I'll skip the apologies, it's not like apologizing for not updating in so long makes me update any faster. If you feel like I haven't updated in too long, just review the story or PM me, sometimes I just need a little reminder :)

Next update will be next week, as the next chapter is already written.

What happened previously:

- Draco, Neville and Snape healed Neville's parents over the Easter holidays

- Draco was seen and got kicked out by his father, he then spent the rest of the holidays with Snape

- Things have been rough for Draco at school, but after threatening Astoria, he showed them their place

- Neville skipped school for quite some time, but now he's back and we are ready for the last act

As always, read, enjoy and review :)

The weeks were passing rather quickly after Neville's return to school, and everything was rather uneventful - which was always a good thing in Draco's book. He enjoyed every day his life and his loved ones were not threatened. At times he could even push aside, if not quite forget, that the school year was drawing to an end, and with it the relative calm of war free times.

The lack of excitement, however, did not mean there was nothing to do. After Easter, the workload had grown heavy. One could hardly walk anywhere without hearing someone complaining or looking wistfully outside. Having been through school before barely made it any easier. Potions and spells he had only learned for school and never used again had faded in his mind, and the fact that he knew he would never ever need some of them again did not make it easier to relearn them. Anteoculatia was one such useless incantation. The hex would grow antlers on the head of the target. Who had invented that spell, and more importantly - why? Or Melofors, which encased the victim's head in a pumpkin. Encasing Voldemort's head in a pumpkin might be a great distraction in a fight, but Draco would probably not survive long enough to enjoy the sight or use the resulting pandemonium to his advantage. Not that more useful spells like Lumos, Nox or even Aqua Eructo would be any more useful in a fight against Death Eaters.

"I miss Quidditch," groaned Theo one afternoon in late May, interrupting Draco's thoughts of dark lords and pumpkins.

Harry and Draco nodded in agreement. They were walking back to the castle after Care of Magical Creatures.

"It's just not fair of the school to deny us this integral part of our culture," Theo continued on.

"You aren't even on the team," commented Draco dryly, although he agreed with the sentiment.

Theo glared at him. "I would have been this year, I just know it. But even if not, what about the joy of watching? The marvelous opportunity to forget about real life for a few hours and simply enjoy the moment?"

"Triwizard Tournament not exciting enough for you?" deadpanned Harry.

"It's exciting alright, but only you and Warrington get to participate. With the second task the audience barely even saw anything! And there are only 3 tasks..."

Harry stared incredulously and Draco began to laugh.

"Guys!" they could hear a voice coming from the castle, oddly loud on such a lazy day. "Guys!" It was Daphne running towards them. She stopped right in front of them.

"What's up?" asked Draco.

"Just-" panted Daphne, "give me a second."

Astoria appeared behind her exhausted sister. "We overheard a few-"

"Tory!" Daphne glowered at her younger sister who was trying to steal her spotlight.

"Oh, yeah, sorry. You tell the story." She caught Draco's eye, and they both turned away to hide their laughter as Daphne got ready for her favorite pastime: gossiping.

Draco could tell that they were both rather excited but could not fathom why. As far as he remembered, nothing particularly exciting happened before the third task. But his memory was not impeccable, and by now things had changed enough, truly anything could happen.

"I overheard a couple of older Slytherins telling Warrington about the Triwizard Tournament!" Daphne started. "They'll sneak into the Forbidden Forest tonight and meet someone. Someone who knows stuff!"

Apparently, the news was for Potter only, because the inscrutable mystery of what the third task could possibly be held little appeal for Draco. Theo seemed to reach the same conclusion.

"You are such a cheater, Potter," he laughed, while giving Harry a friendly shove.

"Hey, it's not-" Harry started, but cut himself off. "Everyone does it," he then said sheepishly.

Theo nodded in agreement. "I'm not judging. If you can get an advantage, do it. The game is rigged as it is. Playing fair won't get you anywhere."

Harry sighed. "I'll try to follow them tonight. Maybe I'll take Ron with me. Or maybe Hermione."

"What a fine Slytherin you'd make," grinned Daphne, and Harry glowered at her.

"Are Hermione and Ron still not talking to each other?" Astoria asked.

"Oh, they are talking alright. But things are… weird. I can't wait for this year to be over and for things to get back to normal."

Draco found that he could not agree more. He, however, knew that the end of the year would not bring them much normalcy.

The rest of the day wasn't exactly uneventful. Somehow, and Draco suspected they had been in contact with Sirius Black, the Weasley twins had gotten their hands on something called vinyl, which seemed to be something muggles used for music. The dinner had been complete and utter chaos. Several fights had broken out between muggle-borns and purebloods. The former seemed to like the "music" whereas the latter could not find anything musical about it at all and weren't quite as fond of it. Snape was livid, as he usually was, and Dumbledore did not take the whole ordeal quite as serious as a headmaster probably should. Which was also not all that unusual. Draco found the chaos rather amusing, which was met with little understanding at his table.

It was later that evening, when everything had calmed down again, that the twins caught Draco and Astoria leaving the library to brag.

"It was magnificent," Fred started right away once he caught sight of them. "And absolutely brilliant. Good luck topping that."

"Don't challenge him," Astoria laughed, "he can't back down from a challenge. Not one about playing pranks, at least."

"That is so not true," laughed Draco, although he could see why they would think that. He had not been one for pranks for most of his life. He would not count his petty attempts to ruin Potter's life when he first went to Hogwarts. There was a fine line between bullying and pranking, and he could admit, if not back then then at least now, that he had crossed it. And once back in the past, the "pranks" he played had at first had always served a purpose. It had served as a distraction when they had gone after Pettigrew. And it had served as a means to keep Cedric from putting his name in the goblet of fire when Neville was worried about saving Cedric's life. But through being around Sirius and the twins he had come to enjoy the cunning an elaborate prank required. Perhaps it was then not necessarily a new trait, but rather an old one that had been buried under an aloof pureblood exterior and never gotten the chance to be discovered.

"How did you get your contraption to play the music?" Astoria asked curiously.

"It's mechanical," George replied, as if it would answer everything. "So, the magic did not interfere with it. We had to adapt it a bit though. Wouldn't have worked with that new thing they got… Can't remember the name, though."

"Fascinating," replied Astoria, before her attention shifted to something behind the twins. "Oh, hey Neville."

Draco turned his head and indeed found Neville walking towards them. "Hello," was Neville's short reply.

"Have you enjoyed your dinner accompanied by some classical music?" Fred asked.

"I'm not sure if you're using the word classical correctly," replied Neville, shifting his weight from one leg to the other, "but I guess it was okay. Uhm- do you mind if I borrow Draco for a second?"

"No problem, we were on our way to find Lee. See you around."

"What's up?" Draco asked, once the twins were out of earshot. He assumed that whatever it was, Astoria could be here for it. If not, Neville would surely say so. "You seem nervous."

Neville laughed tensely. "It's probably nothing, really. But- uhm, I've just seen Cassius in the castle."

"So?" Draco asked, not quite seeing what was so significant about that.

"Well, Harry and Hermione left the castle to observe this meeting in the forest. You remember? About the third task? But he clearly isn't in the forest, and he doesn't look like he'll be going there anytime soon, and Hermione and Harry have been gone for a really long time now-"

"Nev!" Astoria interrupted him. "You're rambling. Take a deep breath." Only once he had followed her order, did she continue. "So, you are worried about them?"

"Yes. I know there are Death Eaters after me and my family. What if they are trying to get Harry as well?"

"Possible," Draco agreed, after thinking it over for a few seconds. He thought it unlikely, as they had not tried to do anything like it originally. And there was probably still some 3rd task related plan that they were banking on. "But perhaps Warrington just had his meeting earlier and they missed him."

"Do you think we should go after them?" Neville asked.

Draco wasn't sure, but if Neville went, he'd rather not have him out in the Forbidden Forest in the middle of the night on his own.

"Maybe we should tell a teacher?" Astoria said.

"We could tell Snape," Draco suggested, as he usually did when they had this discussion, "but if everything turns out to be a misunderstanding, we'll all be in detention for the rest of the year."

"We'll go," Astoria decided. "I've got an idea. You two go ahead, I'll catch up with you in a minute," with that, Astoria hurried off into the library.

Neville raised his eyebrows and Draco just shrugged. "No idea. But I guess it's a good thing the year is almost over." That way, detention would at least only be for about a month.

Halfway through the castle, Astoria caught up with them. "Let's hurry," she said, and did not further comment on her disappearance.

The forest seemed awfully dark and dreary. Not a sound to be heard. Just some glowing eyes in the endless blackness of the woods. They all cast Lumos, but they could still see not much further than a few steps ahead of them.

They walked through the forest, all hurled close together. But minutes passed, and there was not a sign of human life.

"Where are they?" whispered Astoria.

Draco wasn't quite sure why she was whispering, but he replied in kind, "maybe they are already back and we missed them?"

"We should have seen them," insisted Neville.

"You have to get out of here!" A voice suddenly hissed next to them. It took Draco a moment to realize it was Harry.

"What?" whispered Neville, looking around and failing to spot the Gryffindor.

"Get out of here! Run!" urged the voice of Hermione.

"What?" replied Neville, this time in a panic.

Draco had his wand ready for attack by the time they heard the first crack. The loud noise boomed and echoed through the otherwise silent forest. It was immediately followed by another deafening bang, and another. It sounded like a firework was going off around them, and Draco did not know in which direction to point his wand.

"Look who we have here," a voice drawled, and a cold shiver ran down Draco's back. Out of the blackness, stepped his infamous aunt, Bellatrix Lestrange, her wand alight with Lumos, shining on the Hogwarts students. "Not what we've been looking for. Luckily, I'm not picky."

Not even a second had passed after her declaration, before a red light flew towards them.

"Protego!" boomed Harry's voice next to them, and now, out of the corner of his eye, Draco could even see him standing next to him. He had probably been under his invisibility cloak. Had Draco had the time to think about it, he would have cursed Harry for revealing himself and not using the invisibility to his advantage.

"Oh, what a lovely surprise," cooed Bellatrix, ignoring that her spell had bounced off the shield of a mere student. "The Dark Lord's most wanted, all in the same spot."

"You mean the Dark Lord's worst nightmare," yelled Harry Potter. "Petrificus Totalus!"

Bellatrix waved off the spell with a lazy flick of her wand and began to laugh. Her example was soon followed by several other Death Eaters, who Draco only now realized had surrounded them. One after the other, they cast Lumos to illuminate the night. Unlike Bellatrix, they were all wearing masks.

"Flipendo," roared Hermione, and the spell actually managed to knock Bellatrix back a couple of steps.

Bellatrix' laughter came to a sudden halt, and her expression soured.

One of the Death Eaters sent a strong knock-back-jinx after her, which hurled Hermione into a tree.

"Stupefy!" growled Draco at the Death Eater, before he could follow the jinx up with something more nasty, and actually managed to catch him off guard and knocking him out.

Soon, spells, hexes, and shield charms were flying left and right and the only reason no one got seriously hurt was perhaps that it was rather difficult to cast Lumos and a shield charm and offensive spells at the same time. The Death Eaters, vastly outnumbering them, had therefore fallen back on half of them keeping the forest alight, while the others were doing the fighting.

Draco could see Neville casting Vermillious into the sky. Hermione had apparently also seen it, as the next thing she did was aim the same spell, which would usually send red sparks into the air, at one of the Death Eaters, which sent him flying backwards.

Before any spell could do any serious harm on either side, Draco could hear Astoria cast "Nox," extinguishing all the light surrounding them. Draco used the second of chaos to quickly throw a silent knock-back-jinx in the direction of the castle, sending some Death Eaters flying and grabbed Harry and Neville, who were standing closest to him, and shoved them in the direction of the castle. "Run!" he ordered.

The others did not need to be told twice. They knew the forest better than their opponents, and made quick headway. Draco continuously cast Protego around their group, hoping it would be enough to protect everyone.

But then, behind him, Draco could hear Astoria squeal. He spun around. A Death Eater had grabbed her by the arm and held his wand pressed to her left cheek.

"You stop running," panted the Death Eater, "or the little witch dies."

Draco and the others all stopped, staring at the scene. Draco's grip around his wand tightened, but he was too worried he would accidentally hit Astoria to do anything.

"You let her go right now, or I swear-" hissed Draco, but got interrupted.

"Or what?" laughed the Death Eater, whose voice Draco could not identify. "You're going to kill me? Hurt me? That's not the kind of stuff you learn at a school run by an old, ignorant fool. The real spells," he let his wand wander up and down the side of Astoria's face, his eyes mad,"Crucio," he whispered, leaning close to her ear, "Imperio and Avada Kedavra... you don't learn that at your school. I, however, could teach you how to cast them." His eyes glistened. "Perhaps, a little demonstration? Of course, you could try to fight me with what that fossil has taught you. Titillando would do wonders, I am sure, or Aguamenti," he roared with laughter.

"Not a bad idea," hissed Astoria, pushing away from him and yelling, "Aqua Eructo!"

The powerful jet of water hit him square in the chest and sent him flying before his laughter had fully died down.

"Let's go," yelled Astoria, running past her friends who were still rooted in place.

They ran through the forest and towards the castle, but they could hear the enemies behind them. The edge of the forest came closer. Once they had reached the point at which Apparition was no longer possible, Draco was sure the Death Eaters would make a strategic retreat. But that point was still some way for them to go, and the Death Eaters were close on their heels.

The end of the forest was close, when Draco tripped over some roots. He just had enough time to cast Protego before a number of spells rained down on him. The others had stopped to help, but Neville was soon hit with a whip-like curse, and Astoria landed on the ground next to Draco after being hit with a Tarantallegra. The other Death Eaters were catching up with them, and it did not look good for Draco and his friends.

TBC

Dun-Dun-Dun... it doesn't look good for Draco and his friends. What do you think will happen next? Did you like this chapter? Let me know with a review. Did you hate it? I'd like to hear why. Have you forgotten all about this story and only remembered because you got an e-mail alert? Well, that's on me. Still, let me know. Sometimes a bad conscience does wonders for my writing speed.

Next chapter will be up sometime next week, as it's already 3/4 written.