It is dark out by the time we get to King's Cross. Potter says we will eat at his house. We once more have to negotiate apparating. This time, Potter takes us both, with the others handling our luggage. We disappear outside of King's Cross, and take form on a dim lit residential street. I sit down in the middle of the road, closing my eyes. Draco and Potter each take an arm of mine and drag my stiff body onto the sidewalk. Granger and Weasley are already waiting there for us, our stuff in their hands.

"Blimey, I'm starved. Do you think Ginny will have enough for us?" Weasley asks.

I'm struggling to open my eyes, but then I hear Weasley's laugh.

"You're joking," his laugh is bitter. "You didn't tell her?"

"Well, I didn't exactly have an owl," Potter says. "She'll have to understand."

"She will have your head in," Weasley jokes again.

As I am finally able to hold myself up on my own though my head feels like it might split, I notice that Granger is looking around. She draws her wand out of a belt loop, glancing around the street.

"Tell them, Harry," she says.

Potter sighs. He leans forward, his voice a thick whisper, "the headquarters to the Order of the Phoenix is 12 Grimmauld Place."

Draco looks up and smirks.

I follow his gaze. A house seems to expand out in front of me as if from nowhere. It pushes numbers 11 and 13 asunder, and then there is a house. It is another bit of magic that has happened that I hadn't previously thought possible.

We walk up to the house. Potter pulls out his wand and taps it against the door. The sound of metal snaps and clicks in the door, coming from several spots. Potter lets us in.

"We're back," he calls into the area.

We all take off our shoes. Granger hurries inside after Potter, trying to escape the cold. Weasley nudges past me after her, nearly snarling at Draco as he walks in.

"Oh, are they staying the night?" a voice calls from the kitchen.

Draco glares at the place, his nose scrunched as if the smell is pungent. I can smell coffee coming from the kitchen, as well as some sort of meat pie. It's not offence, at least. Once my coat is off, I begin to walk into the house. Draco grabs my arm to pull me back, but I shrug him off. Instead, he trails after me.

The first floor is quite lovely, though a bit barren. The floors are all new wood, and the walls are cream beneath a dozen pictures and paintings on the wall. The people in the photographs are moving. The flowers in one of the paintings seem to blow in a breeze. In the room closest to the front, there are two brown sofas and a couple of cozy chairs made of red and yellow fabric. A large fireplace made of wood and brick pokes out from the wall. It is much older than anything else here. I move out of the room and follow where Potter went down the hall.

"Gin," Potter begins, "there's-"

"The food is going to get cold," Ginny's voice carries into the room. "Would you and Ron set the table? Hermione and I can manage to bring the food out into the dining room."

"We're going to need an extra plate," I can see Ron standing near the doorway. He sees me and steps forward into the room.

She pauses for a second, "Harry, you could have at least owled me before you asked me to feed half the aurors! When it's your night to cook, you can invite them over."

I round the corner. Draco's hand is on my shoulder but he doesn't stop me.

Ginny sees us and drops the white dish in her hands. Weasley flicks his wand, slowing its descent. Her eyes dart from behind me back to me and then behind me again, and she scowls at Draco.

Then, her face burns bright red, "Harry James Potter, you are not fucking serious right now."

"Nice to see you too," Draco, I'm sure, is making some expression to convey his displeasure. I've never seen him quite serious.

Ginny smacks Potter, and then smacks him again. Eventually, Weasley pulls back Ginny, and then she shoves him as well.

"You let this happen too!" then, Ginny turns back to Potter and huffs. "So this is where you're top-secret mission led you, and you didn't even have the decency to tell me? This is ridiculous."

"We needed to help Jane," Granger pipes in, before nodding her head towards me. "She's a muggle. It's a bit of a long story."

Ginny looks at me, her eyes moving up and down. She turns to Weasley, who just shrugs.

"I expected this from you, least of all," she points at Weasley.

"Trust me, I was outvoted," Weasley shakes his head. He grabs the dish in his hand and takes it out of the room. I assume he is heading for the dining room.

"You seem to somehow be the most sensible one here, which I have never said or thought before in my life," Ginny calls after him. She snatches another dish from the kitchen table and begins to carry it into the dining room. Her voice rings through the house as she marches away. "He will not be eating at the table."

Granger pulls down several plates, bringing them out of the room as well.

Potter stands. He grabs two dishes and begins to move them, "she'll come around."

"I will not!" Ginny calls from the other room. "I will sooner buy a doghouse to put in the backyard and have him sleep there. Perhaps you can join him if you're keen, Harry!"

Weasley returns to grab cutlery. When his hand wraps around a knife, I worry for a second that he might turn quickly and stab Draco. They seem to always have more deadly weapons on them though, knowing what I know about wands.

Granger returns after. Ginny is continuing to shout at Potter, though the sound is muffled by either magic or a shut door.

"She can eat with us," Granger says to Draco and not to me. "You can wait until we are done to serve yourself."

"I think you'll understand that I'm not leaving her with you lot," Draco cuts in. "Who knows what the Weasleys are plotting?"

"I'd prefer to eat with Draco, actually," I agree.

He flinches backwards, as does Granger.

Her face hardens, "fine. You both can enjoy a cold meal."

Then, she leaves the room. I listen for the sound of the dining room door shutting. It lets out a loud bang through the house.

Draco takes the opportunity to peer at the kitchen. It has hexagonal tile floors, white and blue, that can't be as old as this house if Draco came here as a child. The cabinets are wooden, as are the small table and chairs in the room.

"You don't like how they've redecorated?" I ask.

He opens one of the cupboards, revealing brass pots. He shuts the cupboards as well, continuing to peer around.

"It's awful," he admits.

As he moves around the kitchen, opening cupboard after cupboard, he finally stops. A large black cauldron is in on the bottom shelf. He puts the cauldron on the table. Then, he stares down inside it. I wait for him to speak, but he doesn't.

"I should have expected wizards to use cauldrons," I try to make a joke.

He doesn't laugh, "I am going to give you a choice, alright?"

"Do I have any choice to opt-out of choosing?" it is a strange thing to ask if I am alright with his decision when there are no other options, and he has no way to remedy the conditions that I'm living in.

He once again does not laugh, "I can make you a potion to help you sleep, although it might take an hour to brew, and I will almost definitely enrage Potter or his girl if they discover I've taken their cauldron and the ingredients necessary for the potion. Otherwise, I can ask Potter after they are done eating. He's sure to have some of the potion somewhere around the house, but then he will know you have nightmares. Whichever you'd rather do, we can do."

The idea of telling Potter about the bad dreams is humiliating, but condoning Draco stealing from these people feels very much like the worst possible scenario. I don't imagine they could hate us more without murdering us.

"Can't I just sleep without it?" I ask.

He grits his teeth, "you are quite loud. I've never managed to sleep next to you."

I step towards him, peering at his face. Earlier, I didn't notice how awful he looked. Well, at least the dark circles that puff under his eyes and his sickly skin, so pale but tinged green, seemed fair given the stress we were under. Now that we are somewhere that could possibly be safe, his appearance is uncomfortable. He should be in a hospital.

When we first met, I thought he looked like someone who had just gotten bad news. A recent widower. I supposed I was right. Although, I guessed his name wrong. Draco is quite different from Richard.

I remember too much. I don't remember the nightmares.

"When I drink a lot, the nightmares are much quieter," I offer, because maybe I can self-medicate my way out of this mess.

He shakes his head, "no. You just don't remember them."

I feel my heart sinking. How long have I been keeping Amanda, Ali, and Niamh up at night? They never said a word to me about it. Well, I do know that they all had earplugs, but Ali said it was typical for people who live in condos in New York, and Amanda and Niamh had both lived on campus the year prior and said they were necessary there. It doesn't bother me that they lied to me about it so much as that I had no idea that I was so loud at night. It's humiliating.

"Ask Potter," I resolve, because I'd rather be alive and humiliated than dead and proud.

Draco puts the cauldron back into the cupboard.

He then scrunches his nose, "you should go sit in the front room. I'm going to make sure there is no anti-muggle magic that will bother us upstairs. If they come complaining about it, tell them that anyway."

He doesn't give me much of an option. When he turns and leaves, I am alone in the kitchen, in this magical house that might want me dead, with strangers that might want him dead.

~~~~~

Ginny is literally such a badass. Like, the line about Harry sleeping in the doghouse cracks me up. I always feel for Jane. Anywho, let me know what you think! I loved reading your comments last chapter.