By Monday, I am worried he isn't coming back. The counting isn't enough to keep my thoughts from spiralling out of control. Ginny has to sedate me with a potion, practically knock me out for several hours, until Hermione can come. Hermione insists that my brain is too fragile to be forcing it to sleep. She goes as far as to say that the nightmare potion needs to stop, and so they just put a silencing charm around my room. I slept horribly that night even though I was showered and on a comfortable bed. The first night here was the highest high of all, and just around the corner was the lowest low.

Tuesday, Hermione stayed with me. Their plan is for her to remain here until Wednesday evening, and then it shall be Ron's turn Thursday and Friday, and then Harry's the week after that. I do not know how long that can go on with their demanding careers. All of them seem passionate about their work, except Ron, but I cannot imagine staying with him and Draco all day. Then again, I also am beginning to imagine that Draco shall not be coming back.

Before dinner, shortly after Hermione has left, I am cognisant enough to help prepare food. Harry and Ginny always take turns making meals for each other. I insist on helping each night. Not only does it give me something to do and teach me to be a better cook, but I don't want to live like a princess while everyone risks their livelihoods, and potentially their lives, for me. I cannot deal with cursed artifacts and heirlooms, nor can I research a cure for the pain in my head. I can read some and cook as much as possible.

"Why don't you have the house-elf cook?" I ask. "I mean, I know not anymore because I'm here, but why not usually?"

Harry is stirring some frying vegetables, "Kreacher doesn't like cooking all that much. His cleaning is fine, and errands are just as good. We're already renovating so that we can sell the house and I don't need him to hate me any more than he already does. He likes to find loopholes when he is frustrated. I had to be incredibly specific when I ordered him to stay on the top floor."

"Why not let him leave?" I don't look away from the pot of potatoes as I check one to see if it's boiled.

"Well, this is his home more than mine," Harry points out. "Besides, most house-elves like to serve, no matter what Hermione says. It's not really my place to force them out of their own culture."

"I highly doubt anyone culturally wants to be a slave," I roll my eyes. "If applied historically to the non-magical world, that has some pretty horrible implications."

"You and Hermione," Harry shakes his head.

A crack like lightning strikes down the hall, presumably from the living room. The glasses in the cupboard clink against one another. I imagine firing a gun could only be a bit louder. My stomach begins to sink. Harry seems mostly unbothered.

He leaves the stovetop, and peers down the hallway, "Malfoy shouldn't be that loud when he apparates unless he's an absolute dunce."

"Could it be someone else?" I ask, my voice quiet. "I've heard him apparate when he left, and it certainly was much quieter."

He shakes his head, "well, maybe, I guess. Someone else would probably have taken the floo to get here or at least not apparated directly into the living room."

I want to go and check, but it would be foolish. Draco might be there, but so could anyone else who isn't supposed to know that they are housing a muggle. Harry pulls a wand from his belt and stalks down the hall. I listen in the doorway, unsure where I would run if I needed to hide. There is a pantry off the kitchen, but how long before someone found me?

"It's Malfoy!" Harry calls out.

I go to move just as a vegetable makes a pop sound on the stove. They are burning. Now I am stuck in the kitchen and cannot get to him, because the food is still cooking. I try to focus on the peppers in the pan, moving them around to prevent any more scorch marks.

Their footsteps lead over here.

"You shouldn't attempt to apparate from wherever you did again," Harry's voice carries down the hall. It sounds less than stern. Perhaps Harry is just doing his due diligence in advising Malfoy on an injury, rather than actually hoping to prevent one from occurring. "The sound was so loud that it practically shook the house. I'm sure the muggles heard it even through the fidelius charm."

They round the corner, and then there is Draco. He is no worse for wear, though his clothes are different. Not in that he isn't wearing the same clothes; he's not. He has on jeans and a worn argyle sweater. He looks like a man from Inverness, and so he looks entirely unlike himself. The wand clutched in his fist is really the only indication that he is magical.

"You were gone almost a week," I don't let my hands move away from what I am cooking even if my head turns towards him.

"I was gone five days," he says, leaning against the doorframe.

"Almost a week," I say once more.

He shrugs but has no excuses to offer.

Harry takes over the frying vegetables. Draco gestures for me to follow him. I want an update desperately. He has seen my friends. Perhaps he has seen my family. Both ideas seem petrifying to me. Regardless, he cannot expect me to follow after he is gone so long. I have dignity.

"We can talk after dinner," I insist.

Draco stares at me for a second. Then, he blinks and walks away.

I am anxious until the potatoes are done. Then, after we have sat down to eat in a room where Malfoy cannot dine with us, I feel a pinch in my stomach as well. He must be bringing news of my friends and family. I am unsure of what good it will do me to really hear. He was gone long. I have no way to access the news. Did Goyle get to them?

Finally, once it is time to do the washing up, I slip out of the room. I head into the living room, where he sits.

He sees me. He sits on the sofa in the spot I usually sit. There, he holds up a copy of Lord of the Flies, "I assume you finished this while I was away."

"Yes," I keep talking before he can ask me any more questions, "what news do you have?"

He looks down, "very little. The hotel man had left Inverness for a small town in the islands on Wednesday. At first, I thought he might have been taken by Goyle, but he's fine. Some sort of family thing. With him gone, I put up as many wards as I could manage. Your old flat is warded, as is the entire building, though not as effectively. Your inn is warded, and so is the place where your hotel friend lives. Probably as safe as a muggle bank anyway."

"Goyle can't crack it?" I ask.

Draco shrugs, "well, no. He can. It would just take him a few days, and he's impatient. If he suspects I've taken you, which as stupid as he is, seems likely, then he won't bother wasting the time."

"How long until he figures out that we are here?" I take a seat on a chair, bringing my legs up to my chest for warmth.

"Hopefully a while," Draco says. "Blaise is watching them for me. That's how I even found out about Goyle at all, anyway, since he showed up at Blaise's house asking about me, and Blaise idiotically told him I was in Inverness. Regardless, I think he'll expect us to move further north and hide, or even go to Ireland. I doubt he knows that you cannot apparate. We've got some time before he thinks to go to Hogsmeade, and then more time before he realizes that Potter, Weasley and Granger picked us up."

I nod my head, trying to digest his words.

"I plan on going to Brighton tomorrow to deal with the others," he explains. The others are my family. My old friends. I suppose they are the others in my life anyway. "I went down on Friday, but it took me a few hours to track them, and I knew what to find, so I figured I had some time before Goyle could get to them anyway."

He is leaving again, just like that. Tomorrow, Draco will be away.

"How long will those wards take you?" I ask.

"No more than two days," he explains. "I'll be back here during the nights though, so it shouldn't be an issue."

No further information comes from him. I don't know how magic works, but I don't understand how it could take the better part of a week to ward three locations yet significantly less time to protect multiple houses and businesses. I have my parents and brothers and the three people I mentioned to him.

Draco moves on to ask me about The Lord of the Flies. I tell him about what I thought of the characters. Unfortunately, I think Golding is correct. The impulse of people towards evil is far stronger than that towards good.

"I hadn't thought you'd think that," he says. When I raise an eyebrow, he continues, "wizards usually believe that good always wins. Ask Potter or his friends about it, and they'll tell you the same."

"I suppose that some non-magical people think the same way," I say. "Although, recent events in Bosnia and Rwanda probably challenge that idea."

He looks confused, "well, I suppose so."

His voice is more certain than his expression. I can tell he is fibbing.

"Don't you know about any international events?" I ask. His eyes turn away from me. "Well, I figured since you knew about the Troubles that..." his face twitches, "oh my God you don't know about the Troubles?"

"Well, now I do," he admits. "I was researching wars that I could tell you that I fought in. Newspapers kept talking about the conflict in Northern Ireland, and so I did some research."

I look at him, my brows furrowed, "are wizards capable of bombs?"

"Well, not in the way you imagine them," he is stiff, looking over at me. "If you're asking about why I left, it wasn't a bomb that killed her. I don't have scars on my arms from an explosion. My arm has the symbol of the Dark Lord. Pansy was murdered, not blown up. I'd rather not discuss more."

If he doesn't want to discuss it, then I won't force him. Instead, I move back to talking about the novel. Simon in particular was dear to me as a character since he represented the only good thing in the world. It was so upsetting when he died. He wasn't my favourite though. Favourites aren't really my thing.

When the conversation slows, Draco goes to eat dinner in the kitchen. Ginny and Harry continue to hide out on the upper floors and work on making the whole house safe for me to walk through. I've still only seen parts of the second floor since Walburga Black's portrait cannot be unstuck as of yet. They managed to get the one in the hallway though, so at least I can go to the bathroom unperturbed.

Eventually, it is time to sleep. After getting ready for bed, I sneak downstairs. Draco is sitting on the sofa, still awake. He is drinking out of a whiskey glass.

"Mind if I join you?" I ask, gesturing to the glass.

"Dr. Granger told us not to give you any more alcohol," Draco says. "Apparently it is not good for memory formation."

I nod, since it seems as though there are many things that I am not supposed to do while they all can, and it is not just because I am a muggle. That's the word for my kind of people.

"Well, I assume then you know that I can't take a potion to stop the nightmares," I tell him. "They have to put a charm over my bedroom at night."

"Unfortunate," he says. He finishes the glass and gets up from his spot. "Shall we?"

"You can't sleep while I do," I remind him that he has told me as much. Without the sleeping potion, he will have to sleep in another room.

"Well, I'll take a potion that'll knock me out," he decides. "I'd prefer not to sleep on a sofa if there is another option."

His eyes are burning when they look at me. It must be the liquor. It must be a confusion of identity.

Regardless, we head upstairs together. I go to move into the bed, and he stops me with a hand around my wrist.

"Your side," he says, pointing to the other side of the bed.

"Pansy may have slept on a specific side, but I don't," I tell him. "I'm not her."

"I'm painfully aware," his voice is harsh.

"You weren't just over a week ago," I tell him. "You mistook me for her."

"Why do you think I am even here?" he shakes his head back and forth. "If I was in hiding for so long, why cause all these problems and risk it for a girl who I was just using to replace her? Don't you think I could find a dozen more muggle women who bare a better resemblance to Pansy Parkinson?"

"I'm your ticket to redemption," I tell him. "If you can get my Order secrets, then you can be safe. Ron said-"

"Oh, never listen to a word that Ronald Weasley says," Draco is still holding my wrist. Even though we are getting close to yelling at one another, his grip does not tighten. It is firm but soft. "I doubt he can tell up from down, let alone understand my motives. I'm not doing this to escape a trial nor to ease my conscious. I'm certainly not doing these things for Pansy fucking Parkinson. This is for you. I wouldn't have done a dangerously far apparition to protect your friends that I dislike nor done another dangerously far apparition to come back quickly for some other girl. It's you. Like it or not, it's you."

He finally lets go. I look up at him, my eyes surely wider than they've ever been. I don't know what I could possibly say in response to that. A million thoughts are flying through my head, and none of them make any more sense than the last.

Draco takes a step back. He grabs the doorknob, shaped like a coiled snake, "I'm going to get the draught I need. Sleep wherever you want."

He leaves the room.

After staring at the bed for a few seconds, I climb onto the side of the bed that he decided is mine. I pull myself under the covers. Even though the lights are still on in the room, I close my eyes.

~~~~~

It's messed up that the next two chapters are in my head only and not in the rest of the world. It is an absolute travesty. Anyway, there is this for now. Any predictions? Anything you are hoping to see soon? I'm still writing and so I would love your feedback. Let me know in the comments!