me get on with it." The sponge dropped into the bucket with a loud plop and Malfoy had to stifle his groan. "What now?"

The entire week that he had been in her care she had been slowly losing her temper with him. It seemed no matter what she did he found something to complain about. Not that this was surprising, but she had hoped that by now he would have just realized that there was nothing they could do if he wanted to survive. "Can I wash myself instead?"

"You can't even more your arms," Hermione exclaimed with an exasperated look on her face. Draco's eyes were downcast and he softened his voice as though chastised.

"Please, Granger."

It was to be the first time that he would be washed by a sponge instead of a wand and he was turning it down. She couldn't understand what had made the boy who was usually so vain about his appearance decide that looking his best could wait as long as it meant that the Gryffindor wouldn't be the one washing him. "Fine. I'll go get Professor Snape. He wanted to talk to you anyway."

He listened to her walk down the stairs and then another set of footsteps walk back up the stairs, these ones far heavier than the previous. "Hello, godfather," he replied when the dark figure came to stand in the doorway. "She said you wished to speak with me?"

"I do. But first may I ask why it is that you do not wish to be washed?"

Draco's normally pale skin turned a pretty pink color as he once again looked at his lap. Trying to find the words he finally settled on asking his godfather a question instead. "Have you ever had a girl your age give you a sponge bath?"

"So you're embarrassed? That's highly unusual." The man's deep timbre held none of its usual bite and instead just sounded tired. There had been another meeting last night for both the Order and the Death Eaters and the tall man had been present at both. It must have been exhausting being a spy for both the dark and the light.

"Well this is a highly unusual situation," Draco snapped. Sighing he straighten his back as well as he could without hurting himself and met the black eyes of his godfather. "I'm not embarrassed of her seeing me, if that's what you're thinking. I just.. I received a letter before the ceremony." His voice trailed off as he thought about what to tell the man who had been a better father to him than his own. Were it any other letter he would have told the man all about it, but he also knew what could happen if the wrong people found out about the future.

"Are you speaking of the letter that I retrieved from your bed?" After a curious look from the blonde, Professor Snape continued with what he was saying. "The letter that claimed to be from the future, addressed to you from yourself? I saw it under your pillow when I went to gather your possessions and brought it with you. It should be in the pocket of the pants your wore here."

"Yes, that letter. Did you read it?"

"I didn't feel it was my place to read such a letter."

Draco let out a relieved breath and then shrugged. The man already knew about the letter, and from what he could tell it wasn't as if anything other than the first part was going to be able to come true anyway. He doubted that the Golden Trio would ever allow him to become one of their companions and he doubted even more that Hermione Granger in all her infinite wisdom would seek him out in a romantic notion. "I suppose there's no harm in telling you the part that bothers me," he began. He'd read the letter only twice but he already had the important parts memorized. "The letter spoke of my future if I were to continue going on about my path of joining the Dark Lord. It said that my life would be miserable. I would never reach happiness."

Severus Snape waited in silence for his godson to continue his thoughts. He had no doubt that at the very least, that part of the letter was true. Only the truly evil acquired happiness by working for the Dark Lord. Draco had never been one of the truly evil, just misguided. "It also said that by the time I was thirty I would have an eight year old daughter."

When Draco didn't continue for a few moments Severus leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I fail to see what would possibly bother you about that. Is it the fact that you would have a daughter first? The fact that you are not ready to have children? By the sounds of it, it won't happen until you're in your twenties. What bothers you about it right now?"

"Hermione Granger was the mother. Is the mother. I don't even know which tense to use when speaking of it. But thinking of Granger being the mother of my child makes me think about Granger being pregnant, which makes me think about Granger having sex, which makes me think about Granger being naked, which is why I absolutely cannot allow Granger to wash me."

"If you say Granger one more time I am going to permanently silence you and then force her to come in here and wash you," Draco's chest was heaving as Severus looked him in the eye. "You mean to tell me that the reason you don't wish for the girl to do her job and clean you is because you're afraid that you're going to get hard and she's going to notice?"

"That wouldn't bother you?" Draco's voice sounded just on the edge of panic. "She's grown up. I mean, I always knew that we were all growing up since we're obviously the same age, but it's like now that I'm allowed to not hate her she actually looks female. Feminine. It's driving me crazy."

"Oi, what do you think is keeping Snape up there so long?" Ron asked as him, Harry, Hermione and Ginny sat on a couch in one of the rooms that had been cleaned out.

"Who knows. Hopefully he's giving him the bath that I was supposed to give him though. Would you believe that the boy who can't even more his arms asked me if he could wash himself today? Wash himself! And not only that, he actually said please." Hermione crossed her arms in front of her as she leaned back into the cushions, Ginny leaning back with her and resting her head on Hermione's shoulder.

"Maybe he's scared of you seeing him naked," Ginny suggested.

The words were barely out of his sister's mouth when Ron started glaring, his face turning almost as red as his hair. "'Mione will not be looking at him naked. There's no need for it. He'd probably try and seduce her or something which we all know he can do. Hell there are those rumors that he's part veela."

Harry actually laughed at his friend's words and shook his head. "Malfoy is not a veela, Ron, he's merely a pretty boy."

"Pretty is one word for it," Ginny and Hermione said conspiratorially at the same time. They looked at each other and giggled as now not only Ron's face turned red but Harry's started to match it. "Last time I checked pretty is not the word to describe that delectable piece of meat laying in that bed up there." Ginny continued to laugh as her brother and her friend got angrier with every word. "Even Hermione was drooling, which we all know she would never do with a mere pretty boy."

Hermione blushed prettily and punched Ginny in the shoulder. "Shut up, I was not drooling. I was simply assessing his attributes."

"Assessing whose attributes?" asked a voice behind them and they all turned to see the Weasley matron standing there with her hands on her hips. "I doubt that Mr. Malfoy would appreciate the way you girls are talking about him as though he were meat on a slab instead of a misled boy." Hermione blushed harder and even Ginny stopped talking and toned down her smile. "Now if you are finished gossiping, there are still plenty of rooms that need cleaning. Get to it."

The four teenagers stood up from their respective seats and found one of the rooms that had yet to be clean, grabbing one of the buckets that Mrs. Weasley had set out for them and began scrubbing away dust bunnies and cobwebs that were caked on furniture and in corners.

"Do you really think that the girls look at him like that? Or do you think they were just saying that to bother us?" Harry asked Ron wish a frown on his face. His green eyes looked almost hurt as he thought about the girl he had a crush on crushing on a guy like Malfoy. He'd watched her go out with plenty of other guys before and it had always hurt, but never nearly as much as it did to think that she might like someone who constantly picked on her. Was it true that girls always went for the jerks? Wasn't there some exception to the rule where the nice guy got the girl?

"I don't know. But for Malfoy's sake they better have been kidding." Where Harry looked hurt at the thought of his crush liking Malfoy, Ron simply looked angry. The thought of Hermione actually finding anything of value in Malfoy, even if it were purely physical made his skin crawl. There was no way that his Hermione, the girl of his dreams, could find the Death Eater anything but repulsive. He'd see to it.

"No I don't think I would really have to worry about being in such an uncompromising situation with Miss Granger," Snape's lip quirked at the boy in the bed. "You however, are a hormonal teenager and therefore I can see where it may be a bit of a problem. I can give you a potion if you like, so that it won't happen." Draco perked up, his eyes widening as his godfather said this. "There's a downside to the potion, though."

"Please, anything to stop from getting embarrassed around someone who is supposed to be my mortal enemy. I'll do anything. I don't care about the downsides."

Snape thought about shrugging, but he had been raised better. Shrugging was an act of low intelligence, or so his mother had always said. "You may care to hear the downside before jumping to conclusions. It will help you not to be caught in such a position, but only because it will make it impossible for you to get hard at all."

Thinking that that probably wasn't going to be a problem for quite a while, since even when he went back to school he doubted any girls would want to be with him Draco bit his lip. "For how long?"

"About six months. Again though, that's not the problem either."

Not the problem? Six months without the pleasurable feeling that he got when thinking of a woman naked. Six months without there being a point to touching himself? Not the problem? Then just what the bloody hell was the problem?

"Alas, the problem is when the potion wears off. Your libido will go into.. hyperdrive, if you will. You'll be insatiable for a while."