I decided to tread carefully with Harry and not to push his friendship.

Over the next following weeks we didn't do much. Just waited around for Harry to get an idea. He couldn't decide whether to chase Horcruxes or the Deathly Hallows. We had to wait for him to come to a decision before we could do anything. It was massively frustrating.

"So you think my father is trying to get his hands on this Elder wand?" I asked Harry, trying to get my head around it all, as I joined him for lookout outside the tent one evening.

"I don't think - I know. And I want to get it before he does." Harry said fiercely, thumping his fist on his knee.

"But didn't Dumbledore want you to concentrate on the Horcruxes?" I asked.

"YES, HE DID!" Hermione snapped from behind us, her face pinched in fury at Harry as she stuck her head outside the tent. "Stop trying to follow the glory, Harry, and continue doing the job you were meant to do!"

"But it's undefeatable!" Harry cried, "If I get the wand then it wouldn't matter about the Horcruxes!"

My heart leapt. All of a sudden I could see a future for me and Draco. We could have our life together, go travelling, get married, have a family and grow old together.

"We don't know if that's true, though," Hermione said, bursting my bubble. "Dumbledore wanted you to concentrate on the Horcuxes, otherwise he would have told you about the Elder wand. We know he knew about it."

A great, heavy darkness fell upon me as the little hope I had disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Hermione's right." I said in a strangled voice, hardly quite believing I was saying this. "It has to be the Horcruxes. Going after the Elder wand will be a waste of time."

"At least someone's talking sense," Hermione said haughtily before returning back inside, leaving Harry and I alone.

Harry sighed heavily, and I could feel him studying me as I closed my eyes, trying to squeeze the pain away from my crushing disappointment. It felt like I was losing Draco all over again.

"Are you okay?" He asked gently.

I opened my eyes to look at him. I was surprised to see genuine concern swimming in his green eyes.

"Have you ever thought about what it would feel like to die?" I asked.

Harry raised his eyebrows as if this was the last thing he expected me to come out with.

Composing himself, he gave a nonchalant shrug. "Not really, you've just got to get on with life, haven't you? Not dwell on things that are beyond your control."

"But surely- surely you have thought about it even slightly? I mean, you're in the middle of a battle. A battle that revolves around you and my father."

"He killed my parents - of course I have thought about death." He snapped. "I just don't dwell on it, that's all."

I sighed, looking up at the night sky and it's breathtaking beauty as a blanket of stars blinked down upon us. I felt a lump form in my throat as my thoughts went immediately to Draco. How I longed to spend a night like this with him looking up at the stars together.

"I'm sorry about your parents. I'm sorry for everything my father has done." I said with as much sincerity as I could muster.

"You shouldn't apologise for him, you didn't even know he existed until a couple of years ago." Harry scoffed, raising his own eyes up at the sky.

"True." I smiled ruefully. "I wish I still didn't, to be honest."

"If it's any consolation, you're nothing like him."

I glanced up at him and noticed he was staring at me intently, his green eyes piercing into mine.

"Thank you." I gave him a small smile, suddenly feeling awkward. I wasn't used to nice Harry.

"You know, according to the prophecy it has to be me that kills him. I've never killed anyone before." Harry said quietly, turning his attention to a flowering daisy in the grass, making it grow and then shrink again with his wand.

"I have," I said, surprising myself at this admission. Yet, somehow, saying this to Harry felt natural. "I killed my father - well, the man who I thought was my father. I had just discovered he'd killed my mother when I was a little girl. It sent me to a dark place which I couldn't get out of for a long time."

Harry looked up, a startled expression crossing his features. "I didn't know, I'm sorry. That must have been... difficult."

"What I'm saying is that killing isn't easy. It can destroy your soul. Do you think you'll be able to do it when the time comes? Do you think you could even kill someone who deserves to die?"

"Astrid, I'd kill myself if it meant saving the world from that monster."

I froze. All hope that Harry would chose to spare us when the time came instantly vanished.

Because I knew now that Harry Potter would do anything to kill my father. Even if it meant sacrificing us both along the way.

...

The weeks passed as winter ended and spring began.

I missed Draco with all my heart, the aching inside my chest growing stronger as I realised my time on earth was getting shorter.

I wondered all the time where he was and what he was doing. Sleeping without him never got easier. The temptation to find him and runaway got too much sometimes. I had to keep reminding myself why I was doing this.

"Guys! Come here! Listen to this!" Ron yelled one evening sometime in March.

He had been fiddling with the radio trying to get news about the wizarding world.

Ron had found a programme called "Potter Watch". We listened as various wizards talked anonymously on it - most of whom the golden trio seemed to know.

It was the bit about my father which excited Harry. It was assumed he was abroad because he'd been laying low.

"He's looking for the Elder wand! I told you!" He said excitedly looking at each of us.

"Harry, you need to stop this! The Horcruxes are what we need to concentrate on!" I implored. "It's the only way to defeat my father!"

Harry's face dropped. "Why are you so determined that I don't get the Elder wand? Is it because deep down you want your father to get it?"

I flinched, it felt like we were back to the beginning.

"No, Harry," I said exasperatedly, "we've been over this before. If we want to destroy my fath-"

"Stop calling him that! He didn't even bring you up!" Harry spat, "Why don't you call him Voldemort like everyone else?"

"FOR FUCKS SAKE HARRY!" Ron bellowed, as loud pops sounded outside the tent.

Harry closed his eyes when he realised his blunder. The Taboo.

Panic tore at me. "We'll be taken to Death Eaters and they know who I am! No one can know I'm 'helping' you or my father will make me return to him!" I cried.

"And you don't think they'll know who I am?" Harry cried just as desperately.

"Calm down you two!" Hermione said removing her wand, zapping first a stinging hex at Harry and then pointing her wand at me. "I think I'll just change your features a bit." She said, giving me blonde hair and changing the shape of my nose and chin.

She was just about to change my eyes, when the Snatchers came storming in.

As they grabbed us all, and dragged us away, I prayed Hermione had done enough. I had to cross my fingers that my eyes wouldn't give me away.

For we were off to Malfoy Manor.