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.
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'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.
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