Prologue:

Slytherins didn’t marry for love. Everyone knew that. For a Slytherin, marriage was a way to increase one’s power and wealth, not unite two people in love. Not that Slytherins didn’t love. Oh, most would doubt it, but it happened. Slytherins loved. Not many and not often, but some of them did love.

She had loved. She had loved him, loved him so much. She’d wanted to marry him. And why not? It was a good match, both of them from good families, rich, well-connected, pure-blooded families. She’d never doubted that it would happen, that they would be allowed to wed. She’d been secure in the knowledge that they were a good match in all the ways her parents cared about.

She’d never considered the fact that there was someone her parents thought was an even better match for her, someone with a better lineage, with more money and more land. But there was, and in her seventh year at Hogwarts it was announced that she would marry him upon her graduation. The other Slytherins were envious but unsurprised by the news that Narcissa Black would wed Lucius Malfoy.

She shouldn’t have been surprised that her parents had seized the opportunity to attach their daughter to someone of even greater account than the man she was with, but the cold feeling in her chest had been unexpected. She was a Slytherin after all. She was supposed to be beyond such weak frivolity as love. But she wasn’t. She loved him, and in true Slytherin style, she was determined to have him, whatever it took.

Any plans coalescing in her mind came to a grinding halt before they were even done forming however, as a second announcement made its way into the Daily Prophet’s society pages. Caralyna Devington to wed Jasonan Parkinson. Her best friend and the man she loved. She’d thought it couldn’t get worse. Then she’d found out.

She was pregnant.

The world had started to fall out from under her. The contracts had been signed, nothing could be changed, for any of them, and if her secret was discovered, it would spell humiliation for her family and swift retribution by the Malfoys for such a grave insult. In short, she’d been in very big trouble. So she’d gone to the only people she could trust beyond anything, and after Jasonan had held her and Caralyna had patted her on the back as she cried, and Severus had offered to poison their parents, she’d brushed off the tears and they’d done what Slytherins did best. They’d plotted.

It was a complex scheme, and a dangerous one. It had taken months of tense manipulation, a horde of charms and incantations to darken her hair, shorten her legs, and turn blue to green, but in the end everyone had seen the black-haired, green-eyed Caralyna Parkinson grow fat with Jasonan’s child and give birth to an early, but healthy little girl seven months after their wedding. And thanks to her best friend’s excellent acting ability and a whole hell of a lot of expertly brewed Polyjucie potion, the wizarding world had seen nothing out of the ordinary with the new Mrs. Malfoy during that time.

Lucius, self-involved as he was, noticed only that their classmates produced an heir before he did. That was soon remedied just over nine months after the ceremony when, blue-eyed, blonde-haired once more, Narcissa, dark circles and tears concealed with the set of her jaw and flick of her wand, was able to announce the impending birth of their first child.

No notice was taken of the fact that the old school friends proclaimed each other godmothers to their children, nor was anything thought odd when Mrs. Malfoy spent so many of her days at her friend’s estate, young Draco and Pansy, ten months apart in age, playing together at their mothers’ sides.

No one saw through the guile of three artful Slytherins. Lies and half-truths held true for years, fifteen to be exact, until Azkaban claimed the lives of two men.

She mourned the loss of one, a loss so much worse than it had been all those years before. The loss of the other, however, she rejoiced. He was gone. After nearly sixteen years of marriage, he was gone and she was free, free to speak the words she’d longed to say for so long.

She didn’t waste a moment.

Her best friend at her side, Narcissa Malfoy arrived at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry early on the morning after it happened, before even the Daily Prophet could announce the full occurrences of the previous night’s battle at the Ministry. And there, in a quiet room in a back corner of the dungeons, while the other students still slept, Narcissa spoke, and Draco and Pansy finally learned the truth.

The so-called Prince and Princess of Slytherin shared more than just a House. They shared a mother as well. Draco and Pansy were brother and sister.

End Prologue

Part One:

It hadn’t been broken as badly as Luna had feared. As things stood, her fractured ankle had been among the least of Madam Pomfrey’s concerns. Once Hermione and Ron had been stabilized, Ginny, along with Neville Longbottom, had been Episkey-ed and sent on their way.

Neville had gone back to Gryffindor Tower and she’d told him she’d be along as soon as she’d checked on Harry. Seeing as everyone assumed she was still head over scuffed heels for the Boy-Who-Lived, and Neville was unaware that the surviving Potter was off somewhere with Dumbledore at that moment, he hadn’t questioned her words.

She found that useful every once in a while, the fact that few people questioned the absence of little Ginny Weasley. It certainly served her well tonight, or this morning, as it was actually somewhere around five now. Going back to the tower and pretending to sleep or facing any inquisitive Gryffindors that might have already gotten up was the last thing that she wanted to do right then. So she hadn’t done either of those things, instead she’d gone for a walk.

Well, in all honesty she’d gone for a walk about an hour before, now she was just wandering aimlessly, avoiding Filch and Mrs. Norris. With Umbridge having been released only hours before, her horrendous little sneaks weren’t out and about and the normal prefects hadn’t yet been reassigned to their rounds so it wasn’t all that difficult to avoid detection. In fact it was quite easy, especially in the dark, silent corridors of the… dungeons?

The small redhead paused, wondering when exactly she had ended up in the dungeons. Those contemplations were cut short a moment later when the silence she’d sought was suddenly shattered. Darting around the corner on instincts sharpened by the battle she’d so recently fought, Ginny drew her wand and waited.

She didn’t have to wait long. A few tense moments was all it took for the source of the pounding footsteps to become apparent. Draco Malfoy. For a moment, she was back in the Ministry, Lucius Malfoy standing before her, firing off hexes and curses in an effort to kill her and the others. He couldn’t see her, but she raised her wand, just in case, fear a persistent itch at the back of her thoughts. Then she noticed something interesting.

Draco Malfoy wore concealment charms, the simple cosmetic ones that is, or at least he must, since she hadn’t seen the small pimple on his chin earlier that day at lunch, nor had she seen the tears currently glistening on his cheeks. Wait a second, tears? Draco Malfoy had been crying?

She crept around the corner just a bit to get a better look at the irate boy pounding on what looked to be a portrait of some kind. Why would he be doing that? Her answer came almost before she’d finished thinking as his furious voice traveled to her ears.

“Professor, Professor! Open up damn you! Professor Snape, please…” The last word, spoken quite a bit quieter than the rest of his tirade, heralded the arrival of the Potions master whose thunderous expression froze at the sight of the blond student whose angry tone had concealed the tears slipping from his grey eyes.

“Mister Malfoy what brings you so rudely to my door, at this, of all hours?”

“I know what happened at the Ministry.”

“You know what-”

“Mum’s here, she told me what happened with my dad, and she- she said Pans…” Snape seemed shocked into immobility as he watched the normally cold and confident young man lose his composure completely and nearly burst into tears. The professor regained himself momentarily however, and ushered the Slytherin into the room and let the portrait swing shut behind them.

For her part, Ginny was rather stunned as well, though she took a bit longer to regain her senses than Snape had. Once she had managed it however, she looked down at her hand as it lowered her wand.

She’d seen first hand what Lucius Malfoy had done, she knew he was most likely heading to Azkaban at that very moment and she was glad of the fact. But at the same time, well, it wasn’t so much that she felt bad for Draco, she didn’t. She didn’t. Though she might admit to being thrown a bit off kilter by the drastic change in character that she had just witnessed.

His dad was in jail, in Azkaban, and, well, she wasn’t sure exactly what else had upset him; a pan, pans? Shaking her head to dispel the curiosity mounting within her, she started to leave her hiding spot but that wasn’t to be as yet again, she heard footsteps.

Pressing herself back against the wall once more, she waited, only to receive yet another surprising display of Slytherin emotion as a figure ran past her, slowing gradually until it stopped a few feet down a side corridor. Once stopped, the figure slumped against the far wall, sliding rather limply to the ground as its shoulders shook beneath strands of black hair. It was a girl, Ginny decided, a girl from Slytherin with somewhat long black hair who was… crying?

Another crying Slytherin, what were the odds? Very slim, the redhead decided. Was it a trick? No, Snape wouldn’t have wasted his time with such a thing, and Ginny highly doubted that any Slytherin would show such emotion just to get a chance to hex her, if they somehow knew she was there which they had no way to know. So it wasn’t a trick. Which left what exactly?

Two distraught Slytherins, apparently.

The youngest Weasley flinched as the sound of muffled sobs met her ears. She didn’t know this girl, she had no reason to help in any way, aside from the fact that she was obviously hurting. Damn her Gryffindoric sensibilities. The girl probably didn’t want help, especially from a lion such as herself. But she needed help from someone, it seemed. And she was the only one around.

Damn and double damn. She was really far too nice for her own good, the fourth-year thought as she made her way over to the trembling heap of black and green robes.

“Um, are you okay?”

It was a stupid question, she knew, but it was the best she could come up with. Anything better caught in her throat as the girl’s head shot-up at her question, the tear-stained face pulling forth a name from the catalogs of Ginny’s mind. Pansy Parkinson. Pansy, maybe Pans for short?

Draco’s words came back to her and she glanced back at what she assumed was the entrance to Professor Snape’s private rooms, where Draco Malfoy had disappeared only seconds before. What was going on? What could have happened that would leave both dungeon royals in such an emotional mess?

Icy blue eyes, wet with tears, regarded her silently, unnervingly.

“Pansy, right?”

The older girl nodded, obviously trying her best to act as if she hadn’t been caught sobbing in a dark hallway.

“Weasel, isn’t it?”

Ginny felt her gaze harden just a bit. “Weasley.”

Seconds passed in silence, then another tear managed to escape the dark-haired girl’s control and roll down pale, wet cheeks. The Gryffindor cursed her overly developed compassion as she felt herself soften once again.

“Do, um, do you want me to get someone for you? Malfoy, maybe?”

As soon as she’d said it, Pansy’s shoulders started shaking again and the sobs broke free, causing a tide of guilt to sweep over the redhead. “Sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. I won’t get him, I promise.”

The crying continued, the fifth-year’s face pressed tightly into her upraised knees. Ginny stood there feeling rather helpless and guilty for several moments, then, unable to just stand by and watch, she tentatively knelt at the other girl’s side and placed a hesitant hand on her shoulder.

She waited for the girl to push her away, to say something caustic or spiteful, but Pansy merely stilled for a second at the touch, then, to both girls’ shock, she leaned over, and let the redhead place her other arm around her shaking shoulders. Ginny stayed where she was for quite some time, simply holding the older girl while she cried, her hold growing tighter as Pansy let herself relax and simply be held.

Draco found them like that nearly an hour later.

End Part One

Part Two:

She hadn’t expected her to answer, hell, she hadn’t expected herself to write the letter in the first place. But she had written it, and she’d sent it too. It had been about two weeks since everything had happened, and she had needed to talk to someone who knew what was going on, and yet was still outside of the situation.

Seeing as Narcissa, Caralyna, (she still wasn’t sure which one to call mum and which one to call godmum or auntie, or whatever) and Draco, were the only ones that knew, and none of them could be considered even remotely outside the situation, she was left with rather limited options. So she’d owled the only other person that had any idea what a mess her life had become.

None of the others had been thrilled with her decision – not that they’d known about it until after the correspondence had already begun – but she was glad she’d gone ahead with it. It had been nice, these past few weeks, to talk with another girl, one who wouldn’t hex her (literally, or figuratively) in the back at the first opportunity. The fact that the younger girl could carry an intelligent conversation was a definite plus.

Pansy shook her head slightly. Her new – dare she say it – friend, was very interesting to her. For all that she was a lion to the core, there were parts of her that seemed remarkably snake-like.

It was an intriguing byproduct of her first year and the debacle that was Tom Riddle’s diary – details of which she’d had to pry from both Draco and Ginny over the course of their owl exchange. Despite the way she’d acquired it, however, Pansy was quite thankful for the insight Ginny had gained into the machinations of the Slytherin mind. It came in very useful as the two new friends tried to bridge the gap between them, a gap that seemed to close more and more with every owl.

Now, if only she could get her new friend and her new brother to close their own gap. It wasn’t as if it was that big, the dark-haired girl thought with a suppressed smirk. Sure, the two liked to pretend there were still miles of house rivalry, and familial animosity there, but in truth, the two would get along quite well if they tried. Granted, Draco still sneered at the redhead’s occasional mention of her brother and/or his friends, but he no longer sneered at the mention of the Gryffindor’s name, or glared at her when she read the younger girl’s letters aloud.

Pansy smirked. She could still remember the first time she’d done that. He’d sneered and demanded she stop, he’d even stomped around a bit, but he’d never left the room, never really made more than a token effort to stop her from continuing to read. She’d found it strange at first, but then she’d thought back to the dark dungeon hallway and she’d realized something.

Draco didn’t hate Ginny anymore.

Sure, when he’d found her, securely ensconced in Ginny’s offered comfort, he’d been less than thrilled. He’d scowled and glared, and eyed the younger girl with blatant suspicion like any well-trained Slytherin should. Then he’d nodded at the little redhead, acknowledging what she had done for them, and helped his newly discovered sister back to their dorms without so much as a taunt or threat towards the small redhead.

It had been a pivotal event, not only for their individual lives and families, but for the strange friendship that was, against all odds, somehow forming between the three of them. Not that a certain blond-haired member of their little trio would admit to such a thing. No, Draco was still adamantly denying anything beyond grudging tolerance of the youngest Weasley.

Grudging tolerance.

Pansy rolled her eyes as she watched the object of her musings enter the room with half-hidden anticipation sparkling in his grey pools. It was a look she’d grown somewhat familiar with seeing over the weeks of her correspondence with Ginny Weasley, one that had a tendency to show up right around the time she usually received a return owl from the younger girl.

“So,” the Malfoy patriarch drawled as he leaned oh-so-casually against the wall just inside the parlor where Pansy had decided to take her tea that morning, “has there been anything of note on this fine summer day?”

She shrugged rather delicately and took a sip of her tea, trying to suppress to urge the roll her eyes again. Of course he couldn’t just ask straight out if she’d gotten an owl from Ginny yet. Her dear brother really could be too much of a snake at times, even for a viper such as herself.

“Not as of yet. I was actually planning to go out for a bit, care to join me?”

“Out?” A single white brow rose in question. It was an unspoken agreement amongst themselves and their mother and godmother that it was best if they kept the frequency of their time together discrete, lest it garner suspicion from Lucius and Jasonan’s former acquaintances.

“Just to the gardens, of course.”

Grey eyes examined her all-too-innocent expression with skepticism even as he gestured for her to precede him as they left the parlor in favor of the sprawling gardens of the Parkinson estate. The land had been in her father’s family for centuries and it was little wonder why they had chosen to keep it. There was a patch of forest to the north and west, and to the south there ran a wide stream her mother used to scold her for playing in as a child. The eastern edge of the property was fenced off, blocking access to the long drive that led to the front doors of the large manor house that was her home.

She’d always loved her home, and the land that surrounded it, even the mountains that loomed on the other side of the dense woods. She could see them from her sitting-room window and had long ago learned to tell the seasons by the amount of snow that adorned their jagged peeks. Of all the beautiful aspects of her ancestral lands, however, the gardens were her favorite.

The Slytherin princess allowed herself a soft sigh as they stepped past the first row of hedges and entered what she considered her personal sanctum. For all the splendid opulence of her rooms in the manor, this was where she was most comfortable. It didn’t look exactly the same as it had when she was younger, but she didn’t mind that much, seeing as she had helped select the different plants and flowers that had been added when her mum, or at least the one that raised her, had decided to renovate the gardens several years before.

It had been the summer she’d turned eleven, just after she’d gotten her Hogwarts letter. They’d made it a big event, and for the first time, she’d been allowed to get involved with every aspect of the planning and execution. She’d even planted a few of the flowers herself. She’d used magic, of course, but the act had still left her with a sense of pride and accomplishment and she considered that summer one of her happiest memories.

The day the new gardens had been completed, the Parkinsons had hosted a rather lavish dinner. It had been fairly small, by their social standards, but it was by far her favorite of all the various social functions she had ever attended. She could still remember how, after the meal had been finished, she’d been invited, for the very first time, to join the ladies for their after-dinner tea.

She’d sat between the woman who’d raised her and the woman who’d given birth to her (though she’d known them as mum and godmum at the time) as all the wives sipped tea and discussed the latest events in the wizarding world. She’d found it funny at first, that in the absence of their husbands the women chose to discuss current events and politics, and even, at times, sports. Then, when the men had returned, she’d watched their faces as conversation turned to fashion and beauty charms. After that she hadn’t found it funny so much as hilarious.

A small smile twisted her lips at the memory, her mind so lost in the years that she almost missed the small pop from behind a nearby shrub, where the gazebo had been built. Almost, but not quite. She came back to herself and made it around the shrub just in time to see the petite redhead stumble slightly as she set the small Portkey on one of the low benches around the gazebo.

Icy blue orbs focused in on their target and a wicked grin curved across her face as she caught sight of the thoughts flickering through a pair of icy grey pools just before the dungeon mask slipped into place and his face became void of sincere emotion.

Grudging tolerance indeed.

End Part Two

Part Three:

She’d hated them.

Only three months before, she’d hated them, and she’d had a good reason to do so. They were Slytherins, after all. And not just any snakes, either, but the infamous dungeon duo, the prince and princess of the vilest, most despicable House that Hogwarts could boast. And now, they were her friends.

Not that anyone knew that, of course. No, as far as the rest of the student body was concerned, Pansy had been ordered – by Snape himself – to give the youngest Weasley some much-needed help preparing for her upcoming O.W.L.s and Ginny was grudgingly accepting the dark-haired Slytherin’s assistance.

The redhead had never thought that she would be grateful for the difficult exams she’d have to take at the end of the year, but she was, considering they provided a perfect excuse to meet with her new friend on a regular basis. And they did it in a way that kept The Trio off her back about her weekly excursions. All she had to do if Ron or Harry started giving her grief about meeting with Pansy was mention they were studying and Hermione automatically jumped in on her behalf, telling the boys how responsible Ginny was being by starting her studying so early (though not quite as early as the brunette herself had done her fifth year) and by accepting help offered to raise her score, even if the help was from Parkinson.

Ginny smothered a rather wicked smirk that, if seen, would remind far too many people of a certain blond prat, whom she had discovered over the past three months wasn’t quite as big of a prat as everyone thought. Not to say he wasn’t a prat, he was, oh how he was. But he wasn’t nearly the black-hearted, Azkaban-bound, spawn of evil that she’d always seen him as.

He seemed close at times, she had to admit, but only if he was really angry, and only for a moment. He couldn’t help it, bastard was bred into him, according to Pansy, a legacy from his father, which, of course, the older girl had been spared since Mr. Parkinson was a much better specimen of male snake than Lucius had been. The redhead couldn’t help the slight chuckle that broke free as she thought about the different opinions the older girl held in regards to her brother, opinions the dark-haired Slytherin voiced frequently, much to Draco’s irritation.

The chuckle grew, bursting forth from the youngest Weasley as she entered the small dungeon room to find her two friends engaged in a less than dignified tug-of-war over a package of chocolate frogs. Two pairs of icy orbs, one the chilly blue of their mother, one the steel grey of his father, fixed her with matching glares at the sound of her laughter. Ginny shook her head and laughed harder.

“Tsk, tsk,” she stated, shaking her finger at the two squabbling siblings. “What would your snakey subjects say if they were to see their prince and princess fighting over chocolates?”

Draco’s glare turned colder even as he looked away from the fifth-year’s brown eyes and straightened his robes. Pansy caught the first frog as it jumped from its package and popped it into her mouth with a grin, blue pools darting back and forth between her brother and friend. The youngest Weasley mistook the expression for one of smug victory and rolled her eyes at the Slytherin, not noticing that the other girl’s grin widened when her coffee-colored orbs darted back over to the blond as he situated himself on the edge of the room’s small table.

They’d been meeting in this room twice a week since the new term had started almost three months before, taking advantage of its location in the seldom-used back halls of the dungeons. Not only was it out of the way, it was also strategically located only a brisk dash from the Potion master’s private rooms where even the most daring of Slytherins were unlikely to venture.

Ginny found it funny that she was in part relying on the professor she’d once feared to protect herself and her new friends. She’d been more than a little surprised when the greasy-haired Head of Slytherin had given them an excuse to meet by assigning Pansy as her Potions tutor, even if it had given the other students the impression that her Potions grade was lower than it really was, a side effect the professor had probably enjoyed.

In retrospect, however, it was quite logical for Snape to have helped them, given his role as spy and his relationship to the Malfoy family, a relationship she had been able to infer that fateful night when Draco had sought him out in his time of distress. The symbolism of that night and their choice of meeting-places was not lost on any of them either. It felt right for them to meet one another in the same room that had seen the conversation that had first started all this.

The redhead was pulled from those musings and thrust into others as she and Pansy took seats around the table the blond had chosen to use as his chair that evening, the three of them pulling parchment and quills from their bags. It was a familiar act, doing her homework with the two snakes, Ginny having decided early on that their tutoring ruse would work much better if she returned from her ‘sessions’ with her homework completed. Yet how many times since the end of her fourth year, had she sat at a table in her bedroom at the Burrow, or her common room in the Tower, to write a note or letter to the dark-haired girl beside her?

The first time she’d sent an owl to Pansy, she’d been almost fearful of the response she would receive, afraid she was falling into a trap or becoming the butt of a serpentine joke since, surely, the princess of the dungeons would not have sent her an owl simply out of a desire to correspond or form a friendship. Right? Wrong, as had been proved over the course of their owl-exchange. The Parkinson heir had truly wanted to talk, and talk they had, back and forth for months, until even that hadn’t been enough and the new friends had set a date for tea so as to finally talk face-to-face.

She could still remember that first time they’d seen one another since the end of the previous school year. They’d talked for hours, discussing so many topics one wouldn’t have thought they’d been owling regularly all summer. Pansy had given the youngest Weasley a tour of her ancestral estate and introduced her to both Mrs. Malfoy and Parkinson, the women who were both mother to the older girl in different ways.

Ginny had learned a lot about her friends that day, and the days that had followed during which they’d often found time to augment their written communication with face-to-face meetings. Well, she’d learned a lot about Pansy at any rate, anything she’d learned about Draco during those meetings had been due entirely to either the other girl, or pure luck. The blond had always been less than talkative when she’d seen him that summer, always wearing what Pansy called his dungeon mask.

It had bothered her at first, to know her new friend was hiding things from her when he covered his real emotions with bored eyes and his patent smirk. Eventually, however, as she grew more practiced at recognizing his expressions and could tell when he was wearing the mask and when he wasn’t, she became less bothered, and more curious. What exactly was he trying to cover up when he donned the mask? What was he thinking or feeling that he didn’t want anyone, even his two best – and only – friends to know?

And why the hell did he wear it around her so much?

That was really the thing that bothered her most, if she was honest. She didn’t like the fact that he felt the need to hide things when he was around her. In the months that she and Pansy had grown so close – close enough for the two girls to refer to one another as their best friend when no one who wasn’t supposed to might hear – Ginny had thought that she and Draco had grown close as well.

She considered him a friend, a close friend, and there were times she thought he felt the same, but if that were the case, why did he close himself off so often when he was around her? She didn’t understand, and Pansy had been little help in the area, having done little more than smirk and tell her to ask Draco. Ask Draco. As if it was that simple. Perhaps it would be easy for his sister, who had known him since they were infants, but not for the littlest Weasley with whom he had shared a mutual hatred until just recently.

But if she couldn’t ask him about it, then what could she do? Chocolate orbs regarded the blond still sitting on the table a few feet away, his body coiled around his parchment like the snake he was. What would he do in such a situation? If the girl he… if his friend, that is, were putting up a mask around him, how would he react? He’d put up his own of course. The Gryffindor’s lips curled in a rather Slytherin smirk. Of course. It was only fair, after all. If she couldn’t tell what the hell he was thinking, why should he be able to tell what she was thinking?

Yes, that was perfect. Every time he hardened his expression and deadened his eyes around her, she’d do the same. It might be somewhat of a challenge, as she was only passable at blanking her expression – something she’d had to learn over the months of her correspondence with Pansy so as to keep her family and The Trio from becoming suspicious of her activities. But with enough effort, and maybe a few lessons with a certain dark-haired princess of snakes that she knew so well to further cultivate her masking abilities, she was sure she could do it.

Yes, she could do it, whispered her inner snake, and the lion smirked as she bent over her parchment and set to work finishing her essay, so she could spend a while chatting with her friends before she would be expected back in the tower. She could do it, and she would. The only question left was, how would Draco react when she did?

End Part Three

Part Four:

He was not handling things well at all, Pansy noted with a hidden smirk. Of course, she hadn’t really expected him to when she’d realized exactly why her redheaded friend had asked for those masking lessons a few days before. It had been pretty amusing, if she did say so herself, to watch Ginny pointedly close herself off every time Draco started to put up his legendary dungeon mask around her. Each time it happened the blond would lose even the smirk that had been a part of his mask for so long. His jaw would clench in irritation noticeable only to someone as familiar with him as she was. Then he’d cross his arms and store up all the anger and annoyance until the youngest Weasley had left, at which point he would brood. Miserably.

It was great.

The princess of Slytherin could barely hold back the laugh bubbling up inside of her as icy blue eyes darted back and forth between the room’s two other occupants. Ginny was doing a rather brilliant job of covering every thought and feeling she had as she and Draco discussed a shielding spell she’d learned in DADA that week. And it was driving dear mister Malfoy bloody nutters. Damn but this was fun, the brunette snake thought with a silent cackle.

For all that the noise was purely within her head, the blond seemed to somehow get a hint of his housemate’s amusement and spun suddenly in his chair to fix the girl with a hard glare. Pansy simply smiled with chilly enjoyment.

“Something the matter, little brother?”

“No,” Draco responded tersely. “And I’m not little.”

This time she truly couldn’t hold back the smirk. “Compared to me you are. I am, after all, the elder sibling here.”

Steel eyes narrowed. “Please, you aren’t even a year older than me.”

Pansy grinned. Their comparative ages never failed to get under her brother’s skin. Which of course was why she saw fit to bring them up routinely. “I’m ten months your senior.”

“That’s still less than a year,” he pointed out, just as she knew he would.

“Yes, of course it is,” the dungeon princess agreed almost mockingly.

Draco glared again, grumbling under his breath as he turned back to the textbook before him and Pansy laughed, shutting her own book with a flourish. “Fine, if you’re going to be such an ill-tempered bore, I’m heading back to the common room.”

Ginny’s head snapped up at her announcement and for a few seconds, her newly forged mask slipped, revealing a mingling of fear and anticipation as she watched her friend gather her things to leave. “You’re going?”

The brunette nodded. “I’ve got all my homework done and just feel like relaxing, away from mister good-mood over there. But don’t worry, I’ll stay in Slytherin so no one will see me and have a chance to wonder why you aren’t done being tutored,” she reassured with a wave before giving her brother an almost encouraging one-finger salute and leaving the small dungeon room.

Grey eyes rolled in annoyance. That annoyance, however, quickly escalated when he returned his attention to the freckled face in front of him, only to have it return to its stony mask as soon as his gaze landed on it. Bloody hell but that was getting irritating, he thought as they went back to discussing the variable intricacies of Protego. So irritating did it get as he watched the lack of expression on his friend’s face that he could no longer contain himself.

He slammed the text shut between them, finding some small amount of pleasure in the way the littlest Weasley jumped in her seat. “Stop it,” he demanded as the tome sat closed on the table.

Ginny fixed him with a look equal parts confusion and irritation. Good, let her feel a little of what he’d had to deal with these past few days, he thought, secretly delighted to see some little bit of emotion on her face at last.

“Stop what?”

He made an imperious gesture at her face with a sneer. “That. That stone-face shite you’ve been pulling lately.”

She cocked a single eyebrow in response and a little snakey voice in the back of his head cheered the entirely un-Gryffindoric expression. “It’s not shite, one would think that you of all people would see that, you being the king snake of the dungeon mask and all.”

He took a second to silently absorb the fully deserved praise. Then he crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s complete shite here.”

“Oh, is it really?” He rankled at the condescending tone she used.

“Damn right. And it gets damned annoying with you using it all the time.”

“I don’t use it all the time,” she contradicted, “just when the wonder triplets ask about tutoring.” Her tone was just this side of innocent and had he been a little less pissed off, he would have applauded her for it. But he was pissed off, quite pissed off as a matter of fact, and he let it show.

“The bloody hell you don't. You’ve been using it constantly the last few days. You were using it just now.” Draco’s voice rose so that he was almost shouting by the time he was done, all traces of his usual calm, self-assured dignity gone as he locked glares with the red-haired witch.

“Oh yes, so I was. Must be awful taxing to have someone completely close themselves off whenever you’re around.” Again with the infuriating condescension. It made the blond want to spit fire.

“What the bloody fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Ginny just stared back at him, but he could see emotions warring underneath the slipping mask. Anger, frustration… hurt? He threw both arms into the air with a curse.

“An explanation would be really helpful about now, you know.”

“Would it really? Then how about you give me one?”

“Me?” Draco yelled, one hand held indignantly to his chest.

“Yes, you!” Her chair tumbled to the floor as she suddenly stood, leaning forward slightly to point a finger into his chest as she yelled back. “You and that stupid smirk and those damn dead eyes when we talk. What the hell is it you always have to hide from me, huh? What can’t you show me?”

The anger seemed to drain out of her as suddenly wet pools of chocolate locked with his. “I thought we were friends, Draco. I thought we might…”

He struggled to retain the frustration that had burned through him only seconds before, but the quiet, almost forlorn sound of her voice ripped it from him and the Prince of Slytherin found himself standing before her with only confusion and something he had yet to name, running through him.

“We are friends, Ginny.” She nearly flinched at his use of her given name and he clenched his fists at his side. Ah, now there was that frustration again. “Damn it all! I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“The truth,” she muttered at her feet as she stared down at the stone floor. “Why do you put on the mask around me so much? Why do you hide from me if we’re really friends?”

Draco ran a hand roughly through his white-blond hair. “I don’t- I wasn’t- I can’t-” He cut himself off with a sound of angry confusion, somewhere between a huff and a growl.

“What, Draco?”

He half expected there to be tears on her face as she looked back up at him demandingly, but apparently she was a bit tougher than that as the only thing apparent on her pale, freckled cheeks was the red blush of her anger. “What? Tell me, damn it. I want to know.”

She wanted to know, did she? She wanted to know what it was he always felt such a need to not let her see? Did she really? Well, of course she did. She’d spent the past five days needling him with her own mask to apparently give him a taste of her own frustration, to torture him with his confusion and irritation. In the back of his mind, he admired the rather Slytherin tactic, but the rest of him was too busy boiling over. If she really wanted to know, he’d tell her. No. Better yet, he’d show her. Yes, he decided, he’d show her.

And so with two swift, livid steps, he reached her, then pulled her even closer and crushed his mouth to hers. The pose was only held for a few short seconds before they both stepped back, almost as one, staring at each other in wide-eyed, red-cheeked shock.

“That,” Draco gasped. “That’s why. That’s what I was hiding.” His tone grew clipped with his mounting panic as he realized exactly what he’d just done. “Are you happy now?”

Before he could become any more upset at himself, however, the lion answered him with a widening smirk that looked entirely too snake-like for his faltering self-control. “Yes. I rather think I am.”

The words hung in the tense air for a mere moment as full realization seeped into the two minds. Then, before further thought or examination could occur, they were both moving forward, colliding almost violently as their lips joined for a second time. This kiss lasted much longer than the previous one had, and after a while, it turned into a third kiss, and then a fourth.

Eventually, however, as with all good things, reality slowly reasserted itself and the two teenagers became aware of the time, and the fact that they would soon be missed if they did not leave the sanctuary of this small room. Even as this knowledge became apparent to them both, they remained where they were, grey freezing brown as chocolate burned into steel. But even that came to an end and short words were exchanged by swollen mouths as they gathered their things and went their separate ways with intense gazes tossed over retreating backs.

For his part, Draco made his way to the Slytherin common room in a kind of daze and settled into his favorite armchair by the crackling fire, his mind so wrapped up in what had just happened that he barely registered the fact that Pansy flashed him a wickedly satisfied grin on her way to her dorm. What had he done? What had Ginny done? What had he and Ginny done… together? It was almost too much to digest. Not that he was in any way unhappy about it. No, he was exactly the opposite, and that was the problem.

He wasn’t use to this feeling, this… happiness. It threw him off balance and a part of him liked it, liked the fact that she could do that to him. For all that she was a Gryffindor, and a Weasley to boot, Ginny was just the sort of Slytherin he’d always admired. She was smart and sneaky, and not afraid to show it when warranted. She knew how to keep him on his toes, and while he knew he could do the same to her, she never let it get to her, or throw her off. At least not too much, he thought with a smirk as he recalled the look of shock that had frozen itself on her face when he’d kissed her.

She gave as good as she got, but the lion in her made her pleasant to be around, fun in a way that most snakes weren’t, if only because he didn’t feel the need to watch his back when he was with her like he did with the members of his own house – Pansy excluded of course… well, most of the time.

The blond prince settled deeper into his chair with a well-concealed smile as he thought about his fellow students and friends. Friends. Who would have thought that Draco Malfoy would have real, honest friends? And maybe more? Certainly not him, the sixth-year concluded as he absently removed the scrap of parchment from the large owl that had just arrived for him. Absent interest turned to intense concentration as he read the hastily scribbled words however, and the air of relaxation and contentment that had surrounded him dissolved so swiftly no one would know it had been there to start with.

Of course, his carefully wrought mask having been firmly in place the whole time, no one in the dark common room noticed anything out of the ordinary as the Malfoy heir shoved the scrap in his robe pocket and searched the crowded common room for his sister. She had obviously not come back out of her dorm during the course of his musings however, leaving him with no way to get to her. Sending another snake for her was out of the question as it would draw too much attention, so he did the only other thing he could do; strode determinedly to the portrait hole and into the chilly hallways beyond.

The calm exterior began to crack as he hurried through the dungeons, fear freezing through him as his mind turned over and over the message he’d just received from his mother. It got to the point that he could hardly feel his fingers by the time he’d made it to the first set of stairs. He didn’t notice it however, the only thing really registering just then being the knowledge that he had to find her, he had to find Ginny. Fast.

End Part Four

Part Five:

She’d left their room with every intention of returning to her dorm before it grew too close to curfew, but as she climbed the steps out of the dungeons, she found herself wandering almost aimlessly. Her mind just couldn’t seem to settle, and her feet were following suit, taking her up and down hallways that were growing emptier as curfew grew closer.

He’d kissed her. She’d kissed him back. They’d kissed each other. It was almost too much to handle, the thought of her, and him, little Ginny Weasley and big bad Draco Malfoy. Could this really be happening? Well, they had been friends for some time now, and as hard as that had been to wrap her head around, it made perfect sense to her, as did her friendship with Pansy Parkinson. But did her being involved with Draco as more than a friend make sense?

So, she’d thought on and off – okay, mostly on – about the possibility of more with the handsome, annoyingly egotistical blond since shortly before school had started back up, but did that mean that it could actually happen? The possibility was one thing, the reality was quite another. It was fantastical, outlandish, improbable, and yet it was something else too. When he had kissed her that first time she’d been shocked, and elated. Then they’d kissed again, and the shock had worn off and the elation had gentled to happiness.

The third time had settled the blazing sparks into a constant simmer in her blood, a distant warmth spreading through her entire body. By the fourth kiss her entire awareness had become focused on him, on the way he held her and kissed her and surrounded her. It had felt exhilarating and comforting all at the same time. It had felt right. The thought circled round and round in her mind, calming her racing heart and bringing a soft but goofy smile to her lips.

It had felt right. Maybe it was right.

Everything seemed to settle around her as she repeated the words in her head. Who was to say that she couldn’t be with Draco? Most everyone would probably find the idea of her being friends with him and Pansy as ridiculous as her being involved with him, yet hadn’t they already proved that their friendship was anything but? Pans and Draco were her friends, her best friends, and she trusted them as much, if not more, than she would trust Harry or Hermione, so why should it matter if people would think her and Draco ridiculous or impossible?

It shouldn’t.

Ginny nodded her head decisively and halted her feet, taking stock of her surroundings and heading in the direction of Gryffindor Tower, ready to face her housemates now that she had her thoughts in order. Before she could reach her destination, however, a voice called out to her from behind, only to be joined by two others, all calling her name.

Taking a deep breath, Ginny forced herself to stop smiling and slip on the mask she had worked so hard to construct. Once the redhead felt her emotions were properly disguised, she turned to meet The Trio.

“Hey Ginny. Where have you been?” her brother asked as he reached her side.

“It’s Thursday Ron, I was studying with Pansy.” The youngest Weasley smirked inwardly at the perfect amount of resigned annoyance and disgust that had laced her voice as she’d spoken.

“Oh, right.” Harry and Ron both shot her sympathetic glances at the thought of her supposedly forced tutorials with the sixth-year snake. Hermione, on the other hand, looked quite satisfied with the idea of her studying so hard, even as a note of suspicion entered her eyes.

“Isn’t it a bit late for tutoring? It’s almost curfew.”

Ginny kept her expression completely relaxed, then showed just the slightest bit of annoyance at the overprotective question. “There’s still half an hour until curfew, Hermione. Besides, the session ended a while ago. I’ve just been walking around, getting a bit of exercise in. All this tutoring is cutting into my flying time and I don’t want to be too out of shape for our next game.”

The mention of Quidditch immediately got both the boys to jump in and tell the bushy-haired girl to leave off. Ginny smiled to herself. It was almost too easy, she thought as they headed towards the tower. They had only gotten about halfway there however, when a rather unexpected sight forced them all to stop in their tracks.

Draco Malfoy, who was known for his constant air of arrogant nonchalance, was racing down the hallway at full speed, and he was heading straight for them. The heroes of Gryffindor all had wands drawn and pointed in an instant, but the blond paid them no notice as he nearly skidded to a stop in front of the smaller of the group’s two redheaded members.

“You have to get Pansy,” Draco gasped out, struggling to catch his breath after racing full-tilt up three flights of stairs and down twice as many hallways.

Ron bristled at the apparent command and reached out to pull his little sister behind him, ready to tell the snake exactly where he could stuff his words. Ginny shook off his hand and cut off his retort as she stepped forward.

“What happened?” she asked, trying her best to not panic. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t actually said something was wrong, there was no way Draco would willingly approach her in front of anyone, let alone The Trio, unless something was wrong; very, very wrong. Three pairs of eyes widened at the lack of rancor in her voice as she quickly and easily responded to the seemingly harsh words of the hated Slytherin.

“Mother owled. They know about the deal.”

Hermione’s eyes narrowed as she watched Ginny’s face pale at the words before her shrewd gaze turned back to Malfoy and she found herself having to suppress a shocked gasp. Never mind that Malfoy had willingly, even eagerly, approached them and had refrained from making a single insult or biting comment, forget that he was even now ignoring Ron and Harry’s indignant demands to leave and that his cold grey orbs hadn’t left Ginny’s face since he’d arrived. None of that compared to what the smartest witch of her generation was seeing now, etched clearly beneath the half-hearted attempt at a mask on Draco Malfoy’s face: fear.

Never in all the years she had known and hated the amazing bouncing ferret had Hermione ever seen such emotion, or any emotion besides disdain or annoyance, for that matter, on his face. But she did now, and it was mirrored on the face of the youngest Weasley as she once again shook off her brother’s restraining hand and stepped even closer to the snake with an anxious “where is she?”

With a kind of morbid fascination Hermione continued to watch as Malfoy muttered “dorm” as the white-blond and redheaded forms took off running down the hall, Harry and Ron both yelling after them and giving chase.

The brunette witch automatically followed her friends, her mind racing through everything she had just seen as her feet raced through the school to the dungeons where Ginny and Draco were hurriedly removing their robes. The redhead was already replacing her Gryffindor school robes with the blond’s Slytherin ones by the time the others reached her, and she didn’t even pause in the act of buttoning closed the black and green material as she spun to face them, cutting them off with a surprisingly harsh voice.

“Don’t even think about it,” she demanded before they even had a chance to yell at either her or the blond next to her as he shrunk her discarded robes and stuffed them in his pocket. “You have no idea what is going on so just stay out of it, or Merlin help me I will curse you so hard and fast it’ll take Madam Pomfrey days to undo it all.”

All three Gryffindors stood in slack-jawed silence for several seconds in the wake of Ginny’s threat and the fifth-year took advantage of their shock to pull the hood of the slightly oversized robe over her head to obscure her face and slip through the portrait hole as Draco whispered the password and followed her in. Ron and Harry snapped out of their trance as the portrait swung shut, both boys immediately stepping forward, wands gripped tightly in their hands.

Luckily for the portrait, Hermione had regained her senses a second earlier than her friends and stepped in front of them, blocking their path and forcing them into a dark alcove nearby.

“What is wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with us? ‘Mione, Ginny just went into the Slytherin common room… with Malfoy!”

The brunette rolled her eyes. “Yes and what exactly do you think is going to happen if you stand out here yelling and throwing hexes? What do you think the Slytherins will do if they find out a Gryffindor is in their common room?”

The boys’ mouths snapped shut as one and they stared at their friend as she stood before them, one hand on her hip and a single eyebrow arched in question.

“Oh, right,” Harry stated, running a hand through his disheveled hair.

Ron copied the other boy’s movement while he asked his own question. “So what exactly are we supposed to do here? Just let her get herself hexed to bits by Malfoy and his goons?”

Hermione rolled her eyes again. “No Ronald,” she said, emphasizing his full name with a tone he’d only ever heard from his mother. “We’re going to wait right here until they come back out and then-”

“-we’ll hex Malfoy to bits?” Ron cut her off hopefully.

“No.” Hermione shot her redhead friend a glare, halting any further comment as she continued. “Harry can Accio his invisibility cloak and we’ll follow them. Malfoy and Ginny seemed a bit too easy around one another, and I for one want to know why.”

End Part Five

Part Six:

She dropped her hands to her side, letting the large sleeves fall over her hands, hiding their shaking from the various Slytherins she passed as she made her way through the crowded common room. She wanted so badly to glance back and reassure herself that Draco was keeping an eye on her but she forced herself to keep her head down so no one could see her face under the hood, and strode as confidently as she could down the stairs at the far end of the room. It took two repetitions of the instructions Draco had given her on their dash to the dungeons for Ginny to feel sure she had the right room before she entered, but less then a minute after stepping through the portrait hole, the youngest Weasley found herself inside a green and silver replica of her own dorm in the tower.

The shaking in her hands increased as she spotted her quarry sitting at a desk several feet away and the redhead had to take a deep breath before she could close the distance between them. As soon as she was close enough, she reached out and tapped the older girl on the shoulder, brown meeting blue silently as Pansy opened her mouth to snap at whoever had gone against her express command not to disturb her.

Icy blue pools widened in shock at the sight of her secret friend’s face peaking out from under the hood of a Slytherin cloak. The barely suppressed panic on the other witch’s face told her not to delay and the dark-haired girl quickly grabbed her cloak and headed towards the door, only to be stopped by the fifth-year’s voice.

“Bring your stuff too.”

Confusion creased her brow for a moment until the proverbial torch lit in her mind and fear flashed momentarily in her eyes before she slammed on the mask that had earned her the nickname pugface despite her pretty features. With a nod in response, Pansy pointed her wand at her trunk and muttered a few quick packing charms. Once that had been completed, the princess of Slytherin shrank said trunk and dropped it into her cloak pocket.

This time, when she made to leave, Ginny didn’t stop her, but simply followed her quickly back up the stairs to the common room. Both girls forced themselves to move calmly and confidently through the crowd of snakes so as to avoid any unnecessary attention. Blue and grey locked for just an instant before the witches stepped through the portrait hole and it was several tense but calculated moments before Draco joined them in the hallway.

He nodded once at his sister to indicate no one had noticed their arrival or departure, then silently led the way through the maze of dungeon halls until they reached their room. They quietly filed through the door, all three too preoccupied with their thoughts to notice that the door stayed open a moment longer than it should have before it swung shut behind them. As soon as it was closed, Draco absently cast a locking charm over his shoulder as he made his way to the small table and fell heavily into one of the chairs with a sigh, the adrenalin rushing out of him and leaving his entire body sore and tired.

Ginny took a step towards the blond, starting to reach out as if to touch him, only to drop her hands back to her sides unsurely and turn to her other friend as the older witch finally dropped her dungeon mask to reveal the mounting fear and panic that had been consuming her since the moment she had seen Ginny and realized the one reason the redhead would have risked entering Slytherin house.

“They know, don’t they?” The brunette’s voice was strained, hollow, as she struggled with the emotions inside her. “The Death Eaters know what my dad did.”

The broken tone pulled at her heart and the youngest Weasley grasped her friend’s hand as hard as she could, smiling damply at the grateful look Pansy shot her in response. That one look was all the dungeon princess spared for Ginny, however, all her attention shifting to her brother as the blond stared fixedly at his hands.

“Mother owled you, I take it?” The white-blond head bobbed silently as he nodded, but he gave no other answer and she sighed in fear and frustration. “Well, what did she say?”

The room remained silent and both witches tightened their hold on the other’s hand as they waited for Draco to speak. When he finally did it was in a stiff voice that almost shook with the strain of his precarious control. “The special wards we had installed notified her when the Death Eaters entered the Parkinson estate. Mother tried to contact Caralyna, to warn her, but it was too late.”

Pansy went completely still, so still that had she not felt the fine tremors in the hand grasping hers, Ginny would have thought her petrified. Not knowing what to do, wide brown eyes sought grey in question and for the first time since they’d left the common room, he looked up, his normally flawless mask shattered by the pain and tears in his silver eyes when they met hers, then shifted to meet his sister’s.

“I’m sorry Pans, Caralyna’s dead.”

The words seemed to jar the dark-haired witch from her shock, and before they’d finished leaving his mouth, Pansy gasped and choked on a sob. She shook her head almost violently as the tears started to flow. “No. She’s not- she can’t be.”

Draco stood unsteadily from his seat at her stuttered denials, but when he took a step towards her, she stumbled back with a yell. “No! She’s not dead, we don’t know for sure that she’s dead.”

Again, he stepped towards her, and again, she stumbled back, nearly falling. Ginny tightened her hold on the other girl’s hand however, and kept her upright, though she was just barely able to keep herself still, afraid that if she approached her, Pansy would run from her as well.

“Pansy…” He tried to keep his voice gentle, soothing, but his own pain shown through too clearly and he had to swallow the lump in his throat before he could go on. “Pans, your dad betrayed Voldemort, he turned himself into the Ministry, he made a deal with them. He gave the Aurors information in exchange for yours and Caralyna’s safety from investigation. There’s no way the Death Eaters would have-” He cut himself off, unable to finish, though he knew that she had to accept the truth, denial would do her no good, and he needed her thinking clearly if they were going to figure out what to do next.

“We don’t know for sure.” The words were almost a plea and it was like a cutting charm to his gut as the Prince of Slytherin watched his big sister slowly crumble to the ground. Unable to hold himself still, Draco ran to her side, almost sliding the last few feet in order to reach her before she was able to scoot away from him.

As soon as he got there, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tightly against him as she began to sob brokenly into his chest, his own tears finally escaping his control as he felt the wetness of her tears on his shirt, felt the violent trembling in her shoulders as she clung to him. He pressed his cheek to the top of her head and whispered meaningless words into her hair as his eyes sought out the only other person he could trust, the only other person he knew would not use this show of weakness against him.

Ginny, who had dropped to her knees when Pansy’s legs had first given out, inched forward with a squeeze of the hand she still held and raised her free arm slowly, giving Draco the opportunity to tell her to stop before she draped it across his shoulders and gave him a half-hug in comfort. The two exchanged sad, knowing smiles, then closed their eyes and just held on, letting their friend cry herself to sleep in their arms as their own tears fell quietly down their cheeks.

It was almost half an hour later, when Pansy’s deep, steady breaths assured them she was asleep, that they met one another’s gazes. The exhaustion was clear in his face and Ginny gave him another half-hug before she carefully broke the silence, keeping her voice down so she didn’t wake Pansy.

“I’ll go talk to Dumbledore. He can make a Portkey or something for your mum.” Something akin to confusion filtered across his face and the redhead smiled sadly, knowing he must really be tired if his snakey mind couldn’t follow her train of thought. “She’s lost her father and the woman that raised her, she can’t lose her mother too, and neither can you.”

The young wizard opened his mouth to protest, but she shook her head firmly. “He has to be told, Draco, and Pans needs you here. I won’t be long, I promise.”

“Go to Snape instead.” Ginny sighed at his request but he held her gaze. “He needs to know too, and he can better anticipate what the other Slytherins will do when their parents send word about Pansy. The owls have probably already started arriving from the Death Eater parents and the Headmaster is far too trusting, he won’t want to think the snakes’ll go after her. Snape will know better. Tell him, he can go to Dumbledore for us and find somewhere for Pans to stay.”

“You mean somewhere for you both to stay.” The witch rolled her eyes at the stubborn look on her friend’s face. “No, Draco. You can’t stay in the dungeons any more than she can and you know it. The others will know someone warned her; they’ll find the wards soon enough and know you’re the only one that could have done it. They’ll go after your mum and you. Once your mum gets here you guys can stay with her, maybe, I don’t know, but you’re not going back to Slytherin Draco, you can’t.”

Her fear showed plainly on her unmasked features and as he saw it, his gaze softened ever so slightly. “Fine. I’ll stay with them if you go to Snape instead of Dumbledore. Okay?”

Somewhat surprised that he had given in so easily, Ginny nodded and went to stand, but he stopped her, his hand reaching up and grabbing hold of her wrist as she let go of the other witch’s hand. Brown flew up to meet grey in surprise only to see his eyes close as he leaned forward and brushed her lips with his. The kiss was much softer than the ones they had shared only two hours before, but no less shocking to either of them.

Both of them stared silently at each other for several moments after the kiss ended, their minds going back to the last time they’d been in this room, before the owl had turned their world upside down, when the most frightening thing in their lives was becoming more than friends with someone who months ago couldn’t have been any less of a friend. But they were friends, and more, it would seem, though the thought was less frightening and more comforting than it had been a short time before.

They smiled almost shyly at one another – if a Malfoy could ever actually be called shy, that is – and Ginny went to stand. His hand tightened on her wrist as she rose and time stilled as their eyes met and Draco Malfoy told Ginny Weasley something he’d never even told his sister in the entire time he’d known her.

Ginny just smiled, the expression not as sad as it had been the last time, and quietly left to make her way to the Potion master’s rooms. Once again she failed to notice the door staying open an extra moment before closing behind her, her mind too busy replaying the words Draco had just said.

*Thank you.*

End Part Six

Part Seven:

Over the last two weeks, things had been very strained in Gryffindor House, at least for the illustrious Trio and one Ginny Weasley, and it had only grown worse in the last six days when the majority of the other students had gone home for the Christmas holidays. The angry silences that filled the near-empty tower had left ample time for brooding, time Harry Potter had taken advantage of in order to come to a rather simple conclusion. Firstly, Ginny was quite possibly nutters. And secondly, neither he, nor his two best friends, had managed to do anything but push the youngest Weasley further into the slimy Slytherin clutches they’d so recently found her to be in.

He hated to think it, that all their efforts to help had only made things worse. The entire thing, he had to admit, could have been handled better. For starters, he and Ron probably shouldn’t have interrogated the redheaded witch quite so ferociously about the kiss they’d witnessed beneath the invisibility cloak. Actually, as Hermione pointed out afterwards, they could have avoided Ginny’s livid response to the revelation of their eavesdropping by not mentioning anything they’d seen in the small dungeon room at all. After all, they certainly had enough to question her about with what they had seen between the two when Malfoy had come for Ginny’s help.

Of course, Hermione herself probably should have followed her own belated advice by not needling the younger witch about Malfoy’s comments regarding Mr. Parkinson’s deal with the Ministry or Ginny’s reference to Narcissa Malfoy being Pansy’s mother. Avoidance of those questions would have at least prevented the youngest Weasley’s surprisingly rude instructions for Hermione to mind her own bloody business and keep her mouth shut about things she didn’t understand.

While he was sure things would have still gotten ugly, without Ginny’s comments, he and Ron most likely wouldn’t have acted so harshly to the fifth-year in their heated defense of their bushy-haired friend. That could have possibly kept the whole affair from escalating into the all-out shouting match that had led to Ginny’s current angry avoidance of all things Harry, Hermione, and Ron.

Harry let out a heavy sigh. So much could have gone differently, though he had to admit that the first thing that could have changed for the better was Ginny’s not getting involved in whatever sordid mess the dungeon royals were embroiled in. He still couldn’t believe that Ron’s innocent little sister was apparently friends with Parkinson and Malfoy – and in the case of the rotten little ferret, more than friends – and that she had lied to them about it all this time.

Sure, he had never been particularly close to the younger witch, they hadn’t even really been what you would call friends, outside of her being his teammate in Qudditch and his best mate’s little sister. But it still felt a bit like a betrayal to know the extent to which she had gone to keep such a large secret from him and the others. Maybe if he’d known about some of this sooner he would have been able to talk her out of the insanity of her actions, but then again, the attempt he would have made was probably part of the reason she hadn’t told him in the first place.

Anyway, it didn’t really matter what could have happened or why it did, but rather the fact that it had happened in the first place, and what he was going to do now that he knew it. It was the last that had led him to don his invisibility cloak and follow the petite redhead through the deserted hallways.

There was a little voice in the back of his head saying that following Ginny was part of what had started this whole mess, but seeing as she had refused to talk to him any of the times he’d tried to corner her over the past few days, he felt like he didn’t have any other choice. It wasn't like he could just wait for her to be alone in the tower that night, as she was so rarely even there anymore, spending most of her time in the rooms that had apparently been given to Narcissa and the sixth-year Slytherins.

The same curiosity that had haunted him the first moment he had watched Ginny running towards, and then entering, Slytherin House with Malfoy still burned relentlessly within him and he just had to know exactly what was going on. Sure what he’d seen when they’d followed the redhead and her two ‘friends’ had answered some of his questions, in a way, but it had also raised so many others. And it was those others that were currently driving him mad. So he needed to know, and since Ginny wasn’t talking, he’d have to find another way of getting the information. Hence his carefully trailing her steps through the many dank dungeon corridors as Ginny turned yet another random corner.

Seemingly random, that is, as the Marauders’ Map showed him quite clearly that her path was anything but. Inside a set of rooms several feet down this empty hallway there was a small dot indicating N. Malfoy was in the far left room, while in the front-most room there paced one labeled D. Malfoy, and that, he knew, was where she was headed. His suspicions were proved correct as his unknowing guide reached out and opened the door. Harry rushed forward to follow the younger witch into the room, but it appeared that she had learned from the last incident, as she kept a firm hold of the door as she went through, pulling it closed as she did so, effectively preventing him from slipping in unnoticed. The bespectacled boy sighed as he watched the door close and spent several moments shifting from foot to foot deciding whether or not to go in anyway.

If he opened the door at this point, Ginny would know someone was following her, and with her knowledge of his cloak, it would probably only take her seconds to figure out who it was and rip the concealing garment from his shoulders. Harry pictured the look that had twisted the fifth-year’s normally pretty face when she’d realized he and the others had followed her the last time. He really, really didn’t want to see how angry she would get if she knew he’d done it again.

And angry she most certainly would be if he opened the door. As would her blond companion, and the boy's mother, he was sure. His going in and proving that he was following her yet again would only further enrage her, and she’d never give him any answers if she got even more angry than she already was. No, he couldn’t go in, he decided with another sigh. No matter how much he wanted answers, he wasn’t getting them tonight.

Slumping his shoulders in defeat, Harry turned back the way he had come, debating whether or not to try again the next night. Even if it didn't get him an opportunity to speak with her, it would at least allow him to keep track of her, and be close at hand should her so-called friends try anything, as he was sure they eventually would. So absorbed was he in that inner discussion that the savior of the wizarding world walked directly into a very startled Pansy Parkinson.

End Part Seven

Part Eight:

Ginny let out a sigh as she heard the door close behind her, feeling the tension begin to finally drain out of her shoulders, if only temporarily. The past two weeks had been among the worst since her first year. She'd known that her brother and his friends would react badly if they were to discover the friendships she'd formed, but when it had all come out, she still hadn't quite been prepared for the vehemence of their reaction. She'd tried to speak with them at first, but emotions had been running too high on both sides and it had quickly degenerated into a shouting match as The Trio had thrown accusations and she had leapt to the defense of not only herself, but that of her new friends as well.

She still felt she'd been more than justified in her actions, before and after the discovery of her ties to the green and silver royalty. It was no business of her brother or his friends who she associated with, be they lion or snake. It was her prerogative to share, or not share, the details of her personal life with whomever she so chose, and she'd be damned back to that dank Chamber if she let anyone else try to control any aspect of her life, including what portions of it she shared. She'd had more than enough of being controlled when Tom Riddle had been running about in her head.

She suppressed a shudder at the thought but didn't quite hide the grimace that accompanied it, causing grey eyes to narrow at her as the expression flashed across her face. "Trio giving you trouble?"

The question pulled her from her thoughts, focusing her attention on the tall blond standing in the middle of the small sitting room. He looked the slightest bit ruffled, probably from the aggravated pacing she was sure he'd been doing before she arrived. He was forever pacing lately, she noted, having grown ever more restless over the last two weeks. Restless and annoyed.

It wasn't so much that he was upset about being moved out of the Slytherin dorms, though he did resent the implication that he couldn't take care of himself in the veritable snake pit his House has become for him after Caralyna Parkinson's death; nor was it that he disliked the suite of rooms he now shared with his mother and sister. It wasn't even that he was now living with the two she-vipers, although he was strongly independent. He just didn't appreciate being cooped up. Especially when he considered it unnecessary.

While the Slytherins had indeed shown themselves to be more than a little put out with the three rogue snakes, they had done little about it. That, of course, wasn't for lack of their wanting to. Snape, as Draco had predicted, had known exactly how his House would react to the news. He had also known the best way to prevent the students from causing too much damage in response.

The Potions Master had waited for his own letter to arrive informing him of the wards' discovery and then stormed into the dungeon dorms. Using his guise of loyalty, he'd quickly cautioned the students not to react outright to the betrayal. As a Slytherin he could not tell them not to seek revenge, of course, but he did reminded them that getting caught would only be detrimental to the cause and bring too much attention to the loyal followers residing so conveniently within the school.

Snape's manipulation had preserved his own cover, and effectively prevented the snakes from going after their former prince and princess in too damaging a fashion. There were still problems, hissed threats and the occasion attempt at an anonymous round of hexes from afar, but it wasn't anything the siblings couldn't handle. Not that that fact prevented the blond from insisting that his mother and sister still needed to spend as much time as possible in their new rooms, should any snake disregard their Head of House's advice.

Such reasoning had only led to the two women stating that if it was too dangerous for them to wander the castle it was equally dangerous for him to do so. The resulting argument had been long, and presented in high volume, but had, in the end, yielded to numbers, giving Pansy and Narcissa the victory.

Draco had been less than pleased, though she had caught him eyeing the dark-haired witch with a somewhat approving expression afterwards. At the time, the argument had been the most life Pansy had shown since Caralyna's death and they had all been relieved to see it. She had since appeared to recover even more, but that didn't stop them from worrying about her, or from continuing the daily get-togethers the three had been holding in the aftermath. They had forgone the ruse of tutoring sessions, but they still did their homework together every night. They even still met occasionally in their room, though it was easier to meet in the Slytherins' suite instead.

It was so easy, in fact, that Ginny had found herself there more often than not, especially once their holiday break had started six days before. Not only was it a safe and convenient place to spend time with her friends, it was also infinitely more comfortable than her common room in the tower had been lately.

"A bit of trouble, I suppose," she responded as she sank into one of the two chair situated in front of the room's fireplace.

"What are they doing now?"

The redhead shrugged in an attempt to play down the fact that her three fellow lions were still giving her problems. "Harry just tried to corner me again, probably wanting to show me the 'error of my ways'."

Brown eyes rolled at the hero complex the older boy had been showing since he'd learned of her involvement with Draco and Pansy. He seemed entirely convinced that she was in desperate need of saving, and that he was the one to save her. "I wish he'd just leave well enough alone."

The blond frowned, eyes narrowing at the mention of his scarred nemesis, but Ginny couldn't tell if it was just a product of the Slytherin's general animosity towards the Boy-Who-Lived, or if it was something more than that. It seemed to her that the former prince of the dungeons had reacted a little more strongly than one might expect whenever she'd related The Trio's latest attempt at pulling her away from him and Pansy. There was always the possibility that she was reading too much into things, but she thought perhaps she'd seen the slightest hint of what could be jealousy.

It wasn't anything the stoically distant Draco Malfoy would willingly show, however, let alone admit. And even if it was, she wouldn't dare ask him about it now. Neither of them had made any mention of what had happened between them, and she wasn't sure what that meant. The nagging question hadn't bothered her as much at first, being too busy helping Pansy and dealing with The Trio. Now, however, while Harry, Ron, and Hermione were still a problem, the former snake princess was doing much better, leaving her with a lot of time to think about what had happened the night of the fateful owl, and what hadn't happened since.

They'd kissed, more than once, several times in fact, before Narcissa's missive had arrived, and again after Draco had told her and Pansy what had prompted the letter. Yet neither of them had said so much as a word about it, or hinted in any other fashion as to their feelings about the situation, or each other. There had been times when she thought her grey-eyed friend looked at her with something more than casual, or friendly, interest, but not being able to interpret the signs clearly, she had been too afraid of risking her friendship with the dethroned snake, and his sister, to make her own signs too clear.

Such ambiguity was safer, but did nothing to help resolve the questions, or the barely perceptible uncertainty that now underlay her and Draco's interactions. If they were to settle things, they would have to get them all out in the open. It was a daunting proposition, but she wasn't a Gryffindor for nothing. After all, they had to do something while they were waiting for Pansy to show up, they might as well get this dealt with.

Ginny swallowed hard as she shifted slightly in her chair to face the blond more fully. She took the deep breath needed to gather her nerves, and her tongue.

"So, do you want to go to Hogsmeade this weekend?"

His words burst into the silence with ever so much more speed than was characteristic of the sneaky dungeon cobra. The young wizard was leaning against the chair opposite her, looking almost as casual as he always did. She fought the urge to choke on the breath she had just taken, her stomach rising into her chest, only to plummet back into her gut as he quickly went on.

"I'm sure you've got Christmas shopping to do too, and I could certainly stand to be outside after being stuck down here so damn long."

Shopping and an escape from his relative captivity. The redhead pushed aside the rising disappointment, donning a cheerful facsimile of the dungeon mask she had perfected during their friendship. "Yeah, sure." She swallowed again, doing her best to imbue her voice with some enthusiasm. "I bet Pansy is getting just as antsy as you are by now."

The normally cool and confident Slytherin opened his mouth, pausing the barest second as if unsure before a look of irritation covered his face. "Pansy wouldn't be coming."

Now it was her turn to pause as brown flew from the fire to meet suddenly shuttered silver orbs. "You mean it'd just be us?"

"That's what I said, isn't it?" he snapped almost defensively.

The youngest Weasley regarded him for a moment, her brain rushing to interpret the implications and her voice speeding to her rescue with a response that sounded almost properly joking. "What, like a date?"

The words, though delivered with seeming casualness, caused him to still, then turn to her with an almost hostile challenge in his eyes. "Yeah, is that okay with you?"

The statement was made with the same type of acidity as so many of his words to her had before they'd become friends, and she narrowed her eyes at the realization that he had pulled on his patent dungeon mask. Anger and frustration started to bubble up only to freeze inside her as she spotted something that was definitely not a part of his mask.

Draco Malfoy was fidgeting.

Oh, it wasn't anything extreme, of course, in fact, it was barely noticeable unless you knew the wizard in question, and she liked to think she did. She knew, at least, that he was not one to clench and unclench his jaw as he was currently doing, nor was he the type to shift almost nervously against the chair he was still leaning on. The observations, his words, and the possible implications of each had the griffin within her soaring up into her throat as she struggled to keep her voice and expression calm.

"Actually, that is okay with me."

Her words hung in the thick silence for several seconds in which brown and grey met and held, all the questions that had built up over the last fourteen days spilling over without a sound. Their doubts and discomfort splashed on the floor at their feet before being swept away by the smiles that slowly crept across their lips.

The expressions, bright and full for the first time since news of Caralyna's death, only lasted a scant few moments though, as Draco and Ginny both found a more satisfying use for their mouths.

Another face retained its smile much longer, however, Narcissa Malfoy unable to prevent the grin from overtaking her as she walked quietly back into her room. Neither blond nor redhead had noticed her approach minutes before, and they didn't notice her leave. They also didn't notice when Pansy never showed up.

End Part Eight

Part Nine:

She was late.

The blue-eyed, black-haired daughter of Narcissa Malfoy and Jasonan Parkinson cursed under her breath and increased her pace as she headed back towards the suite she now shared with her brother and birth mother. Pansy shook her head, nothing she used to describe Narcissa sounded right, out loud or in her head. Calling her mum sounded disrespectful to the woman who had raised her, had died in part to give her the time to be warned. But calling her Narcissa sounded like she was denying the fact that she had risked everything to keep her safe and to be there for her when she could.

She hadn't had to do that. Neither woman had had to spin such an elaborate ruse when it came right down to it. The wizarding world was fairly conservative, but that didn't mean that a witch couldn't quietly take care of an inconvenient pregnancy, especially one that was raised with such an exposure to the Dark Arts. Yet she hadn't taken the easy option, she, and her friends, had drastically altered their lives to make her own life possible.

That was what made it so difficult. Both were mothers to her in as much of a way as they had been able to be. So how could she give them both the honor they deserved without belittling the other? How could she call one mother when doing so implied that the other was something less?

She ran a slender hand through her long hair, a sound of frustration slipping past her lips, her thoughts spinning around her head as they had been doing for days. It was just all so complicated, and the fact that all she wanted to do was ask her father what to do made it all the worse. Thoughts of her dad, locked in Azkaban threatened to overtake her, speeding her pace a little more and making it more than a little startling when she found herself colliding with someone. Only the glance she managed as she started to fall back showed her only empty air in front of her.

She had half a second to feel fear rush through her at the thought that one of the Death Eater trainees in Slytherin had found a way to get at her and the others without being seen. Then a hand was suddenly grasping her arm, just below the shoulder, pulling her back to her feet with enough force to send her tipping forward and onto her invisible assailant-slash-rescuer.

Invisible.

Equal parts relief and anger flared inside Pansy as she fisted her hands in the slippery material that covered the unseen chest before her. She used his moment of distraction as he ensured they were both steady on their feet to yank the cloak from his body. Before the sixth-year was uncovered enough to expose his face to her gaze, she stated her accusation with the acidity of her still flailing emotions.

"Potter." She jerked her arm out of his grasp, balling the cloak in her fists as she stepped back.

He appeared as flustered as she felt, and took a moment to properly bristle at her tone. "Parkinson," he responded, his voice finally steadying on the last syllable. "What are you doing?"

She waited a beat before raising a sardonic brow, smirking ever so slightly as he processed the question he'd asked, and the stupidity of having asked it. She answered anyway, though, somehow enjoying the almost imperceptible blush on his cheeks as she spoke, as if to a particularly dense first-year and gestured with casual arrogance at the door several feet behind him. "I live here. What's your excuse?"

He opened his mouth indignantly, no doubt to give an overly sincere declaration only a Gryffindor would find a suitable reason for skulking invisibly through the halls. She cut him off before he had a chance. "Wait, let me guess, you were spying on Gin, hoping to either corner her and yell some more about how she should let you pick her friends for her, or to find some reason to convince her to let you pick her friends at a later time?"

Harry straightened, his cheeks reddening, though whether it was from embarrassment or anger, she wasn't sure. "I was not spying. And I'm only trying to look out for her, to protect her."

The 'from you' she knew he wanted to tack on the end remained unsaid, so the dark-haired witch said it for him. "Gin doesn't need you to protect her, Potter. Certainly not from us."

She'd meant those last words to be properly scathing, but somehow they had come out sounding almost tired. Pansy gave a mental growl at her uncooperative vocal cords. This was bloody fucking Potter, he deserved scathing, especially considering the trouble she knew he'd been giving her redheaded friend lately. Yet when he had spoken, when he'd pulled himself up almost ramrod straight and clenched his fists at his sides, she hadn't been able to not see the genuine concern that fueled his absurdly Gryffindoric hero-complex. He was a lion to the core, no matter what Ginny said about him almost being sorted into Slytherin, and obviously liked to delude himself with the idea that he automatically knew what was best for the youngest Weasley, but the overblown protectiveness reminded her of someone.

The former snake princess suppressed the smirk that threatened to curl her lips at the thought of telling her dear brother that he actually had something in common with the Boy-Who-Lived-To-Annoy-Him. Draco would be less than pleased with the comparison, as would Potter, she was sure, yet it refused to leave her alone as he began to pace in tiny circles in the hallway, practically ranting about how she and Draco were evil Slytherins and would eventually hurt Ginny.

A small portion of her annoyance at the Boy Wonder's overblown and uninformed assumptions and stereotyping of her house warped into amusement at the sight. How many times had she watched her little brother pace and bitch over the years? The slightest of smirks peeked through her mask of irritation and she contemplated just letting him exhaust himself with the wild and somewhat paranoid accusations, but she had the feeling that he probably had enough material stored up to keep him going for longer than her patience could last. So she interrupted him, though her tone lacked a bit of the rancor usually associated with any conversation between her and anyone not Draco, Ginny, or Narcissa.

"Does it bother you at all that you're working entirely off conjecture?" He skidded to a stop at her words, looking almost surprised to see her standing in front of him, arms crossed in a position casual enough to keep her from looking pissed.

"Sure, Draco and I haven't exactly had the most pleasant of interaction with you and yours, and if you were talking about the possibility of a sudden, genuine friendship between us, and say, Granger, you might have some valid points. But you're talking about Ginny. You have no idea how or when we became friends with her, nor do you know the extent or genuineness of that friendship, though what you lot saw when you spied on us should have given even you a clue."

"I guess that means I'm either a lot less observant than you think, or a lot more intelligent."

Her mask cracked at his fervent declaration, something between a condescending smirk and an amused grin spreading across her face. "A lot more intelligent, huh?"

He ignored the sarcasm, simply continuing, picking up steam as he went and not noticing the amusement drain from her face and become replaced with painful rage.

"You think I don't know the implications of having a murdering Death Eater at Hogwarts, what you three could accomplish with an excuse to let her stay here?"

He never saw her raise her wand, only felt his body slam against the wall as she shouted a spell and advanced on him. "You don't know a bloody thing about her!"

The scarred lion struggled futilely against her magical hold, pent up guilt and anger spilling from his lips. "I know enough. I know that if it wasn't for her Sirius would still be alive. She's the one that told Kreacher to tell me he'd left. I'd never have gone to the Ministry if he hadn't told me that, and my godfather would still be alive."

Black strands danced across her shoulders as she shook her head in disgust. "Do you honestly think she had a choice in that? Do you really think that married to Lucius Malfoy, that she had the option to refuse to help the Dark Lord? If you're so bloody intelligent, you'd know what would have happened to her, to Draco, if she hadn't done that."

Pansy trailed off, the rage burning out, her shoulders slumping forward and her eyes growing duller with every second their gazes remained locked. "She may not have been a saint like you, Potter," she spat the name with the last of the strength of her anger, "but she only ever did what she could to keep her family safe. She had no choice in marrying Lucius, but she had every choice in keeping me, in protecting me. Lucius and the others would have done a lot worse than you can imagine if he'd found out her secret. She may not have been a Gryffindor, but she was brave, and she was selfless and she was..."

She trailed off, swallowing hard past the emotion as she silently apologized to the woman that had spent her entire life married to a man she didn't love, and raising a child that wasn't hers. "She is my mother, and you will not speak about her like that in front of me."

She turned sharply on her heel and stalked off down the hall as the first tear fell, but he saw it, and it forced memories of that night before his mind's eye. He remembered the look on her face when Draco had told her Mrs. Parkinson was dead. He remembered the sound of her denials, and her sobs as Draco and Ginny had held her.

He hadn't thought too much about it in the last two weeks, having been so focused on watching and worrying about Ginny that he hadn't even noticed that Pansy had barely left her new rooms since classes had ended before the holiday break. He hadn't really seen how quiet she'd been the few times she'd come with Draco, Ginny, and Narcissa to eat in the Great Hall. But he noticed it now, thought about the fact that this was the first time in two weeks that she'd been alone. And he thought again about what he'd seen that night, what he'd seen just now. He thought about what she'd said, and what she hadn't said.

The thoughts spun around in his head, making it almost impossible to not run after the retreating witch when she finally released the spell and he stumbled forward, away from the wall. "Wait," he yelled out, reaching out and grasping her arm as he caught up with her.

She spun to face him, yanking her arm from his hand as shutters fell in front of her eyes, hiding her expression, though the lone tear track on her pale cheek gave her away. "What?" she snapped with characteristic acidity.

He tripped over his words, taking a step back from the hostile glare. "Are you okay?"

She crossed her arms again, but this time the gesture seemed almost protective. "As if you care."

Harry took his own defensive stance at that. "Hey, you may not be anything resembling my friend," some of the heat left his voice, "but no one should lose a parent, biological or otherwise." He looked down at his feet for a moment before raising his bespectacled gaze to meet hers. "It's hard enough when you never knew them, never knew what you were really missing, but once you know..."

Silence descended on the shadowy dungeon corridor.

"I'm sure... I'm sure she's a good mum. You're lucky to have her."

Ice blue eyes regarded him for several silent moments, her mind digesting what was probably the closest she'd ever get to an apology from the legendary lion.

"Narcis- My mum talked about him after... Sirius would have been a good dad, wouldn't he?"

Their eyes met for a second, both acknowledging the tentative truce they were offering one another. Harry nodded. "Yeah, I think he would have."

The exchange was stilted, but genuine, more or less, and they stood uncertainly before Pansy straightened and spoke matter-of-factly, as if there had never been stringent animosity between them. "You must be hungry."

Not knowing where she was going with that statement, he nodded hesitantly. "A bit."

She nodded back, the gesture sharp, and started off in the direction of the kitchens. "Then let's go."

It took a few moments for him to sort through what had just happened and convince his feet to follow suit, but before too long, the two were being led by several overexcited house elves to a small table in the corner of the kitchens. Once seated it was mere seconds before there was a wide array of snack foods set before them. They tucked in with only slight hesitation as their eyes flicked from the food to their unexpected dinning companion, and back again.

By the time they'd eaten their fill, the silence was both heavier, and more comfortable, and Harry found himself asking the petite snake a rather loaded question.

"Do you think we're responsible?" Green eyes remained steadfastly fixed on his empty plate. "I mean, they died saving us, didn't they?"

Pansy stilled for several seconds. "Draco, Ginny, and my mum would say no." She said no more for a moment, then continued. "But sometimes, I..."

He met her eyes with his own as she trailed off. "Yeah, me too."

End Part Nine

Part Ten:

He couldn't quite hold back the relieved sigh that broke free as he spotted the flash of red as the latest group of visitors entered the old house. There had been small groups coming in and out all summer, and it was trying the very last of his patience. It was hard at times to not feel bitter about the fact that he was not in his own home, that he was instead staying in a house that, besides being significantly less appointed than Malfoy or Parkinson Manor had been, technically belonged to his scarred nemesis.

He was actually living off the charity of Harry Potter. The thought caused a shudder to slide down his spine and a disgusted sneer to twist his lips, even as he watched the petite redhead slipping away from the group of Order members she had arrived with. Staying here, even for the summer, was a situation he found most irritating and demeaning. Yet it was also one he could not complain about properly without receiving a scolding from any of the women in his life.

Ginny, having finally reached a truce with her fellow Gryffindors a few weeks after the Christmas holiday, had seemed intent on fostering a tolerance between him and the lions. And Pansy, with whom he would have at one time shared a lively and acidic discourse as to the horrid state of their housing was actually the main reason for it. He still couldn't understand how it had come about, but his sister had somehow formed an alliance with Potter during their winter break, one that had only grown during the remainder of their sixth year.

The two dark-haired students had denied that they were dating, but as far as he was concerned, they might as well be for all the time they spent together. It was truly disgusting in the blond's mind, his own sister and best friend fraternizing with the Boy-Who-Lived-To-Fuck-With-His-Bloody-Life, let alone dating the git. Yet, she was, and to top it all off, she had maneuvered, with the help of their mother, all three of them into living with the bloody prat.

How the women had gone about it had been quite clever, a manipulation worthy of a true Slytherin. They'd spent several days dropping hints to Boy Wonder and the Old Bat as to their concerns regarding the safety of Malfoy Manor now that the Death Eaters knew about their duplicity, and where they would be able to stay for the summer. Then, once the idea of alternate summer housing was well planted, they lamented their inability to leave the school, subtly fostering sympathy for their straights. And for the killing blow, they'd each confided in the Headmaster how they felt bad for Potter's loss of his godfather, how they wished he didn't have to keep living with his aunt and uncle, and how they saw him as family, since Sirius and Narcissa had been cousins and Sirius was practically a father to the boy.

The coup de grace had come shortly before the term had ended when the women had, under the guise of a last ditch attempt to find a way to secure the Manor for their use, begun a conversation about blood protection spells within earshot of the bearded fool. During the conversation, they had seemingly considered an alternative that required a sort of magical bonding, and a ritual similar to the choosing of a Secret-Keeper.

Patience, subtlety, and snake-like cunning had left Narcissa Malfoy with a magical link to Harry Potter, and the trio of Slytherins with quarters in the Black's house at number twelve, Grimmauld Place. It was not a circumstance Draco was pleased with, but he had been overruled by both his mother and his sister, and though he had done absolutely nothing to further the scheme that had landed them there, he had also refrained from actively jeopardizing the setup. As much as he hated to admit it, living with the insufferable lion made his remaining family happy.

Pansy, for the first time he could remember, had formed a friendship, and possibly more, that he was not a part of, and as much as that rankled him, a small, very quiet part of him acknowledged that as a good thing. And his mother, ever the society witch, had taken to playing hostess to the Order member that visited with annoying regularity. The ice-blonde witch had also adopted her role as guardian with surprising gusto, mothering Potter as well as Pansy and Draco with an enthusiasm and contentment the grey-eyed serpent had never seen before.

He'd never thought his mother capable of the behavior she'd displayed in ever-increasing doses since moving into the dungeons with her son and daughter those months before. He had believed it to be a singular oddity, in fact, until he had been forced to meet the Weasley monarch his second night at Grimmauld Place.

For all the intensity of Molly Weasley's tendency to scold and dote upon everyone she met, the Malfoy heir was surprised to find himself not despising her. She was far too emotional and Gryffindoric for his tastes, but she had shown a controlled suspiciousness of him and the other snakes that the Slytherin in him couldn't help but respect. Plus, she hadn't forbidden her only daughter to see him as the other members of her family had tried to do so vocally, for which he owed the elder woman Ginny's continued visits.

Potter's experience with the mother Weasley could explain why he seemed to enjoy Narcissa's fussing so much. Well, that and the fact that the coddled little prat just liked being the center of attention. Either way, he appeared entirely too happy playing house with Draco's family, at least to the blond's way of thinking. If only the do-gooder hadn't gotten over his animosity towards the woman who'd been responsible for Kreacher's role in Sirius Black's death. That, of course, was solely his sister's fault, as she had orchestrated the meetings and discussions between Potter and their mother that had resulted in the burying of that particular hatchet.

The former prince of Slytherin had been horrified when he'd learned of those meetings, having instigated a sizable row with his obsidian-haired sibling upon the discovery. It had taken him weeks to fully get over his shocked disgust and to allow Ginny and Narcissa to get him and Pansy talking again. Not to mention the effort the redhead and blonde had been forced to expend to keep him from attacking his sister's new 'friend.'

That hadn't been the only time in the course of Pansy's friendship with Potter that Draco had required assistance in not harming the four-eyed lion. In the few weeks they'd spent in the Black house, he'd been tempted many times to hex the scar right off his big head, and once to even punch him in lowly Muggle fashion. The so-called savior of the wizarding world had not been the sole recipient of his ire, however.

The seemingly constant barrage of witches and wizards that cycled through the house in their various duties within the Order were fraying his temper as well. It was bad enough that he couldn't stay in his own home, that he had to live with Potter of all people, and that he had to deal with having what little privacy he'd scavenged invaded almost daily. But being expected to put up with, and even to pretend to not be aggravated by the others' unwelcome intrusion was nearly more than he could handle.

Oh, some he could deal with, Moody - despite the unpleasant memories of his encounter with the man's Polyjuiced double in fourth-year - Shacklebolt, the Weasley brothers. He knew exactly where he stood with them, and could avoid or interact with them as was natural, though he did try to not goad Ginny's family too much. The others, however, he had more trouble with.

They expected him to be nice.

It was intolerable.

He was a snake, a Slytherin, crown or no. He was Draco bloody Malfoy, and he was not nice and amiable unless it was more than warranted, and even then it was questionable. To have to act like those people's feigned interest and concern was anything but a scam and an irritant, rankled more than a little. If there was anything he truly detested it was fake kindness. He was naturally - and properly - suspicious of any overt kindness offered to him without the expectation of something in return, or a hidden agenda lurking behind the paper-thin smile. Hell, he had trouble with genuine kindness from almost anyone.

The worst and most unpalatable offender was, of course, Dumbledore himself. Only the day before, he'd had to bite off a curse and hold his hands behind his back to keep from drawing his wand on the doddering old fool when the Headmaster had dropped a few not-so-subtle hints as to the possibility of him joining the Order or entering Auror training after graduation.

As if he'd have the slightest interest in working with that group of high-minded red-and-gold-blooded incompetents. He, unlike some soon-to-be seventh-years he could name, did not fancy himself a hero. He had no desire whatsoever to traipse around, following after a bunch of lunatics in silver masks, risking his life for the altogether unappreciative and undeserving masses. He'd be Crucio'd to insanity before allowing Ginny, Pansy, or Narcissa to be harmed, but he couldn't care less about anyone else. They could fend for themselves, he had plans for his life, and they didn't include the Order or the Ministry in any capacity.

He had, of course, made this clear to the bespectacled old wizard. Unfortunately, Dumbledore wasn't the only one that had been witness to his fervent proclamation. In hindsight, he should have made sure they were alone before declaring his post-graduate intentions. But he had been entirely too short-tempered to spare thought for such things. And he had paid for it.

Only the knowledge that his redhead would be strongly displeased with him had kept him from hexing the mouth right off the bushy-haired bookworm and her red-haired gorilla when they'd laughingly suggested he ask Neville to be his 'study-buddy'. The memory brought a scowl to his lips, the expression causing Ginny to frown as she made her way towards him.

"You okay?" she asked, her genuine and appreciated concern soothing the sharp edges of his temper.

He'd given the two lions a scathing glare at their pitiful, yet insulting, joke. He had also stated that he was not a lowly garden gnome like Longbottom, but was interested in Herbology only so far as it applied to Potions and could surely do without his cauldron melting out from under him as he studied ingredients. That had angered Ron and offended Granger, so it had made him feel a little better, but he had still been annoyed by the fact that he'd had to deal with it at all, especially during the summer, when he should have been relaxing in private.

"Draco?"

There wasn't much of any privacy here, he thought as his grey pools rose to meet brown orbs that had narrowed with concern. In certain instances, however, it was significantly less of a bother. This was one of them.

"Fine. Just thinking," he said with a dismissive shake of his head to dispel the memory. He didn't allow her the time to think further on his mental lapse, simply reaching out to tug his girlfriend onto his lap with a suddenness that made her squeal softly in surprise. His girlfriend. It was strange to think about her like that. He wasn't exactly the sort to have a girlfriend in the way that a lioness - even a snake-ish one like her - would normally have a boyfriend. Yet here he was, lounging in a slightly overstuffed chair in his mother's family's decrepit library, with his girlfriend of nearly seven months curling up on his lap.

Bloody hell, they were practically snuggling, he thought with a mental rolls of his eyes.

Slytherins did not snuggle. Yet here he was, wrapping his arms around her small, redheaded form, a smile - not a smirk, mind you- spreading across his lips as she rested her cheek against his shoulder and buried her face in his throat. He was only humoring her, he insisted silently, his head lowering slightly to rest his cheek on her scarlet hair. It was all entirely for her benefit. And apparently his mother's.

Draco glared at the woman he caught spying on them from the hallway, his eyes narrowing as she sent him a smirk and continued on her way. She'd been doing that a lot lately, smirking at him in a knowing fashion whenever she saw him with Ginny. The look she had just given him however, was more victorious than anything else, and it brought to mind a conversation they'd had only the day before, in this very room.

"You know of course," she had stated casually as she stirred her tea, "there are certain areas in which I hold much in common with my parents. Their views and behavior regarding my betrothal is not one of them."

It had been entirely Slytherin of her, the off-handed way she'd spoken, delivering the blow beneath a veil of normality, as if the statement was completely expected and acceptable for afternoon tea with her son. He'd given her grudging approval in his mind, even as he'd fought the urge to drop his tea in his lap. Of all the things that she could have said, that was not one he'd thought to hear from her, especially given the look she'd leveled at him as the words had sunk in.

She'd finished her tea without another word before excusing herself, but then she hadn't really needed to say anything more, her meaning had been quite clear. The protests that had swum through his mind had been clear as well. He was barely a seventh-year for Merlin's sake, he had no business even contemplating such things.

Yet the idea had remained in the back of his mind ever since, festering.

Now, as he sat with Ginny curled up in his arms, he couldn't ignore the truth. While his grandparents had been mildly despicable people, they'd had one thing right. When one really thought about it, a few weeks after graduation was long enough to wait, though they'd have to start planning well before that. He was a Malfoy after all. Of course, with Ginny being a year behind him, it would be after her graduation, not his, but that was all right. It gave him time to settle into the apprenticeship he'd applied for at the exclusive Potions supply and research center, after all. A center that was located, conveniently, halfway between Dovetown and Hogsmeade.

Now, he thought as he pulled the youngest Weasley tighter against him, all he had to do was decide exactly when and where he was going to propose.

End Part Ten
End Story