Christmas eve came and Mrs. Weasley seemed hell-bent on having her house packed with twice as many people as it could physically hold.

"Well, now!" she said as they shadow-travelled to the spot where their tents had been pitched in the summer. "It's so lovely seeing you all again."

Nico fell face down in the snow.

"Oh, come in, come in," said Mrs. Weasley with the alarm of someone who definitely wasn't used to Nico's frequent collapsing.

They'd expected to stay at Hogwarts for the Holidays until she'd sent a motherly howler to the common room, demanding to know what-Harry-and-Ron-could-possibly-mean-by-they-weren't-coming-home-for-Christmas-she-was-wondering-why-they-still-hadn't-arrived-and-then-she'd-asked-Ron-and—

The Burrow was packed with all the Weasleys (well, the bearable ones anyway, thought Piper as she noticed Percy Weasley's distinct absence), as well as Fleur and Lupin. A wailing voice blasted from a radio, the volume pitched at its highest as if desperate to drown out all other noise.

"HELLO!" shouted a voice, and suddenly a small elf-like creature flung himself from the stairs and towards the mass of demigods at the door.

They all simultaneously parted and Leo crashed to the ground.

"Ow," he groaned.

"Oh come on, now," said Ginny, looking at the bodies on the floor that now numbered two. "You've crushed the angels."

Indeed, as Leo stood up, there was a row of once-proud paper angels that now looked more like Piper's attempts at making waffles.

"Has it occurred to you, Harry," came Mr. Weasley from the table, "that Snape was simply pretending—"

"Pretending to offer help so that he could find out what Malfoy was up to?" said Harry quickly and irritatedly (which seemed to be his permanent manner of speaking). "Yeah, it has."

"Snape?" said Jason. He was ignored.

"But how do we know?" continued Harry, talking over Jason urgently.

"It isn't our business to know," said Lupin. "It's Dumbledore's business. Dumbledore trusts Severus, and that ought to be good enough for all of us."

"But," said Harry, "just say — just say Dumbledore's wrong about Snape —"

"About what?" asked Hazel.

"People have said it, many times. It comes down to whether or not you trust Dumbledore's judgment. I do; therefore, I trust Severus."

"What did Snape do?" Nico demanded.

They all looked at him.

"He was being a prat," said Ginny. "Come on, let's talk about something else, and I'm sure Harry will explain later..."

"No, wait," said Harry, his eyes fixating on Piper, and Jason protectively put his arm around her.

"What?" said Piper.

"You oughta know what Malfoy's up to," he said. "Have you—"

"Really," said Mrs. Weasley fiercely. "It's Christmas. Let's not discuss this right now."

And she cranked up the radio.

Harry looked like he wanted to continue, but he bit his lip.

The topic was not brought up again until Christmas had safely passed. As she had every year, Mrs. Weasley gave her family and Harry their traditional Christmas sweaters and each of the demigods socks or gloves or a hat or scarf. Piper looked at her white and light gold-and-brown patterned beanie. Amazingly enough, Mrs. Weasley had nailed her personality every time. No gift she got was ever the usual fuschia pink the Camp Half Blood demigods commonly pinned her with.

"She's outdone herself again," said Annabeth, admiring her own gloves, soft grey with sea green accents. "And they're even hand-knit, every year."

"So, Piper," said Harry, ignoring the gifts. They were shovelling snow from the chicken coop, as had Leo's random number generator assigned them to (although they all suspected Leo had rigged it so that it never landed on his name). "Malfoy."

Piper sighed. "Oh, for gods sake, Harry, what do you want to know?"

"He's up to something."

"Well, tell us what's up with Snape."

"You oughta know, doesn't Malfoy kiss your ass?"

Jason stuck his head out the window. "Malfoy better stay the Hades away from your ass," he yelled.

Piper shook her head. "No, I haven't spoken to him since last Thursday night."

She decided not to say what they talked about. She did find it strange that he decided to do something on Friday that didn't come up in conversation with what he was trying to convince her to do and whatnot, but she supposed it was a delicately layered situation. She'd already charmspoken him away from suspicion every time a monster popped up around them, so he was already heavy on the charmspeak, and she didn't want to use it on him too much anyhow. So he knew she had a knife, but he just thought she was a hunter from a Native American tribe back in America. After all, she'd thought, it was highly unlikely such a pureblood wizard living in a manor in Britain would be educated in American history.

"Well," said Harry, bringing her back to the present. "I overheard—"

Piper snorted derisively and Harry glared at her.

"I overheard a conversation between Snape and Malfoy. They didn't really seem like they were the best of buds. Snape was offering to help Malfoy do something, which I was hoping you'd know about. He was really upset about it too— Snape, I mean. Both of them, actually, but Snape was saying he'd made an Unbreakable Vow. I hear it's dangerous," he said to Piper and Annabeth's unappreciative stares.

"So, do you feel like telling anyone what Malfoy's up to?" said Harry impatiently to Piper.

Piper squared her shoulders and looked at Harry defiantly. "Sorry to burst that bubble you're so fond of," she snapped. "But Draco does not kiss my ass as much as you think. I don't know what he's, as you put, 'up to.'"

It wasn't a lie, but Piper felt safer to explain fully to the other girls in their re-pitched tents on the hill.

"He asked me to join him."

Hazel dropped her dixie cup of soy milk and cereal. "He what?"

Piper chewed the flaky ends of her lip and flicked blanket lint into the roaring fire. "Draco wants me to join him. Or help him. Or something. He couldn't say it fully before he had to run out. But I got the gist of it."

Their tent, for a long while, was silent.

"Well, did you tell him no?" said Thalia expectantly.

"I... I couldn't," said Piper. "I told him I had to think about it."

"Hold on," said Ginny; she'd been allowed to sleep with them while Bill and Fleur took her bedroom. "Are you going to tell him no?"

"I— see— look," said Piper defensively, then realized she had no defense. "It made sense not to say no at the moment, okay?"

Annabeth had been sitting in the corner, thinking hard. "I think we should talk to Dumbleore," she said. "This could be a great opportunity."

"To what?" said Thalia.

"To have a spy!" she said. "Think about it."

"I'm not going to spy on my friend to supplement Harry's weird obsession," said Piper crossly.

"Not for Draco, as a Death Eater," Annabeth assured her. "I think you'd be great at it."

Piper flinched uncomfortably. She wasn't sure where she was hoping the conversation would turn to, but it certainly wasn't this.

"I'll think about it," she muttered.

"I mean, it'll all be pretend," said Thalia. "You won't hurt anyone, of course."

"Of course," said Piper.

"So, how about the Minister and Percy Weasley today, then," said Hazel, glancing at Piper with a swift change of subject.

"Prick," muttered Ginny, cracking her knuckles.

Piper couldn't bring herself to laugh like the others as she stared out the tent flap and it began to rain.