By My Side

Chapter Nine.

Draco walked silently along the corridor and began to climb the stairs leading to the Astronomy Tower. He was late. In fact, he was so late, he worried Eve would have left already. Pansy had stopped him and demanded they talk about what was going on between them.

"You're so distant Draco! ever since that potions lesson, what is it?"

"Nothing. Look, I have to go!"

"Go where? you see? you're always so busy!"

"Yeah, where are you going, Draco?" Goyle had come between them with a frown on his face.

"It's none of your business," Draco drawled coldly. "Now, get out of the way."

"Draco please!" Pansy whined, trying to attach herself to him.

"Get off!" He shrugged, physically pushing her away. She fell into the wall and hurt her arm.

"Ow!" She began to cry, and sulked away, still sobbing loudly.

"You've been acting really strange Draco." Goyle narrowed his eyes. "They're all too thick to notice, but I'm not. What is it Malfoy? Has your father been in contact about You-Know-Who?"

"What?" Draco spat angrily. "What would it have to do with you anyway Goyle?"

"You're next in line for initiation Draco, and you know it." Gregory laughed, as though it was all some big joke, and Draco lost it, pushing the other boy against the wall and punching him with uncontrollable rage.

"Fuck you Goyle!" He shouted, then the other boy started to fight back and soon they were wrestling on the floor.

"Get off him!" Crabbe shouted, appearing after a moment and dragging the boys apart. "Are you alright, Draco?"

"Yeah, fine," Draco spat, never taking his glare from Goyle, who was nursing a bleeding lip.

With that, Draco had stormed out of the Slytherin common room and made his way to the Astronomy Tower.

Just my luck, she'll have left already....... He thought, and so smiled when he saw her sitting on a small bench, looking up at the moon with a wistful gaze.

"Sorry I'm late." He sighed, sitting next to her.

"Where were you?" She asked with more than a little distrust in her eyes.

"I got into a fight with Goyle." Draco said softly, nursing his swollen knucles.

"Draco!" Eve pulled his hand into hers and studied the wounds. "What happened?"

"Nothing," he said shiftily, taking his hand back, although it did hurt considerably.

"Doesn't look like nothing." She stared at him. "How can I be your girlfriend when there's so much I don't know?"

When there was a silence and Eve sensed that coldness in him, she got up and began to walk away.

"Where are you going?" He asked, standing up after her.

"Back to bed." She shrugged, still walking.

"Okay!" He didn't move, but raised his voice. "Ask me anything and I'll answer you truthfully!"

Eve stopped. She was tired, worried about her dad, and really just needed Draco to be there for her, but tonight she felt he was a million miles away, too far to reach out to.

"Okay," She stopped walking and turned to him. "What were you and that meathead fighting about?"

"He asked if my father had contacted me yet."

"About what?" Eve frowned, suspecting she didn't really want to hear.

"Being initiated." Draco looked with a kind of resigned acceptance. Eve opened her eyes wide, shocked, but then she realised she really should have suspected this.

"Voldemort." She growled, looking down. There was a little silence. "And has he?"

"Has who what?" Draco asked quietly.

"Has your father contacted you about Voldemort yet?"

"No." Draco shook his head then sat down and rested his head in his hands. There was a silence then Draco spoke so quietly Eve had to move back beside him to hear. "They made a deal, father and You-Know-Who, I'm not going to be initiated until I graduate."

"You want to be initiated?" Eve almost screamed.

"No!" Draco turned to her, his eyes empty and sad. "Keep your voice down." He sighed and looked back down at the floor.

"Okay," Eve tried to concentrate her anger, although her voice was bitter. "Don't try to tell me you're doing this against your will, because its highly doubtful I will believe you."

"Well I am - I mean, I will be doing it against my will, when it comes around." Draco's tone was soft and trying to be conciliatory, but he suspected it would be a long time before this conversation had finished.

"You'd best tell me Draco." Eve drawled, "The whole story."

"There's no story to tell." He shrugged, sitting up straight with his shoulders back. "My future isn't mine to tell."

"I don't know you that well - " Eve started, but Draco broke in.

"Yes you do!" He frowned at her, as though hurt that their relationship may have just been a game, "You know me better than anyone else fucking does!" Anger seeped through his voice.

"Draco, you're not a follower, you have followers, but I didn't think you were ever a sheep." Eve almost tutted afterwards, like her Gran used to when she found her fresh from playing in the dirt with mud on her face.

"Father seems to think - "

"Oh! Lucius! I forgot, God almighty, isn't he?" Eve's eyes were blazing with fresh anger.

"You're obviously in no mood for this conversation." Draco got up and made for the door.

"Draco, I'm always in the mood for this conversation now sit your arse back down on this seat or I swear you'll live to regret it." Eve shouted. There was such menace and threat in her voice that Draco did stop, and with his back still to her, he smiled.

This is what I want he thought, someone who can fight me back, someone who I care enough about to stop me, someone who can get a rise out of me and win. Hell, more than anything right now I just really need to be won.

Draco turned to her, the rueful smile still plastered on his strikingly handsome face. Eve considered him for a moment, catching his Veela-like beauty in the moonlight now bathing them from the window. It stuck her how much like a girl Draco Malfoy really looked, while at the same time exuding some kind of testosterone which no one could miss. He seemed to her to be the perfect balance of everything, right and wrong, woman and man, wealth and good looks, sex and understanding.

Damn him for being so ............. everything.

Draco returned to his seat as she had asked, now wearing his usual graceful poise. He had eyes that could look at something far away and seem utterly absorbed in it, while you know it's all an act, if you look hard enough. He was doing it right now, with the moon. Eve sighed to herself. Ah Draco, my own private enigma.

"How come you managed to bargain? if no one else gets to choose when they bow to Voldy?" Eve tried to inject some familiarity into the conversation. She thought those who did not say Voldemort's name were foolish, because fear of a name increases fear of the thing, but she then took the name to other levels, trying to break it down, as if she said 'Voldy' enough times instead of 'Voldemort' it would work like the ridikulas charm on a boggart and the evil-eyed Lord would pop! into mid-air and those all about would laugh. She had considered all the death eaters popping away too, but realised her boyfriend would be fatherless, and had blocked the continued thought in her brain.

"Father said - he said I could finish school, said I might be useful here. The old bastard thinks if he puts it off long enough I might go willingly." Draco sounded exhausted and spent. His breathing pattern seemed that of a dying man and for a second Eve almost forgot what they were talking about and threw her arms around him.

"He knows you're against it? the dark arts I mean." Eve and Draco now spoke quietly, as though realising the seriousness of both their words.

"Dark arts?" Draco frowned at his girlfriend. "Eve, you're intelligent enough to know that half of the tricks that fool Dumbledore teaches us here are 'dark' as you call them."

"Yeah, yeah." Eve waved her hand in dismissal. "It's not the magic that's dark, it's the intent of the person, I've heard that one, my father recites it to me, but Draco, Avara Kedavra can't be used for much else, sweetie."

Draco smiled at her words of endearment then pulled her in for a long, rough kiss. When he let her go, her cheeks were a little flushed and he noticed her 'I'm-in-charge' demeanour had gone.

"You taste good," he said distractedly, shutting his eyes for a second, and when he opened them again he saw her with an out-right blush sprawled across her face.

"I - I mean, Lucius knows your against joining up?" Eve tried to pick up the conversation where they had so deliciously severed it, not realising she sounded like her boyfriend was simply off to join the army.

"He knows I'm not happy," Draco said wistfully, then looked at her differently for a moment and paused. "You're worried about something, what is it?"

"Oh, maybe just the fact that my boyfriend is going to join the evil Dark Lord in a few years time?"

The sarcasm was not lost on Draco.

"I don't mean that, and you know it. Come on, what's bothering you?"

Eve did not speak, she simply looked up at the moon for a moment and then back at Draco, as though daring him to not understand.

"Professor Lupin." Draco nodded.

There was a lengthy silence, in which both parties gave long thought to their fathers, then Draco spoke up once more. "He says he has plans."

"Who?"

"Lucius."

"Oh."

"Yes, oh." There was another silence.

"What kind of plans?"

"Plans for me, for my future."

"Merlin, you don't really get a say, do you?"

"No, well, I don't think my 'say' would please them."

"What would be your say?" Eve threw back at her boyfriend and he smiled momentarily into the moonlight, simply enjoying the way the talk flowed between them, he had never met anyone he had felt was his intellectual equal in this place, until, that was, Eve Lupin walked through the front doors.

"I don't know." Draco shrugged, suddenly shy, "House, kids, job."

"House, kids, job?" Eve frowned. "Care to elaborate? You're usually so passionate about these things." She smiled and somewhere, on the bench between them, his hand found hers and locked it tight.

"Okay." He blushed, wondering why he felt so humbled on this conversation, "Master of all I survey." He smiled, which turned into a manic grin, the likes of which hadn't crossed his face so easily since he was a small child, playing games in the gardens of Malfoy Manor with the servants when Lucius and Narcissia were out. "Maybe a big place, I'm not really all that fussed, a good job, something stable, something I don't groan at when I wake up in the morning, and yeah, kids, maybe......"

"I'd make you groan in the morning." Eve winked suggestively, then burst into laughter, which Draco followed.

"Sounds interesting." His pulled her to him roughly and Eve bit back a giggle, thinking about the way the brutes did that to their wives on Jerry Springer back in the good old muggle world.

"What do you think you'll get?" Eve asked him, just as he was about to tell her his dreams held a heavy place her for at his side.

"I don't want to think about it." Draco physically recoiled a little and Eve pulled him back, holding his chin in her hands and pulling his face back in front of hers so their eyes were forced to meet.

"You don't have to follow him." She said in a low, demanding tone.

"What other choice do I have?" He almost growled, angry that she didn't understand about Malfoy family honour and obedience and loyalty.

"Every choice you want." She told him, then he tried a smile and went on,

"What do you want?"

"You're changing the subject." She scolded him.

"So humour me." He took her hand away from his chin and placed it on his thigh, patting it as you would a child's before he put his arm back around her waist.

"Okay, fine." She sighed, "House, baby, husband who loves me, blah, blah, blah, you've heard it all before Draco, why do you need to hear it all again?" Eve was impatient that he was evading the subject at hand, which was largely more important.

"I never heard it from you." He said evenly, "Now elaborate."

"What more do you want to know?" She asked.

"What house? where? how many babies? girls? boys?" He smiled then his face dropped when fearing the answer to his next question. "And does your husband have glasses and an ungodly huge scar on his forehead?"

"I don't know, does he?" Eve countered quickly and easily, casting a small glance at Draco's forehead.

"So this rests on me now then?" Draco sighed. "Christ Eve." He looked down, as though he couldn't take anymore. He sighed in a more contented matter when he felt her run her hands through his hair and ruffle it slightly.

"Enerverate." Eve muttered, having produced her wand from her pocket.

"Eh!" Draco pulled away, "What are you doing?"

"Your hair." Eve said calmly, pulling him back. "It's gorgeous. Why do you slick it back?"

"Mother makes me." He frowned, realising how stupid that sounded.

"Would look much better parted." She told him, parting his hair on the side and pushing the now gel-free locks over so it fell in a thick but soft looking style. "You have the most sexy hair I've ever seen."

"It's just hair." Draco said, a little embarrassed, but mostly pleased.

"Makes you look......youthful." Eve contemplated.

"Right, well I'm putting it back then!" Draco's hands flew from her hips to his hair but Eve caught them with reflexes of a seeker.

"No you don't, you look sweet."

"I don't want to look sweet." Draco fought with her gently. "I have to look menacing."

"Oh do you?" Eve laughed, pinning his hands down on the bench and edging towards him before bringing her lips down over his. Having him helpless like this is kind of sexy.....uh oh, don't go there!

"Be truthful." He whispered when she pulled away, "Do I look like a kid?"

"No." She shook her head and released him. This time he made no move for his hair. "You just look much better."

"Well, I already looked damn fine." He drawled arrogantly in that posh accent of his, fuelled by years of eloquence lessons in Malfoy Manor.

Eve simply smiled at her boyfriend and they shared an unspoken joke.

"Draco, I need you to tell me......" Eve sighed.

"Tell you what?"

"These plans," She frowned. "What are they?"

"I have no idea." Draco shrugged. "I'm the Malfoy heir, Evelyn. It doesn't come alone."

"When will you find out?"

"Don't know." Draco shrugged again, "Whenever the bastard decides to tell me."

"And until then?" Eve prompted, wondering where she would ever fit into this boys life, wondering if she would ever fit in.

"Until then I just have to get on with things." Draco said simply, "Just doing what I can."

"Don't you ever want.......any more?"

"Yes, Eve." Draco closed his eyes, exasperated. "Why so many questions?"

"Because this is important, Dray!" Eve almost whined. "This is our - I mean, your future!" She blushed furiously at her mistake, hoping he hadn't noticed, but he had, and he smiled.

"Ours, eh?"

"You know what I mean." Eve said, annoyed.

"Eve, I wish there was something I could do, but there isn't. People expect everyone to be on someone's side but......I'm not, quite frankly, I wish I could just forget it all. I don't want to follow the Dark Lord, but then again I don't want to be on snotty Potter's side of do-gooders and wallowers. I'm not some hero, I didn't beat the Dark Lord and win the pity of every whining witch and wizard in living memory." Draco sounded bitter.

"So you're just looking for a little anonymity?" Eve asked with a hint of sarcasm.

"Well, yeah - " Draco started.

"You can't, you can't have that. So what are you going to do?" Eve's tone was demanding.

"What are you going to do?" Draco threw back at her, they were now sharing a glare at each other.

"I'm going to join my dad and Dumbledore and yes, Harry. I'll do whatever I can to knock down people like your father, because I believe it's wrong."

There was a silence, Draco wondering what was coming next, but then realised it was his turn to speak, and he sighed.

"Yeah, well, nice for some."

"Nice for some?" Eve laughed. "You can too, it's easy, just - "

"Have you ever met him?" Draco asked, looking up from where he was looking at their joined hands on his knee and staring into her eyes.

"Who?" Eve frowned.

"Lord Voldemort."

"No, of course not, I mean - "

"I have." Eve stopped and her eyes went wide.

"What? you didn't tell me!"

"Tell you? no, of course not, I mean, how does one drop such a thing in the conversation?" Draco's voice was level and even, whereas Eve was still shouting a little from shock.

"When? where?" Eve asked, incredulesly.

"Over the summer, at the manor." Draco shrugged.

"Fuck! Draco!" Eve shook her head and realised she was holding his hand. She pulled hers away in slight disgust and got up, going to the window. "I mean, what was it like? why was he there?" Her last question was more quiet, as though half of her didn't want to ask, didn't want to know. In fact, part of her was out of the door, wanting to run into the safe (and Voldemort-less) arms of Harry.

"It was horrible." Draco told her, when he had recovered from the fact she had left his side in disgust. "He stinks, like rotting flesh or something, he's gross." Draco wrinkled up his nose and turned to face his girlfriend, who was now looking at him with such a distance in her eyes it hurt him.

"Go on."

"He........he came round for dinner, with the other Death Eaters.........mother loves entertaining." The last part of the sentence was said with a bitter irony. Draco realised that the things he was saying could not only damn him, but condemn almost everyone he knew to Akaban. Unless his father found out he'd been spilling the shit, of course, then he'd just be killed, or worse, beaten to within an inch of his life. But he trusted her, he trusted Eve, and although she was looking at him as she would a stranger, he knew this wouldn't go any further than these walls.

"Did you........speak to him?" Eve asked. She was still in huge amounts of shock, although there was sing-song voice in her head telling her she really should have known.

"We discussed my future, yes." Draco nodded slowly.

"Oh?" Eve's eyes flew wide open and she shook her head. "Nice, was it?"

"No, not nice." He spat bitterly, walking over to her. His robes billowed behind him and Eve could see his silk pyjamas underneath which reminded her of the time in the hospital wing when a relationship between them had seemed so simple to her, but she realised that back then, it was just the hormones talking. Right now though, her heart was talking. In too deep.......... she scolded herself.

"It was fucking dreadful." He continued, "I said about four words then went upstairs and wretched up all the caviar my mother had just had the servants lovingly prepare. I sat over the toilet for hours heaving my stomach bile and burning my throat. Does that help?" Draco was keeping his voice low, but Eve heard that tone he only usual reserved for threatening tiny Gryffindors.

"Well.......now you talk about it so......calmly." Eve shrugged. She was angry and shocked, but never scared of the boy in front of her, she suspected anything he threw at her, she could throw back with equal force. After all, in order to be taught defence against the dark arts, first you had to be taught the dark arts themselves, and she had spent her entire life in a house with two DADA professors.

"I put a subtle memory charm on myself." Draco shrugged and blushed slightly, as though ashamed. He turned from her and walked slowly back to the bench, but didn't sit down.

"What did he say to you? about initiation, I mean."

"We didn't talk about that." Draco said quietly, and as Eve couldn't see he face, she couldn't say for certain in he was crying or not. "It was just.....plesantries, for want of a better word."

"What did he..........."

"What?" Draco turned to her, and she finally saw his eyes were dry.

"What did he look like?"

"Red eyes, weird shaped face, looked like a snake." Draco shrugged and shook his head, as if such things as the mans appearance could never matter. "His hands were.....odd, like, almost black, like the power passing through them was just too much."

Draco was more talking to himself now, and Eve was simply looking on in horror and awe. The words that flowed from Draco's mouth were doing so as if he had kept them in since those moments over the summer, and had been polluting him inside.

"No one stood before him, he had to leave the table first," Draco continued. "Father just stood there, looking on him like he was God. Mother kept offering him o'derves as if he was a beggar, going hungry, and I just sat there, watching the ordacity of it."

Eve went to him and put herself around his waist. Draco did not move, or return the hug, he simply went on,

"I used to think it was exciting, I couldn't wait to be initiated, wanted to bring him back and follow him like father, but.........I was just a kid, I didn't know how......fucking.........scary he was. I used to think it was cool, that I was better than everyone else but - " He pushed Eve away from him gently and sat down on the bench with his head in his hands. Eve stood infront of him, still just listening.

"I realised it doesn't matter." Draco shook his head, "None of it matters. Purebloods, mudbloods, what's the difference? what makes me better because I come from this family line which contains hand-picked pureblood wizards?"

Draco looked up and Eve and gave a bitter smile. "My father hates my mother, and vice versa, they married and had me because they had to. I heard them talking once, when I was to young to understand what it meant and heard them arguing. Lucius was saying they should have another child, to stabilise the family line, ensure an heir, but she was refusing, saying she laid her hands on him once and she never would again."

Draco and Eve were silent, realising what kind of emptiness that relationship must hold.

"I can't imagine........not wanting to touch you." Draco almost whispered, returning his eyes to the floor. "How must it feel to really hate someone that much? I mean, hate, not just dislike or general contempt, but proper, strong hate. Not hate like I hate Potter, it pales into comparison. She doesn't want to touch him even, no wonder she stays locked up in her own wing of the house, entertains herself with other wives. She's so bitter and twisted, because her husband prefers a guy who looks like a snake and is intent on world domination more than her." Draco shook his head and looked up to Eve, giving a small smile.

"Why the hell are we talking about this?"

"It's important, Draco."

"It is?"

"Yes."

There was silence for a long time, then he stood up and took her into his arms, walking them both slowly backwards until her back was against the stone wall of the Astronomy Tower classroom. He put his hands in her hair and for a moment they just gazed at each other, while she drank him in, looking at him in a new light after gaining the knowledge of him she just had. His new hair seemed to make him look so different, like a new person. One who was so much more different, but one she still felt the same for, that low, rumbling lust in her stomach and the warm electrical feeling when they touched.

"You don't hate me do you?" Draco whispered, staring into her eyes.

"No." Eve frowned then saw his eyes become wet, and before he had time to cry she pulled him towards her and kissed him passionately, furiously, hoping that if they kissed hard enough, she could kiss away all that pain she saw so clearly in his face when he spoke of the way things had been over the summer, and seemingly, the way things always were in Malfoy Manor.

She heard him groan as she ran her hands all over him, over his shoulders, down his back, over his stomach and down, to his knees, and then slowly, agonisingly back up the inside of his thighs, veering off sharply before she reached the now rock solid bulge in his pants. He held her face in his hands as he kissed her harder, with more want and more passion.

"I want you." He whispered, her feeling his hot breath on his face, hearing the desperation, the raw lust in his low voice that was coated with passion.

Not wanting to think about that statement, Eve drew him back into a kiss and he began to grind himself against her, pressing his hard form almost intrusively up to her. She felt stifled, but a nice kind of stifled. It was a locked in, claustrophobic kind of feeling that she found herself revelling in.

They broke away, panting, breath uneven and his fingers entwined in her hair, her hands on his behind, locking their lower bodies together. Something that sounded like a low grunt escaped from Draco when she wriggled up against him and teased his erection against her flat stomach.

Eve smiled to herself, she had succeeded in her conquest, she had made him forget in the most sickly-sweet way about Death Eaters and Voldemort and hands so black they made you wonder about the energy channelling through there.

Instead, he was thinking about her hands, the way they were lightly brushing back and forth over the elastic waistband of his pyjama bottoms. All thoughts of holding back and waiting and being patient had flown Draco's mind, now his mind was somewhere else entirely.

"Fuck me." He breathed into her ear. "Please, please fuck me.........."

"Not yet." Eve smiled, strangely proud at the position she now held him in.

He raised his eyes to hers and they exchanged a smile.

"Tease." He said ruefully, raising one eyebrow.

"Impatient." She countered, putting her index finger on his chest and slowly running it down.

"You make me........"

"Think with your dick?" Eve offered, and Draco burst into laughter.

"Yeah, maybe."

"Come on, sit down." Eve smiled and dragged her boyfriend back over to the bench in the classroom and they both sat down. Draco put his arms around Eve and she lay back into his embrace, feeling his warm chest on her back.

For a long time they sat silently, looking up at the moon.

"What about you?" Draco asked suddenly, breaking the silence as though following on from a conversation that had ended a second ago.

"What about me?" Eve frowned.

"Your mum, you never said much about her."

"Not much to say." Eve shrugged non-comitally.

"I know she left you. How do you feel about her?"

"Partly hate and.......partly anger. She left my dad, went off on her own because it was all too much to handle, I was too much handle. That's so........utterly selfish."

There was more silence. "So you're bitter." Draco commented lazily. "Don't you ever want to see her again, even if just for a second? to tell her how you feel?"

"No." Eve answered immediately. "My dad is two parents for me, he's strong and yet so easy to talk to. Why would I ever need anyone else?"

"Good point."

Draco shut his eyes, basking in the security of their embrace. He thought how it felt, so warm and safe, to be held like this. He hadn't been cuddled since he was a small child, not properly cuddled, but now, since Eve, he found himself surrounded my cuddles and love. Okay, it was turning him soft, but he loved it really.

"How are you feeling? About your dad, I mean." Draco said the words softly, and Eve smiled.

"I'm okay. Thanks for asking."

"I'm just - concerned, that's all. You know how much I care about you, right?"

"Of course Drac." Eve turned to him and smiled. He opened his eyes and his grey gaze met hers.

"You look tired." He observed in a parental fashion. "We'd best get you to bed."

"Bed?" Eve grinned then leaned forward over her lover seductively, lying between his legs and sitting up on her knees so that her chest was level with his face. "Sounds interesting."

"Hmmm." Draco sighed, running his hands up her thighs and resting on her slim waist. "Don't get me started on that again........I nearly lost it over there before."

"Lost what?" Eve chuckled kindly.

"My self-restraint." He eyed her mischievously, then pulled her down so their faces were level and leaned in for a kiss. At first he ran his tongue over her lips tenderly, and she yielded to the pleasure by opening her mouth and letting his tongue wander in. He knew her mouth well now, almost as well as his own, and they began frantically kissing in a passionate heap. Robes were torn off and left shamelessly on the floor, followed by the top of Draco's pyjamas as Eve sucked, licked and kissed her way down his chest.

"You do that awfully well, considering you've never done it before." He smirked when they finally pulled apart, Eve fixing her hair conciously. She was, of course, still fully clothed.

"Going on instinct." She grinned, tracing tiny circles on his chest.

"We're.......serious, now, aren't we?" Draco asked hesitantly.

"Serious how, Draco love?" Eve frowned, picking up his top and starting to re-dress him gently.

"I mean, you're serious about me?"

"Of course I am." Eve half-laughed. "Why? are you not about me?"

"Yes, I am, very." Draco nodded with his face looking extremely serious indeed.

"Good then." Eve smiled.

They walked slowly back through the school in silence, and Draco took Eve as far as they could go towards Gryffindor Tower without the Fat Lady seeing. They held hands all the way and shared a simple, chaste kiss before they parted.

When Eve got back to her dorm, things were silent and she fell to sleep almost immediately.

******

"Oh, did you see the look on Snape's face?" Hermione giggled as she and Eve made their way up the stairs to their dormitory that next afternoon after the days lessons.

"Yeah, I thought he was going to burst a blood vessel the way he was scowling at Seamus!" The laughter between the two girls died away suddenly when Hermione opened the dorm room door and a sorry sight met their eyes. Each bed was neat and immaculate as the house-elves had left it from that morning, all except Eve's bed and its surrounding area, which had obviously been riffled through by someone who had meant to cause great amounts of damage.

"Oh lord!" Hermione's hands flew to her mouth.

The drapes around Eve's four poster had been slashed with a knife and her trunk had been up-turned, all her possessions scattered about all over the floor. The sheets on her bed had been torn back and a red substance that looked like blood had been poured over them. The words 'Werewolf' and 'Scum' and 'Bitch' had been graffietied on the sheets and on the wall around the bed.

Eve and Hermione merely stood, looking on in horror, and before either could come to their senses enough to move, there were footsteps on the stairs behind them, and the sound of someone whistling. The whistling stopped when the person drew near enough to see inside the room.

"What the - ?" Parvati Patil said, coming to stand next to Hermione, just a little inside the room. "What happened?"

"Looks like someone has started carrying out those threats." Hermione said in a small voice, suddenly turning to Eve, who was stood stock still, eyes wide.

"Eve, are you okay?" Parvati asked, touching her hand on Eve's arm. Eve simply nodded slowly and advanced into the room, bending down at the bottom of her bed to survey the damage done to her things. The first thing she noticed was the parchment Draco had made for her and him to speak with, had been ripped into pieces. Her schoolbooks had been torn and stained with the red substance and her Gwendoline ball her Gran gave her was lying underneath her bed. It wasn't damaged, as it was near undamagable, after surviving all these years, but seeing her things scattered around so much made Eve break down.

"Oh Eve!" Hermione ran to her side and threw a comforting arm around her. "It's okay!" Hermione too though, had tears in her eyes. "Shhh!" She rocked her friend gently then turned a little to address Parvati, who was still stood at the door, a strange look on her face. "Parvati, please go and get Ron and Harry from the common room."

"But Hermione, boys aren't allowed in the girls - "

"Just get them!" Hermione glared, and Parvati disappeared off down the stairs. Within seconds, as Hermione surveyed the scene, a flash of the red Weasley hair appeared by the side of her.

"Bloody hell." Ron muttered.

"What's up, Hermione?" Harry asked, reaching the door just after his friend, Parvati behind him.

When Harry saw the scene for himself, he didn't need to ask any more.

"We just found it like this." Hermione now sobbed herself. Ron and Harry exchanged a brief, wordless glance, then bent down next to their best girlfriends and prized them apart, Ron holding Hermione and Harry holding Eve.

"I'll get a teacher, shall I?" Parvati asked, and when she was not answered, she stormed from the room with a scowl on her face.

Harry sat Eve down on the bed and with his arm still around her, pulled a tissue from the box beside one of the beds and handed it to her. Eve dried her tears while Hermione turned to survey the scene once more. Ron didn't let her go though, and in his arms she felt safer than before.

"Who would do something like this?" Hermione sniffed, wiping away the tear-stains on her face.

"Whoever it was that sent those letters." Harry said darkly, checking if Eve was okay and hugging her closer.

"Huh! Malfoy." Ron spat.

"It couldn't have been him." Hermione pointed out, and Eve was glad of her interruption, it saved her doing it herself. "Whoever did this must know the Gryffindor password, in order to get in here."

"You're saying it was a Gryffindor?" Harry frowned.

"No, of course not!" Hermione shook her head. "No one would do that, but I don't think Malfoy would know the password, would he?"

"He could have beat it out of a first year or something." Ron suggested, convinced it was the Slytherin.

"You should go and ask around, find out if anyone has let the password slip." Harry told Ron and Hermione.

"Yeah, we can check around in the common room. You alright 'Mione?" Ron frowned concernedly at the girl who secretly held his heart.

"Yes, I'm fine now." She nodded bravely, then looked to Eve. "Eve?"

"Hmm?" Eve sniffed, raising her head to her friend.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah." Eve lied with a forced smile. Hermione smiled weakly back, then her and Ron left together to search for clues. They shut the door behind them and Eve and Harry were left alone together in the girls dormitory.

"We'd best start clearing up." Harry suggested after a short silence.

"Yeah, I guess." Eve was still numb, and shook her head to clear her thoughts.

"I remember when this happened to me." Harry said a few minutes later when they were both bent over on the floor, picking up Eve's things and packing them carefully back in her trunk.

"Someone did this to you?" Eve asked, horrified.

"Yeah."

"Who was it?"

"Well, it was Sirius, turns out he was looking for Scabbers, I mean - "

"Wormtail." Eve finished for him, bitterly, a sharp edge to her voice.

"Yeah." Harry sighed, and went on with their work of cleaning things up.

A few moments later the door swung open and Minerva McGonagall stood on the threshold, a horrified look on her face.

"Oh dear!" She exclaimed. Harry stopped working, but Eve did not, monotonously going through the motions of picking up her things. All she could think was that she wanted her father.

"We're just cleaning up what we can, Professor." Harry informed her. At that, the room became a hive of activity, with Ron and Hermione returning, explaining no one could remember having spoken the password in earshot of anyone who might be responsible, and then crowds of other Gryffindors arrived to see for themselves. Professor McGonagall herded them all out of the way, all except Ron, Hermione, Eve and Harry, and when it was just the five of them in the dorm she looked to Eve (who was still on her hands and knees trying to retrieve the shards of broken belongings) with concerned eyes and said,

"I think we'd better go and see Professor Dumbledore, Miss Lupin."

"Huh?" Eve looked up, her eyes watering once more and she unsuccessfully tried to mend a china figure that had once belonged to her Gran. Thankfully, all her CDs had mended straight away at the touch of a wand.

"We can leave this in the capable hands of Harry and Ron my dear, and you and Miss Granger can come with me to see the headmaster."

"Oh, okay." Eve blinked, getting up and then accidentally dropping the china figure in her hand, smashing it into even smaller shards. "Oh God....." She moaned, and Harry ran to her side.

"It's okay Eve, I'll sort it, you go with Professor McGonagall." He squeezed gently on her hand and Eve simply nodded, allowing herself to be lead my Hermione and her Head of House through the common room (where a thousand worried eyes followed her) and up to the stone gargoyle standing outside Professor Dumbledore's office.

Professor McGonagall spoke a password to the statue and at once it stood aside, letting all three of the party up the stairs.

For Eve, the meeting seemed to pass in a blur. The headmaster asked some routine questions, where she had been, had they seen anyone suspicious hanging around, but all Eve could think of was that she wanted to tell her dad and have him comfort her. Professor Lupin was though, of course, locked up in his study in no fit state to comfort anyone.

Eve sat in the common room all that night, and although her dorm had been cleaned and all her things put away as though nothing had happened, she refused to go to bed until very late. She couldn't work out what she was most gutted about, the fact that someone really was out to harm her, or the fact she couldn't even get comfort from her father or her boyfriend. She considered fire-talking with her uncle Sirius, but it really was too dangerous. Harry, Ron and Hermione just sat about her in quiet, looking from one to the other. They all felt utterly puzzled as to what to do. When Eve refused to go down to the Great Hall for evening meal, Hermione opted to stay with her.

"I'm no company Herm, just go, honest." Eve tried to smile.

"It's okay." Her friend replied, "I'm not really hungry anyway." Everyone but Eve seemed to understand it was no longer a case of not wanting to leave her on her own, but now not being able to leave her on her own.

*****

Draco sat half-heartedly flipping through the potions text he was reading. He had written to Eve all night on their enchanted parchment, but she wasn't replying. He thought for a while that maybe she wasn't speaking to him, but she seemed okay when they had sneaked a moment together earlier after Care Of Magical Creatures. He was very alarmed, however, when Potter and Weasley came down for food alone, and began to worry there was something wrong.

I can hardly ask a passing Gryffindor though, can I? he reasoned. Draco closed his text absentmindedly and rubbed his eyes. The tension in the Slytherin common room was still simmering after word of his run-in with Goyle and Pansy last night. People were seemingly regarding Draco with suspicion now, and he suspected Pansy had been telling some of the most far-flung lies she could think of. Gregory Goyle was now sporting a prize black eye, and telling anyone who would listen that an 'increasingly volatile' Draco Malfoy had caused it.

Gregory Goyle was often just classed as a 'thick, stupid, meathead.' This was a common misconception. While his friend Vincent Crabbe was really just that, Goyle was different. Draco trusted Crabbe simply because he knew the boy was too dense to betray him, he was acting on orders, and while Goyle was also acting on orders, from his father, Draco suspected the orders were very different.

Draco sighed, wondering who to trust and who not to trust and knowing that really, a Malfoy should never consider trusting anyone. When he was younger, in the first year or so at Hogwarts, the bitching and down-right evilness of the Slyhterins had shocked him and once or twice he had looked over at the Gryffindor table, seen the friendship and trust there, and felt envious. Of course, then he reached the stage where he learned he had to fight for himself, and while Crabbe and Goyle were seemingly there to rely on, they should never know everything.

That was why it was so hard for Draco to accept what he had told Eve the previous evening. She was slowly starting to know everything, and while his gut instinct told him that was okay, his father's voice in his head was sending him sharp warnings.

Draco decided an appearance in the common room this evening might do him some good, and so he pushed aside his school work before descending the stairs to their dungeon common room. Most people were sitting about gossiping, or working on plots and plans. Draco sighed inwardly, growing increasingly disturbed by this atmosphere and as soon as he sat himself by the fire, several people, including Crabbe, ambled over. They began talking to him in hushed tones about Gregory, and Draco listened with feigned interest.

"You can trust us, Draco." Harvey O'Donnell, a rapt looking fourth-year boy told him.

"Yeah, we're on your side Malfoy." Chimed Derek Sigar, a fellow fifth year. Draco glanced across the common room to where Goyle sat, nodding at something Millicent Bullstrode was saying. Draco began to wonder whether it was all-out war before his eyes rested on Blaise Zabini, sitting in a chair by herself, curled up with an advance animagi text book. They had always been friends, her parents would often dump her at the Manor as a child, but she and Draco rarely played together. He was, essentially, a loner, and a self-confessed one at that. He felt she understood but.......he reminded himself that it was each man for himself.

Draco turned back to the people about him, who were all talking animatedly about what he could do to out-smart Goyle, and he was reminded of the previous evening when Eve had said he had 'followers.' He allowed himself a slight smirk at this and then tried to tune into what people were saying.

*****

It was the next morning, in the Great Hall, that Eve dragged herself to breakfast. In part she only went because Hermione made her, but she also wanted to see Draco, wanted to tell him everything and have him fix it.

He was throwing her clearly concerned glances across the breakfast tables and Eve made sure she excused herself early while everyone else was still in the middle of things so that he could follow her out into the deserted corridor. When she saw him join her, however, she wasted no time and drew him outside through the main doors. Autumn was coming and as she didn't have her outside robes on, Eve shivered.

"Eve, what's going on?" Draco frowned before she pulled him behind a near-by tree and peaked around.

"I saw a hufflepuff....."

"Yeah, thick gits...." Draco answered idly, trying to get back his girlfriend's attention.

"Why weren't you at - "

Eve cut him off and gave him the full story in an amazingly short amount of time. When she had finished, Draco was furious.

"We've got to find out who it was! I can't believe bloody Dumbledore! He should have cleared this up ages ago when those notes started turning up!"

"It's not the headmaster's fault!" Eve sighed. The last thing she needed right now was an irritated Malfoy to deal with.

"God, you poor thing!" Draco hugged her quickly, "I'm sorry, I - "

"I know." Eve nodded, checking they weren't being watched. "Look, the parchment you gave me, they tore it up, whoever did it and I - " Eve choked back some threatening tears. "Well, sorry if I didn't get in touch."

"Don't be stupid." Draco shook his head. "It doesn't matter, I'll make you a new one. As long as you're alright, that's what counts."

"Yeah." Eve said distractedly. "Look, I have to get back, Harry and Ron are watching me like hawks."

"Stay with Granger." The slytherin warned her. "I'll see you later, by then I'll have thought of a plan, okay?"

"A plan?" Eve frowned, ducking out from behind the tree.

"Yeah. Just go!" Draco waved her on. With that, Eve set off at a run to re-join her friends. When she got back to her table, nobody mentioned the threatening letter that had turned up during her absence.

*****

"I can't believe I'm doing this again!" Eve shifted uncomfortably, brushing hay from her cloak.

"Patience is a virtue." Draco whispered, his eyes on the door.

"Yeah, well I'm usually full of virtue when I'm not avoiding owl food and hay!"

"Oh shut up." Draco smirked. Eve was now picking an owl treat from her hair.

They had spent the past three nights crouched uncomfortably in a closet in the owlery. It was Draco's plan that they would catch the letter-sender in the act if they waited around long enough.

"Stop fidgeting!" Draco laughed.

"If my dad knew I spent my nights in dirty cupboard with Draco Malfoy, he'd kill me."

"He couldn't be any more furious than when you told him about the attack though, could he?"

"No, suppose not." Eve reasoned, finally finding a piece of ground that was comfortable.

Silence then dropped over the pair as they both watched through the tiny holes in the old wood door protecting them from sight. Last night, Eve had fallen asleep in here, and Draco had woken her up because her snores would have given them away.

"I don't know how you manage to stay awake!" Eve yawned, her fingers tickling the back of her boyfriend's neck.

"I get enough sleep in Binns's class." Draco replied dryly, never taking his eyes from the door. "If you're tired, I'll walk you back to Gryffindor Tower." He offered with a slight smile from the tickles, "I've told you I can do this without you."

"I know, but then you'd get caught alone and take all the punishment for me." Eve told him, but the real reason she wanted to stay was because she found it very sweet, him staying here for her every night, and she relished the chance to be alone with him.

The couple had grown closer over the past few days since the attack. As he had promised, Draco replaced the enchanted parchment and they spent most of the time they were apart, chatting via the magical paper. Eve also found herself relying on Draco more for support. Although her dad was now back in his human form, it was those crucial days after the attack that Eve had no-one but Draco.

Of course, still no one knew about the two, and any meeting was done in the highest secret.

"Oh Drake, I'm bored!" Eve whined.

"Shhh." Draco whispered, sitting forwards as someone entered the old owlery. It was, however, just Professor Flitwick, come to feed his own tawny owl, pet her, and then leave again.

"Merlin, what's he doing up at this time?" Eve asked conversationally, still ruffling Draco's hair.

"That'll send me to sleep." He told her with a smile creasing his face.

"Sorry." Eve sighed, and looked around impatiently for something to do. "Draco, it's nearly three in the morning. Whoever sent the letter probably sent it hours ago!"

"That's what they want you to think." Draco whispered, picking up the omninoculas that lay behind him and staring about through the holes in the door.

"Remind me why you bring those." Eve enquired, then spotted something and her eyes flashed mischieveiously.

"So I can read the names on the envelopes and - Eve, what are you doing?"

"Nothing." Came the innocent voice from the lips kissing the back of Draco's neck.

"Doesn't feel like nothing....." Draco exhaled. There was silence for a moment, then, "Er, you're seriously distracting me from the job at hand."

"I'm just occupying myself."

Eve wound her arms around Draco in the tight space and shifted closer to him, her lips straying along his shoulders. For a moment there was peace, while the blond boy gave into his senses and simply relaxed at the gentle, provocative touch. Then however, the slytherin in him returned.

"Right, I'm taking you back to the Tower."

"What?" Eve asked, shocked. "I thought you were enjoying it!"

"I am. Too much, so you'll have to go. I can't concentrate with you trying to turn me on."

"Ha!" Eve laughed, "I wasn't trying to turn you on!"

Both were smiling now, Draco in total disbelief.

"Well, whatever you were doing, it worked. Now come on, let's go." Draco made to get up.

"No!" Eve said grinning, dragging him back down into the cramped space. "If you're turned on...."

"Eve......." Draco shot her a warning look. "This isn't the time or place......"

"Hmm, Mr Self-Restriant, eh?" The gryffindor leaned in for a kiss but after a second her partner pulled away.

"Yes, actually." Draco lied. His hands were squeezing hers tightly, but only so they wouldn't roam anywhere else of their own volition. Eve just laughed an resumed the kiss.

They sat just kissing for a long time, until a noise behind them made Draco push Eve away and grab his omninolulars. Eve sighed quietly and folded her arms.

When the door was shut and the stranger gone, Draco turned back with defeat in his voice.

"Just Filch on patrol."

"See? It's useless!" Eve said, exasperated.

"Alright, we'll leave it for tonight." Draco gave in, but only because he was very, very tired. "I'm coming back tomorrow though, and the day after."

"Yeah, yeah, we know, and the day after that." Eve laughed cheekily as he gave her a hand stepping out of the cupboard. "You know, that'd be a really good place for - "

"I bet." Draco grinned, cutting her off, "Now come on."

They both went quietly through the door.

******

It had been a week.

A week ever night in the owlery, and still no sign of anyone carrying anything that even looked remotely like the packages Eve was sent. Yet, the letters hadn't stopped.

Draco went every night, Eve only some. They had both reasoned that if caught out of bed, her housemates would worry, but if Draco was caught, he could claim he was in some Ravenclaw's bed, and no one would bat an eyelid. That and Eve had fallen asleep in DADA a few days ago and had to be roughly shaken awake by a very concerned Harry Potter.

Things had finally calmed down in the Slytherin common room, and the fight had been forgotten. While their friendship resumed, Draco still felt Goyle's eyes on his back at his every move, and so extra vigilance on the blond's behalf was required.

It was a night when they had almost given up, and definitely the last night Eve was 'playing this silly game', when Draco was engaging Eve in a particularly passionate kiss, and the noise of the door going behind them made them stop.

Draco was reluctant to turn around, thinking it would only be Filch, or at least Justin Finch-Fletchley sending one of his regular owls to a pretty fourth year Slytherin called Jenny, but when he did drag himself away from his girlfriend and grab his omninoculas, his eyes shot to the name written in red on the parchment envelope-

Evelyn Lupin.

Draco's eyes then went to the person who was now attaching the letter hurriedly to the leg of an owl. He didn't need the omninoluars to see the person though, and they dropped from this eyes.

The sight he saw shocked him, but it shocked Eve more, and the person sent the owl off and scurried hurriedly out of the room.

Draco looked sideways at his pretty companion, who now had shock written all over her.

"Merlin....." She breathed in disbelief. "The last person I'd ever have thought........"