Thunder echoed through the long dark halls as students, staff, and refugees slept. It bounced off the walls and magnified so that it sounded as if the world was ending. This was not a deterrent for Draco however as he hurried along the empty fifth floor corridor towards the statue of Alexander Henwick, where he had promised to meet Ginny.

When he found the statue that he had once accidentally transfigured into a horse with two heads, Draco stopped and waited, ears perked for any sign of the lovely redhead that had clouded his mind hours before during his latest failed attempt at Occlumency. Needless to say, Severus had not been pleased when all Draco could do was think about Ginny sitting next to him at meal times, although Draco figured Severus had to know that he and Ginny were dating by now.

“A little late to be out of bed isn’t it master transformer?” Draco tried to ignore the statue. It obviously still remembered that he had been the one responsible for the two horse heads.

“If you were smart you’d be using a disaparato charm on yourself so that you don’t get caught after hours.”

Draco turned to him. “A what?”

“A what? Did you just say a what young man? What do they teach you here? A first year should be able to do a simple disaparato!” The statue was obviously flustered. “To think that all those years of inventing spells went to waste! A what, really.”

Rolling his eyes, Draco crossed his arms and waited to be told what the spell was and how to do it. Seeing that his ranting was getting him nowhere, the statue went into professor mode and explained that it was a simple spell to make yourself disappear for short amounts of time.

“We learn spells like that, just not the one you’re talking about.”

“Well it’s time you learned this one then young man. This spell will get you out of many sticky situations!” The statue took his wand and moved it in a circular motion around his face, and said, “Disaparatus.” Nothing happened.

“That’s it?” Draco asked quizzically. “I can still see you.”

The statue waved his hands in the air. “Well what do you expect? I’m a statue! I have no magic in my stone wand! You try it! The counter is sutarapasid.”

“The counter is just the word backwards?”

“Well if you wish to make yourself undisappear…”

Shaking his head Draco lifted his own wand and muttered the incantation while waving his wand around his face. When he was finished, he looked down at his hand to see that it had vanished.

“How long does this spell last?” he asked.

“Five minutes,” the statue told him. “Perhaps they do not teach it to you here to prevent mischief makers such as yourself, but then again I always had a soft spot for your sort. I’ve only taught that spell to three people including you in the last five years.”

“Who else?”

“A pair of twins… flaming red hair and mischief written all over their faces.”

Draco nodded. Sounded like Ginny’s brothers. He always had gotten a good laugh out of them, even if they were Gryffindors.

Hearing footsteps from down the hall, Draco stood still and the statue became solid again, as if he had never come to life before. The steps only revealed Ginny though, who stopped at the statue to wait. Draco muttered the cancellation spell for the disappearing charm and reappeared inches from Ginny’s face, making her leap back into the wall.

“Where-”

Draco grinned. “Someone taught me a useful spell. I’ll show you later. Come on.” Taking her hand he lead her off around the corner and to a bare patch of wall. Here he touched the third brick from the bottom, which was slightly off color from the rest, and then a brick five over and five up, also slightly off color. The wall melted to reveal an archway behind it.

“What’s this?”

“Guess you’ll have to wait and see.” Draco pulled her gently inside and lit the lamps hanging on the round room with his wand. Once lit they revealed a tall library packed with books. The carpet and chairs were blue.

“Ravenclaw’s library?” Ginny asked. Draco nodded.

“I don’t think any Ravenclaws know about it at the moment. It’s a bit dusty. I had to convince Nearly Headless Nick to get the location out of the Fat Friar.”

Ginny ran her hand over the books on the shelves nearest her. “This is great. Hermione would have a fit if she found out there was a whole other library she’d never even been through in her seven years here.”

“Maybe we should keep this our secret,” Draco said, coming up behind her and putting his arms around her midsection.

Giggling because her stomach was ticklish where he had placed his hands, Ginny turned and asked, “Why?”

Shrugging Draco said, “Because then just you and me know about it, and we have a place to sneak off to that Ron won’t walk in on us.”

“Oh,” Ginny said, “so you want us to make out more? Is that it?”

Cheeks turning slightly red, Draco said, “I just meant, you know, I…”

She put a finger to his lips to quiet him, and then replaced it with her own. Draco was fine being speechless around her, because she always found a way to take the words from him and make it not matter at all.


“Oh, this is killing me.” Draco groaned as Harry lifted the Occlumens spell from him, weak though it had been. They stood in the middle of the room of requirement, which had taken the shape of a square, uninteresting room today to fit their purposes.

“Try something else,” Harry suggested. “Try picturing a house elf maybe, or… anything. Just something to push the images you don’t want out of your mind.”

“I have tried,” Draco said. “It’s no good. I’m useless at this. Snape was furious last night when all I could see was Crabbe and Goyle trying to beat the crap out of me the last few nights before Crabbe was expelled.”

“Hm… I don’t know how to help then. Your next lesson is tonight isn’t it?”

Draco nodded. “I hate this. I just want to quit and be done with it instead of making him angry every time I don’t get it right.”

“He’s just like that,” Harry said. “He shouted at me a couple times when I couldn’t get it to work.”

Plopping down in one of the two chairs in the room, Draco crossed his arms. “Yeah, well I wish he wasn’t like that. Not everybody can do everything, and not everybody can get everything as easily as he can. We’ve been doing lessons for three weeks now, and I was only able to push him from my mind that one time I thought about Ginny standing on top of a zebra.”

“Maybe you should try that image again,” Harry tried. “Maybe… Ginny standing naked on a zebra?”

Draco put his hands up to his eyes to block out the light. “No, no, don’t say that or that’s what I’ll be thinking about when I don’t want to be. I don’t want anybody to see her naked.”

“Well, maybe you won’t see that picture since you’ve never seen her naked.” Harry shrugged and Draco removed his hands from his eyes.

“Oh, and you have?”

Harry shook his head. “No, I didn’t mean anything by it. I just figured if you had I would have heard about it by now. No worries.”

Draco relaxed a little bit and went back to feeling sorry for himself. “This is going to be awful tonight.”

“Yep,” Harry said. “That’s usually the way these lessons go until you get it right. Dread, embarrassment, dread, embarrassment… maybe if you get rid of the dread the embarrassment will go away.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?”

Harry shrugged again. “I dunno. Believe you can do it maybe?”

“You’re no help at all.”


Draco’s feet felt heavy as he left his common room and headed towards Snape’s office after dinner that night. The only thing he had to look forward to was meeting Ginny in Ravenclaw’s library after the lesson was over, as had become their routine since he had shown it to her.

Inside the office Draco stood and waited, low hopes for the outcome of the lesson, as Snape finished grading the paper he had been working on and then turned his attention to Draco.

“Have you been practicing occluding your mind?”

Draco nodded. “Yes sir.”

“Good. Let us try again then. Remember, concentrate on one thing, and one thing only, and I will not be able to search through your mind like an open book.”

Trying to find something to concentrate on other than Ginny naked atop a zebra, Draco settled on the empty, boring walls of the room of requirement where he and Harry had practiced earlier that afternoon. Severus uttered the spell and Draco was hurrying down a darkened corridor on his way to meet Ginny at the spell inventor’s statue.

No, Draco thought, and he tried to picture clearly the empty room of requirement. For a moment the room flashed before his eyes, but he could not hold on to the image as the statue began to question him about being out so late. No. Draco was desperate now. He tried to picture the room again, and again it flashed before his eyes, but the corridor came back to him, and now Ginny was walking towards his invisible body.

Suddenly angry with himself that he was letting this happen, Draco added Harry into the picture and tried to picture the room of requirement again. This time he held the image for a few seconds as Harry sat in the chair talking to him, but Draco couldn’t remember all of the conversation. Wildly he cast his mind around for any other memory without Ginny in it as he lead her through the dark halls to the hidden entrance to Ravenclaw’s library. He tried picturing himself sitting in Potion’s class, he tried seeing himself on a broom in the Quidditch pitch, and even tried remembering the fist fight he and Harry had gotten into during the summer, but nothing so much as a flash of memory came to him, and he was forced to watch as he and Ginny entered the library.

Desperate, and barely aware of his body outside the memory, Draco managed to pull his wand from his pocket. Before he could take aim though, the memory changed, and he and Ginny were sneaking out of the castle and into the hidden garden out on the grounds under the stars. Again the memory changed, and he and Ginny were sneaking down to the kitchens for a midnight snack. Another flash and he and Ginny were kissing in an empty classroom at five am.

Feeling weak, Draco felt his knees hit the stone floor of the office, and finally he was with his own body again, wand in hand, shaking with rage.

“Get up,” Snape said angrily. Draco stayed where he was but stared up into his eyes.

“I hate you,” Draco said.

“Good,” Severus said. “Now what was that? Does be on your best behavior or you will lose my protection mean nothing to you? Sneaking out after hours with some girl is not what I would call-”

“I hate you,” Draco said again, malice in his voice.

“We’ve established that Malfoy.” Snape’s arms were crossed and he was looking poisonous. “Do not expect me to protect you when you can’t even follow rules laid down for your own protection. She is your weakness Draco, do not let her be that for you.”

Finally finding the strength to get to his feet, Draco pushed himself up off the ground and threw the office door open, slamming it behind him. He couldn’t remember a time when he had been angrier. Some girl? Ginny wasn’t just some girl. How could he have ever thought that Snape could understand him? He didn’t understand anything! Hadn’t he ever been in love before?

Disgusted, Draco shook his head and ran up through the mostly empty corridors towards the North tower, forgetting about his meeting with Ginny. It wasn’t after curfew yet and most students were still awake. Draco didn’t want to be around anybody at the moment.

Finally at the ladder that would lead him to the roof of the tower, Draco climbed up, still fuming about the man sitting down in his dungeon office hundreds of feet below. He pushed the trapdoor to the tower roof open roughly, and slammed it behind him. He wished he could get even farther away from the man he had been dreading spending time with for weeks now, but knew he couldn’t unless he left the castle grounds altogether.

A slight breeze whipped through Draco’s blond hair and helped to cool him after his long climb through the castle. How could he have been so stupid? Occlumency was worthless and he had just spent three weeks showing Snape all of his innermost embarrassing moments and thoughts with nothing to show for it.

Draco stared off into the night towards the Forbidden forest unseeing, not realizing that something black was winging its way towards him through the darkness, until it was almost to him. Leaping out of the way, Draco let the small black owl pass by him and land on the opposite tower ledge. There was a letter attached to it. Was it meant for him?

When he approached the owl waited dutifully as Draco untied the letter. His name was on the outside.

Draco was startled to find a quickly scrawled note in his father’s handwriting.

Dearest Draco,

I am in urgent need of your help. Please do not deny me the chance to meet with you briefly. I am in your confidence that you will not give away my close location to the castle. I will be waiting on the edge of the Forbidden forest and Hogsmead near the windy oak with your mother’s and my initials scratched into the base tomorrow afternoon. Please find it in your heart to grant me this request.

Do not respond to this letter, because I fear He will intercept it and find my location or put you in danger.

-Your father

Draco re-read the note three times. His father was afraid that He would find his location? Who was He? The Dark Lord? He must have been in deep trouble to call upon Draco for help, seeing as how Draco had tried to kill him during the battle on the castle grounds the year before. He was putting a lot of trust in Draco giving him a time and place where he would be. Perhaps he thought him worthy of the information, even after spending so much time under Dumbledore’s influence?

Draco was deep in thought all the way back down through the castle, his fight with Snape at the back of his mind, but still there. What was he going to do? Should he go? How could he not go when his father was in need of help? But then again, he wasn’t his father anymore was he?

Vicious thoughts circled Draco’s head as he climbed into his four-poster and lay on his back, note still clutched in his hand. Snape sure wasn’t much of a father to him… he told him flat out he wouldn’t protect him because he messed up and broke curfew a few times… what kind of parent was that? Lucius had put up with Draco’s mistakes thousands of times and had still held true with his protection for him. Snape didn’t even understand why Draco had broken curfew… at least his father had won over his mother’s heart at one time. At least his father knew what it was to raise a child.

The dormitory door opened and admitted someone. From the heavy steps Draco knew that it was Goyle.

“Draco?” Goyle’s voice was uncertain.

“What?”

“Are you in here?”

“Obviously.”

Goyle pulled back one of Draco’s curtains slowly, and gave him a sheepish look. “Can I copy your Transfiguration homework?”

“It’s full of mistakes,” Draco told him, knowing that it was probably the truth.

Goyle shrugged. “She took points off for not having it done at all last time.”

Draco waved him away and said, “It’s in my trunk.”

As Goyle rummaged through Draco’s trunk as he used to when they were still friends, Draco wondered why Goyle was even speaking to him. Since the battle the year before he and Crabbe had been intent on ignoring him or killing him. This was the first time Goyle had exchanged pleasant words with him since then.

After a short while Draco could hear Goyle scratching out a copy of the homework. Every once in a while the quill would stop, and Draco figured it was probably because Goyle was trying to figure out a word in Draco’s cursive.

“Goyle?”

“Huh?” it was more of a grunt, but because the quill had stopped scratching, Draco knew he was listening.

“Where do you suppose Crabbe is right now?”

There was silence as he thought, and then said, “His dad rescued him from the Ministry. His dad always gets him out of trouble. You know that. Just like your dad and my dad.”

When Draco didn’t respond, he heard the quill start scratching again. Note still clutched in his fist, he rolled over, feeling safe not putting up the protection charms around his bed for some reason. In his dreams, Severus yelled at him as he lay on his office floor dying.

“You’re a bad son, and I don’t want you anymore,” he told Draco over and over again.


As if he had formed a plan in his sleep, Draco rose before the first morning light and made his way out of the dungeons. His mind was made up.

Using the secret underground entrance to the hidden garden on the grounds, Draco made his way stealthily out into the cool morning air. It was so early that the birds weren’t even chirping yet.

The grass was crisp with frost underfoot as he left the garden and headed towards the edge of the Forbidden Forest. He would sneak through the trees thirty feet in all the way around the edge until he met the edge of Hogsmead and found the tree his mother and father had once shown him when he was a child. It would have been a lot easier to apparate, he thought to himself, but they wouldn’t learn that until after Christmas holiday when a representative from the Department of magical transportation came to give the seventh years lessons.

The morning sun was high in the sky by the time Draco made it around the edge of the woods and found the tree with his mother and father’s names carved into the trunk. There was no sign of his father, and as he waited, he traced the lines of the heart connecting their names with his finger.

Long hours passed by, and both hungry and anxious, Draco wanted something to do to pass the time. He pulled out his pocketknife and began to carve his and Ginny’s names under his father and mother’s names, connecting them with a heart in the same way.

“She is pretty isn’t she?”

Draco spun around. His father stood there wearing somewhat tattered and dirty robes. It looked as if he had been in a few fights and not had the time to change.

“Father?”

“The girl… Ginny. You made a good choice. I can see why you like her. She’s pretty, witty, intelligent.”

Draco frowned. “I thought you hated the Weasleys.”

“They’re pureblood son… how can I hate them. I dislike the way they choose to live, but I do not hate them.”

His father took a step forward as Draco ran this through his mind. He had imagined that his father might be angry if ever he found out that he was dating a Gryffindor… and a Weasley.

“How have you been?” The question stabbed at Draco unexpectedly. His father had never asked him that before.

“Ok,” Draco hedged. “I’ve been learning Occlumency.”

Lucius raised a brow. “My apologies for being such a poor teacher when it came to that and so many other things Draco. My patience has never been what it should have been with you. How are you faring in the skill under new tutelage?”

Draco frowned, remembering his dread for each lesson with Snape, and remembering the falling out with him the night before. “Not good,” he finally told him. “All I can think about is Ginny.”

“Hm…” Lucius seemed to think for a few moments, and then said, “She must be a great strength to you to be able to think about her so much. I would use that to your advantage. Your mother was always a strength for me in time of need. Perhaps you should keep your mind on Ginny more often instead of trying to steer it away from her?”

Even now as his father mentioned her, thinking of Ginny pulled at Draco’s heart. Snape was wrong. She wasn’t his weakness, she was his strength! Even in his nightmares, she was the one who always made the monster chasing him disappear! If Snape had been wrong about Ginny, what else had he been wrong about?

“You, you said you needed help,” Draco said.

Lucius nodded. “I need help protecting you Draco.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Soon there will be an attack on the castle. I’m disobeying orders right now just warning you about it. If you are there, you will die. Not for lack of prowess with a wand, but simply because the Dark Lord is against you. I need to get you as far away from the castle as possible. You and I can travel back to Malfoy Manor and get your mother, and we can travel to someplace he’ll never think to look for us. We can wait out the storm, and when it’s over, get him to place his trust in you once again.”

“I’m not leaving Ginny,” Draco said forcefully. “If he’s against me he’ll be against her.”

“You will never convince her to run away with us Draco,” Lucius told him truthfully. “But we will be able to protect her from afar off. There are students in other houses whom have fallen in with the Dark Lord recently, and I am friends with their parents. We can convince them to protect her during the battle, and then to bring her to us afterwards.”

Draco bit his lip. “I’m not asking you to betray your friends Draco… you need not give me any information. I only ask that you come away with your mother and I so that we can start over. It would kill both of us for you to die. You’re our son.”

This last statement seemed to pull at Draco’s heart as well. His father had never spoken to him like this before. Something must have happened to change him so. Was it the fact that Draco had turned on him last year? Had he finally come to his senses?

“She misses you terribly,” Lucius added in as Draco thought. “She cries for you in her sleep. It has pained her to not be able to see you during holidays.”

“I miss her too,” Draco said.

“Then will you come with us?”

Draco looked up at the spindly tree next to him, his parents initials carved over his and Ginny’s.

“I need to get my things.”

Lucius smiled and nodded. “You must hurry then. Wait until dark and then return here. I will fetch your mother and we will be waiting for you.”

Draco nodded and moved to hurry off back up to the castle, but before he could leave his father grabbed his wrist and said urgently, “Draco… be careful.”

He looked into his father’s eyes, and then nodded again before he hurried off back into the woods.


It was well after lunch when Draco returned to the castle, and his stomach was growling furiously. He made a trip to the kitchens before he made his way back to the dungeon, and asked for several things, which he stored in a bag the house elves let him take. What he could carry was not enough food for three people for more than a day, but at least it was something.

Almost across the Entrance Hall on his way to the Dungeons, a voice stopped him.

“Draco?” It was Harry.

Trying not to look guilty Draco turned to face him as he came down the marble steps.

“You missed Potions this morning. Snape was pretty upset. What happened last night?”

Draco shook his head. “He yelled at me because he saw in my mind that I’ve been sneaking out after hours to spend time with Ginny.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Everybody does that. Well, not to spend time with Ginny, but you know what I mean.”

“Guess he never did,” Draco said, feeling resentful towards Snape again.

Harry slapped Draco on the back. “Oh well, just have to figure out how to keep him from seeing those memories in the next lesson then.”

“There won’t be a next lesson.”

“You’re quitting?”

“I guess.” Draco took a few steps towards the dungeons, and Harry moved to fall into stride with him.

“I’m going into Slytherin,” Draco said shortly, wanting to be free of Harry long enough to gather his things.

“Oh, ok, see you at dinner then?”

“Maybe,” Draco called over his shoulder as he hurried through the dungeon entrance and out of sight.

Harry frowned at Draco’s retreating back. Something didn’t feel right. Draco seemed too anxious over something.


At dinner Ginny sat across from Harry, alone, and looked upset.

“Have you seen Draco?” she asked him.

“Only for a second today. He didn’t seem like he wanted me following him around so I let him be.”

“Did he seem mad?”

“He seemed anxious, why?”

She fidgeted and said, “We were supposed to meet last night and he never showed up. I waited for hours…”

“Hm… he’s not like that normally is he.” It was a statement. Harry knew that if Draco promised to show up somewhere, he would.

“He didn’t seem strange earlier in the day… I didn’t think I said anything to upset him.”

Harry waved her off. “Something’s got him anxious, but I don’t think it’s you.”

“I dunno, maybe he got the place we were supposed to meet wrong. I mean, maybe he went out to Hufflepuff’s garden or something and he thought I was the one who didn’t show up.”

“Hufflepuff’s garden?”

“Yeah. There’s a secret exit from the castle that leads to a hidden garden out on the grounds that used to belong to Hufflepuff.”

Suddenly remembering that Draco had been carrying a bag with the kitchen elf’s mark stamped on it, he wondered at the fact that Draco had so much food with him. “I think maybe we’d better go to this garden tonight Ginny.”

“What? Why?”

“He was carrying a sack of food with him when I saw him. I dunno. It just seems like he’s anxious over something and he’s got food with him, and he has a secret way out of the castle.”

“So… you think he’s going somewhere? Where would he go?”

Harry shrugged. “We can go wait in the garden and if he never shows up then we’re wrong. If he does, then we follow him and find out.”

“He would tell me if I asked him,” Ginny pointed out. “He tells me everything.”

“Something might have happened to change that.”

Ginny began to fidget again. “I don’t feel right spying on him.”

“I don’t feel right about it either, but something’s going on. This just doesn’t feel right.”

Silently Ginny nodded that she would go with him, and they finished dinner quickly so that she could show Harry how to get out to the garden. It would be dark soon and Harry knew that if Draco was planning on going somewhere, it would be under the cover of darkness.


Out in the garden Harry and Ginny hid behind a large overgrown bush beside the underground entrance to the castle. It had barely gotten dark before the gate opened again and Draco emerged with a backpack stuffed full of things.

Ginny moved to emerge from the bush but Harry held her there so she wouldn’t give away their location. After Draco hurried from the garden to the rest of the grounds, Harry let Ginny rise and said, “Let’s follow him for a little while.” She didn’t look happy about it, but she nodded anyway and let Harry lead off.

For at least an hour they followed Draco through the Forbidden Forest. A few times they thought he had heard them because he turned to check the woods with his wand in the darkness, but Harry had placed a charm on himself and Ginny to make them blend in to the background provided they stood still.

Another hour passed, and there was still no sign of where Draco might have been going. The charm wore off of Harry and Ginny, and Harry didn’t bother to put it back on. They would be coming to the edge of Hogsmead soon if they continued in this direction, and there would be more places to hide in the village if they needed it.

Out of the corner of his eye Harry caught sight of a hooded figure in the distance ahead of him, and out of instinct he pushed Ginny down to the ground and lunged at Draco, knocking him to the dirt.

They struggled for a minute, but Harry clamped his hand down over Draco’s mouth and Ginny dove on Draco’s legs to help still him. When he stopped struggling seeing that it was Harry and Ginny, Harry finally removed his hand from his mouth.

“What the hell?” Draco asked in an angry whisper.

Harry pointed over Draco’s head and held a finger up to his lips to be quiet. Draco rolled onto his stomach and watched quietly, seeing nothing. They waited for long moments, and then finally the hooded figure made its brief appearance again from one tree to behind another.

Harry pointed to their right and Draco looked just in time to see yet another hooded figure. Surely his mother would not wear a hood, and they were still another ten minutes from the edge of Hogsmead.

“I take it they weren’t who you were on your way to meet?” Harry asked when he saw the look of betrayal play across Draco’s pale face.

He shook his head. “My father and mother.”

“Looks like dad was leading you into a trap,” Harry said, a bit unhappy that Draco had chosen to go back to his father.

“He said I was in danger and he just wanted for my mother and I to start a new life somewhere else.”

“You have to remember who you’re dealing with,” Harry reminded him unnecessarily. “Has he ever told you the truth?”

Draco shook his head, ashamed that he had fallen right into the trap his father had set for him. His father had known the exact tune to play to get Draco to believe him, and he had fallen for it so easily.

“I just wanted him to be different.”

Ginny put her hand on Draco’s shoulder now, and he realized again that she was there.

“I was so worried about you,” she whispered.

Draco looked away, ashamed. “I’m sorry.”

Harry pulled out his wand to put the charm on the three of them that would make them blend in so they could get back to the castle grounds unseen, but Draco stopped him and put the invisibility charm on them instead. It would only last for five minutes, but it would be enough to get them out of the immediate danger they were in of being spotted.

It was nearly midnight when they made it back inside the castle.

“We should tell somebody that they’re out there,” Harry said.

“They’ll know I was about to go straight to him if we tell them,” Draco said.

Ginny grabbed Draco’s hand suddenly and pulled him down a corridor they were about to pass, Harry following. “Not if we send an anonymous school owl,” she told them. “We’ll send it straight down to the aurors.”

Draco looked into her eyes as they hurried up a long flight of stairs towards the owlery. “That’s why I love you.”

She seemed surprised to hear those words from him, as he had yet to confess all of his feelings for her, but she only grinned, and gripped his hand tighter.