Luck of Nines

65

        "Are you okay?" Ron asked as Draco rushed over to him first from where Bulstrode and Ron had been distracting him with a game of chess

"It's not like the Aurors we're going to kill him or anything." Bulstrode snarked.

Harry nodded, "I'm fine, I have no idea why I was called though."

         "Really?" Ron frowned, "That's strange , they asked a lot of really specific questions when they interrogated me?"

           Draco nodded.

             "You don't think... considering the article and everything, that they were trying to pin you with something, do you?"

            "In Hogwarts?" Disbelief colored Bulstrode's voice.

           Draco shook his head writing as quickly as he could, 'They wouldn't do it like this. Not where they would involve a lot of other powerful people by messing with Hogwarts when said people just declared that everything was settled.' he paused, looking uncomfortable, '...It's more likely that...' he hesitated again, this time his eyes glanced around the Slytherin dorm with newfound confusion and suspicion. 

            "Someone accused him." Ron stated quietly, his eyes wide with horror.

             "You don't suspect it's one of us do you?" Bulstrode snapped. 

             'Not you, it would have to be someone with either considerable influence or evidence.'

            "And I don't?" Bulstrode huffed.

            Draco looked annoyed and glanced meaningfully at Ron to try and convey the message. Ron looked confused for only a short fraction of a second before it seemed to hit.

            "Oh, ohh." Ron stared, he didn't seem to want to say it. Draco nodded solemnly, "It has to be one of us... doesn't it?" He asked sadly.

              Draco nodded again.

"I... I wouldn't." Ron stuttered, "None of us would!" He scowled, glaring at Draco, "How do we know-" he stopped abruptly. Took a deep breath in, Ron tended to be on the more expressive side, but he knew the words that he would have carelessly said just a few months earlier were not ones he could take back, that the second one of them broke down and started accusations that really would be the end.

They would have to be careful, route out the spy bit by bit without offending anyone so deeply they could not go back to how things were before. The spy themselves, might not even realize it if memory spells had been used to make them forget what had made them turn. But they would make it through this. They had spent the past months watching each others backs in the dangerous halls of the school, and Harry had risked a lot to protect them from people who he had thought would be his friends.

Even when people from his own family no longer stood by his side. He couldn't lose his trust in the twins, the only family he had left, or his... his friends, he was sure he could call them that at this point, the only allies he had had to watch his back and to pass the long boring hours of common room confinement with.

He wouldn't doubt any of them now. "I'm sorry Bulstrode, I think the three of us and Theo have something's we need to figure out that we can't say right now, it's probably best for us to head back to our dorm, could you let Theo know when he returns?"

Bulstrode desperately seemed to want to ask what she had missed while she had been away, but she was cunning enough to know this was neither the time nor the place for such discussions to happen. Until this all blew over she was much safer in the dark, her ignorance would protect them more than knowing would. So instead she just nodded and sat down with the book she had borrowed from the library for when she knew she would get bored all by herself in her dorm later that evening, "Of course, have a good night, Weasley, Potter... Malfoy."