"I'm sure it's fine," Ron said, as if reading his thoughts. "Try the main house."

Harry hadn't wanted to do that, but if it came to a choice between maybe having to deal with someone else beforehand, or not reaching Draco at all, he would suffer some small talk happily.

Unfortunately he just got the same result. The whole house was disconnected, for whatever reason. "Do you think something's wrong?" he asked in a small voice.

"Erm," replied Ron hesitantly, making Harry worry even further. But then his face lit up. "Well, hang on. Hasn't his mum been stuck in there for almost a year?"

"More or less," Harry agreed.

Ron smiled, pleased with himself. "She probably just wants to chat without any interruptions," he said positively. "My mum wanted to hear every single boring detail from me and Mione when we got back from Spain, you'd think it was the most fascinating place in the world." He rolled his eyes, but his words were filled with fondness. "And she's not been under house arrest. Mrs Malfoy probably just wants all the gossip."

Harry nodded, and tried to feel confidence in what Ron was suggesting. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, that's probably what it is. I could just write him a letter, and give him a heads up about Skeeter?"

"Good idea," said Ron. "You can borrow one of our birds, they're used to doing deliveries over long distances as fast as possible, a little letter will seem like a breeze in comparison."

Ron made himself useful tidying a few more bits away around the flat, having apparently been encouraged to be more domesticated by moving in with Hermione, and Harry was thankful for the thoughtful gesture. He hurriedly found some parchment and wrote the basics down of how he'd been verbally accosted by Rita Skeeter, telling Draco to be careful and avoid her if possible. "Love you," he tagged on the end, feeling a little thrill at noting the words down for anyone to see.

Seeing as all he had to do was wait around for a response after that, Ron bustled him down the stairs again and got him helping out in the shop for a while, much to George's delight. "Go stand near the window Harry," he joked. "We'll get a rush of people in for the last hour!" Harry wasn't entirely sure he was joking, but just to be safe, he busied himself restocking shelves of Extendable Ears near the back.

He'd still not heard anything from Draco by the time they had completely closed up, so he accepted the Weasleys' offer to come have dinner with them and Hermione. It seemed George was dating Angelina Johnson now, and Harry was quite keen to see his old Quidditch team mate as well as his friends. He ran up to check his flat, just to make sure any letters hadn't gone up there by mistake, then grabbed his umbrella to head down the road to the little Italian place they all liked.

Harry allowed himself to be distracted as much as he could manage, but he still let out a sigh of relief during desert as an owl flew into the front of the restaurant, and the waiter brought the roll of parchment over for him to open, which he did hastily.

"Dear Harry.

"I'm sorry, something has come up, I can't explain, but thank you for the advanced warning regarding Skeeter. Hopefully I'll be able to talk to you tomorrow.

"Love you too,

"Dxxx"

He felt a small buzz at the declaration at the end, but other than that he was even more worried than he had been before. "Do you reckon he's okay?" he asked after reading the letter out to his friends.

Hermione placed a hand over his. "I'm sure he's fine," she said kindly.

"It might be something to do with his family's business or estate or whatever you want to call it," Angelina said knowledgably. She worked within the Ministry in some capacity Harry knew. "Someone said something about things going on that way – maybe he's got lots of papers to sign, or his mum has to go over the thousand-year-old lease or the like."

She winked at Harry and he smiled back. "Yeah," he said, trying hard to let his friends convince him he had nothing to worry about. "Yeah, it's probably all fine."

"And besides," Ron chipped in, stealing a cherry off of Hermione's pudding and popping it in his mouth before she could protest. "You can call him again tomorrow anyway, make sure he's alright."

Harry nodded. That was true. He couldn't do anything now, so he may aswell enjoy his night, and speak with Draco tomorrow.