Disclaimer: I do not own any characters or ideas which you recognise as being from JK Rowling's Harry Potter series. The plot of this story is my own, but I have no intention of making any money from it.

Chapter 3

Harry began to outline the plan.

"As you've heard, Malfoy Senior wasn't exactly over the moon about his son's sexuality. But we think that rather than a deep-set homophobia, that was more due to fear of what it would do to the family name."

"So, Harry and I have been working together to come up with a plan." Malfoy took over the story. "When he, or rather his alter-ego Sam White, came out last week, Father asked me to use this to gain increased publicity for his campaign, as we thought he would. A Malfoy never lets an advantage slip, and he sold it to the Flobberworm for me."

Harry smiled apologetically. "That's why the sudden announcement in all the papers last week, rather than coming out when I admitted it to you lot over a year ago. We were waiting for an opportune moment, and Draco needed to gauge how his father would react. Thanks to Ernie's fabulous media manipulation skills, Lucius Malfoy is convinced that the Muggle world is completely accepting of homosexuality, and that it will help boost his campaign profile to have his son come out of the closet. Particularly if he's dating a celebrity. Since even the Flobberworm doesn't have quite enough followers to personally Imperius every Muggle on polling day, Malfoy needs to win legitimately, even if he then goes on to destroy the Muggle government from within."

It was Hannah Abbott who spoke next. "You mean... you're dating Draco Malfoy?"

Harry smiled mirthlessly. "Not yet."

"Next week, there is a ball being held at the Manor. For Muggles. Such a thing has never happened before," Malfoy did not look entirely pleased about the notion, and his voice was distasteful as he explained. "Father has invited all serving MPs and Lords, all potential business backers for his campaign, and several high-profile celebrities to add a bit of showbiz glamour."

Hermione interjected. "Yes, I got that invitation. I wasn't sure if it was wise to go, however – it was one of the items on the agenda for this evening. Hannah, Susan and Ernie are also on the guest list." There was a round of nods.

Malfoy continued. "Well, as of three days ago when my father discussed the idea with the Flobberworm, Harry and Weasley are also invited. Of course, so are almost all of Flobberworm's Ice-cream Eaters – a possibly even more ridiculous euphemism – under strict orders not to do any lasting damage to the Muggles and hence jeopardise the Cause, of course, but there to keep an eye out for any intruders.

"At this party, I have been ordered to meet 'Sam White', gain his trust, and become his boyfriend within the next few weeks. This will give my father the publicity he needs, and pacify some of the liberal Muggle opponents who feel that his hard-line conservative stance on issues such as education and prison reform is dangerous. There's only so many confundus charms which can be cast to make political opponents say stupid things, you know."

"Okay," said Susan Bones. "I understand, but why do you need us for this?"

"Well, the increased publicity which this will bring will almost certainly help Malfoy win the election in July," Harry stated. "Which we need him to do."

"What?" Ron looked indignant. "I thought we'd just spent two years trying to limit his power in Muggle politics!"

"That is true," said Harry, "but we have new intelligence. We've learned that the Flobberworm sees the winning of this election as a new start, as it were. He's been terrorising the Wizarding World for a decade, but though he is Minister for Magic, he is rarely seen outside, deputising torture to Rodolphus and Bellatrix Lestrange. That has made it difficult to get at him.

"But after the election, Flobberworm sees himself as setting up the new order, in the way he always intended – Wizards ruling Muggles. He will come out of hiding, because he thinks that we have all died or given up magic in the intervening time, and believes himself safe. The announcement of this new order is to come at the moment that word reaches Malfoy campaign HQ of his victory. Flobberworm will stand up, make a speech about his brilliance and that of his followers, then declare a new era for the UK."

"Which means," said Hermione slowly, "that for the first time, we have intelligence of where precisely the Flobberworm will be and at what time. And it's a place which we can all get into without too much suspicion being aroused."

"Exactly. And that's when we take him down."

"Merlin, Harry," murmured Susan. "That's brilliant. I can't quite believe that you came up with that all by yourself."

"Well," Harry gave a sidelong grin. "Draco wasn't completely useless."

Draco raised an eyebrow. "You mean, it was all my idea."

"That is one way of putting it, I suppose. But anyway, we're informing you of this now because we need your help, and Hermione's strategic brilliance, to know how to put this plan into action."

As one, all heads in the room turned to the brunette. Without a word, she used her wand to conjure a whiteboard across the tabletop, and used the wine goblets which Ernie transfigured into pens and handed to her wordlessly to begin drawing a mind map.

"Okay," said Harry. "While she's doing that, I'll just bring Draco up to date on how we work. Take a seat."

Looking slightly uncomfortable, Malfoy sat down between Hannah and Seamus.

"So, as you know, we all live entirely in the Muggle world, because of the Ministry's monitoring of floo and portkeys. We meet every second Wednesday, at five past eight in the evening. The place varies – Ron and I decide on it the day before, then we use Ernie's newspaper, The London Crier, to dispense the info in the crossword."

Malfoy looked impressed. "You own a newspaper?"

"Yup." Ernie looked proud. "Outside of here, I'm Fred Jameson, owner of the largest free daily newspaper in the capital, and several other tabloid titles."

"So yeah," Harry continued after a slight pause, "We use Ernie's crossword to tell each other the information – twenty across for eight pm, five down for five past. For example, today was Habibi sushi, and clue twenty across was Arabic darling, Habib; clue five down was Japanese cuisine or something like that, i.e. sushi. Before you leave today I'll show you the list of fifteen which you can memorise, though when we're pretending to date, it shouldn't be a problem because we have a legitimate reason to spend time together so I can just tell you. How's your Occlumency?"

Malfoy looked nonplussed at the sudden change of subject. "Excellent. I had to learn in order to keep the Flobberworm out when I started betraying him. My godfather taught me."

A shudder went round the room at the mention of Snape, but Harry continued regardless.

"Good. We all have extremely good Occlumency skills here – we've been practicing for over ten years. Don't want any of this accidentally leaking out our heads to the Ice-cream Eater on the street. We also have a monthly meet up to practice magic and duelling, so we can be ready for the final battle. That's the first Sunday of every month -"

"Excuse me," interrupted Hannah shyly. "But don't you think we'd better move it up to weekly? I mean, if you want the final battle to be in six months time..."

"She's right," agreed Neville. "This will get nasty – it's not going to be a clean assassination."

Harry looked round. "Sounds like a good idea to me. Any objections?"

No one round the table said a word, and Hermione waved her hand in vague assent, still furiously writing.

"Very well, that's carried. Training sessions every Sunday, 10 am at my house in the cellar. There are various entrances to that, all across Surrey, and everyone takes a different route. As my boyfriend, I think I could probably stretch to letting you in the front door." The last bit was said with a smirk. "I think that's about it – good thing too, because I'm getting very sick of the sound of my own voice."

Draco Malfoy nodded slowly. "That all seems to make sense, and I see that you've taken precautions everywhere. But I don't quite understand the extreme lengths you've gone to – I mean, not one of you has the same hair colour as at school... excepting Granger, and she looks so different without the bush on her head that no one'd notice anyway... and you let some Muggle quack mess with your scar, Potter? Why wouldn't just changing names have done? Flobberworm was hardly going to expect you to go Muggle."

Ron, who had bristled slightly at the attack on Hermione, said "Watch it, Ferret."

Surprisingly, it was Neville Longbottom who explained. "It's Hermione's plan. When Dumbledore died, and we lost the Battle of Hogwarts and Flobberworm put Snape in charge, it became clear that the Wizarding world was all but lost – the Order (we can't say its full name because Flobbers monitors) lost so many members that there was no way for them to rebel. Dumbledore had left nothing behind which we could use against them – I think he expected Harry to be able to defeat Flobberworm immediately – his diaries had something about the power of love - "

"Raving old loon," muttered Hermione, still scribbling. Malfoy raised an eyebrow – he hadn't remembered her being so reactionary in school.

"Anyway," Neville continued. "Hermione came up with a new plan, a more long-term approach. Those members of the Order who were too old and entrenched in magic, like McGonagall and Sprout, or too recognisable, like Hagrid or Flitwick, or who just couldn't leave the magical world for one reason or another, like Remus Lupin, moved to safe houses outside the UK. Only Hermione knows where they are, because she arranged the move by Muggle transport before any of us knew this world well enough. None of us have been in contact with them since.

"Those of us who were young enough to do so went Muggle, changing our names and our appearances to try and blend in as far as possible. We severed all ties except with each other, and the only time we use magic is at these meetings. Harry snapped all our wands immediately, and got new black market unregistered ones from Mundungus Fletcher. That meant we could still do magic, even though we were underage, because these wands aren't on Ministry records.

"Like Harry said, we did our best to get as high up in our respective fields as possible. Hermione got us new backgrounds and false papers as Muggles, but added five years onto each of our ages, so according to them, we're in our early thirties. It's not as hard as you might think to swap worlds when you get used to it. We've been trying to keep track of what's being going on by building up intelligence networks across both the wizarding and muggle UK – Harry's in charge, he has the final say on everything and he's the only one who knows everything about who our contacts are and stuff. Hermione puts together most of the plans. Muggles don't know that we're all friends – except Harry and Ron, of course, their friendship is legendary in Muggle tabloids. Hannah and Susan often meet at conferences. Erm," he suddenly seemed to realise the extent of his monologue. "That's about it, really."

Susan looked grave. "As DA members who fought at the battle of Hogwarts, we were all at the top of Flobberworm's hit list. To save our families, we had to send them into hiding abroad and change ourselves – we've sacrificed the magical world for survival."

Malfoy looked grave, and inclined his head at them both. "Let's make that sacrifice worth it."

Hermione's head suddenly shot up from the whiteboard. "I think I've got a plan."

She motioned for everyone to look down at the table. They examined what looked like some kind of complex scribble, with interconnecting lines drawn and arrows everywhere, too messy to make head or tail of.

"Erm, Mione," said Ron. "Would you like to explain it to us instead?"

There were various sighs of relief.

"Right," she began. "Firstly, we need to make sure that Malfoy wins this election. Neville, Colin, Ernie, that's your job. Neville, use your NUS contacts to make sure that the majority of students in this country vote Malfoy, Colin, start making sure that the blogosphere is singing his praises. Ernie, same thing. Positive press, and keep Harry and Draco's relationship in the news, just like you've done with Harry and Ron's celebrity in the past.

"Next, Hannah, Susan. Make sure that at the party next week you make it clear that you intend to financially support the Malfoy campaign – he'll like that. Do whatever you have to to keep gathering intelligence on who is supporting Malfoy – we'll need to know that to prepare properly for election night and its aftermath.

"Seamus, you've been famously reactionary against the UK and the government in the past – we can't have you supporting Malfoy directly, it would look odd. Instead, you need to use business trips to go to the addresses that I will give you, find the Order members in hiding, and tell them to prepare for battle. I'll give you a place in France where you can tell them to meet – don't give them any actual details of the plan, obviously, in case anyone's turned in the past ten years. We'll portkey everyone at once to Malfoy HQ on election night – even though the Ministry'll be watching, by that point it should cease to matter, because even if they pick up on where the destination is when they check the records the next morning, we'll have hopefully got rid of Flobberworm by then."

"Harry and Draco, you've got your roles – make sure you're gathering info from all the Ice-cream eaters you meet and all the Malfoy campaign members too. Ron, you need to keep being a celebrity, and getting into all the Malfoy parties. As Harry's best mate, Draco can probably wangle you an invitation to most – keep your ear to the ground and gather the info which they can't because they have to be seen to be together. Is that clear everyone, or should I run over it again?"

Everyone suddenly remembered why they had called her Know-It-All in school. Hermione's propensity for dispensing information by talking really fast appeared undiminished.

Harry looked around. "I think that's clear?" A series of nods. "Good, then let's get to work. I think we'll cancel training this Sunday, since the Malfoy thugs, sorry Draco darling-" the Malfoy rolled his eyes "- will probably watching my house before the ball next week, to make sure I'm not consorting with liberals – better safe than sorry. Seamus, Neville, Colin, good luck until our next meeting. I'll see the rest of you next Friday at the Malfoy ball."