Disclaimer:In case you have been living in a cave on mars with your fingers in yours ears for the last ten years or so; JK Rowling owns Harry Potter and all terms and characters associated with the fandom. I only own the story, some characterisations and an occasional OC, I try to limit them as much as possible. Some lyrics may crop up now and then and will be attributed as appropriate.

Chapter 20 - The 'Feel Good' Revolution

"I don't care where we are going
as long as I'm going with you
the summer swells in
with the heat comes a new kind of wanting
cool nights never cooled us off
lay around and wait for something to happen
when it is three lonely figures
a bedroom, a basement, she is scared
which one is sleeping and which one is lying awake?
which one is sleeping and which one is lying about it?...


The girl always gets in the way
ruined friendships but others replace them
these opinions are poison

I have been drinking them all of my life
I could never replace you
and I could never forget what its like
step out on a moonlit roof
the radio leads a feel good revolution
cigarettes and my closest friends

I tell myself that I have to remember this
I have to remember this"

Bright Eyes

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"You know, I heard about this, but I didn't believe it." He smirked. "I told them; don't be so fucking stupid. But now, that I see you here, I have to say that this is possibly both the most tragic and delicious thing I have ever had the pleasure to witness."

"Nott?!" Draco could barely believe his eyes, he was really seeing the son of Darius Nott stood in front of him.

"I am glad to see that your eyesight hasn't failed you." Theodore Nott said, a broad smirk painted across his lips. "However it seems that the company you keep has vastly improved." He nodded his head in the direction of Hermione.

"What?" If it was possible for Draco to be anymore confused at this point, he'd wager his head would explode. "But, you're... You're father..."

"Myfather is the Dark Lord's right hand man, not me." Nott started to move across the room, coming closer to where Draco was standing. "From what I heard you're pet Bear, telling Frobisher, then you should know more than most that you do not always agree with what is preached to you from your parents."

"So you're working for the resistance?" Draco said slowly, being sure to enunciate each word carefully.

"Actually Malfoy, I am leading them." Said Nott with a smirk. "Well, with Victoria."

Draco brought his hand up to his head. Everything he thought he knew was wrong, his world seemed like it was falling apart. Not only was his best friend working with the resistance, but he was working with Theodore Nott. In school, they hated him, they would play all sorts of pranks of him and go out of their way to make his life a misery.

"Now, we have a slight problem." Nott said, drawing Draco's attention back to him. "Big, Bald and Black might think that just because he's given us a few bits of information and helped move certain muggleborns into positions where we can help them, it gives him the right to walk in here whenever he wants and start dictating what we're going to do." Nott smirked a little, moving back to the doorway. "This is not the case, I'm afraid I am not going to give the ok on this little operation until I am sure you can be trusted to keep your mouth shut. If you're not, we might have to look at Obliviation. And I know that 'ole Blaisey might have threatened upon pain of very literal death, that we were not to do it to your father, but strangely, he forgot to mention anything about you."

"So, what exactly are you going to do?" Draco said.

"I'm going to send a few people to have a nice chat with you." Nott smirked. "Don't worry, you'll probably find it very painless." Nott turned, stepping outside the door to leave, before turning his head and looking back into the room. "Dinner will be served promptly at Eight." He smiled at Hermione, then shut the door to the room, the sound of his footsteps disappearing down the corridor.

Draco stood staring at the closed door, he wasn't sure if he could take anymore surprises that day. He heard Hermione coming up behind him, then her hand coming up to his shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. "I am fine, Granger." He said.

"I know you are." She said. "But I'm worried."

He turned around, facing her. "About me? I assure you, there really is no need."

"I'm not worried about you, Draco." Hermione said, looking up at him. "I'm worried about what's going to happen. To us."

"What do you mean?" Draco was interrupted by a soft knocking at the door. Both he and Hermione turned their heads to see the door becoming ajar and a face peering round.

"Is it ok for me to come in?"

Draco nodded his head, a petite girl with long Black hair, half of it hanging over her face, entered the room. It took a few moments for him to realise where he knew her from, he barely recognised her, but hidden behind the hair, he could just make out the features of her face. "Hello, Su." He said, offering her a small smile.

"Hello." She said in reply. "Theodore said I should come and talk to you. He said that I might be the best person to explain about how things work around here."

"I see." Draco said. He looked to Hermione for a moment and took hold of her elbow. He guided her towards the bed and sat down, pulling her down next to him, for reasons unclear to Hermione until Su moved across the room and sat cross-legged in front of them, pulling her hair from her face and tucking it behind her ear. Her hair out of the way, Hermione could clearly see the dark red and angry looking scars across Su's face, the obvious trademarks of a werewolf attack.

"I owe the people here my life." Su began, her head tilted down a little, looking at the floor. "After I had been wrongly identified as a muggleborn, Blaise had tried to help me by taking to your house, as you know..."

"You mean...?" Hermione asked, looking to Draco.

"Yes." He answered. "This is the person who was going to be living in our house."

Hermione pressed her lips together and looked back to Su, this could quite easily have been her had fate not twisted itself in her favour.

"I ended up in Bellatrix Lestrange's house instead." Su said, with a look in Draco's direction that made him feel slightly more than uncomfortable about his aunt. "The beatings and abuse were nothing compared to what happened with him. After..." she swallowed a little, it was hard even now she knew that she was safe to say his name. "...Greyback attacked me, Victoria managed to get me out, with Blaise's help of course." Su smiled a little. "It was Victoria who brought Blaise to us, she said he could be trusted to help. I believe her because if it wasn't for him, I might have just been recycled into another household. Or worse..." She said, knowing that she could have quite easily have ended up being taken to Fenrir Greyback's pack. The stories she had heard about what he did to young girls like her still plagued her nightmares.

"Su, I am very sorry about what happened to you." Draco began. "But I don't see..."

"What it has to do with you?" Su interrupted.

Draco nodded his head. "Yes."

"I can understand that it might be hard for you to see. But what He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has done to our world, it's just wrong." Su looked up, looking hard into Draco's grey eyes. "Take someone like her..." She Said, pointing to Hermione. "She's intelligent and skilled, I'll bet that she could outmatch half the purebloods working in the ministry if she had her wand back. But under his regime, she's doomed to live a life of slavery. And for what? Because of the one thing no one can control, who her parents are."

Draco swallowed, he was finding the conversation growing more uncomfortable by the second, everything that had been drummed into him since he was a child was suddenly coming into question and he didn't like it. "Yes, but..."

"But nothing!" Su said, standing up, determined to prove her point. "How would you feel if someone else had taken over the ministry and said; From now on, all Black wizards are not equal and they must become slaves to white wizards - ? How would you feel about yourbest friend being told that?"

"But that's different." Draco said. "That's just skin colour, Blaise couldn't help..."

"Being Black?" Su said. "It's just blood, Draco. It's all just blood." Su un-tucked the hair from her ear, letting it swing back in front of face. "Maybe you should think about that, Blaise can see it, you might learn something about yourself." Su turned on her heels and walked towards the door, reaching it, she took one last look at the pair sat on the bed, before leaving the room, leaving Draco to contemplate what she had just said to him.

"What are you going to do, Draco?" Hermione asked.

Draco looked to Hermione. "I can't... My family, we're purebloods, you don't understand what it's like to grow up in that environment."

"Can I ask you something?" She said, looking at Draco.

"Sure."

"Do you agree with the way that Voldemort is running the country? Everything he is doing, from the muggleborn servitude to the marriage laws."

"Well..." Draco began. "OK, I don't agree with everything but..." He sighed, looking into her eyes. "Hermione, I can't."

"Why not?"

"I don't have a choice in this, it goes against everything I've ever been taught." He said.

"That sounds like a very hollow excuse, Draco." She shook her head a little. "In fact it sounds like you don't even believe it yourself, you're just repeating what you've always been told to say. You always have a choice, Draco."

Draco looked down at his hands for a moment, then looked back to Hermione. "I don't know what I am going to do." He leaned over, putting his head in her lap. He was so confused about everything, Blaise, his father, everything he had ever been taught to believe. He just needed a little bit of comfort at that moment, he felt Hermione's hand on top of head, starting to gently stroke his hair. It was comforting.

"Well, I can't decide for you, Draco." Hermione said. "I can only tell you what I know."

"And what's that?" He asked.

"I think..." She began, her hand pausing for a moment, then beginning to stroke his hair again. "I know, that I have feelings for you. And I think you have them for me too..."

Draco turned his head in her lap, looking directly up at her. This was, bushy haired, buck-toothed, know-it-all, mudblood, Hermione Granger. But if he hated her, then why was seeking comfort from her now? And why had he sought comfort in her arms? He had a very horrible feeling that it had gone beyond a casual attraction. "I'm not good with feelings..." He said.

"I think you are." Hermione said. "I think you're just not good at talking about them."

She smiled at him.

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The next morning...

Draco awoke, a little disorientated at first as to where exactly he was, till he cracked open his eyes and looked around the drab room in the resistance building. He groaned a little, remembering what had happened the day before and how he had landed himself in this situation. He down at looked Hermione, still asleep and curled around him. Her head nestled against his chest, her small arm tucked around his waist and one of her legs had tied itself around his. In spite of himself, he smiled.

The door to the room cracked open, Draco looked to the light that was now spilling in and he saw Blaise's dark figure in the doorway. Draco pressed a finger to his own lips, signalling for Blaise to be quiet as he carefully un-hooked Hermione and slipped out of the bed without waking her up. He picked up his trousers which had been left in a crumple on the floor and pulled them on over the top of his boxer shorts before walking across the room. "Mornin'. Everything ready to go?"

Blaise smirked a little and shook his head. "Nearly. First off, as promised, here is your wand." He pulled Draco's wand from his pocket and handed it to him.

"Thanks mate." Draco said in a hushed voice. "It did not feel right without this." He smiled, tucking his wand into the back of his trousers. "So, what's second off?"

"Well, I came to tell you the real plan, I don't want you to be out of the loop when it all goes down." Blaise said.

"What do you mean, the real plan?" Draco replied, scratching the back of head, trying to repress a yawn.

"You don't think I told this lot what was really going to happen do you?" Blaise gave a quiet laugh. "Don't be so soft, it's going to be so funny. We just have to sort the first part out now, so we don't have problems later."

Draco shook his head and smiled at his friend. "Alright, nut job, just tell me what we're going to do and I might even get the chance to go back to bed."

"Well I thought that would be obvious." Blaise said. "We have to kill Granger."

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Author's Notes:

(Tries to suppress the urge laugh maniacally.)

Okey day, just to address something that I have been asked, the reason that Blaise DID NOT just Obliviate Lucius is basically that neither Blaise nor Draco are very good at memory charms and Blaise wouldn't want to risk doing any permanent damage to Lucius. So, certainly he would not trust the resistance to perform a memory charm on Lucius. He cares about Lucius a lot, both because he's Draco's father and because he's been the only stable male figure in his life. He would rather find a way around using memory charms than risk doing permanent damage to him.

So, what did you guys think? I wants feedback on this one. Even if you hated it, I want to know.

Shoutouts: ImperfectSilver, Fantasygirl26, The Nikster, Jonathan J Strange, Parcheezie, snapefan2007, ascii27, allycat1186 and of course Twiist you all rock. The reviews I get left by people keep me going and encourage me in-between chapters to get off my lazy arse and write, so seriously THANK YOU for letting me know what you think.

Sometimes I get complimented by you guys in such a big way I don't actually know how to thank you properly, so I am planning something in my head that might be a nice way to thank all my loyal readers for their support during the course of this fanfic. Because it's been a long hard road to get here and with all the horrible cliff hangers I keep leaving you with, I think some of the names I have been called have been quite restrained. ;)

So, as always, please R&R

p.s, anyone who spots a typo or a missing word, can you let me know, I've been through it twice, yet I am sure I have missed something.