<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...

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