Quick chapters, hopefully will be completed within he next week! Let me know your thoughts! x

Chapter Six: Back To Reality

"Where do you exactly plan on going?" Draco added in an annoyed tone. He has been in a bad mood since we left the hotel. We had finally arrived back in London. I knew where we were heading, but I wasn't going to tell Draco. I watched as the muggle driver drove down the familiar streets.

Draco has been overly cautious since we arrived back in the UK, but I suppose it was a good thing since we were supposed to be in hiding. "Caoimhe, where are we going?" he repeated this time showing more annoyance in his voice.

"I'm not sure yet..." I lied with a shrug.

"No, you know where we're going. You look like you know the area," he sneered, still unhappy about my decision to return. 

"Um, yeah I guess it looks a little bit familiar," I answered reluctantly as I looked around. We were almost there.

"Where are we going?" he snapped.

"Take a right here sir," I said and Draco gave me an annoyed look. The driver took a sharp right. Draco quickly pressed against the window. I watched his face drop.

"No way!" he yelled. "No bloody way! Let me out!" Draco looked at me in complete fury as the driver stopped the car at the end of the long driveway. The farm animals were rushing around and as I stepped out, I had never felt so safe in my life. "This must be the Weasley's, are you bloody serious?!" I opened Draco's door for him and he wasn't moving. He finally unbuckled and stood up.

All the memories flushed back to me when I saw the Burrow, as if I had never left in the first place. Those vacations didn't compare to here where all my friends were, well, not at the moment. I took in a deep breath and prayed that when I stepped through those doors, I would only receive good news. "Caoimhe are you listening to me?" Draco yelled, breaking my train of thoughts. I handed the driver the muggle cash.

"Yes I'm sorry I didn't tell you," I said quickly. "If I did you wouldn't have came. But this place is charmed so we will be safe-"

"First, I don't want to be here! I hate them and they hate me. Second, it didn't stop the Death Eaters from getting through at the wedding!" I could tell that he was really angry, but knew this was for the best.

"Yeah, well it's probably much more enchanted now," I answered looking around. "Come on, you'll be fine."

"Absolutely not," he said. "I'm leaving." He turned and started walking back down the road.

"Draco!" I called going after him. "Draco, you can't just leave!"

"Yes I can," he answered. "They're not after me and if they find me alone I can just make something up." It was true. It was me they were after. He would only be in trouble if they found him with me. Other than that, he was safe in this world.

"Please don't go," I called. "I don't want you to." Draco stopped and just looked over his shoulder. "I promise we won't be here long. I just wanted to see how everyone is. After that, they can tell us somewhere else to stay." Draco didn't say anything, he didn't turn around. "It won't be long. I just need to see them." He didn't say anything. We stood there in silence for a moment.

"Fine," he muttered. "Not long, or I'm leaving."

He finally turned around and walked beside me to the door. I felt bad for dragging him into this, but where else would we have gone? When we finally arrived at the door, I took a deep breath and knocked. I hoped only for good news. I heard footsteps approaching the door. Draco took a step back but I reached out and grabbed his hand. There was no way he could leave now. The latch on the front door opened and I saw a pair of bright blue eyes that went from fear to shock. The latch was shut and the door was swung open, I was pulled into a tight embrace.

"Oh Caoimhe!" Mrs. Weasley cried. "We have all been so worried, you-you disappeared again!" I hugged her back tightly. 

"I'm fine Mrs. Weasley. I was just in hiding," I answered.

"We didn't know where you went or what happened to you, we thought they got you again," she said whipping her glossy eyes and stepping away from our hug. "Everyone, look who is here!" She called while turning over her shoulder. She smiled at me in relief, and then her eyes trailed over to Draco and her face fell. I could easily sense that she wasn't too happy to see Draco here.

Fred, George, and Mr. Weasley all appeared at the door and smiled widely when they saw me, but then they saw Draco. "What is he doing here?" Fred snapped looking angry.

Draco gave me an 'I-told-you-so' look. "He has been keeping me safe," I explained quickly. "He's been helping me." Fred, George, and Mr. Weasley stared unsurely at him, while Mrs. Weasley's face finally softened.

"Well then we have him to thank," she said with a nod, looking at this others with a warning expression. "Come in out of the cold," she said to the two of us stepping back.

Draco looked extremely uncomfortable. He wasn't technically rude, but he wasn't polite either. He just sat there in silence. She had us sit down at the kitchen table and bought out all sorts of food before they sat with us. Mr. Weasley bombarded me with questions while Fred and George glared at Draco. They kept making snide comments at him, but he didn't respond. I know they didn't trust him.

"I promise I'll answer all of your questions," I said with a smile. "But please, tell me how is everyone? Have you heard any news." 

"We haven't see Harry, Ron, or Hermione," Mr. Weasley said, and Mrs. Weasley's face looked sad. "But! That does not mean they're not safe. The fact that we haven't heard anything from them means they haven't been found." I nodded and smiled. "Ginny comes home tomorrow morning."

"It's winter break already?" I asked in shock, not realizing how close it was till Christmas.

"Yes she'll be delighted to see you! She tried writing to us as much as she could, but things are different at Hogwarts," Mr. Weasley added.

"That's an understatement," George adding while rolling his eyes, looking at Draco to see his reaction. "Death Eaters have taken over. You may know a few of them, Malfoy, wouldn't you?"

"Yeah maybe he told them how to get into the castle again," Fred sneered. 

"That's enough!" Mrs. Weasley said. "You two leave us alone for a moment." Draco's face turned into a glare as they left the room. I felt bad they were targeting him, but they saw him as a Death Eater. Well, because he was. He wore the mark on his left arm. He helped them break into the school last year. I could understand why they blamed him. It took me a long time to forgive him.

But what they didn't understand is what I had to learn, that he had no choice. He was born into it and faced death if he didn't join. Eventually they would all realize the same. "You'll have to ignore them," Mrs. Weasley said to Draco although I could see on her face she felt the same. At least she was trying to be polite.

Mrs. Weasley led Draco upstairs to Fred's old room and he didn't come out all night. He was pissed at me for dragging him here and just wanted to be alone. I sat downstairs with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, told them that I hadn't heard anything the whole time I was gone. I asked them more questions than they asked me. Things have become horrible in the wizarding world, but at least everyone seemed to be safe for the moment. "Is there anything I can do to help?" I asked.

"Nonsense!" Mrs. Weasley said. "You're safe now. We'd like to keep it that way." I smiled, yet still wanted to help. Maybe in time there would be something for me to do. "You're probably tired dear. Why don't you go stay in Ginny's room for the night? She'll be glad to see you in the morning."

"Thank you," I said to her. "And thank you for letting Draco say."

"Well a friend of yours is a friend of ours," Mr. Weasley said, and tried the best he could to make it sound convincing. I smiled and nodded before heading upstairs to Ginny's room.

Before I went to Ginny's I passed Fred's room and couldn't resist. I knocked on the door but no answer. He probably assumed I was one of the Weasley's. "Draco, it's only me," I said knocking again.

"Oh in that case, go away," he muttered. I rolled my eyes and opened the door, closing it behind me. "That's not what I meant by go away."

"You can't be mad at me," I said to him. "We're safe now."

"We were safe in Italy too," he added rolling his eyes. "Yet the location was much better."

"I'm sorry Fred and George were rude to you, but you guys never got along before."

"I don't want to be here. We're leaving in the morning."

"But-"

"You said not long. You had your chance to speak with them and you heard what you wanted, so we'll leave."

"But Ginny comes home tomorrow, don't you want to hear how Hogwarts is?" 

"I actually don't care what's going on there, considering I'm not there and it doesn't matter to me."

"What about your friends?"

"I'm sure my friends are obviously fine." He was being so stubborn, why couldn't he just suck it up and stay here for a few days?

"Please can't we just stay for a few days? Please?"

"You can."

"What about you?"

"Like I said, I'll be fine thanks." I sat down on the edge of his bed as he was refusing to look at me. 

"Please," I repeated once more and looked at him hopefully.

"That's not going to work, that look. We had a deal."

"I did what you wanted for months, all I'm asking for is a few days. I just want to talk with Ginny."

"I'll decide in the morning," he said rolling over.

"Alright," I said sighing. That was better than I expected. "Goodnight," I added but he didn't say anything. I closed the door behind me and went off to Ginny's room.

The next morning I awoke really early, not being able to sleep much the night before. I was anxious to hear from Ginny. She couldn't write much to her parents because they were monitoring letters at Hogwarts now. I dressed and passed by Draco's room, cracked open the door to see that he was still asleep. Shutting it quietly I went downstairs but I heard commotion. "Oh dear," Mrs. Weasley gasped.

"They took her off the train!" Ginny repeated in panic. "Luna's missing." I stopped on the steps. She didn't need to specify who they was. I knew it was the Death Eaters. My head started spinning .They had taken one of my best friends. 

"They took Luna?" I said in a shock, coming to the end of the step. I could almost feel the tears in my eyes. And to think yesterday I thought everything was going alright. 

"Caoimhe, Merlin I've missed you!" Ginny exclaimed tackling me in a hug, yet she wore sadness in her eyes. They arrived home much earlier this year. "I'm glad to see one of my friends are safe."

"I missed you too," I said hugging her back. "They took Luna off the train?" I repeated horrified. She nodded.

"This morning they stopped the train. They took Luna, left everyone else. They were looking for Harry..." she answered. "It was absolutely horrifying."

"Don't worry girls, Arthur has gone to alert the Order. She will be safe, if anything they'll just hold her ransom. She will be safe in no time," Mrs. Weasley said. Mr. Weasley went to go contact Lupin and Shacklebolt. 

"Luna's strong," Ginny said with a hint of hope and I nodded in agreement. "Anyways, we've all been wondering where you were at Hogwarts and after the wedding," she said as we sat down trying to change the subject. It was hard to think of Luna being kidnapped but such dark people, when she was nothing but kind hearted.

I asked her loads of questions to distract my thoughts. Her questions passed fast, as my only answer was that I was in hiding and had no connection to the wizarding world other than the radio. I left out the luxurious vacation aspect of our hidings. She told me all about Snape and how he was Headmaster. She mentioned how strict Hogwarts was. It was worse than it was when Umbridge was there. I can't begin to imagine that. She told me about the two new Death Eater professors and how they were using the 'cruciatus curse' on students as punishment. My heart broke, if only Dumbledore was here to control this. 

"I was worried sick about you," Ginny said as she looked at me. Her eyes trailed behind me and turned into complete darkness. She suddenly jumped up from her seat with her wand out. "What are you doing here?" she snapped. I turned to see Draco coming down the steps, he probably didn't expect that as he jumped back and pulled out his wand.

"Ginny," I said. "Ginny please don't do that," I said standing in between them. "He helped me." Damn, I forgot to mention Draco was here. "Probably should have mentioned that..."

"Yeah probably," Draco replied with a smirk while lowering his wand and leaning against the wall.

"Just lower your wand and I'll explain," I said to Ginny placing my hand on hers. She looked at me and lowered it.

"You have a lot of explaining to do," she said.