On Monday, I'm ready to go. I stand by the doorway, waiting for any sign of him in the windows. Every so often, I find myself rubbing my bottom lip.

If Luna could see me, what would she say now? Would she recognize what she thinks infects me for what it is? I wonder if she could ever forgive me for loving him. At the very least, I hope she could love me, if she couldn't bring herself to understand. As much thinking as I do, I don't understand it myself.

I tap the strap of the getaway bag as I wait for him. While I know portkeys aren't pleasant, I've never actually travelled by one. I wonder if it will be worse because we are going farther. My mind is racing. What if he didn't end up buying the house and we got a different one that I hate? What if the walls are infested with earwigs? What if we move in together and realize one day we don't love each other anymore, and then we think maybe we never did and it was just the war holding us together?

I peer out the window. Something cracks. I lean against a wall. Draco apparates into the street. Slowly, he approaches the house. My knees feel shaky. I grip the strap of my bag tighter.

Then, he unlocks the door and steps inside. The burst of air, warm once again, fills the room. Soon, we're going to feel it all the time. There is a paper bag in his hands. It's just his cloak, his wand, and the paper bag. He's got nothing packed.

"Portkeys in here," he explains. "The paper is wrapped in is charmed so you can handle it without going immediately. All you have to do is reach inside and touch it."

My heart skips a beat. He shuts the door behind him, tucking it in tightly. All I can do is shake my head.

You can touch the bag. Not we. Maybe it never was the pair of us ever. Just him and just me.

"No," I tell him. "No, we didn't... no."

"I can't go."

No.

No, no no.

He can go. He can go, but he is choosing not to come with me. This portkey is just for me.

I turn my back to him, shaking my head. I start to pull off my bag. Once again, I feel like an idiot. All this time, he's lied to me. He did it again.

"No," I just repeat the word, my voice catching on itself and trip just as I do. "No."

He's not coming. I've been here, doing nothing but desiring him. Not even my own freedom. I could have tried to make the portkey for myself. I could have left this place and decided to lie low and pray that Harry Potter would defeat He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I couldn't done any of that but I didn't. I wanted Draco.

We haven't even taken the portkey and I think I might throw up.

"Marty."

He says my name. I spin around to look at him. His face is so straight. Occluding eyes. My hands are shaking. I point my finger, jabbing it at him. He doesn't back away as I approach.

"You lied," I try to shake. "All this time I spent... I've been waiting for you. Not for me. I've been stuck here, and you fucking lied to me!"

He stares at me. I push him with my finger. He's so solid that he doesn't give. I try to grab the bag out of his hand and he snatches it.

"The Dark Lord will find me," Draco says. "He knows I have the Dark Mark. If I come with you, we both will be examples. Not just me this time."

"The Dark Lord," I shake my head. "You still call him the Dark Lord, do you? Not even You-Know-Who? Merlin, I'm a fool."

Draco rolls his eyes, "it's a fucking habit, Marty."

"It's a fucking habit," I step back, staring at him. My hair feels like static on my head. It's like electricity in me now, not fire, and I've heard electrical burns can be worse than flames. "Just a fucking habit. Draco, this is my life! He's going to kill me! And he's going to kill whatever's left of you eventually, and I'm not sure you're even going to outlive me at this point!"

"It's not possible for me to leave so long as this is on my arm," Draco struggles to pull up his sleeve with one hand. Finally, he reveals the tattoo. "And it's not coming off."

I glare from it to him, "you're not fucking left-handed."

He scoffs, "do you know how to amputate my arm without outright killing me? No one is stupid enough to attempt such a thing. The Dark Lord has magic we don't know. It could be in my blood now, his trace of me. Are you going to bleed me out too?"

I cannot breathe. No time. This is the end of it.

Draco's head twists abruptly. He peers out the window. I walk over to it, looking outside. If Nott sees us, Draco will have to figure something out. He told me he'd come, and I've done nothing but wait for him.

"The alarm," Draco says. "Someone's knocking on my bedroom door. You have to go."

"I'm not leaving without you."

"I could be gone a week Marty, and Nott's going to be here in the next ten minutes!"

I storm back into the room. I hear him follow after me. I snatch my getaway bag off the floor and I turn around and throw it at him. It's hits him in the chest. He catches it, doesn't even sway from its impact.

"Then let's touch that portkey together."

The hand with his wand it in relaxes and flexes. He stares off into the distance again. Finally, he comes over and snatches my wrist. I stare up at him, heart racing. He's going to make me touch it.

"Fine," he manages, "You're coming with me. But you're not going anywhere. You're going to stay fucking put no matter what. If you try to run without using that portkey, just know that there is nowhere you can go in Great Britain that I won't find you. I won't stop until I do. And believe me, when I do, I'm sending you to hide in St. John's alone, and the Dark Lord will kill me once he finds out what chaos I've caused to find you again."

Then, tight in his grip, we apparate.

As we do, I feel the familiar squeezing of every part of my body. We land and I try to suck in a deep breath. Draco clamps a hand over my mouth. He pushes us against a wall. He's bigger than me, and I have to glance past him to figure out where he's taken me.

We are in his bathroom, in the manor he grew up in. Draco peers toward the door, pressing tightly against me. His hand is so heavy and after apparating, I'm not having the easiest time breathing. I look at him with wide eyes.

He lets go. He grabs the door and opens it.

"Sorry," I hear him talking to someone.

"You've kept her waiting," I recognize Mopsy's voice. "Mistress won't be pleased."

"I have more standing before the Dark Lord than both my parents combined. They can fucking wait."

I hear the door to his bedroom close.

My back against the wall, I slide onto the ground. Some of the things we were supposed to take with us, though obviously not all of them. He was supposed to have things. Even the portkey came with us.

I look into the brown paper bag at it. I recognize its shape in the wrapping paper. It's a bell. And without opening it, I know it is the bell I made him buy so long ago. The bell he paid for and then told me not to tell a soul about what we were. And he made it into the thing he was going to use to send me away from him, likely for the rest of both our lives.

Now, I'm in a manor where Draco's family has entertained You-Know-Who. I stay in his bedroom. At least, I try. I walk out of the bathroom and into the actually bedroom part of his house. I keep my wand tucked at my side, ready to lead me away via apparition at a moments notice. I study the walls of the bathroom, hoping it will allow me to apparate back into it later.

If I disappear, and Draco makes good on his promise, he might be right about his impending death.

I observe his room, exceptionally clean. There are a few houseelves who work here so I shouldn't be surprised. I don't touch anything. Wizards don't use things like fingerprints in investigation that I know of, but I don't know if Draco has any traps set up in his room.

Someone screams. A woman, high-pitched and shrill. What if it's Luna? What if that is what Draco was summoned back for?

Up to this point, I've had no part in the war. I can't fight. I can't even see what's going on, know what's happening to Draco. It's stupid.

I've snuck around Hogwarts enough times to see him.

So, I use a charm to help camouflage myself. Then, I place a silencing charm on me to help hide my footsteps. Slowly, I slink down the hall. I don't imagine there are many people who are going to be around to betray me.

The scream happens again. I follow the origin of it. This was all much easier when I had the Sagum to help guide me through the halls. Still, I hurry my way through the space, apparating down corridors and peering around them to make even less sound. I knew his house wasn't warded against apparition entirely since he was able to get in, but I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do it while inside. At the very least, I can escape quickly if I'm caught running through here.

Eventually, I slink into a hallway. I can hear different people talking, murmuring to themselves somewhere at the end. Someone is whining on the floor. I press myself as tightly as I can against a wall and get on the tips of my toes to peer further.

Just around the bend of the wall is some sort of large room, presumably for gathering company, but it's empty. There's a large chandelier in the middle, and a fireplace too. On the floor, a girl is sprawled out on the ground. I can't see her face, but I recognize the mass of curly hair on her head. A woman with thick curly hair is bent overtop of her, digging her wand into Hermione's arm. She lets out a scream. Her body convulses on the floor.

Draco stands above her, staring.

"Hermione!" Ron screams. I can tell his voice is coming from below me.

Draco is torturing her. I made him sign the contract, and I said he could let no harm come to her, and Ron, and Browning and the Creeveys. He may not know I'm watching, but he knows I'm here.

He really has given up on us. He really does think the war is going to turn against me.

This can't be how it ends.

I take a step back. I don't know where Ron is, but I have to let him out. I can't take them on all by myself. Ron's here though. Maybe Harry Potter is with him too. Harry will know for certain that there is more to Draco and I than tutoring if I rescue them, and it will put Draco in danger, but Draco's already in danger. He's in danger all the time.

I slip out of this corridor and down another. When I'm there, I see Blaise at the end of the hallway. I turn my head.

I think he saw me. My heart is racing. I think he saw me.

Blaise apparates in front of me. I try to stop myself from screaming.

He looks me up and down. I go to flourish my wand, but he grabs it. Now, he's tangled in all my concealment charms. He's about to speak but he stops. He looks to his left. My breath is ragged, and within the muffling charm, he must hear it now.

"I knew Draco was up to something," Blaise says. "Theo's too gullible."

"You have to let me go," I whisper. "I'm not here to get Draco into trouble. There's a portkey in his room I'm going to take."

Blaise turns his head back to me. He furrows his brow, "you're not serious."

"Listen," I breath out. "If we can get Harry Potter out of here, Draco will be sent to get him. Then, I can get him to leave with me, and we will be out of your hair. No more covering for him, no more problems."

Blaise peers at me. His gaze is too strong. He moves his wand, and I occlude him out. He narrows in his eyes more, peering his head to the side. I need him off of me so I can apparate out of here. Hermione screams behind us. Harry Potter's got to be somewhere in this manor, and Hermione is being tortured. Right now, Draco might be doing it too. And I have to do something. For once in my life, I actually have to do something.

"Please," I ask Blaise.

He looks at me. Then he lets go, stepping back. I breathe out a sigh of relief.

Blaise moves so quickly with his wand that I don't realize what is going to happen until the spell leaves his wand.

"Stupefy."

~~~~~

There is only one chapter left, and it's technically an epilogue. Any predictions about it's contents?