So it seems that if I post when sleep deprived, you only get half a chapter. Sorry about that. Here are one and a half chapters to make up for it.
Again, thank you all so much for reading!
5thMay 1998
Nott Hall
"Oh, Merlin's fucking balls in a box!" Draco exclaimed. Theo raised an eyebrow as he poured his coffee.
"Something wrong, that you feel the need to descend to such profanity over breakfast?" he asked, his voice heavy with sarcasm. Draco turned the newspaper over.
"Lucius Malfoy appointed Headmaster of Hogwarts". They all read the headline in silence, and then Draco turned the paper back over and skimmed the article.
"Long-respected citizen… board of governors… influence…return out national educational establishment to its former glory and reverse the damage done... fuck! Has he not done enough damage fucking up my life, now they're letting him fuck up every other child in the country?"
"No," Hermione said firmly. Draco stopped abruptly.
"No?"
"No. Because once we win, your father won't be Headmaster of Hogwarts. And Riddle won't be Minister for Magic, and Rodolphus-fucking-Lestrange," she paused to glare at Ginny as the redhead's eyebrows almost hit her hairline, "Won't be making a mockery of what passes for law enforcement. We will fix this. And we should start fixing it today. Does anyone have a plan?"
"I do," Ginny said, standing up from the table. Her glance collected Draco and Katie as she explained, "I'm going flying. Draco and I already agreed. Theo, where are the brooms?"
"You're going flying?" Hermione almost shrieked. The three Quidditch players left without another word, leaving Theodore with the furious girl.
"Let them go," he said calmly. "We've all been through a lot in the last few days. We all need to relax a bit. Everything will be much easier when it's not so intense. Just watch – today, they'll fly, I'll spend the day in the library and you can… well, you can do whatever you prefer, and tomorrow, we'll plan to take over the world. Just now, I advise you to go and find a book or something. Miffie will want us out of here soon."
Later, after a long shower and a vain attempt at coaxing Hannah out of her room, Hermione found Theo in the library, seated at a large desk. He barely looked up as Hermione wandered among the shelves, examining the book titles. Once she had completed a full circuit of the room, she approached Theo.
"What are you working on?" she asked shyly. He glanced up.
"Wards," he replied briefly.
"For the house? Do you want any help? I had a fairly comprehensive set on our tent when we were on the run… Merlin, I can't believe that was only four days ago." Theo closed his book.
"So in four days you've broken into Gringotts, fought a battle, almost thrown yourself off the Astronomy tower, been rescued by your worst enemy and lost so many friends that I'm amazed the three of you are still going. And I've gone from being a Hogwarts student, fought in the same battle, switched sides and now I'm hosting the resistance. Do you see what I mean about needing to relax?"
"Didn't you lose any friends?" she asked shyly. Theo shrugged.
"Don't really have any – just Draco, and we were more thrown together than anything else. I was never particularly close to the rest. And Blaise Zabini, who I shared a room with at school, but he's disappeared to the continent somewhere to avoid being marked."
"Do you have family?"
"My mother died when I was a child, and my father's not around anymore either. I'm an only child." Hermione looked sympathetic.
"It must be lonely," she said, very softly. Theo frowned.
"I can't say I've ever really thought about it. It just is," he said frankly. Hermione looked slightly off balance.
"Can I help at all with your research?" she asked, changing the subject. After hesitating a few seconds, Theo pushed the book towards her.
"I'm looking for anything that makes people forget this place ever existed," he said. "My working theory is that I can modify Muggle-repelling charms to work on everyone, but I'm not sure what to do about a last failsafe. For example, what happens if someone who has been here years ago apparates in for some reason?" Hermione tapped the end of her quill on her lips thoughtfully.
"Can we set something up so that anyone trying to come in who is not on the approved list ends up in… a potting shed or a broom cupboard or something like that? Then we can deal with them as we see fit, depending on who they are." Theo stared at her for a long minute and then began to laugh. Hermione grinned back at him and they bent back over the book, reading together and occasionally pausing to point something out or make a suggestion. When the others returned from their flying neither of them even noticed, causing Draco and Ginny to exchange intrigued glances.
"What do you think?" Ginny asked. Draco shrugged, and pushed his hair back off his face.
"I don't know. Theo's pretty fucked up after everything that's happened, and Hermione was tortured a few weeks back. Neither of them is exactly mentally stable right now."
"Hermione's tough. And they might be able to help each other. She'll start out looking at Theo like one of her causes, trying to help him, and in the process she'll end up helping herself. Her and Ron would have killed each other. I can see her with Theo… I can see them in a house full of books, researching obscure things, arguing over nothing… having to dig them out the library when I go to visit…"
"And where do you see you?" Draco asked, fascinated by the picture. Ginny sighed.
"I don't know. There's no Harry. I have to re-think everything without Harry, and it's… it's hard. Maybe I'll convince my brothers to let me stay at the Burrow and take over from mum, cooking Sunday lunch and looking after the chickens." She laughed. "Anyway… Hermione and Theo first, no?" Draco nodded.
"Hermione and Theo first."
6thMay 1998
On the third day, after finishing breakfast, Draco marched into the room Hannah and Ginny had been sharing, leaving the door swinging open behind him.
"Abbott, you have to make a decision," he said without any preamble. Hannah, face swollen and tearstained, sat up.
"What?" she demanded.
"You can either stay in here, mourning Longbottom for the rest of your natural life, or you can pull yourself together and get out there and fucking do something about it. Moping is going to get you nowhere. Look at Weasley – you're not the only one who lost her boyfriend. Hers is dead too, Granger's is in a fucking cage until the Dark Lord gets bored of him, and Merlin knows where the fuck Bell's is. Theo and I weren't lucky enough to be in relationships, and right now I'm thinking that was a fucking lucky break.
"There are only six of us, Hannah. Are we doing this with six, or are we doing it with five?" The three girls standing outside cringed at his abrupt tone, anticipating Hannah dissolving into tears and the extra time that would pass before they could convince her to leave the room now. Theo lounged against the wall, watching what he could see of the confrontation with an air of mild interest. There was a long, tense moment of silence, and then they heard Hannah's voice.
"I'm not a great fighter, but I was planning to be a healer when I left Hogwarts. I was working with Madam Pomfrey in sixth year and up until we went into hiding in seventh. I'm not great, but I know the basics and I've got a whole stack of the texts that they use for healer training. I was good enough for Dumbledore's Army until the battle. Can you use a healer?"
With the problem of Hannah solved for the time being, the six revolutionaries gathered around a long table in the middle of the Nott library. Draco took charge.
"OK, before we do anything else, we need to get all our dirty laundry on the table. Yes, Theo and I are Death Eaters. Yes, we were marked. Yes, last week we'd cheerfully have murdered any of you and given it no more thought than how far up the Dark Lord's influence tree your body would have moved us. However, allow me to point out that you'd have killed us with no more thought. So here goes, and this is the only time I'm going to say this.
"I'm sorry. Ginny, Hannah, I'm especially sorry for the detentions I supervised last year, for every curse, for everything. Katie, I am so sorry about the necklace. You know it wasn't meant for you, and I can only tell you that I wasn't thinking straight. I was desperate. I would have tried anything. Hermione… "
"I know," she said calmly. "And for what it's worth, I'm sorry for my part too – including for slapping you and sending in Harry and Ron, polyjuiced, to see if you were the Heir of Slytherin." There was a snort of suppressed laughter from Theo at that, and the atmosphere lightened considerably. Katie held out her hand.
"Shake," she said. Draco obeyed, smiling slightly. Hannah leaned forward.
"I'm still not sure I trust you, but I trust Hermione and she trusts you, so I can work with that," she said honestly. "I accept your apology." Draco's eyes turned to Ginny who held his gaze for a long minute.
"Like Hannah, I don't trust you, and our families have a terrible history," she said slowly. "But… over the last few days, I've been looking at things a bit differently and I'm willing to accept I might be wrong. I'll work with you, because I believe we want the same thing. In time, we will see about apologies and forgiveness." Draco nodded.
"Anyone need an apology from the other Death Eater in the room?" Theo asked flippantly. "I mean, I know I'm not the same level of utter bastard that Malfoy is, but surely I must have done something to someone?" There was silence, broken only by small smiles.
"Seems you're just not evil enough, Theo," Draco smirked. Theo sighed.
"Damn. Must work harder," he said, feigning annoyance. "Now, if all the Hufflepuff crap is out the way, begging your pardon Hannah, can we get on? We're got a world to take over, remember?"
"We do," Draco agreed, and produced several sheets of parchment. "This is the list of the members of the Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore's Army who we know were either not at Hogwarts, or escaped after the battle. Several of these have been captured and I think we have to more or less write them off, possibly with one exception."
"We can't do that!" Katie protested. Draco glared at her.
"We have to! Look around! There are six of us! The prisoners will be in the dungeons of Malfoy Manor, guarded. We don't have the faintest hope of being able to get to them without the Dark Lord realising something is going on. All we can do is hope that by the time we manage to overthrow him, some of them will still be able to be saved."
"Who is the exception?" Hermione asked. Draco looked pained.
"Weasley," he sighed. "Much as I hate to say it, we need his brain. He is, however a problem to be tackled another day. Now, this is the list of known and suspected order safe houses. I've also had you add other locations to the bottom of it where you genuinely don't think there will be people hiding, but that Theo and I can go and pretend to check. We need to work fast. I think we need to aim to have most of the names on this list rounded up by the beginning of next month."
"People have survived in the dungeons of Malfoy Manor for far longer than a month," Theo said, correctly interpreting the girls' unhappy expressions.
"They're all students – hardly any of them are even older than us!" Hermione said, studying the list.
"Most of the older generation are dead," Draco pointed out brutally. "Of those that survive, most are Hogwarts staff and are at Hogwarts. We will approach them nearer the time, but I don't believe that we should fight at Hogwarts this time. It does not lend itself well to combat."
There was a long pause before Hannah spoke, asking the question they all wanted to.
"So where…?" Draco sighed, and said simply
"Malfoy Manor."
Ron Weasley was cold, cramped, starving and filthy. He was also, at the moment, in no inconsiderable amount of pain. He had no idea how long he'd been in this cage, he had no idea how long it had been since he'd last eaten, and at the moment all his concentration was going in to not soiling himself again. The manor – he presumed he was in Malfoy Manor, given the opulence of the surroundings and the plethora of Death Eaters who passed through on a regular basis – was silent, and he guessed it was somewhere in the small hours of the morning. Quite a substantial time until even the earliest risers would be around and he could beg to be allowed out to relieve himself. At the thought, another excruciating cramp passed through his stomach and his over-taxed bladder and he curled into a ball, his pained whimpering hiding the sound of someone opening the door. When he did become aware of the intruder, he jumped violently and immediately lost the control he'd been so carefully exerting, sobbing in disgust and humiliation as a figure heavily robed and hooded, with their face hidden in shadow, loomed over him. The newcomer unlocked the cage.
"Out," a voice said quietly. Ron obeyed, staggering as he stretched his cramped muscles. The visitor began casting spells rapidly and quietly, and Ron flinched before he realised that they were all cleansing and healing charms. "I can't do any more, he'll notice," the voice said after a few minutes. "Here, I brought you food and water as well. Eat quickly, I can't stay long." Some part of Ron appreciated the irony of being told, for once, to eat quickly, and he almost inhaled the bread, chicken and water that his benefactor handed over.
"Who are you?" he asked, when this was done and the unknown figure was clearing any trace of the hurried meal away.
"I can't tell you," the voice said. "It's not safe for you to know. I'll be back tomorrow night. Try and – well, try and hold on. If you behave, they'll have less reason to torture you."
"Thank you," Ron said weakly, his heart sinking as he was herded back into the cage. The figure paused in relocking the door.
"You're welcome," it replied.
At the same time, in Nott Hall, Draco looked carefully around the library, decided it was empty, and slumped forward until his head was resting on the table. As he did so, the door clicked open and firm footsteps entered.
"Do you ever think we're insane?" Theo asked, conversationally. "I mean, here we are, rising stars in the cause that our families have been supporting for generations, we're finally on top, we're finally going to rule the world the way we've always thought it should be run… and we both decide to throw in the towel and change sides. There must be grounds to plead insanity there somewhere."
"I think the whole fucking world is insane," Draco replied, without lifting his head.
"Well, if we're trying to overthrow the Dark Lord, sharing my ancestral home with a bunch of blood traitors and you, my friend, appear to be falling for Ginny Weasley then yes, the world is insane," Theo replied, handing over a glass off firewhisky.
"Don't be ridiculous, she's just lost her parents and her boyfriend," Draco said. Theo shrugged.
"Not her boyfriend, they broke up a year or so ago," he pointed out. "She doesn't seem too cut up about it. And lots of people have lost people. Don't sit there and pretend you won't miss Crabbe – that you're not missing Crabbe."
"And what about the lovely Miss Granger?" Draco demanded, ignoring this and carrying war into the enemies camp. Theo shrugged.
"She's as beautiful as she was at Hogwarts, and she still won't be interested," he replied bluntly.
"She might be."
"No one is ever interested in me. Theodore 'Who?' Nott, remember? Anyway, we've just fought a fucking war – we're still fighting a fucking war! We haven't got time for…"
"Sex?" Draco grinned, looking more like himself. "We've always got time for sex, Theo! What the fuck is the point of the whole thing if there's no sex?" Theo shook his head, finished his drink and left without another word, leaving Draco alone, grinning to himself.