Waking up I feel rested. My mind slept along with my body, which is a new and unusual phenomenon. The first breath I take is the most fulfilling breath to enter my lungs in quite some time. It doesn't matter that I slept on one of the sofas nor that there is noise bustling about the house early in the morning. I slept so peacefully after Draco gave me that potion.

They have enough bedrooms for us, but Draco and the others determined that only the first two floors are safe for me to stay on due to anti-muggle charms. As it happens, the pair have only managed to complete renovations on the first level of the house, so the bedroom upstairs is inaccessible as of now. Draco thinks we are lucky that they decided to do any renovations at all because otherwise, I might have been gravely harmed upon stepping foot in the entryway.

We awake early. Weasley and Granger left an hour after dinner. The five wizards and witches discussed me, once more behind a locked door, for several minutes before Weasley stormed out in a huff with Granger following close behind.

Now that it is morning, only Potter, Ginny, Draco, and I remain in the house. Potter woke me up when he came in to stoke a fire. Draco was already awake. Fortunately, there is a bathroom on the main floor that I use to brush my teeth and hair. After dressing, I go into the kitchen.

Potter and Ginny are making food and Draco watches. Potter has some sort of pastry, while Ginny is multitasking between several pans and dishes. She is cooking an omelet with spinach, tomatoes, and mushrooms, while also trying to butter her toast as well as make what looks to be French toast. Draco looks over at me, before dropping his head.

"Good, you're ready," Ginny finally says, looking back at me. "You can take over the French toast."

"It would be easier if you used magic," Draco points out.

Ginny has her wand in her hair, which she pulls out. She spins it between her fingers and points it at Draco, "it would be easier if I sent bats flying out of your nose."

Draco doesn't look away. She breaks first, putting the wand back inside her bun. I take over cooking the French toast.

"I've really got to get to work, Gin," Potter tells her. "It's already looking like Ron and I bunked off yesterday. I'm still trying to scramble together an excuse."

"I told you to tell them I got hit with a bludger," Ginny rolls her eyes, flipping her omelet. "My medical records will be sealed, so unless Robards wants to break the law to find out you lied, it'll remain that way. You're good at occlumency anyway."

"Ron's not," Potter corrects.

Draco's eyes flash, "Weasley doesn't know occlumency? He's an auror."

Potter sighs, "well, do you suggest I teach him by slicing up his head every night? I've never seen Robards use legilimency on a Death Eater, much less Ronald Weasley."

Draco doesn't seem satisfied, "Goyle might not be capable of legilimency, but I'm sure they'll find someone."

"And they are going to track down the people who hate you most out of everyone in Britain to try to find your location?" Potter shakes his head. "It's not happening. Many wizards may think Death Eaters are stupid, but they certainly are not quite dumb enough to attack aurors who are working to bring you to trial."

My food is done, and so I plate it. Ginny only takes a minute longer. While she is reaching into the fridge to grab apple juice, Potter leans down and kisses her cheek. She seems stiff. I can't tell if Potter notices. He finishes the last sip of his coffee and hurries out of the room, pushing past Draco who stands in the doorway.

Potter's steps go quiet, and then the fire roars loudly and a bang erupts from the other room. My body goes tense, but the others don't seem bothered in the slightest. Ginny comes up to me, and I move the plate forward as she holds out the glass of apple juice for me to take.

"Here," she practically forces it into my hand. "Vitamin C is good for memory, and we don't have orange juice."

I take the glass, staring down at its insides. If it weren't in a bottled brand I recognize, I would have worried it is another potion. It doesn't smell strange though. Sweet, actually.

"If I thought her memory might improve easily, I would've started with a potion using Galanthus nivalis," Draco glares daggers at Ginny.

She returns the look.

Ginny gestures for us to follow her. This time, we are brought to the dining room. She and I sit opposite each other. Ginny scowls when Draco touches the chair. He rolls his eyes but lets go. Without looking away from him, she pulls out her wand and summons cutlery for us.

I hadn't realized she had been making the French toast for me. Though she is quite short, she looks quite fit. Perhaps it should have occurred to me that she wouldn't eat toast and French toast simultaneously, even if the food would help make her strong.

"I've decided that I will stay home with you for as long as I can, Jane," she cuts into her food. She takes a bite, teeth grazing the metal in a sharp sound. "Diggory likes Hermione, so he's given her permission to work from home next week. She'll be here for a few days. We're going to take shifts being here."

"Are we not safe?" I look back to Draco.

"Oh, perfectly," Ginny says, before pointing her fork at Draco, "I don't trust him rummaging around here alone."

"Hermione works for Diggory," Draco notes. Then, he chuckles, "don't tell me she's still on that nonsense about house-elves."

Ginny stabs the food on her plate so hard that I worry that the china is going to shatter, "if I wanted to hear your opinion about the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, I'd ask."

"Regardless, I have some urgent matters to handle," Draco continues. "I will be gone for a few days."

Ginny throws her fork and knife on the plate. I try not to jump in my chair, but I am mostly unsuccessful. She doesn't look at me, instead staring at Draco, "you couldn't have told me that before I told my captain that the secretary to the Chief Warlock wanted to speak to me personally?"

"I didn't suggest you come up with such an elaborate and ridiculous lie," Draco moves around the table so that he is positioned by the head. He doesn't touch the chair though, favouring instead to linger behind it so that all of us can see him.

"You're leaving?" I look at him.

It feels like the only thing I know, other than my clothes and toiletries, is being stolen. He's a stranger, but he is familiar in the strange. These circumstances are overwhelmingly bizarre. I do not know these witches and wizards. He would not let me eat with them alone yesterday evening and yet he is willing to abandon me here with them for days.

"Yes," he says. "Goyle will most likely find one of your flatmates if he hasn't already bothered your friend from the hotel." Then, he hesitates. "I can stay if you ask."

"Go," I say quickly.

I imagine Goyle, back in that hotel, with more than a hand on Graham. There is an immeasurable amount of damage that could be happening right as we speak. It might be better to have for in the brain than whatever acts Goyle is both capable of doing and willing to commit.

I take a sip of the apple juice. It is sweet, like the carbonated orange drinks that cause arguments between Amanda and Niamh. I certainly like it more than those drinks. It brings nostalgia for a childhood that I left long ago. I left it before I even escaped from Brighton.

"Well, I will go now, then," Draco says.

He looks at me. His fingers fidget. Maybe he itches more for the wand now that he is using it again. Those fingers have not touched me intimately since he last mistook me for Pansy. In the days since we have touched, mostly out of necessity, as a method of facilitating travel. Though we slept in the same bed two nights ago, we did not so much as brush against each other. Actually, he did not sleep at all as I have come to understand. We have never said goodbye, but this feels a bit like a farewell.

He takes in a deep breath and disappears. Apparates, they call it.

Ginny seems to relax. She looks at me, gingerly, "I hate that man. I don't hate you, to be clear. I just... I hate him. Honestly, I don't know what you see in him."

"Nothing," I tell her, playing with the French toast on my plate. I have yet to take a bite. "Before we left, I had decided to stop talking to him. He thought I was Pansy."

She laughs, shaking her head, "of course he did. I didn't think he was capable of love except when it came to her." She pauses, "eat something. You look hollow."

The rest of the day goes much like this. Ginny mostly keeps to herself. She spends little time on the main floor of the house, instead making quite a bit of noise upstairs. Sometimes there is a loud bang, and I run to the staircase and call up, hoping she is fine. She always is okay. Around lunchtime, she tells me that she's done all that she can to help rid the upper floor of magic.

"My brother Bill knows a lot about curse-breaking. I'll send him an owl with a couple of questions, and hopefully, I'll be able to have another room safe and furnished by Saturday," she explains. "Unfortunately, you won't be able to shower or bathe until then."

It is only Thursday. I last was in Inverness on Tuesday. My entire world has changed so dramatically in the previous 48 hours. I had figured that chaos couldn't happen so quickly. Every day feels so arduous now, so long. I wish I could help Ginny.

"Thank you," I tell her. "I know I am a lot of trouble."

"I enjoy trouble," she smiles for a second. Almost to herself. The expression suits her. Before, I couldn't imagine her being anything but tense, but she smiles and almost all of the weight on me goes away. Then, she scowls. "At least, I enjoy trouble for a good cause. Malfoy is not. Harry is just too much of a hero for his own good. I suppose I am too, I guess, since I let myself get talked into this."

If I wanted to know, I would ask what Draco has done that is so terrible, but I do not. Surely, it has to do with the war. This is not a schoolboy rivalry. I try to avoid thinking about it. I do not want to imagine how much he hated people like me. In that way, I suppose I suffer fools gladly. I suppose I am the fool that suffers.

Maybe I ought to know. Maybe he is just like the man who once told me that he loved me yet still managed to break me in such ways that the person who reformed is different. It was not like shattering a glass vase and gluing it back together. Rather, he melted the glass down. I've been reshaped entirely. Something in me is still there, I suppose. A colour, a history, but not me.

Hopefully Draco is much of the same.

~~~~~

Okay, but now I like Ginny even more. The movies did her so dirty. Anyway, what do you think will happen with Draco gone? Any more predictions on what is to happen? I am so ecstatic. My absolute two favour chapters should come out either the end of September of the beginning of October, so get ready for that!