Thank you again, all those who have read and/or reviewed. Much appreciated.
8thMay 1998
Draco studied his team. It had been a hard choice, deciding how many and who to take on this first mission when they were so few to begin with. It had even been hard to decide where to try first, and they'd argued for hours about who was likely to be hiding where, and the most valuable people to get first. Eventually, he and Theo had decided that had they been doing this without the girls, they'd have started at the Weasley's Wizard Weezes shop in Diagon Alley as one of the most obviously Light locations. And, Theo had pointed out bluntly, if anything had hinted that they had inside help, they'd be dead in seconds. Finally, Hermione had asked if, assuming they found them, they'd rather have the Weasley twins working with them or against them. This decision being made, Ginny had then insisted she should go.
"Neither you nor Hermione is going anywhere," Draco had responded, beginning to lose his temper. "You're dead, you fucking idiot! You can't go trotting down Diagon Alley, and Hannah's in no state to do anything yet."
"Katie hasn't got a wand!" Ginny had argued. "Can't we wait until the polyjuice is ready, and then I can go with you as Katie? They're my brothers!"
"No, because if we wait a month to move then we're still dead!" Theo shot back, over Katie's indignant protest of,
"And my boyfriend!"
The youngest Weasley had eventually subsided, scowling, and handed her wand over to Katie, it being a better fit for her than Hermione's. Katie claimed that the last time she'd seen her own wand it had been in the hands of Goyle senior, and Draco had added a note to one of their plans to retrieve them. After all, Katie and Hannah were unlikely to be the only wandless refugees.
And now it was the morning of the first hit, less than a week after the battle at Hogwarts. Draco and Theo were wearing Death Eater robes in the library of Nott Manor. Katie was wearing plain black robes with the Malfoy crest embroidered on the breast, and sporting an impressive bruise on the side of her face which she'd appeared with the previous evening.
"It looks more authentic," she'd said, in answer to their gobsmacked expressions. "I'm a whore now, remember? No one who knows me is going to accept that I let Draco have me without a fight, and you never know who we might run into."
"What did you do?" Hermione had demanded, springing forward to inspect the injury.
"Smacked my face off the bedpost," the other girl explained, and Draco and Theo had exchanged incredulous glances at the stupidity of Gryffindors. Now she held out her hand, and Draco placed a magical bond between her wrist and his. Hermione, Ginny and Hannah stood back, surveying them.
"Head down, Katie. Look broken. That's better," Ginny said. There was a long pause.
"Let's do this?" Draco said nervously. He and Theo straightened up, their faces losing all emotion and assuming perfect pureblood facades before he stepped into the Floo, dragging Katie behind him. Theo stalked in after him, and the three girls with one accord sat down to wait.
Emerging into Diagon Alley, the two men strolled up it together, nodding greetings to others as they passed them.
"Draco!" a voice called, and they turned to see Marcus Flint bearing down on them, towing a terrified and exhausted looking Susan Bones. Susan was still wearing the clothes she'd had on during the battle, though there were no buttons left on her school blouse and her legs were bare. Her hufflepuff tie bound her wrist to Flint's and she was trying desperately to hold the scraps of fabric around her as she almost ran behind him. Draco curled his lip at the sight of her.
"Really, Flint," he drawled. "Have a bit of respect, would you? She could be the mother of your fucking heir, arsehole. Look!" he pushed Katie forward displaying the Malfoy emblem on her robes. "Clearly mine, but only mine – I'm not displaying her charms to the entire street." Flint chuckled as Theo unfastened his heavy wool cloak and wrapped it around Susan, who looked up at him in surprise.
"She used to help me in Runes," he said off-handedly. "And frankly, I don't want to see her naked in Diagon Alley. You're an arsehole, Flint." Marcus Flint ignored this, focussing on Katie.
"Is that the bitch that used to chase for Gryffindor?" he asked, grabbing Katie's hair and pulling her head up. "Nice one, Malfoy. Where's your pet, Nott?" Theo made an annoyed noise.
"Stupid cow hasn't stopped crying over fucking Longbottom yet," Susan's head shot up at the name and she glared at Theo, who tried to ignore her. "To be honest if she doesn't pick up her game soon I'll send her to be part of the entertainment at the next revel. The noise gets on my nerves." Flint nodded in agreement and fell into step beside them as they made their way down the street.
"Where are you going today, anyway?" he asked.
"We got a job, remember?" Draco asked, sounding bored. "We thought we'd make a start and check the obvious places. Heading up to the shop that the Weasley balls used to own." Flint chuckled again at the name.
"I'll come with you," he said agreeably. Katie felt rather than saw the tensing of Draco's muscles under his robe, but he merely shrugged.
"If you want," he replied easily.
They approached the front of the shop first. The door was lying open and the windows were smashed. Looking round, it was immediately obvious the access to the flat from here was blocked by a large shelf unit which was lying in front of the door. Theo led them to the back and into the storage areas. From there, they had been informed, a staircase led up to a door in the kitchen of the flat.
"Watch yourself, Theo, the arseholes have probably booby trapped it," Draco said warningly. Theo nodded and, following Ginny's advice, pressed himself against the right hand wall of the staircase as they began their ascent. Draco and Katie imitated him. Flint, without their prior knowledge, started up the middle of the stairs and within three steps had enveloped himself and Susan in a cloud of Peruvian Instant Darkness powder. Katie stopped dead, countered the binding spell tying her to Draco, dived back into the cloud and felt around blindly until she encountered Flint. Pointing Ginny's wand in the right direction, she whispered
"Stupefy!" and was rewarded by a thump and a scream from Susan. "Susan, this is Katie!" she said hastily. "Stay still, we're here to rescue people. We'll take you too. Don't worry about Draco and Theo, they won't hurt you, I swear." Her waving hand encountered one of Susan's and she dragged the other girl up out of the darkness. Susan was shaking violently and Theo gave her a concerned glance.
"Can you hold it together until we're done, or should we stun you and wake you up when we're home?" he asked bluntly. "We've neither the time nor the ability to carry passengers." For answer, Susan turned back to the dissipating Darkness and removed Flint's wand from his pocket.
"Lead on," she said shakily.
"Now that we're shot of him, Katie, take the lead. They're less likely to hex you first and ask questions later," Draco ordered quietly, pulling Susan in behind him. Katie slipped past Theo and, still clinging to the right hand wall, made it to the top of the stairs.
"Put your wands on the top step and back down the stairs," a voice said at that point. Katie raised an eyebrow.
"George Weasley, if you dare threaten me again I swear to Merlin when this is over I'll take out an advert in the daily prophet and tell everyone what happened the first time you asked me out. And don't hex my colleagues either." There was a long pause.
"Katie?" the voice asked. "What's going on?" The door opened, revealing George. He took in the scene in front of him and lunged forward, aiming for Draco.
"Stu-" he began, before collapsing to the floor as Katie hit him with a body bind hex.
"I told you not to hex my colleagues," she sighed, exasperated, stepping over him and allowing Theo to drag him into the flat. "Anyone else here?" she called out. A scuffle in one of the bedrooms attracted her attention and she entered to find Oliver Wood standing protectively between the door and the bed.
"Olly, it's me," she said urgently, and then ducked the hex that he sent at her. "Oliver!"
"Katie?"
"Yes! Merlin, Olly, stop fucking cursing me!"
"What are you doing?"
"Saving you," she returned briskly. He shook his head.
"You're wearing Malfoy robes, Katie! I'm not an idiot!" He turned his wand on her again, just as a bolt of red light hit him in the back and he fell forward.
"Done," Draco said briskly. "One in a body bind, one stunned, and Susan – not a bad haul, though I could have done without gaining another Weasley. What have we got here?" Katie was staring into the bed, her face pale.
"Lee, and Colin," she said, her hand resting against Lee's still face. Draco paused.
"That makes things easier," he said shakily. "Listen, you take the others back to Theo's, and we'll do what needs to be done here."
"What are you going to do?" she demanded. Draco shook his head.
"You don't want to know. Death Eaters, remember? We'll do what we need to so we can avoid detection, you know that. Your boyfriend will lose his flat, I can tell you that. Go on, Katie, we haven't got long!" Katie stumbled out of the room, crying freely now, and seized Susan with one hand and George's prone figure with the other. Susan grabbed Oliver, and Katie managed to choke out,
"Theo!"
The boy, looking clinically detached in his Death Eater robes, came towards them and gripped Susan's shoulders.
"The phoenix is rising at Nott Hall," he said firmly. Susan blinked then nodded as Theo repeated the information to the two figures on the floor, and Katie immediately disapperated.
Draco and Theo went to work at once and by the time they'd left the flat some time later, Theo carrying a rather distasteful package, both were feeling rather ill. Draco finished up by casting several incendio spells and they watched until the flat was burning furiously before melting into the crowd of Diagon Alley residents who were rushing to put it out.
They had, before starting the fire, hauled the unconscious Flint into an alley and they now revived him.
"What…what happened?" the man asked.
"Ambush," Theo replied instantly. "Bloody Weasleys had something set up on the stairs – as soon as that Darkness Powder appeared, we couldn't see a thing. Someone must have got you with a stunner. I don't know what happened to Bones. She must have apparated."
"Bitch took my wand!" Flint raged, checking his pockets frantically. "What did you do to the Weasleys?" Draco looked up at the flames billowing out the flat and Flint laughed.
"Good riddance," he said. "Now, I'm going to have to go and buy myself a new wand. Add that little bitch to your list, would you, boys? I want her fucking dead!"
"Consider it done," Theo agreed easily. "Now, if you'll excuse us, we should report back." They left Flint, still swearing over his lost wand, and disapparated straight from the alley to the gates of Malfoy Manor.