"Why should I trust you?" The words were cold, gruff, as if the speaker had every reason in the world not to trust whomever he was addressing.

Both the speaker and the man he addressed shared certain qualities: blond hair, gray eyes, a somewhat pointed nose…though this might not be their true appearance as vials of a foul-tasting concoction hidden under their robes attested to. In fact, they were identical to the casual observer, but this night was anything but casual. The two young men faced each other in a pitifully lit library, somewhere in an ancient manor. One was asking for something the first seemed unwilling to give. Trust, after all, can be the hardest thing to give someone that has already violated it.

"Look, I can't tell you everything right now, because someone would probably die if I did…especially if we're overheard. I'm not asking you to forgive me for anything--though I hope that someday you will understand why I did what I did--all I want is for you to trust me in this one thing. If this goes right, everything could be over."

"Even if everything was over right this second, nothing could undo what's already happened. She could be dead already, and you did nothing to stop it," the speaker said bitterly.

"I...I realize that. But if we were able to keep that from happening to anyone else, wouldn't it be worth it? Merlin, Ron, you've been my best friend since we were kids."

Friend. Ron remembered a time when he had called this other man 'friend.' But friends did not let other friends….

There was a popping noise as a third young man, one that looked exactly like the first two, entered the room.

"You…" Ron said as he advanced on the third man. "Somehow, this whole mess all comes back down to you."

"Lower that wand, and calm down. If anyone hears a disturbance in here, she might be killed if she isn't dead already," the real Draco Malfoy whispered.

They all knew that that was something none of them wanted to happen.

After a long second Weasley did so, and the other two sighed in relief. This could not go wrong. Things were in such a tangle already…. But Weasley had been right about one thing, Draco had to admit to himself. It did come back to him, and the last ten months had been nothing short of an extremely tangled mess.

It was a wonder that any of them still knew which way was 'up.'
…………..

Ten months ago….

It was a fairly quite night at the Malfoy Manor, until a blond young man apparated just outside and ran into the house. He was gasping for breath as he ran around searching the rooms. Finally, in the sitting room, he found his mother.

Narcissa Malfoy looked up from the book she was reading by the fire to see who the intruder was, and gasped. Draco knew that he was probably a sight. His clothes were stained by dirt and vegetation from the times he had fallen, his hair was messed from running, he could feel sweat running down his face and back, and there was a very real fear revealed in his face. He had every reason to feel fear.

"Draco!" his mother gasped. "What…did you…what happened!?"

"I failed, and he isn't happy with me. We're leaving," he answered.

His mother turned white as her mind processed this information. "But…we can't run. They'll catch us!"

"Not if we're already dead," he answered, rolling back his sleeve. An unspoken spell withdrew blood from his arm and formed a red globe in the air. "Now, hold still for a second," Draco said, performing the same spell to remove some of his mother's blood.

"The short version is that I couldn't do it, so Snape did," he said, explaining. "We got back to headquarters, and the Dark Lord questioned Snape and I about what happened. He was pleased with Snape for killing Dumbledore, but he was angry with me for failing. I did manage to disarm Dumbledore, so I wasn't killed on the spot. After I left to the other room, he talked to Snape for a minute, and then called me back in. He said that I should come back and get you because the Order knows that I almost killed Dumbledore and might come after you. After he left, Snape told me that the Dark Lord plans to punish me by killing you and me when we get back to headquarters, and I believe him. We're going, just as soon as I can fake a murder scene so the Dark Lord will think that the Order did get to us, but of course I'll be leaving a Dark Mark to make it look like the Death Eaters did it."

This was one occasion where the truth would be much stranger than the lie that would be told. The truth of the situation would be so bizarre, anyone merely looking at the facts that appeared on the surface would assume that the lie was true.

"What do I need to do?" she asked, only barley wincing as blood floated from her arm.

"Get a few sacks of gold, and come right back down here. I should be finished in a few moments," he said, finishing with the blood. As soon as his mother left the room, he set about destroying the parlor.

He sighed, throwing curses around the elegantly decorated parlor. This was his last chance, and he couldn't tell his mother the truth about the situation. In reality, the Dark Lord wasn't out to kill him…yet. Upon hearing about the offer that Dumbledore had given him while he and Snape had been explaining to the Dark Lord what had happened, Snape had gotten the idea that this was too good of an opportunity to miss, and that Draco should take whoever succeeded Dumbledore up on the offer and become the new spy in the Order. Snape guessed that Potter had overheard the whole thing and so would carry out Dumbledore's proposal, so it was worth trying.

Draco was sure that the Dark Lord had intended to kill him as soon as he found out that Snape had been the one to kill Dumbledore, and had chosen to go forward with Snape's idea only because it was more practical than simply killing him on the spot. If he could make himself useful as a spy, everything would be forgiven. After all, he was credited with fighting Dumbledore until he was weak and then disarming him. However, if he wasn't useful…. The Dark Lord had made it very clear that this was his last chance.

Draco had then been ordered to fake his and his mother's deaths, so both the Death Eaters and the wizarding world think them dead, and then to throw himself on the mercy of the Order. While the very idea of throwing himself at Potter's mercy was repugnant, he knew that if he did not, he and his mother would be dead within a few months, no matter how hard they ran. Oh, and he couldn't tell his mother what was really going on. She would be more convincing if she thought that the Order taking them in really was their only hope of survival, which in a way, it was.

When his mother returned several minutes later, he wordlessly took the smallest sack she had, and dropped it on the floor. In moments, he was finished spraying the blood everywhere, and added a few particularly large holes. Nodding, satisfied with his work, they went outside only long enough to leave a dark mark in the sky, and then disapparated.

………………

Less than fifteen minutes later, Bellatrix Lestrange apparated outside the Malfoy Manor. Silently cursing herself for not remembering that there was a shrub there now, she crawled out of it, brushing sticks out of her robes. If it wasn't for that sensor, she could simply apparate inside the mansion, but in order to get around it she had to start from outside the house.

She had been sent by the Dark Lord to see what was keeping her sister and nephew. They should have arrived back at headquarters by now. She supposed that her sister had wanted to pack first, but she had hoped that her nephew had the sense to override his mother. If the Order decided that it wanted a quick retribution, they had to be out of the Manor within the hour, at the very least.

Bellatrix stopped grumbling as she looked up into the sky and saw the dark mark hanging there. Something was not right. She hurried into the mansion, regardless of the sensor she knew the Ministry had put into place to notify them of the presence of any known Death Eater, and soon found the parlor. The furniture was overturned, the pieces that hadn't been almost completely destroyed, and the room was littered with papers, splinters, and ash. The walls were blackened in many places, and a coppery smell hung in the air. There were two rather large holes, where whatever had once occupied the spaces had been totally consumed by the curse that had caused the damage. And then there was the blood. It was everywhere, and still fresh. It did not take much logic to figure out that whomever it belonged to was dead.

A quick spell confirmed that the blood had belonged to her sister and nephew. For a few seconds, Bellatrix stood there, shocked. Snape's intuition had been right; the Order had acted for vengeance, and then, of course, blamed the Death Eaters.

'They will pay for this,' she thought, anger coursing through her veins. 'Oh yes, they will pay. They will pay in oceans of blood!'

Without doing another thing, Bellatrix disapparated from where she stood, back to headquarters.

Oh yes, they would pay.
…………..

A week after Dumbledore's funeral, Hermione sat at the table in the Weasley's kitchen sipping tea as she went over the article in the Daily Prophet again. It was astounding how much of it that they had gotten right this time.

"Professor Dumbledore Murdered by A Staff Member" was on the front page, and detailed how Snape had killed Dumbledore when Malfoy had tried but had failed to do so. On the second page was "Horrific Murder Scene at Malfoy Manor: Draco and Narcissa Malfoy Confirmed Dead," and the writer was of the view that they had been murdered by the Death Eaters for Malfoy's failure to kill Dumbledore. Everyone assumed that after the fight, Malfoy had gone home to try to get his mother and escape before You-Know-Who ordered the Death Eaters there to kill them. However, the Death Eaters had arrived too quickly for them to get away. According to a Ministry official, a sensor the Ministry had put into place had detected the presence of Bellatrix Lestrange that night.

In spite of the warm summer's evening and the head radiating from Mrs. Weasley's stove, Hermione shivered. Well, it wouldn't have been the first time Lestrange had murdered a family member. And it wasn't as if the Malfoys were innocent themselves. Narcissa had, at the very least, known about her husband and son's activities and said nothing. Draco had been a Death Eater…but he had been killed for failing to kill someone else, and that did bother her.

At least this wasn't good for Death Eater recruiting, now that everyone knew that one failure meant that you and your family would be instantly killed.

"You do know that that paper is from last week 'Mione," Ginny said, pulling her red hair behind her shoulders into a ponytail as she sat down beside Hermione.

"I know," Hermione said, "but all of the papers since then have only been rehashing what appears in this one, or else discussing whether or not Hogwarts should remain open." And Hogwarts closing was something she'd just as soon not read about, even if she wouldn't be attending even if it did remain open next year.

Ginny sighed again. "You have any idea what Professor McGonagall is talking to Harry about?"

Hermione shook her head. The professor had shown up with Moody about half an hour ago looking for Harry. Then the three of them had disappeared with Mrs. Weasley and Harry into a room upstairs, but no one had come back down yet. So, Hermione waited, reading old newspapers while Ginny had been set to make sure the stew on the stove did not burn. Ron, who had been polishing his broomstick and talking to Harry before the arrivals, had gone to try to find his extendable ears to figure out what was going on, but had come back down a few minutes later with a defeated look on his face. The door, apparently, had an Imperturbable charm placed on it so Ron had returned to polishing his broom and occasionally casting looks towards the staircase.

There was a creaking sound coming from upstairs. Guessing that the meeting was over, Hermione rose from her seat to meet Harry and find out what had been going on when she was distracted by a knocking noise coming from the door. Hermione turned around as the door opened, and could not stop a startled cry as literally the last person she expected to see walked into the Weasley's kitchen.
………….

Harry walked out the door of the spare room, satisfied with how their meeting had turned out. With his will, Dumbledore had left a note that detailed how the Order should proceed in the event of his death. Moody and Professor McGonagall would run most of the day-to-day operations, but he clearly stated that there was a task that he had entrusted to Harry. Everyone was to put whatever he needed for his 'task' before anything else, and not to ask him questions about what it entailed. As far as Grimmauld Place was concerned, the spell had been modified so if Dumbledore died, the job of secret-keeper would immediately transfer to Harry who would have to re-tell everyone where it was so they could enter. Also, he, Ron, and Hermione were to be inducted into the Order at once.

This made a good many things easier.

Harry was just walking down the stairs when he heard a startled scream, and--his heart now beating at the speed of a galloping hippogriff--he took the last few steps in a leap. He ran into the kitchen to find Ron, Hermione, and Ginny with their wands out, but judging by their bulging eyeballs and confused expressions, they were currently too shocked to use them. Harry didn't notice McGonagall and Moody come to a halt just behind him; he wouldn't have noticed someone hitting him over the head with a cauldron when he saw what had caused the commotion.

Two additional figures were now in the Weasley's kitchen. Draco Malfoy stood there, looking much like he had when Harry had seen him last. His Hogwarts uniform was now clean, his hair had been washed and combed, but his eyes hadn't changed--he was still terrified of something, and trying to hide it as best he could. Harry only barley registered the presence of the other figure, a blond woman he recognized as Malfoy's mother, that was leaning against the door and holding the doorknob as if that and willpower were the only things holding her upright.

"I thought that you were dead," Harry heard himself say.

"Can't say that I'm that sorry to disappoint you," Malfoy said. His tone was odd, as if he himself was unsure that this was really happening, as if he accepted things as they were only because he was expecting to wake up at any moment.

"Can you prove that you're really Draco Malfoy?" Moody, who had his wand aimed at the intruders with a steady hand, growled from behind him.

"Ask me anything you want to," Malfoy said, eying Mood's wand but keeping his hands visibly away from his own.

Harry's mind raced. Was this really Draco Malfoy? If not, who would impersonate him and why? "During our second year," he started, "you met Percy Weasley in the dungeons as well as two people you thought were Crabb and Goyle. After you got back to your common room, what did you say to 'Goyle' when he didn't appear to know what Azkaban was?"

Malfoy blinked slowly, then frowned, apparently racking his brain. "Second year? Umm…oh, that was you?"

Harry nodded, unblinking.

"I think that I said something to the effect that if you were any slower, you'd be moving backwards," Malfoy answered.

Harry sighed. "It's him. I don't know how, but it's him." A little of the tension in the room left, but did not completely drain away. Malfoy was who he said he was, but what could possibly be relaxing about Malfoy showing up in the Burrow, especially when he was suppose to be dead?

"Perhaps you could explain what happened and why you are here when everyone is convinced that you are in a thousand tiny pieces scattered around your parlor," McGonagall said. Harry noticed that she had not put her wand away.

"The parlor was my work. I'm testing my theory that it's easier to survive when everyone thinks that you're dead," Malfoy said levelly. "As for what happened…well…. I couldn't kill Dumbledore. He said that he'd kill me and my entire family if I didn't, he expected me to die trying--everyone did."

McGonagall shivered, as if the room had gotten cold, and Malfoy continued his voice growing slightly unsteadier as he went on.

"I thought that I'd probably die trying too, but Dumbledore seemed weak that night, like he had already been in a fight of some kind. I disarmed him, but I couldn't make myself kill him. When the others came, I was shaking so badly that Snape…did it instead. He had made an Unbreakable Vow to get me out of Hogwarts safely, so he did that, but I apparated to my house, found my mother, and made that mess in the parlor instead of going back to headquarters. After that, we found an empty muggle house--I think that the owners were on vacation or something--and stayed there until today, waiting for things to die down a little. Now we're here," Draco finished, as if that explained everything.

Ron still looked as if someone had Confunded him. "Why did you decide to play dead, and what are you doing here then?" he asked.

Malfoy's expression turned very close to his normal sneer before he caught himself and his face became stoic again. His tone, however, remained condescending. "I thought that it would be obvious Weasley. The Dark Lord ordered me to kill Dumbledore, and I didn't do it. Therefore, I assumed that he would keep his word and kill my family and me as quickly as possible. Even if he forgot to kill me over this, there remains the fact that I couldn't kill someone, and he would probably order me to do it again, which means that I would fail again. This means that even if he decided not to kill me for not killing Dumbledore, he would kill me for not killing someone else.

"This means that remaining in the Dark Lord's service would mean death for me, and my family, whether it is death now or later. It's just that being murdered is something that I'd rather not have happen at all. If it was just me, I might take my chances simply running, but I have to worry about her too," Malfoy said, jerking his head towards his mother.

"The reason I'm here is simply because I believe that the Order has better resources to hide us than I could find on my own. I don't expect you to trust me, but just the same I don't expect that you'd want to let even me die because I didn't kill someone," Malfoy finished. He looked around the room expectantly, obviously trying to gauge everyone's expressions to find if his explanation left anything to be desired in convincing them to do what he wanted them to. His eyes flickered briefly towards his mother before coming to rest on McGonagall and Moody, whom he obviously assumed were in charge of matters like these.

After a moment, McGonagall sighed and said, "It's your call Potter."

Malfoy blinked in surprise, turning an incredulous expression towards him. Inwardly, Harry smiled grimly. Malfoy knew that he was at his mercy, and Harry felt sure that Malfoy thought him incredibly pleased with the situation, but nothing could be farther from the truth. He would rather this decision belonged to anyone but him.

"You didn't mention something Malfoy," Harry said, and Malfoy's expression tightened slightly. "You didn't mention that protection of this sort was exactly what Dumbledore offered you. You didn't say that he said that your death could be faked, and that the Order could be sent to your house to get your mother, after which we could hide you. Why not?"

Malfoy's expression relaxed a little. "I didn't know that you knew," he said, and then he looked confused. "Wait a minute…you were there? But then why…?"

Malfoy didn't finish the sentence, but it couldn't have been more obvious that he was wondering why Harry had done nothing to prevent Dumbledore's death. He was also smart enough not to ask directly about it, as people normally did not deliberately try to provoke someone that might very well have your life in their hands.

"Give us a few minutes to discuss this," Harry said, motioning for the Malfoys to leave the room.

Malfoy slowly nodded, and turned to his mother motioning for him to follow him to the living room. Mrs. Malfoy just now seemed to realize that she was still holding onto the doorknob, and let go allowing her son to lead her out of the kitchen.

Someone hit the kitchen door with some sort of a silencing charm, and Harry sunk onto the bench and put his head on the table. He hadn't expected this. Most of what Malfoy had said had sounded like the truth, or part of it anyway. But then, the best lies often were merely truths that were slightly altered. He didn't believe that Malfoy had told him everything. Why couldn't things be simple for once?

"So…how much of that do you believe Potter?" Moody said, sitting down beside him.

Harry didn't answer right away, frowning at the table instead.

"Well," Hermione said, "we have three scenarios here. If he's lying and we hide them and they betray us, Voldemort gets information and people could die. If he's telling the truth, we don't hide them, and Voldemort finds out that he's still alive, he and his mother die. Irony is probably the only word I could use for someone dying because they didn't kill someone. If he's telling the truth and we hide them, that means that we have to put up with the two of them now, and maybe Lucius later, which while hard and definitely tricky--even assuming that Lucius behaves himself--it's still survivable for all concerned."

"The only thing he said that I trust," Ron piped in, "is that he doesn’t want to die. Oh, and he probably doesn’t want his mother to die either, but other than that, I'd have to see it to believe it."

Harry nodded slowly. "You're both right, but there are two other things. One, Dumbledore did offer him the Order's protection if he came over to our side. Two, he did lower his wand; he was lowering it just as the other Death Eaters came up. He wasn't going to kill Dumbledore, and not because he could not but because he would not."

Harry nodded toward the door, and McGonagall removed the spell and called the Malfoys back into the kitchen.

"I have decided to hide you, but under two conditions," Harry said. "First, you both will do as I or another senior member tell you, and be satisfied with the information we do or do not give you. This includes, for example, remaining in your rooms during Order meetings. Second, you will attempt to be civil. This means that you may not refer to Hermione as a mudblood in case you haven't guessed that. If you accept these terms, you will be housed in headquarters, which is under the Fidelius Charm. You should be safe there."

Malfoy nodded. "We can live with that," he said, his body seemingly loosing a tension Harry hadn't noticed there before. His mother, who had still not said a word, nodded agreement, looking relieved enough that he would have thought that her head had just been lifted off of the chopping block.

Harry supposed that that wasn't too far from the truth.

There was a humming sound as Mrs. Weasley came into her kitchen from outside, carrying a basket full of laundry that she had just taken off the clothesline. She shrieked and clothes went flying all over the kitchen as Mrs. Weasley noticed the two newcomers standing there.

Harry chuckled, removing one of Ginny's shirts and a sock from where they had landed on his head. Why did he have the feeling that by the time this was over, he would be having a difficult time figuring out which way was up?

Just because Harry was willing to hide the Malfoy's didn't mean that he trusted them--not by a hair. He was fully planning to have Moody go over the dining room for any object that might communicate in any way before any Order meeting. Of course, this might mean that Moody might simply throw all the furniture into the next room for the duration of the meeting and everyone might have to sit on the floor, but for the sake of security Harry would be willing to endure standing or sitting on the floor during every meeting.

Harry had shown everyone present in the Weasley household at that time a piece of paper on which he had written the address of Grimmauld Place. After that, Moody apparated with them to the house. Moody had to take Harry and Narcissa her son through side-by-side Apparation, Harry because he lacked his license, and Malfoy because though the point that he also lacked a license was moot since he was suppose to be dead, he didn't know where he was going. Narcissa, however, was all too familiar with it.

"I never thought that I'd be staying here again," she said softly, a light coming out of her wand to illuminate the living room where they all had landed.

Harry suppressed a wince, thinking that that was much to close to what his godfather had once said. To Sirius, this place had been at least as much of a prison as it had been a safe house, maybe more so. He wondered if it would become something similar for the Malfoys--it certainly didn't look like home to anyone, especially since it had been largely deserted since Sirius' death.

Now every surface was coated with dust, and the curtains were drawn cutting out any natural sunlight. A stale smell hung in the air, testifying to the fact that this place had not been lived in for months.

"I take it that you don't use this place often," Malfoy said, quite obviously wondering if this place was even fit for habitation.

"Not since my godfather died and left it to me, no, not really," Harry said, using his wand to light the lamps of the room. "No one besides you two will be living here really, though we may start having meetings here again. We will tell you enough in advance so you two can get upstairs to your rooms. Pick any bedrooms you like for yours, I don't really care. I'll see if Professor McGonagall can get the things you left at school Malfoy, and I'll send Mrs. Weasley here later to see what else you need."

Harry planned on wholeheartedly enforcing the rule about them being in their rooms before the meetings started. Perhaps Malfoy had grown a brain stem and really turned, but it was also likely that he saw this as his best chance of not getting killed by Voldemort. He had no intention of letting Malfoy have any information, especially information useful enough that Draco could be tempted to think that Voldemort would forgive his past failings in exchange for it.

After promising that Mrs. Weasley would bring something for dinner and a warning not to make noise while walking down the hall where Mrs. Black's picture hung, Harry and Moody left to return to the Burrow.
………………

'Well,' Draco thought to himself, 'it went better than I thought it would. Still, I more than have my work cut out for me.' It would be a while, maybe even a good while, before he could find out anything useful. But he would have to be in his room during meetings, whatever room they used for the meetings would probably be searched for spying devices--he knew Potter did not fully trust him, and rightly so--and there was no indication that anything interesting happened in this house between the meetings.

There was no indication that anyone besides him and his mother would even be in the house except for meetings.

Draco didn't think that the Dark Lord would be satisfied with things the way they were, but the Dark Lord being the Dark Lord, he would find a way around the obstacle or expect Draco Malfoy to find one himself.

Realizing that he was staring at nothing in particular, his feet still routed in the living room, he decided to explore the house and find himself a bedroom. The one his mother chose she had apparently used before. She was able to tell him all about this house, and when Draco found a room, she told him that it use to belong to her cousin Regulus.

After using a simple Scourgify to clean off the bed and the blankets, Draco kicked his shoes off and crawled on top of the bed. He frowned, wondering why his mother's voice had cracked right then, when she had mentioned her cousin. He had to think hard, trying to remember everything he had ever heard about the man. Regulus Black had been a Death Eater, but then backed out and had been tracked down and killed soon afterwards.

Ah, that would be it then. As far as his mother knew, there were similarities between her son and her cousin. They both had been Death Eaters, and then tried to get out, but Regulus had been found and killed. He could almost taste his mother's fear, and wished desperately that he could alleviate her fears. But he could not, not without disobeying a direct order.

Perhaps that was a part of his punishment for not succeeding. The Dark Lord knew that his mother would suffer in her fear, and that he would suffer because he knew that he had the ability to mitigate her fears but could not do so without risking her coming to harm once the Dark Lord found out that he had disobeyed a direct order.

Fear and pain had been his constant companions ever since he had figured out that it was unlikely that he could accomplish the mission the Dark Lord had sent him on before his 6th year had started. He should have listened to his mother, he should have never accepted the mission, and probably not the Dark Mark that he now bore at least until he was older and had gotten the skills he would need to survive and succeed.

More to stop the traitorous train of thought with some sort of occupation than anything else, Draco began searching his room. He looked under his bed, behind the furniture, and tapped on the boards of the floor and walls looking for any hiding place that the previous occupant might have used. Well, it was something to do, and he might find something interesting.

After about half an hour of searching, he found what appeared to be a floorboard with a hollow sound to it under his bed. Frowning, he used his wand to disable several secrecy spells and pried the floorboard up. He had to levitate his bed up a few feet in order to remove a dusty wooden box, which he then set on the floor to examine.


Draco quietly replaced his bed, and scrutinized the box carefully looking for any more spells. If there was anything important in it, there might be some nasty spells protecting it. He was pretty sure that no Death Eater had been killed by a box before, and he didn't want to be the first if for no other reason than that it would be embarrassing…not that embarrassment would be particularly important if he were dead.

It was an hour before he was sure that he could open the box safely. He pulled the lid off, only to find that it was filled with nothing more interesting than books. Sighing, disappointed that he lacked a better occupation, he removed the first book from the box and plunked himself back down on the bed.

'Hmmm…"The History of Horcruxes," I've never heard of them. Must be some pretty dark magic,' Draco mused, turning to the front of the book where someone had scribbled "R.A.B." on the inside of the cover. Apparently, whatever cousin Regulus' middle name had been, it had begun with an 'A,' not that Draco found that particularly important or relevant in any way.

He started reading, slightly curious in spite of himself as to why this book would have to be kept hidden.
………………

"Harry Potter!"

It was the day of Bill and Fleur's wedding, and Harry had found himself outside, going on a short walk around the garden Bill and Fleur had chosen for their wedding. He had only wanted a few moments to himself before the other guests started arriving.

Harry knew, however, that he would be deprived of that few moments at least momentarily by a certain young, redhead dressed in pale gold. Ginny was advancing toward him determinedly as if she was planning on not only walking right through him, but also through the shrub he was standing beside as well.

And she was breathtaking. Pale gold suited her red hair, which had been turned into curls for the occasion, and her makeup was barely visible but still made her already large eyes look even more noticeable and her decidedly succulent lips more pronounced. To him, she was easily prettier than Fleur's younger sister that was running around somewhere, helping the bride finish getting ready. By tradition, though, no woman at a wedding could be considered prettier than the bride. Still, in Harry's mind Ginny was more than a close second there.

It was too bad that the only way he could keep her safe was to keep her as far away from him as possible.

"What? Is my hair messed up again or something?" he asked tiredly, knowing that whatever topic she wanted to discuss was probably more important than the fact that his hair refused to lie straight.

"Your hair?" Ginny asked, momentarily surprised. "Well, it's not that. Harry, we need to talk and it has nothing to do with your hair."

"What then?" he asked, mentally preparing himself for the worst. He knew just enough about girls to translate "We need to talk" to what they really meant, which was "You need to see things my way." After that, however, he was pretty much lost.

"Our breakup…" she started to say.

"We talked about that already," Harry interrupted, protesting. "We talked about that, and we agreed not to see each other. I'm sorry Ginny, but that's the way this has to be."

Ginny sighed, looking like a young woman who was being patient and wanting everyone to know it. "Yes Harry, we did, but there was one thing that we didn't address. You-Know-Who isn't going to live forever, and sooner or later the war will be over and it won't be dangerous anymore. What then?" she asked, though Harry knew without a doubt that she already had an answer to that question, or she wouldn't be asking it.

"Well…um Ginny, I hadn't thought about it really," he said truthfully. He hadn't thought about it, he had been concentrating too hard on the little detail of how-to-kill-Voldemort.

"What would you like?" Ginny asked, her head tilted casually as if she was merely asking if he had collected a certain magic frog wizard card yet.

He knew that the question was anything but casual. "Well…well, I think that I'd want to start seeing you again, but Ginny I can't ask you to wait for me. It might be years before…."

This time, she interrupted him. "Well, that settles it then," she said happily.

"Settles it?" he asked, confusion growing on his face. He didn't remember saying anything in that last sentence that sounded like a commitment of any sort.

"Uh huh," Ginny said, grinning like a well-fed predator. "Whether you like it or not Mr. Harry Potter, I will be waiting for you."

"But Ginny," he started to protest again.

"But nothing Harry. You admitted that you still want to see me after this is all over and done with…." She made the war that threatened to destroy the entire wizarding world like a minor obstacle that he would easily resolve somehow. "…And I want to start seeing you again as soon as possible. You want to be noble, and I accept that, but that acceptance comes with a price. You have to accept that I will be waiting for you."

Harry knew that he didn't have a choice, and there was nothing she could have said that would have motivated him any more to want to get this war over with.

"All right," he said quietly. Whatever had he done to deserve to have this angle waiting for him?

Ginny smiled up at him, probably quite satisfied with how the conversation had gone. "All right then. Now Harry, sit down here on this bench," she ordered, pointing to a bench about four feet behind them.

"What…oh. I thought you weren't going to do anything with my hair," he mumbled as she whipped out a comb and a jar of some kind of styling gel out from nowhere.

"I never said that. Now sit down so I can work on that cowlick of yours," the redhead replied.
………….

A man watched the proceedings from beneath a barrowed invisibility cloak. It seemed odd to him that all of Voldemort's followers only had one between them. Even under the cloak he was still disguised as one of the caterers.

Pity that Moody and that bloody eye of his made this necessary. He hated the red uniform the caterers wore. Never mind that, he hated red period. Hopefully, though, no one would ever see him wearing it. He would transform the hideous color back to his usual black before he removed the invisibility cloak.

The garden was decorated for a wedding, of course. His eyes skimmed over flower arrangements and such, looking for his quarry. And there he was…seated, protesting ineffectually while a redheaded girl appeared to be trying to get his hair to lay flat.

Well, everyone had impossible tasks to perform.

Ignoring the pair and taking only enough notice of the few putting finishing touches on the decorations enough so no one would get close enough to try to walk through him or hear his movements, the man proceeded towards the tables for the guest seating during the reception.

As he got closer to the tables he saw cards with writing on them at every place setting. Oh, he couldn't be this lucky. When he got there, he saw that the cards were indeed seating assignments. He started scanning them for the names they held.

This made his job much easier.

Young Mr. Malfoy had returned to headquarters a few nights after his 'death' to once again report partial success. He was being sheltered by Order in their old headquarters, but he was certain that they would be taking full security precautions during any meetings, and it wasn't even for certain if they were going to hold more meetings there or not. No one else lived there, so it was impossible for him to find any information from people that were not there.

So the Dark Lord had decided to remedy this situation.

The man found the three names he had been looking for. Even better, Alastor Moody was seated at the same table. He would be sure to catch it.

After making sure that no one was in his immediate vicinity, the man poured small amounts of poison into three of the empty goblets at that table. The poison spluttered for a moment, then became invisible as it adhered to the bottom of the goblet. This poison was undetectable in an empty goblet, detectable by only the faintest of odors that only the highly trained could detect once mixed with any beverage, and decidedly deadly within seconds when ingested even in the smallest amounts--but it wasn't meant to kill anybody.

The aim in this entire poisoning business was for the poison to be caught, and the Order to decide that 'golden trio' would be safer living in the Order's headquarters--with the Malfoys. Draco would find it much more possible to do his job then, though possibly it would still be very time consuming.

As the only Death Eater that knew that Draco Malfoy lived, the Dark Lord had given him this assignment. Given that he could no longer enter Order headquarters himself, he didn't mind doing it. This would serve his own aims, the aims of one Severus Snape, very well indeed.
………………

"We have to what?!" Harry exclaimed, mentally processing the implications of this.

He stood with Ron and Hermione on either side of him, facing Moody and Professor McGonagall in a bedroom of the Weasley's house. In this situation, however, it did not seem to matter that it was three against two.

"I'm afraid that there isn't any way around it Potter, the three of you will simply have to move into your house…for good," Moody said, sounding like a stern uncle but undeniably pleased with himself at the same time.

And Moody was very pleased with himself. During the reception following the wedding, he had been sitting next to Harry lecturing him once again on 'constant vigilance' minutes away from when the toasting should have started.

"For example Potter," Mood had said, exchanging goblets with him--not the Moody was planning on drinking from his own goblet--and holding Harry's goblet up, examining it. "Your goblet could have been poisoned. The wine could have been poisoned, or poison could have been put into the goblet itself. They've been sitting out here for some time…and with place settings no less, I'll have to talk with Molly about that…so anyone could have come by and dropped a few drops of something in. But how do you know? Well, you start by observing the color, and then the smell…."

No matter how use everyone was to Moody looking for poison in everything he ate or drank, no one really expected him to ever find any. His roar of, "POISON!!!" while it had been expected at least subconsciously by everyone that knew Moody at some point, still came as a shock to everyone.

There was, of course, the minor uproar you expect to find when there is an attempted poisoning at a wedding reception during a war. Wands had started springing to the hands of their owners as if they expected Death Eaters to spring from beneath the tables, a few witches had fainted, and it had taken more than half an hour to get the bride calmed down.

The ministry had been called in, and had tested everything else and after making sure that the culprit was no longer on the grounds, had announced that only three goblets had been poisoned; his, Ron's, and Hermione's.

Moody had been practically dancing around, or as much as he could considering the gravity of the situation. After all this time of stiffing food and bringing his own drinks he had finally been vindicated. All of his collogues had been shown that his vigilance had more than paid off. Tomorrow, the whole wizarding world would know as the Daily Prophet was putting the incident in which Harry Potter's life had been saved on the front page.

Harry was so sick of being on the front page, but was more concerned about what this incident implicated.

"I agree with Moody, Potter," Professor McGonagall said, though not with the barely concealed joy Moody possessed. If anything, she appeared slightly annoyed with Moody under her concern for the current circumstances. "I will admit," she continued, "that I would have expected you to be poisoned and not your friends as well, but…."

"I know why Professor," Harry said quietly, he had given this some thought. "Whoever put the poison in the goblets in the cups had to have been looking at the place settings. He knew that Moody was seated beside me, and that there was a good chance that he would catch it. I conclude that no one was meant to die from this poisoning."

McGonagall opened her mouth, and then closed it again, frowning, unable to disagree.

"And then there is the fact that Ron and Hermione were targeted as well as me," Harry bitterly continued. "If it wasn't meant to kill me, it wouldn't have been meant to kill them either. This means that Voldemort probably wanted to tell me that my friends are in danger for no other reason than that they are my friends. It happened at a wedding, which while it may have been the most convenient place to do it, means that he is trying to separate me from any normalcy in life, that I couldn't even have one day of untarnished bliss to enjoy with my friends.

"It's about him and me, and that's all it really comes down to," Harry finished, not able to keep the tartness out of his voice. He looked over towards Ron and Hermione who were both sitting on the bed for lack of room to stand. Ron was frowning to himself, nodding at Harry's statements, but his face held a resolve that more than suggested he was planning on sticking this one out. Hermione was still somewhat pale, and though it was apparent that she agreed with him, it still looked like her mind had reached several other conclusions none of which she liked very much.

Professor McGonagall had a sad look in her eyes. "You've grown…haven't you," she muttered under her breath before speaking louder. "While that may be true, it doesn't change that all three of you should live in Grimmauld Place for your own safety. Leaving to do whatever it is Professor Dumbledore had wanted you do to," she still sounded distinctly unhappy about not knowing what exactly that was, "but other than that, it might be better for you to stay where you'll be safe."

Safe…with the Malfoys for company. It didn't sound much more fun than his short visit to his uncle and aunt's house…Harry had only gone because Dumbledore had wanted him too…but there was no where he could safely escape to should matters become strained. He couldn't go to Hogwarts to escape anymore, or to the Weasley's either because of the danger it would put them in.

It was a trap of his own making, he had allowed the Malfoys to stay, but what other alternative could he have decently chosen?

"Fine, we'll go stay in Grimmauld Place. Is there anything else we need to address?" Harry conceded tiredly, knowing that there would be at least one more thing to talk about, and he wasn't disappointed.

"Yes, there is," McGonagall admitted, "and it's the Malfoys. Moody disagrees with me on a few of the finer points here…." Moody harrumphed, but McGonagall continued, "Well, we don't let them know any more than they have to for obvious reasons. However, you all should at least be civil to them. Friendly would be better, but civil will do for now."

"WHAT!" Ron exclaimed, almost jumping off the bed, only stopping when he bounced into Harry. "Civil, friendly even, to Malfoy!"

"Think about it Ron," Hermione said, finally giving voice to the conclusion she had reached even before reaching this room. "What if, in spite of all of our efforts, Malfoy finds out information that stands a good chance of getting Voldemort to 'forgive' his failure if he gives it to him? If we are as nasty to him as he had been to us while we were still in school that would only push him to go back to Voldemort. Personally, I think that Malfoy's decision to run was made entirely with his head, but this isn't what he wanted to do, and wouldn't have if he had had any other reasonable choice. While I've never thought personally that Malfoy ever had much of a heart, he isn't totally horrible, so it may be possible--though probably very unlikely--that he might someday actually 'turn good.' However, it won't happen unless we go the extra mile."

"What do you expect? Am I supposed to show up with candy and flowers or something?" Ron protested.

"I wouldn't suggest it," Hermione said with a small smile. "He'd probably think that you were trying to poison him or something."
………….

It was moving day, and Draco was up in his room avoiding it as much as possible. If he was out in the open, he might be expected to do something and expediting the process of Potter, Weasley, and Granger moving in was not his idea of fun. He knew that this would make his mission a lot easier, and suspected that the Dark Lord had somehow arranged it, but that didn't mean that he liked it.

Draco thought that it was a pity that not calling Granger a 'Mudblood' had been one of the conditions on which he was allowed to stay in Grimmauld Place. Since Potter and his two minions were moving in, they would be seeing a lot of each other. And after all, old habits died hard.

Draco knew that he would have to watch himself.

Of course, there was the possible complication of being too nice, which would immediately tip everyone off that he was up to something. This meant that he would have to act like the superior he was, just enough that they would not suspect anything else in his behavior.

Sighing, Draco finished redistributing the dust bunnies under his bed to cover the hiding spot where the books he had found were hidden. He was very careful to put them away after he was done reading for the night so no one would find that he was reading them. He was fairly certain that Potter wouldn't like him reading books about magic as dark as Horcruxes, and it felt good defying Potter even in this little thing.

Part of Draco's mind cringed that such as small gesture was so satisfying. He was a Malfoy, a Pureblood, and extremely wealthy, but yet took pleasure in hiding books from a Halfblood? He knew that it was a sign of just how far he had fallen, and he had fallen very far since he had started school.

When he had started at Hogwarts, he had it all. He was a pureblood, rich, and had a father that was a governor of the school and a well-respected member of the wizarding community. When he had offered his friendship to Potter right before school started, he had expected to also be known as Harry Potter's best friend, the constant companion of the boy who had saved the wizarding world. Instead, Potter had chosen to befriend Weasley.

It was with at least some satisfaction he noted, that had Potter chosen him, Draco knew that he was well known enough that they would have been know as 'Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy.' Instead, Weasley had to deal with being known only as 'That that red-headed kid with Harry Potter.'

Despite his satisfaction about that particular fact, it didn't change that the moment that Potter had chosen to befriend Weasley instead of him was the moment his own life had started to go downhill. First, Potter had gained even more fame than he had had before by rescuing the Sorcerer's Stone. The next year meant even more fame for Potter, and worse yet, Draco's own father had been removed as a school governor. During the third year, he had tried to get back at Potter by getting that stupid hippogriff killed, but somehow that hadn't happened as he had planned either. Fourth year had only established Potter's supposed superiority--quite aside from that embarrassing ferret incident--and finally, during the fifth year his father had been sent to Azkaban.

His father, the man who's influence he used to threaten other students with, the man he had counted on to make things right again, was now a despised criminal. His father had done more than failed the Dark Lord that night, he had failed his son too. Draco had come to the realization that if things were to be right again, he would have to do it himself. This was the biggest reason why he had accepted the Dark Mark and the mission to kill Dumbledore. He had known that he would not fail.

But then he had.

Why, was a matter that he was still trying to work out. Dumbledore had been there, weak and disarmed, and a simple 'Avada Kedavra' would have finished him. Draco had been trying to kill him for months with increasing desperation as time went by, and he knew that death for him and his family would be the price for failure, but when he had had his chance….

Draco could still not explain, even to himself, what had happened.

That didn't matter now, though. What mattered was that the Dark Lord had given him another chance, an opportunity to pay for his failure with something other than death. The principle that people should get what they pay for, and pay for what they get, was one thing that his mother had hammered into his skull since he was young. He was inclined to follow her advice.

Everything, after all, had a price. You just had to be willing to pay for it.

Deciding that it was probably time to shake himself out of his reverie and do something he considered practical, Draco got up and left his room. Where there had been popping sounds as people Apparated and Disapparated while moving stuff into Grimmauld Place, it was now fairly silent as things were merely being put into their rightful places.

He headed toward the kitchen with the vague notion of seeing if his mother had burned down the kitchen yet. Mrs. Weasley had been assigning chores earlier that day and, for some strange reason, had wanted his mother to help her with the cooking. After tiptoeing past the portrait of Mrs. Black, he stopped dead in his tracks, hearing voices discussing something in hushed tones just around the corner. It sounded like Potter and Ginny Weasley.

"Ginny, you do know that it could be years before this is over? I mean, you could wait all that time, and I still might not survive…and you could have been happy all of that time with someone else…."

"I've made my decision Harry. You are more than worth waiting for, and you proved it again just now! I mean, if you care enough about me to let me go and be with someone else if it would make me happy…that alone would make any girl melt. Besides, I already know how you'd react if I started dating another guy."

"Erm…you do?" Potter answered somewhat tentatively.

"Sure I do. First you'd have to resist the urge to go beat him senseless. Then you'd be trying to make sure that he…er…was treating me right, which would mean that I would have to put up with you spying on us all the time. Even if I managed to convince you that I was happy with another person, you would get sulky. Some girls think that a man is cute when he sulks…I am not one of them. I agreed to not argue about not seeing you because you want to keep me safe from You-Know-Who, but don't you think for one second that I'm even going to consider trying to find another guy. I'd rather be with than you."

"Well, if you're sure…."

The voices sounded like Potter and the Weasley girl were coming closer, and Draco knew that it would not go well if it looked like he had been listening.

Thinking quickly, Draco opened and shut the door to the bathroom just loud enough that the curtains that normally covered the portrait of Mrs. Black billowed out, and she started screaming.

"YET ANOTHER BLOOD TRAITOR LIVING UNDER THE SAME ROOF WITH THE OTHER BLOOD TRAITORS AND THAT MUDBLOOD! YET ANOTHER OF MY BLOOD, A TRAITOR! FILTH! SCUM!"

He was fairly certain that this was the first time that he, Draco Malfoy, had been called a 'Blood traitor.' He was use to many other accusations, but this one surprised him enough that he forgot to get angry about it. He had more pressing matters on his mind than wall hangings.

The portrait continued to rant, and Draco grabbed the curtains, trying to close them. When Potter and the Weasley girl came into view, they both looked somewhat worried. Ignoring their expressions, he asked, "Is this bloody woman always this noisy?"

"Yes," Potter said. "By the way, don't you know to be quite in this hall? What were you doing anyway?"

Or, in other words, how much had he overheard.

"Well, if you must know," Draco answered sarcastically, "I just shut the door a little too loudly when I was leaving the bathroom after tending to business. After leaving the hall, I am planning to go to the kitchen. I heard a rumor that my mother is suppose to be helping with dinner, and I wanted to make sure that she wasn't going to try anything too fancy like…oh…boiling water. Malfoy women don't usually enter a kitchen for longer than it takes to give orders to the cook, but with my mother there is a reason in addition to the fact that we normally pay someone else to do it. Unless you want to find out what that other reason is, I strongly suggest that you find out what dishes she 'helped' with before dinner, and avoid them.

"Now, is that all or would you like me to write down hourly reports of my activities and owl them to you?" Draco finished.

"That won't be necessary," Potter said, looking relieved.

"Fine then," Draco said, and walked past the couple.

So, Potter had 'broken up' with the Weasley girl to keep her safe, and she had decided to wait around for him. Draco had to admit that keeping away from a girlfriend that pretty, who most obviously wanted to spend as much time as possible with him, would be difficult to say the least. But Potter was willing to do it to keep her as safe as he could.

Potter was willing to pay for what he wanted.

Draco sighed, knowing that this meant that he wouldn't be telling the Dark Lord about it. Potter was paying for his woman's safety, so he should get it. It was as simple as that. And it wasn't as if he would be disobeying a direct order--the Dark Lord had not said, "And be sure to tell me if Potter is staying away from any of his ex-girlfriends only to keep them safe,"--so it would be all right.

In the long run, Potter was going to die anyway and whether or not Ginny Weasley outlived him was of no consequence.

He walked into the living room to see Granger lounging on the couch reading some book, probably already done with her unpacking.

"Granger," he said, nodding at her as he passed. He had found out long ago that a slow nod or slight bow was a good way to look a girl over without being too obvious. Whatever Granger's station in life was, he could not deny that she was attractive…or that the skirt that she was currently wearing had ridden up just enough during her lounging that he could get a good view of her long legs.

"Malfoy," she replied, not even appearing more than glance over the top of her book at him as he walked past.

He smiled to himself as he left the room; it probably wouldn't be appropriate to report to the Dark Lord that the 'Golden Trio' had moved in but that the only thing he had discovered thus far that Granger did have very nice legs….
……………..

As soon as she heard the door to the dining room close, Hermione hurriedly pulled her skirt back down to cover her legs decently. She hadn't noticed how high the skirt had ridden up until Malfoy had walked into the room…and then she had kept her face hidden behind her book to keep him from seeing her blush. She had felt his eyes more than she had seen them, and she hadn't wanted him to know that he had the capability to affect her this way. She didn't want him to know, at least partially because she didn't understand it herself.

She certainly did not like him. Draco Malfoy was an arrogant prick that had been picking on her as a pastime for years. He had caused nothing but trouble, and had even gotten himself mixed up with the Death Eaters and Voldemort. And then he had gone to the Weasley's house, practically begging his greatest enemy for help.

Hermione almost wished that Harry had not said that not calling her a 'Mudblood' was one of the conditions of staying in Grimmauld Place, one of the conditions that let him and his mother live. While she didn't appreciate being called by that term, she knew that Malfoy was probably afraid that if it slipped out of his mouth once that Harry would toss him and his mother out of Grimmauld Place. If that happened, it would only be a matter of weeks or months that they would have left to live.

That kind of fear had a way of eating people up. Actually, that kind of fear had already eaten Draco up to some degree. If it had not, he wouldn't be hidden in the Order's headquarters trying to 'be civil' to people he had always hated.

Of course, he didn't know that they had as little choice about 'being civil' as he did.

Sighing, Hermione picked her book up and continued to read.