Draco's POV:

I spent the night staring at the crack in my deep emerald bed hangings, asking myself how I got into the mess I was currently in and why I had to drag Liz into it with me. I care about her too much for her to get hurt - especially at my fault.

When the lake-filtered sunlight finally began to leak through the crack in my curtains and I heard one of the other boys in my dorm moving about, I decided that it was a decent time to get up. Sitting up, I pushed the curtains aside and placed my pale feet on the cold floor. I brought my hand up to my face and attempted to rub any sleep-deprivation from it. Knowing that I had failed at that small task, I stood up and slowly began to dress.

Once my robes were on my body, my teeth brushed, and my hair styled lazily, I walked down the hallway to the common room. Here, students were standing or sitting around speaking with their friends before heading to breakfast. The light in this room was brighter than in my dormitory seeing as the windows were much larger, giving more room for the entrance of light. With a quick glance through said windows, I noticed a group of phosphorescent fish swam by following a sleek mermaid.

I decided to wait for Liz on the black leather sofa in front of the crackling fire. The flames were licking up the black stone and casting the area in a warm green glow that brought back memories from younger years.

It was about twenty minutes before Lizzie came down and sat beside me, the lack of sleep evident on her face as well. Her tie was twisted hopelessly and her hair was tied up in a messy bun on top of her head, tendrils poking out at all angles.

"Didn't sleep well, either?" she asked quietly.

"Is it that obvious?" I chuckled, running a hand through my hand through my silky hair.

"A bit," she laughed.

"You're tie is all messed up," I stated, leaning forward and untying the green and silver tie that was knotted sideways somehow. My slim fingers easily pulled the fabric into a simple knot.

"I gave up this morning." She looked out one of the large windows beside us as my fingers worked. "I'm going to head straight to Potions," she said slowly.

"I'll come with you then," I replied, standing up and holding a hand out to her. She took my cold hand in her warm one and laced our fingers together. We walked hand in hand out of the Slytherin common room attracting no odd looks, which I thanked Merlin for. People had gotten so used to seeing us together that they had stopped staring quite a while ago.

When we arrived in the classroom where Slughorn taught, we were fairly early, so it was just the two of us in the room with Slughorn.

"Draco, Lizzie! How wonderful! Have an early breakfast I assume?" Slughorn called out to us from his desk at the front of the room.

"Yes sir," I replied respectfully. "We decided to come in early instead of staying in the Great Hall. It can get quite crowded sometimes."

"I must agree," Slughorn chortled, his mustache wiggling. Liz and I sat at a table towards the side of the room, not too close to Slughorn, yet not too far away.

"So Professor," I began, throwing a sideways glance at Liz to warn her, "What are your plans for the holidays?" I squeezed her hand under the table.

"Well, Gwenog Jones, of the Holyhead Harpies that is, invited me to have dinner with her team a few days before Christmas, so I'll be heading to Wales for a short time. After that, I think I'll come back to Hogwarts to prepare some more lessons. What do you two have planned?" Slughorn tidied up his workspace as he spoke. When we walked in, he had been brewing some potion that smelled of grass.

"I'll be heading back to the Manor to spend the holidays with my family and I hope that Lizzie will be joining me," I explained to the man while simultaneously asking Liz to spend the holidays at my house, knowing that she had quite the secret hidden from her family.

"I think I had better head home for a while first. I haven't seen my mum and brother in such a long time." Her voice was shaking and her hand that wasn't in mine found her its way to her neck and began to fumble with the necklace I had gotten her for Christmas the previous year. I squeezed her hand, knowing how long it had actually been since she had seen her mum.

"Ahh, wonderful. The holidays are a perfect time to be with family," Slughorn smiled at us.

"It is," Lizzie agreed. I promised myself that I would be speaking to Liz about this later, and making sure she was sure about her decision.

"Do you have any gifts in mind for anyone yet?" I asked Slughorn, trying to direct the conversation in the way I wanted it to go.

"I purchased a small, muggle, glass figurine of a cat for Professor McGonagall. She really does seem fond of cats," he chuckled lightly. "I've been thinking of what to buy Professor Dumbledore to thank him for asking me to come back to teach. I really have enjoyed it. But I just can't think of what the man might fancy. You haven't any idea, do you?"

This was too easy. He was walking blindly into my trap.

"Actually, I do," I said with faux hesitance.

"Why, my dear boy, you must tell me!" Slughorn folded his arms around his body and leaned his elbows on his desk.

"I'm not sure I should. I only know this because of the connection between my father and Dumbledore and I don't think I'm supposed to know." I bit my lip, begging the man to keep going in this direction.

"Oh, I won't tell. It'll be our little secret." Slughorn winked at me with a sly grin on his face. I wanted to vomit.

"Well, I heard that Dumbledore absolutely loves Madam Rosmerta's mead. Adores it to no end. Rumor has it that she has a special recipe just for him that she refuses to make for anyone else, so if you head down there to purchase it for Dumbledore, tell her that it's a gift for him."

It is a special recipe, just not in the way you think.

"I just might have to take a trip to The Three Broomsticks before the holidays if the headmaster loves her mead as much as you say," Slughorn laughed.

"He canonizes it. Or so I hear, but remember, I'm not supposed to know, so you didn't hear this from me," I replied.

"Mr. Wembley, Harry, good to see you!" Slughorn looked at a point beyond my shoulder and I turned. At some point during my conversation with Slughorn, Potter and Weasley had entered the room, arguing quietly about something.

"Good morning, Professor Slughorn," Potter answered. Weasley didn't bother to say anything, only nodded at the man.

After Potter and Weasley took their seats on the opposite side of the room, a steady trickle of students began to enter the room and fill the remaining seats. Pansy and Blaise were some of the last students to enter and sat by me and Liz.

"Hey, mate," Blaise greeted me with a clap on the shoulder. I gave him a small nod in return.

"Lizzie, you got up so early this morning and I didn't see you at breakfast. Where'd you go?" Pansy questioned Liz around me.

Lizzie, who had been picking at a crack in the wood table looked up at the black haired girl beside me. "I came here to get some help from Professor Slughorn and Draco on the essay." Pansy nodded and didn't ask any further questions.

-----

Lizzie's POV:

Seconds turned to minutes, minutes to hours, hours to days, and days to weeks as the Christmas holiday approached, and before I knew it, I had my items packed and was boarding the Hogwarts Express. I had run through every possible situation that might present itself on the platform when I met my mum and had prepared a solution to each one. Over-preparative? A bit. Terrified? Absolutely.

A few days before the end of term, I had owled my mum and told her that I was indeed coming home for the Christmas holidays, and had asked her not to ask too many questions as there wasn't much I could tell her. I had worked out a few different excuses about why I hadn't returned that night last summer in case she did start asking questions (as I knew she would). She had owled back almost immediately with a list of questions.

'Why hadn't I come home that day?'

'Why hadn't I owled her sooner?'

'Why hadn't I answered the owls she had sent me?' (I hadn't received any owls from her so this question confused me.)

I had worked out excuses for all of these and more, in my head, mentally preparing myself for the worst.

While the train was in motion, I couldn't help but bounce my leg anxiously, frightened of how the confrontation might end. Would she turn me away in betrayal? Would she refuse to allow me to return to Hogwarts? Would she even be at the platform?

Draco had done his best to drag my mind from the topic, asking me what I might like for Christmas. I had absent-mindedly told him about the book I had seen in a shop window at Diagon Alley. For my sake, he had tried to look interested, but it was obvious that this was only an attempt to make me feel better.

I watched trees shoot by the window as we flew threw the countryside towards Kings Cross, where my mum would be waiting for me. A mum who knew nothing of the mark that had been burned into my forearm and haunted me. A mum who would hopefully never know about who had turned me over to the darkest wizard in the world, who I now served.

As the train began to slow down as it approached Kings Cross Station, my anxiety tripled. I hadn't been paying attention to the time and suddenly it was time to deboard. My shaking hands clenched tightly around the handle of my trunk.

"Are you ready?" Draco murmured to me, his hand on the small of my back.

"No," I replied honestly.

"Do you want me to come with you?" he offered kindly.

"No, I think this is something I should do alone." I bit my lip and looked up to him. His face was drawn into a tight expression of worry.

"Alright," he returned. "Owl me as soon as possible, okay? Tell me how everything goes."

"Okay." I gave him a small smile as we deboarded the train. After both of my feet were on the stone, I turned to Draco, shaking worse than ever. "I love you," I told him, meaning it with all of my heart. I placed my trunk on the ground and wrapped my arms around his form.

"I love you too," he whispered into my ear, hugging me back equally as tight.

We stood like that for a few moments, wrapped in each others embrace, until I finally decided that I had better get this over with. I pulled back and brushed his blonde hair to the side with my fingertips.

"I'll see you soon," I smiled. He smiled back, but it didn't reach his eyes.

With a deep breath, I grasped my trunk once more and walked into the crowd. Squeezing my way past students grinning at each other and their parents. If my mum was to be here, she would be in the back, in the same place as always.

I saw Pansy greeting a short woman with long black hair and the same nose as Pansy. Once the girl saw me walking by, she raised a hand to wave at me. I managed a small smile in return.

I turned my head to continue searching for my mum, when my eyes landed directly on her. Her auburn hair fell in soft waves from the top of her head and came to rest on her shoulders as gently as a bird might. She had her hands held in front of her, wringing them, and even from here, I could tell they were shaking more than mine. Her bright blue eyes were round with worry as they scanned the crowd, undoubtedly for me.

I stood there staring in awe at the woman who stood in front of me. She was not the same one I had left all those months ago. She had deep purple bags beneath her eyes and her hair was not as shiny and smooth as I remembered. She had aged while I was gone.

Suddenly her blue eyes locked with mine and they grew several sizes. Her hands dropped to her sides, still shaking, while her legs began to move towards me. Involuntarily, mine began to move as well, and before I was aware, we were running towards each other.

We connected roughly, her arms wrapped around me and mine around her. We squeezed each other as if someone would come along and rip us apart. Her hair tickled my nose as my breathing spiraled out of control. I relished in her sweet vanilla scent.

She lifter her hand and begun to stroke the back of my head. "Lizzie," she breathed. "Oh, my Bitsy." I smiled at the use of her nickname for me. She hadn't called me that since before I started Hogwarts.

"Mum," I sobbed into her hair, not realizing that I was crying until just then. Her hair was sticking to my tear streaked face.

"I didn't know if you were alive or not, if you had even made it to Draco's house, and your brother..." her voice cracked on the mention of my brother, indicating to me that something had gone wrong while I was at Hogwarts.

I pulled back from the hug but kept my hands on my mum's arms, not wanting to ever let go. "What about Grayson?" I asked, biting my lip.

She looked around as if she was just now noticing we were still on the platform. "This isn't the place," she spoke lowly, picking up my trunk and leading out into the muggle world.

Once my trunk was safely tucked away in the car and my mum and I were buckled in, I turned to the woman beside me, determined to get an answer out of her. "Mum, what happened to Gray?" I asked. She placed the key into the ignition and began to back out of her parking place before she responded.

"Nothing happened to him," she muttered.

"Then what is it?" I exclaimed, beginning to get extremely worried. I took the hair band from off of my wrist and tied my hair back.

I noticed that my mum had begun to chew on the inside of her cheek, a nervous habit I hadn't witnessed for quite a while. "You know that I'm a muggle and I'm not all that caught up within the wizarding world, but I know something is stirring. I went to Diagon Alley with your brother a bit after you left and it was obvious. People looked terrified and I noticed that a few of the shops are starting to close. Nothing big like Ollivanders or Fortescue's, but the little shops that most people don't look at twice. Naturally, I asked Gray about it and he... he told me that a dark wizard, Voldy-What's-It-"

I cut her off quickly before she actually said his name, "We don't say his name, mum."

"Well, why not?" She frowned.

"Names hold power. And I think people are just scared, but we call him He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or You-Know-Who."

"Oh. Anyway, he told me that he had died but he came back and there's a war starting. He told me that Vol- uh- You-Know-Who has a group of followers called Death Eaters. They want to rule the world and get rid of all muggles and muggle born wizards. Gray told me that he- well- he told me that he joined the Death Eaters," at this, my stomach fell into my shoes, "and that he can't be seen with me anymore." Mum's voice had begun to crack more and more the further into the explanation we got.

"Grayson a Death Eater?" I whispered in horror. My innards felt like they were full of helium and they felt as if they had floated from my body. I felt empty.

My brother, my own brother who I had grown up with in the muggle world, was a Death Eater? My brother, who couldn't stand the idea of death and couldn't watch gory movies because blood made him woozy, was a Death Eater? He had joined the group of people who wanted to eradicate people like us and our mum from the Earth. This couldn't be true.

Tears had begun to slide down my mum's face at this point. "He told me to tell you that he loves you," she choked out.

"Grayson is a Death Eater," I whispered. "This can't be."

"It is. He won't answer any calls or owls or anything."

"Mum do you understand what this means?" I whispered.

"He's a Death Eater. There's not much more to understand."

"Mum, You-Know-Who is going around torturing and killing muggles just because they exist. He wants a world that's strictly wizards. His eyes are red. Red eyes!"

"R-red eyes?"

"Red as blood," I confirmed. "And he has no nose. Just two slits for nostrils. Like a snake."

"A snake."

"He's a madman."