Draco walked down the darkened corridor silently. He knew someone, or something was following him, but did not see anything when he turned around. It was more of the feeling that crept over him with each corner he turned… the icy chill or red-hot fire than coursed through his veins as the entity grew closer.

Sweat poured down Draco’s face and into his eyes, making it hard for him to see. Where was he going? This castle was not familiar… not the one he knew. Corridors were rearranged, windows were blackened, and the halls empty. He could not find his destination.

Beginning to panic, Draco sped up, but felt the entity behind him quicken its pace to keep up with him. What was following him?

Another chill swept over him, not helping the sweat pouring off him. His sneakers pounded the ground as he broke into a run. The thing behind him was catching up.

Around another corner, through a door, and he was at a dead end. Draco tore back out of the room and down the hall, the darkness almost to him. Around another corner and he was forced to skid to a halt because a red haired girl was blocking his path.

“Ginny,” Draco cried out, wanting her to get out of the way of the beast behind him.

She smiled, and suddenly Draco’s panting and thumping heart quieted, leaving them in silence. Ginny held out her hand and the panic left his racing mind. The air grew still and normal around them, and suddenly Draco could no longer feel the presence of the dark beast.

He looked at her with such curiosity, Ginny tilted her head at him, the smile never leaving her face.

“I don’t know what to do,” Draco said to her, not knowing what she was holding her hand out to him for. Her hand did not withdraw though, and Draco woke from his dream to find himself in his four-poster, curtains closed.

A pillow came sailing over the top at him. “Shut up already blood traitor!” came Crabbe’s thick voice from the next bed.

Draco frowned, he must have been talking in his sleep. Laughter from his left made him realize this as somebody’s voice grew high and mimicked, “It’s going to get me! It’s going to get me! I don’t know what to do!” Some of the other boys in the dorm laughed now too.

Draco sighed and rolled onto his side, pushing Crabbe’s pillow to the foot of his bed and out under the hex and charm protected curtains. He had forgotten to put one of the protective spells on them one night last week, and had woken up to his curtains on fire. He had not forgotten since then, but the spells did not prevent harmless objects from passing through, only other people, magic, and weapons. In the morning he would have to look up a sound barrier.

It was a long while after the others had done so that Draco drifted back to sleep. He lay there pondering the dream. This was the third time in two weeks that he had dreamt of something with Ginny Weasley in it. Each time she was the only calm thing in his nightmares. What did it mean? It disturbed Draco when he could not figure out what his dreams were telling him. He did not feel comfortable enough with Snape yet to take this particular dream to him, and didn’t know how Harry would take it if he mentioned he was dreaming about his ex-best friend’s sister.

In the morning Draco was still disturbed about the dream, and walked around looking at the ground on his way to classes. Harry had taken to doing the same thing only when he heard about something new that Ron had said about him or if somebody made a comment about him being a traitor to Gryffindor. Today was not one of these days however.

Harry bounded up to Draco after their one Tuesday class was over and slapped him on the back, a grin on his face. Draco looked up and frowned, wondering what there was to be happy about so long as they were stuck in the castle with people who hated them.

“She smiled at me today!” Harry grinned.

Draco rolled his eyes. Harry had been going on for weeks about some girl in Hufflepuff house named Jacquelyn. Draco had never even spoken to her. She was a seventh year, but she was in Hufflepuff. When he had pointed this out to Harry the week before, Harry reminded him that his best friend was now a Gryffindor.

“Did you talk to her?” Draco asked as they entered the room of requirement and dropped their book bags. Draco had been wishing to see the sun today even though they weren’t allowed outside, and the room of requirement replied by giving them several windows along the length of the room that showed the lake and grass outside.

Harry bit his lip and plopped down onto his favorite couch. “No.”

Draco scoffed. “You’re pathetic. Have you ever had a girlfriend?”

“Yeah,” Harry sat forward, not wanting Draco to think he was completely inept. “Cho Chang.”

“Oh yeah,” Draco said. He had hardly paid attention to Harry’s personal life in previous years unless it had been to his advantage to pick on him about something. Another commandment his father had given him, but one that Draco had taken up with full heart at seeing Harry’s popularity.

“Then you should know how to talk when you see a girl,” Draco said, referring to Harry’s previous performance the day before where she walked by and his mouth had just hung partway open.

Harry closed his eyes, hands behind his head, trying to picture Jacquelyn smiling at him again. “She’s so pretty,” he said.

Opening his eyes, Harry looked over at Draco, who was still in a mood over the dream and wasn’t paying too much attention. “Don’t you like anybody?” Harry asked. “I never hear you talking about girls.”

Draco’s head snapped up. “Well I’m not into guys if that’s what you think!” Several Slytherins, Draco not included, had almost killed a guy two years previous when they had found out that he was gay. For Draco it was personally wrong, but he didn’t have a problem if other people were like that. Since then every Slytherin had been careful about accusations made against themselves.

Harry watched Draco carefully for a moment, and said, “I wasn’t implying anything. I just wondered if there was a girl you liked here.”

Draco’s nerve’s calmed and he sat back on his couch again. “I don’t know,” he said after a moment. Ginny had jumped into his mind as he thought about it, but just because he was dreaming about her didn’t mean he liked her. Again he wanted to tell somebody about the dreams, but found himself unable to start talking about it.

“Hm…” Harry said. “We need to get you a girlfriend.”

Draco threw a pillow at him playfully. “Get yourself a girlfriend first, then worry about me. I don’t need help from somebody who’s had one girlfriend in his life.”

Harry made a mock hurt face and asked, “Ok then, how many girlfriend’s have you had since you started Hogwarts?” Draco closed his eyes to think, and finally came up with the correct number.

“Fifteen since third year.”

“Yeah, ok, don’t tell me,” Harry said.

“No,” Draco leaned forward, “Fifteen. I can list them if you like.”

“There aren’t even that many our year in Slytherin,” Harry told him.

“Well if you’re going to count it that way, only six then, but Pansy really shouldn’t count. I only went with her for a few weeks to get her off my back.”

“I thought you hated people in other houses.”

“Ravenclaws aren’t too bad. And I didn’t just date Slytherin’s in our year. I dated most girls in my house the year above us, and one two years above us.”

Harry stuck out his tongue in disgust. The thought of dating Slytherin girls made him sick.

“Well that’s what I say about Hufflepuffs,” Draco said when Harry pulled his tongue back in.

“That’s what you used to say about Gryffindors,” Harry reminded him again. Draco sat back, defeated, and didn’t say anything more on the subject as they settled in to practice the new moves they’d learned in Defense Against the Dark Arts that week.


Several times the next day Draco ran into the back of Harry because he had stopped walking whenever he caught sight of Jacquelyn.

“You’ve got to stop that,” Draco said. “Reel your tongue back in and learn to walk.” Draco preferred to walk beside people, but this wasn’t usually possible in the crowded corridors of the castle.

“I can’t help it, I feel like nothing works when she’s around.”

Draco rolled his eyes. Again he thought of Ginny though, and he stopped what he was doing. Why couldn’t he get her off his mind?


Ginny sat down next to Harry again that night at dinner. She had been doing this more often lately, especially when comments were being made about Harry and Draco further down Gryffindor table. Why did she have to sit with them, Draco wondered. Whenever she sat down he felt like he couldn’t look her in the eye or give more than one syllabic answers to questions.

Ginny questioned Harry about this the next day when Draco failed to appear for lunch.

“Draco is awfully shy,” she commented as Harry made himself a ham sandwich.

Harry laughed. “Only when you sit down.”

Frowning, Ginny said, “What, he doesn’t like me?”

Harry shrugged. “I don’t know. But, you are the sister of the guy who is trying to keep people against him.”

“You don’t hold that against me, do you?” Ginny asked.

Harry shook his head. “No, but I’m not Draco. You have to give him credit though, he is trying hard to be… well, you know, not Slytherin. I think when he feels like he’s gotta say something rude he just keeps quiet.”

“Great,” Ginny said, elongating the word. “He must really dislike me then.”

“Don’t worry about it Ginny,” Harry reached for a jar of mustard and she passed it to him. “I hear all about everybody he doesn’t like, and he never mentions you in that list.”

Ginny thought on this for a moment, and then began to make herself a sandwich, questioning Harry no further about Draco. Instead, she said, “I hear Jacquelyn likes you.”

Harry dropped his sandwich mid-bite, and said excitedly, “Really?” Ginny nodded, but didn’t have much more information than that to give him when he prodded her about it for the rest of lunch.


Draco sat in Snape’s office studying, not wanting to sit silently through lunch knowing that Ginny might be there. When questioned about the skipped meal Draco had muttered something about Ginny, but didn’t elaborate any, and so Snape didn’t pursue the topic.

“You and Harry have been spending a lot of time together,” Severus observed as Draco tried to finish his Charms essay, which was due the next day.

“Harry doesn’t have a choice… half of Gryffindor hates him now.”

“Mrs. Weasley obviously doesn’t.”

Draco’s eyes narrowed at this and his quill paused on the parchment for a moment. For some reason this agitated him to know that Ginny was only sitting there for Harry’s benefit.

Wondering at the thought he had caused in the boy in front of him, Snape thought about what he could say next to get the boy to open up. Draco answered after a moment though, and said, “Doesn’t matter, Harry likes Jacquelyn.”

This was not what Severus had expected, but he was going to run with it if Draco would let him. Severus of course knew about Jacquelyn because Harry still came to see him every couple of days to grade papers and talk to him about the various things going on in his life.

“Are you worried that Harry will not want to spend as much time with you if he begins dating?”

Draco scoffed but realized his mistake. He should have let Severus think what he wanted. Telling him something different might make him realize what Draco’s issue was.

“Bros before h-” he stopped, not wanting to exhibit such speech in front of a professor with whom he wished to garner respect.

Severus raised an eyebrow, knowing the saying that Draco was about to finish.

Since their fight that summer, Severus had noticed large improvements in both Draco’s attitude and character. The boy had been making every effort to become at the very least, civil with his tongue to other people. Knowing how this battle raged, once having fought it himself, Severus thought the boy was giving it an admiral attempt, and so didn’t chastise him for what he had been about to say.

“How have the others in the house been treating you?” Severus asked, making Draco grateful for the change in direction of the conversation.

“I’ve been talking in my sleep… I need a silencing charm for my bed so they don’t throw things at me while I’m sleeping.”

“Hm…” Severus thought on this, not knowing of one that would last for more than a few hours, or after the spell caster went to sleep. “I believe Harry has one he uses on his bed at night.”

Draco looked up. “Harry talks in his sleep?”

“I believe he does.” Snape had not told Draco of Harry’s nightmares from the year before, as it was not his right to. That was up to Harry if he felt it relevant.

“Huh…” Draco thought about it and said, “I’ll ask him,” before he went back to his essay.

Ron brushed past Draco roughly in the corridor as Draco made his way to class later that day, saying, “Watch it coward.”

Draco had his wand out faster than he had taken in the next breath, but Ron seemed ready for a fight. Draco’s eyes narrowed, and Ron’s eyes did the same.

“Come on coward,” Ron said, repeating the name that seemed to have won over Draco’s anger. “You going to let me get away with that?”

Realizing he was being goaded into sending off the first curse, and knowing there was probably a professor somewhere around the corner, Draco stuffed his wand away, and with one last warning glare at Ron, turned around and continued on to class.

Ron stood there in the hall, angry that he could not get Draco to fight.

From a position neither boy seemed to be able to see, Dumbledore stood and observed the change in both boy’s attitudes and behaviors. Ron, a once fiercely loyal friend and easy going student, had now become an angry, hotheaded young man who tried to goad people he disliked into fighting him. On the other hand, Harry seemed to be having some kind of effect on Draco, who now turned away from an unnecessary fight rather than engaging in one. It was funny what lack of friendship would do to one person, and what that same gained friendship would do for another.