When they made it to the top floor, they were not surprised to find that Malfoy had dropped the Dumbledore act, nor that he was surrounded by his old associates, as well as some that looked like new faces. The expression on his face was similarly nonplussed, though his eyes did some almost imperceptible thing as they passed over Daphne. Everyone had their wands out, but it seemed like they absolutely had to address that point.

"I had expected the rest, but I would have thought someone of your pedigree would know better." He rose from the relaxed, almost flamboyant seated position he had taken and stared down the bridge of his nose. "Even if you had a pet theory or two that went against what I have said, you had to have known who would win this exchange. Potter and his ilk deserve more credit than I thought, and yet, here they are, and here you are, playing along with my games."

"You could never have thought of this yourself," she said. "Even if you did have your usual suspects, someone else-"

"I grew up, Daphne. Is it so hard to believe? It's true that I spent years resting on the family laurels. I grew to despise drawing on those resources, though. As a result, I came up with a completely original plan, using only this abandoned island and some Polyjuice Potion that I brewed myself. I knew that our old Headmaster reappearing out of nowhere would have some sort of reaction, something I could use, and depending on what it was, I could take advantage of the situation. The Death Eaters knew what I was doing, of course, so they were never mixed up in any of this. You really should have looked for their involvement."

"We suspected they were more likely than the Ministry," Harry said. "Daphne actually said it herself, for the record. Don't act like we had a way of looking into what your father was doing. They can't afford to investigate openly, so if they were looking into it, we wouldn't have known."

"I suppose not. How long will that last, though, I wonder?" Malfoy asked, sneering. "Already, we're gaining influence in the government. Fudge can deny it until he's blue in the face, but we've been at it for over a decade and we're not stopping any time soon. You're just dying to know how far gone it is, aren't you Potter? Want to have a guess at how long Amelia Bones and the rest of the blood traitors have left?"

"Not really. I'd rather have a duel."

"You know, I really hate you, but it's refreshing to be able to speak so directly," his old school rival said. "If my father were in an official meeting and someone said half the things to which I have only just admitted, he would have to act like they were absolutely mad. I have wanted for years to gloat in our victory, and for years I feared that I would not have long enough; our plan was too clever- one minute, you would have no idea we were there, and in the next, we would control the whole island and none would be the wiser."

"I'll bet you're grateful, then," Hermione said. "I'd warn you, though, even if you fight us on your own territory, there are only as many of you as there are of us- you didn't reduce our numbers at all with your little games."

"Oh, but did you think that was the point? If I seriously killed one of you with any of the parlor tricks down there, I would have nothing to say about it. The point of the obstacles was to see if you've learned anything."

"You chained up a bunch of innocent people from Skegness to see if we've learned anything?" Michael asked. He had been one of those against there being any lesson to the obstacles.

"Muggles, those whose memories can be modified with no particular consequence, but I suppose. The fact that you arrived here so quickly, however, has me interested. Clearly, enough of you are capable of independent thought, and are not simply drones of your teachers. Allow me to state my case. I liked things as they were at Hogwarts. We did things our way, you did things your way, we had a bit of fun with each other, and everything ended with the term. Umbridge ruined everything, and her death ruined the curse, which was meant to undo everything she accomplished."

Harry was surprised by how he found it hard to know what to make of that argument. It was almost certainly true that there was a curse on Defense Against the Dark Arts, and as long as he had been attending, everything that seemed to have happened as a result of each teacher's tenure seemed entirely confined to that year. Lockhart's name was never mentioned again. Lupin, unfortunately, was forced to retire and have nothing further to do with the school. They were all still out there, of course, but each left the post as if it had been unoccupied.

"Are you saying that you were basically kicked out of the Death Eaters?" he asked after a moment.

"I was never a member. I never wanted to be one. If they win, of course, all the better, but I concern myself with Hogwarts."

He was almost tempted to look back toward Ron who had told him precious little about the school, probably to avoid revealing too much about his purpose there. Instead he stared dead ahead. Was there anything to be gained in their conversation? If he simply attacked instead, would he have the numbers to win without suffering any casualties on their side? What was there to be gained in not simply leaving?

"Perhaps I should be more specific. I want the alumni to take over the school, not those who have nothing to do with it. We'll have all the changes out soon enough."

"You can't expect us to believe you're not working with the Death Eaters," Hermione accused. "What could all this possibly have to do with Hogwarts?"

"Can I expect that you have nothing to do with its Headmaster?" he asked. "In truth, I have no idea whether or not you were convinced by my performance, because it did not, at the end of the day, matter, but at the present I find myself reasonably certain that even though you might find yourself in a similar ideological position to some group of proper adults, they will not really give you the time of day, will they?" He started pacing in front of their group. "I ask you, then, what is all this? Is it nothing more than an extension of your little rebel study group at school?"

"What do you want out of us?" Ron asked. "You can't have set up all that rubbish in the tower-"

"Oh, but could I not?" he asked. Harry wondered when exactly the obstacles were set up, because it seemed like the muggles had all gotten there recently, but at least a large part of it could have been set up long before. What if, then, Malfoy generally used the test as a way of filtering out applicants to whatever group he was forming? What if he wanted to see if they could be a part of it? Why?

"We're not joining forces with you. Hogwarts is important, but if there were something we could do for it, we'd have done it already." If anyone in his own camp was surprised by his saying as much, they took it with a more even stride than someone from the other.

"You ingrate! How could you not see that those who are trusted with little are later trusted with much?!"

"What are you talking-"

"That is enough," Malfoy said, interrupting Ginny. "Allow me to be clear. The school is something of a political battleground. After all, whoever controls it, controls where everyone's children sleep. In order to be allowed to continue there, I had thought that joining the Inquisitorial Squad would give me enough control over the goings on to keep it from entirely falling into the wrong hands, and, I confess, I had thought to push things in a positive direction. The developments that we all saw over the summer holiday have indicated to me that even with my new recruits, taking it over would be impossible."

Harry only shook his head. It was clear that if his old school rival had worked hard at anything, it was building a veneer of respectability to allow him to become a more independent leader of a new group. If the Death Eaters were talking about pulling him out of school unless he accomplished something for them there, then it was unlikely that he made a decision based on insurmountable odds. At the moment, he was just an asset, as he had been for Umbridge. It was not surprising the Ministry had not rewarded him at all for his services.

"Even if you could say that we have some kind of common enemy, you are our enemy," Terry said, almost speaking for him. "It would be one thing if you were some unrelated other party, but we can't make any agreement with the Death Eaters, or associates of theirs, not while you have plans for tossing everyone else aside after the fact."

"If you're not with us, then you are our enemy!" one of the other minions announced. "You're helping the Ministry."

"I suppose you could have such a policy, of total subservience or death," he continued. "If you're saying we don't have the right to not help you, I can only hope you realize the terrifying responsibility of putting yourself at the center of the moral universe. This government has not even started killing everyone who disagrees with it yet, most likely because it would force a fight, but I must say, it looks rather strange for the arbiters of truth and justice to-"

"We're not concerned with being better than them, just seeing them put in the ground," one of the others said. It looked like Malfoy had not instructed them to speak, but most likely he had not impressed upon them the need to let him do the talking.

"Then why exactly do you think we would give a damn about your moral criticism?" Terry asked. "You seem to have completely discounted our entitlement to keep our lives; our lives are just spells for you to send in the direction of your own enemy, and you've threatened to kill us yourselves for not going along with your mad venture. With no concern for being better than your enemy, I can be quite certain that you will not succeed by accident, so you expect that for nothing other than being a more immediate threat-"

"Avada Kedavra," Ginny incanted, hitting the one that spoke last. The others, to their credit, backed up and raised shields from the floor with a surprising lack of hesitation. "I thought I would save us all some time. We can start fighting now, if you like."

It was true that their position had been undermined as much as it possibly could be, and they had already threatened the DA, and at some point would have to realize their only way out was the use of force, and they would be better off striking first. At the same time, it did not look like everyone had reached that conclusion as quickly, so they were all out of position. They were all familiar with the procedure enough that they would spare anyone who looked like the leader, if at all possible, but that was contingent on where they were all positioned.

As Ron seemed to expect them to concentrate their spellfire on his sister, the orders he was calling out were successful in hitting all the targets who were failing to properly shield, minimizing the force of the assault almost immediately. It was entirely possible that the enemy had practiced spells, and it was quite likely that they had studied. That, however, was no replacement for training, and that was no replacement for real experience. Even in the way that they fell he could tell that they had never really fought before, or if they had, it had not been a hard target.

Draco surrendered when there was only one left on his side, a girl from the looks of it, though they were all wearing hoods, so he could only see the faces of those who had fallen already. The witch threw up her hands as well. He looked over at Hermione, who seemed to be trying to cure herself of an odd curse which gave her feathers on exposed areas of her skin.

"Daphne?" he asked. "Can we find out if this is part of their plan?"

"You really just have to look at their faces," she said. Sure enough, Malfoy seemed to be going through an existential crisis. It was almost a waste; he had actually come kind of far in terms of strategy, but that was all that had changed.

"Even if this is not part of their plan, I should like to know whether or not there are Death Eaters in the area. I've a policy of staying as far from them as possible," Ernie said. "We might as well have it all out of them."

"That isn't hard," Ginny said as the other witch made a face. Was there some history that made her not want to go into the heads of the other Slytherins? Harry would have thought it would have been the opposite. "Draco, be a dear and kill this bitch for us, would you? We'll be happy to let you go."

"He doesn't have a way of doing that," Ron said by way of distraction. "We'll split them up and question them. We need someone to get to the others and tell them what happened. We also need someone to see if we've been followed here."

"I'll take that," he said right after the other available wand that could apparate volunteered for the other task. A certain red-haired witch went with him without saying anything, and as they both went down the stairs, she nearly collapsed.

"Did something hit you?" he asked, catching her.

"No," she sobbed, getting back to her feet again. "I just wasn't looking. Harry, I... there's something wrong with me-"

"We've all become a little less hesitant about killing people," he said. "I've killed people. It's not just the dark magic."

"It doesn't help," she whispered.

"Have the others been going through the same thing?"

"Terry's basically no longer interested. I haven't heard anything out of Blaise. Is it just... am I just..."

"It's not just you," he said. "It doesn't surprise me that he hasn't been showing any signs. I don't think Ron or Hermione ever said anything to you about it, but I struggled a lot with dementors."

"I knew about that."

"I bring it up because, well, I thought that I was the problem. I thought that I just couldn't manage what they were doing to me, and everyone else was fine-"

"That's not the same thing."

"It might not be the exact same thing, but my point is that you can't assume it's just you." He sighted. "Okay, we've got to go out and see with our own eyes if we've been followed here. The Ministry's got the same information we had, and unless someone told them to ignore it, we've got to get out of here."

"Fine."

"We'll get done with that, and then we'll get back to this, okay?"

They practically ran down the stairs of the tower. Even before going in, he had checked if he could apparate, and he was sure that they could, just not from within the lower levels of the tower itself; it was in that sense that they were trapped. Outside, they did not find their friends waiting for them, but that was what he expected. Instead, there were two red-robed Aurors talking. From the sound of it, they were on the younger end and probably low-ranking, but they most likely had backup somewhere.

"No prisoners, Ginny," he ordered. "Avada Kedavra." It was his first time casting the killing curse, and it made the enemy dodge, but it felt so weak, that if it had hit, he doubted it would have made anyone sneeze. Had he just cast it out of some bizarre sympathy for the witch next to him? There was no time to wonder what she was doing as the two adult wizards scrambled for a defensible position in an unfamiliar setting, but just enough to hit one of them in the rear with a stunner. The other one was quick enough to throw up a few shields, which would give him time to determine if he needed to attack, retreat, or call for help, and it was the hardest to deal with the last one. "You little fucker!"

The other Auror came out from behind the tree quickly enough to see a mass of earth explode in front of him, then look around as he lost track of his target. Harry hit him in the back with a stunner, having concealed the sound of his apparation. That alone would not be good enough, though- they needed to get out, and quickly. Ginny did not seem to have received that message, however; she was crouching like she was trying to hide from something. Not waiting another moment, he apparated back to the base with her.

"What happened?"

"No time- Blaise, Ernie, you're with me; we need to go back in there and get everyone out."

They were quick about it, and they even had time to kill the two stunned enemies. The rest of the group had not become better at apparation, not by much, but the three they had were at least consistent. Working together, it took less concentration and it was much quicker to get everyone out of there, including their prisoners. He did a headcount, grateful that the whole thing had gotten resolved before Neville had some mad idea and dragged everyone else off on a rescue mission, but there were three cooler heads, and they probably prevailed. When he had everyone together, he realized he was missing two people and excused himself, muttering under his breath as he looked through the trees.

"I just... does he want me to kill people? Is that all he wants from me?" It was the voice he expected as he flattened himself against a tree, but the one that responded surprised him.

"He's not a bad... he only has a lot on his mind. I can see why he gave the order to attack those Aurors, but it wasn't terribly... sensitive, given what you were in the middle of discussing."

He felt like it would only make things worse if he kept listening. There were plenty of times when he had been selfish like that, and he still wanted to hear everything, especially since Hermione was there too. What was the right thing to do, apologize for listening in and have it out? Did they want answers out of him or did they want space?

Harry decided that at the very least, it would be hard for them to blame him if he talked to Ron, who was getting done with hashing out some plan details with Susan, who seemed to have taken on that role; she wanted to know more about how they were delegating and minimizing casualties specifically, and though it added a step to the process, they were ultimately grateful for her critique.

"I hope no one misunderstands anything," he said as soon as they were alone, regretting it almost immediately after. "Sorry."

"It's fine," his friend said, turning to look at the shared notes. "Is this about Hermione?"

"I just want to know how to fix it. If she's mad at me, I..."

"Unfortunately, I don't think it's that simple. I think she thinks you're hiding something from her because we're hiding things from you."

That was Ron in a sentence. He would admit that things were being hidden, but not say what they were.

"You don't know how to convince her I'm not hiding things from her?"

"I don't know that you're not, Mate," he said, sighing. "I hate being in the middle of it like this, but it'd be hard to blame you." He ran a hand over his face. "How about this- I'll tell you and everyone else what I can about Hogwarts."