<type or paste your story here>He looked up at Harry. "I don't know. I'll see what I can do..." But he looked worried.
"Let me know when it'll be..."
"No." Malfoy stood again.
"No?"
"My schedule, Potter, not yours. Element of surprise. If you look the least bit like you've been
expecting this, my dad will kill me first and then you and whoever else happens to be standing
around."
Harry looked at him shrewdly. "I'm still not sure why I should trust you..."
"Good. Keep thinking that. Treat me as anything other than your worst enemy, and my dad's
sure to pick up on it."
"Are you going to ask him about Percy?"
Malfoy shook his head. "Can't afford to. He hasn't been telling me about his other recruits.
You're the only one I'm in on."
"That might change."
"Why?"
"I saw Roger Davies get a recruitment letter this morning."
Malfoy snorted. "Well, that's probably overdue, isn't it? He's probably more evil than my dad, in
some ways..."
"So you didn't know? And you don't know where and when he's supposed to give his answer?"
Malfoy shook his head. "No idea. This has gone on long enough. I should go before people start
UNMASKED 305
coming in here again. Dinner's almost over."
"Right," Harry said, turning and walking away from him with no other leave-taking. He went to
the desk and waited for Madam Pince to process the book he was borrowing, then left the library, returning
to the Gryffindor common room to wait for Ron and Hermione. He wished he had something
he could tell Snape and Sirius, but all he could say was that sometime in the next week, he would be
ambushed. It wasn't a pleasant thought, and he felt another wave of Moody-esque paranoia sweep
over him. He opened the book to the middle and reread the entry on the other Lord Voldemort.
Somehow, the fact that Tom Riddle wasn't terribly original wasn't especially comforting...
* * * * *
Hermione was in fact very interested in the book Harry had borrowed from the library. "Why doesn't
Binns teach us this? All we ever seem to cover is goblin rebellions in England..."
Harry listened to her talk, wanting to be alone with her, to talk to her, figure out what they were
going to do about Ron, before he or she or Ron or all of them were ambushed and killed by Lucius
Malfoy, and went to their graves without telling Ron the truth. Had she somehow decided that the
night they'd spent together was a mistake, was she trying to forget it? Harry wondered whether he
could do the same, just go on as if nothing had happened.
The days dragged on, it seemed to Harry. Tuesday night, he wrapped Ron's birthday present to
give him the next day. There wasn't much time left before Saturday. He tried to picture Percy in
the circle of Death Eaters, having the Cruciatus Curse put on him, getting the Dark Mark. No. It
mustn't happen. Percy was annoying, but he didn't deserve that. Harry realized that Percy might
just feel he had nothing left to live for with Penelope gone. Snape had joined after losing his mum.
Was Percy really going to be a spy, or was he going to be a Death Eater in earnest? Harry was so
confused. He had no certainty in his life any more, nothing solid to hold onto.
Then, just before he went up to bed, Hermione tucked a piece of paper into his hand. He
crumpled it in his fist, watching her go up the stairs to her dorm. When he was upstairs in his own
bed, behind his bedcurtains, he finally looked at it by wandlight.
Common room. One o'clock. Invisibility Cloak.
Harry swallowed. She wanted to meet with him. It had been so long...but she didn't want to stop
being with him. That was something. He felt a knot in his stomach undo itself, then found memories
of their night together swirling through his head, and he tried to stop that too, before it overwhelmed
him. It will be all right, he thought. But he wondered where they could go to be alone. If she wanted
him to bring the cloak, it must be someplace outside of Gryffindor Tower.
He checked his watch. One hour. It seemed like a very, very long hour. When it was almost one
o'clock, he stepped out of bed carefully and removed his Invisibility Cloak from his trunk. He crept
out of the dorm, then down the stairs, finding her waiting. She smiled beautifully at him.
"I couldn't wait another minute either."
And then she was there again, in his arms, and their mouths were connected as though drawn
by some supernatural force. He trembled as he held her face up to his, feeling nervous all over