“Draco Malfoy! Those are not for you!” Professor Minerva McGonagall lightly slapped at the boy’s hand as it tried to take a cookie from the heaping tray. Draco withdrew his hand with a frown as she levitated the tray to another table. When she had her back turned he held up one hand and mimicked her talking silently, a dark look on his face, pulling his hand down quickly just before she turned to look at him again.

“Those cookies are for the Minister and his staff!” she scolded him again. It was summer time and the Minister of Magic and his staff were on their way to the castle later that day to take a look at the new security measures that had been put into place since the end of the school year three weeks ago. The enhanced security and anti intruder charms had been put in place both in the hopes to protect the students attending the following year, and also in the hopes of putting the parents that had taken their children out of school at peace of mind so that they would bring their kids back. After Voldemort’s attack on the school the previous fall along with the ten or so student and staff deaths he had caused, so many students had been pulled from classes that the Headmaster had seriously considered permanently merging certain classes with each other to have enough students at one time to teach.

Draco made a face of disgust as the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge was mentioned and McGonagall nodded in agreement, before saying, “If I find one cookie missing from this tray…”

“Professor Snape will be having words with you,” he finished obediently. This was not the first time in the last three weeks he had heard this. Luckily he knew that the kind of minor mischief he had gotten into the last three weeks were the kinds of things Severus Snape would not care about. Words with Snape about a missing cookie that belonged to the Minister wasn’t even worth a slap on the wrist as far as Professor Snape would be concerned.

“Yes,” McGonagall said. She turned and hurried out of the room. Because Dumbledore was still off in another part of the castle adding extra safety charms, McGonagall had taken things upon herself as Deputy Headmistress to ensure that the Minister and his staff would have a comfortable stay at the castle for the entire two hours that they would be there.

Draco made another face and stuck out his tongue at the retreating back of McGonagall, and stuck his hand out to take a cookie. “I’m watching you!” she called behind her back however before she was completely out of the room. Draco frowned and again withdrew his hand. This is how his summer had been so far. Usually this time of year he would be back on their large estate, and he would be flying around with Crabbe and Goyle playing Quidditch. As it was now, he couldn’t even leave the castle to get some fresh air out on the grounds, little lone go and play Quidditch. As far as he was concerned, this was bound to be the worst summer of his life.

Draco sat down at the long house table in the Great Hall that Ravenclaws usually sat at during the year, and as he did so Harry walked in.

Harry looked around for a moment before spotting Draco and the large tray of cookies next to him, and walking over to the tray. Just as Draco had done, he reached out his hand for a cookie.

“Those aren’t for you!” McGonagall’s voice filled the hall, and Harry withdrew his hand, looking around for the source of the voice.

He frowned when he did not find his head of house, and again reached forward to take a cookie. “Those are for the Minister!” He withdrew his hand again.

“Where is she?” he asked, wondering where McGonagall was that she could see him, and he couldn’t see her.

Draco shrugged. He moved his hand toward the tray, and when it came close to it, McGonagall’s voice called as if from a distance, “I’m watching you!”

Harry and Draco laughed, realizing that the cookies were charmed to shout things at them if they tried to take one. At the same time both boys reached forward, taking several cookies to protests from the Professor’s voice.

“She’s going to come after me when she finds they’re missing,” Draco said as they hurried out of the hall before she could return.

“There were at least a hundred cookies on that tray… how could she notice six of them missing?”

From above them they could hear McGonagall talking to somebody beyond the grand marble steps that lead to the first floor, and hurried out of sight. Draco hurried through the stone archway that lead down to the dungeons, where he would have the entire Slytherin common room to himself, and Harry made for the corridor that lead to the kitchens and Hufflepuff common room.

Harry had no real interest in continuing down this hall, so he waited instead behind the closed door to finish his cookies or for McGonagall to pass by, whichever came first, so that he could make his way back up to a higher part of the castle. He had no real interest in going back to Gryffindor common room, because it felt too empty to him. He would much rather be spending the summer at Ron’s house or somewhere else instead of in an empty castle where he only saw people at meal times, or occasionally bumped into Professors or Draco. The only person he saw on a regular basis was Severus.

Unexpectedly the door back to the Entrance Hall opened, and filled the darkened corridor with light. Harry grinned guiltily as McGonagall held her hand out for the remaining cookie he had not yet eaten.

“You did not eat five cookies Harry Potter,” she said, holding out her hand for the other four that he must have had hidden in a pant pocket.

He shrugged. “Who were they for?”

She looked down at him, wondering that he had eaten so many in the three minutes that she had gone to speak with Professor Flitwick.

“The Minister!” He grinned again, knowing that the Minister would never eat a hundred cookies in his few hours there looking at spells and enchantments.

“Sorry,” he said, not really sorry at all, which was obvious because of the smile he could not rid himself of.

“Don’t make me send you down to the dungeons Harry.” He could tell that this was supposed to be a threat, but she really had no idea that in the past year that she had sent him to detention down in the dungeons with Snape, or sent him down there to be talked to, he had really not been punished at all.

“Sorry,” he said again, trying to act sincere. McGonagall still did not believe him, but did not feel like dealing with him at that moment.

“The Minister is due any time,” she said. “It would be appreciated if you and Mr. Malfoy stayed out of the way while he is here.”

Harry nodded, “Yes maam.” Staying out of the way was something he could do.

Thinking quickly, and knowing he had no real chance at success, he said, “I’d be far out of the way if you let me out to fly around the Quidditch pitch for a couple of-” she looked down her long nose at him and shook her head.

“You know the rules.”

“Yes maam.” She left him there, cookie-less… and he let his head fall back against the stone wall as the door closed behind her. Some summer this was turning out to be. At least he was free of the Dursley’s, he thought to himself. That had to count for something.


Albus Dumbledore walked around the castle slowly, Cornelius Fudge and four of his uninterested assistants in tow, one of them being Percy Weasley.

“Of course the grounds have been charmed with some very old magic not found in any book,” Dumbledore told the Minister. Percy copied down the information hurriedly whenever Dumbledore said something, even if it was unimportant or unrelated to magic protecting the school. “We now have charms preventing any intruders coming from the sky or coming in by broom. The only way in now is to walk in the front gates, where there are extra charms against unfriendlies and a number of aurors on twenty-four hour guard.”

Cornelius nodded. “Good, good,” he paused and looked around the empty hall, and then asked, “What about the Potter and Malfoy boys? They have been keeping busy?”

Dumbledore raised a brow, wondering what the Minister’s curiosity about the boys was about. He nodded, and said, “They are young men, and as such I expect that they would much rather be running around with other people their age, rather than stuck inside an empty castle for three months.” He had seen Harry staring out a window for long hours towards the Quidditch pitch, and Draco also being a Seeker, he imagined that he had done the same thing.

Fudge frowned. “I still do not understand why they have not been sent home to their families.” Percy stopped writing and looked up curiously at this, a pompous look on his face that Rita Skeeter was sometimes known to wear. It was a look that said: readers want to know.

Dumbledore began walking again and as they turned a corner in the corridor, he said, “You know very well the dangers that Voldemort presents to two unguarded, underage boys that he wishes to kill.” Fudge and all four of his assistants flinched at the use of Voldemort’s name.

“What about the other students then Dumbledore?” Fudge asked, trying to catch him at something. “You Know Who doesn’t have it out for them? What if they seek protection here?”

“Any student that seeks protection from these walls shall have it Cornelius,” he told him calmly, “especially those that need it more than others. Young Mr. Malfoy is in danger not only from Lord Voldemort, but also by his own relatives… Voldemort has seen to that. It came to our attention two months before the attack on the school last year that Mr. Potter’s relatives had been mistreating him, and that it was no longer safe for him to be under their guardianship. Plans had been made for both boys to stay at the castle before the attack on the school.” Dumbledore remembered Mrs. Malfoy coming to him at the beginning of the year begging him to let her son stay there over the summer because her husband was getting more dangerous and violent every day. He had agreed without hesitation to let Draco stay there, even though the boy had not been informed of his mother’s decision until after the battle.

Fudge hmpfd at the information Dumbledore had given him. “This is not a hotel Albus.”

Dumbledore shook his head. “No, it is not. It is not uncommon however for students that have been endangered by family in the past to stay over the summer. And imagine,” he said, “what the press would do if they found out that both the school and the Minister of Magic and his staff knew that a student’s life was in danger, and did nothing about it, thus resulting in a student’s death.”

They stopped walking again as Fudge thought this over. “These are dark times Dumbledore,” he said seriously. “The Hogwarts administrative board has all but fallen to pieces with the disappearance of Lucius Malfoy and the death of Gregorovitch Goyle Senior… the Dark Lord is making it hard on the Ministry of Magic these days… we found three employees Imperiused last week. The press is asking questions, as well as those who would have my seat as Minister… I am all for you remaining Headmaster of this school, but be aware that with things in their current state, you must watch your back as much as I must watch mine.” Fudge had moved closer and closer in to speak with Dumbledore as he spoke, making it harder for his assistants and Percy to hear what they said.

“Dark times indeed Cornelius,” he said calmly, nodding. “And darker still they will be if we do not band together as a whole to fight off the evil that tries to overtake us. Divided as we are, we will fall, and not rise up again.” He paused, and then said again, “Any student or other wizard seeking safety within the walls of this castle shall have it… and we shall continue to raise protective enchantments and barriers until the next attack comes.”

Fudge frowned. “You believe he will attack again?”

“It is likely that he will do so. The castle presents too tempting a target with so many within it’s bounds that he wishes to utterly destroy.”

Fudge sighed. “What if things are already too dark and too divided to put them back the way they were again?”

“They cannot ever go back to the way they were Cornelius,” Dumbledore told him darkly. “Once we push back the evil forces at work here, we must not take things back to the way they were, or another evil force will rise in place of the one that will fall, and we will be back to the exact same battle all over again with a different enemy.”

“What would you have me do then?” Fudge asked, suddenly angry.

Dumbledore shook his head. “Name a successor now to your command in the untimely event that you do not make it through this battle, and another after that and another after that… make the names secret, known to no one but yourself and the enchantment you place on that knowledge… without a leader the wizarding community that we live in will fall to ruin, and darkness will step up in place of light.”

“And who do I name to take my place? You? You’ve wanted my job since before I had it!” He laughed as if the notion of him naming a successor now was ridiculous.

Dumbledore shook his head sadly. “No Cornelius, do not name me. It is unlikely that either of us will survive this final push that Voldemort makes to gain leadership of our world. Name people with experience… not with experience in politics, but in uniting people together. List successors that are full of courage, and not pride. Name successors who are humble and honest, and who were born to lead a people. Pride, arrogance, and dishonesty are the traits that Voldemort will bring in place of all that is good… so you must do the opposite.”

Fudge ran his hand through his already messy hair. He looked worn, and it was obvious that Voldemort’s uprising was taking a toll on him, as it was on everybody else.

“His followers killed 12 wizards last week Albus, and over 20 Muggles… we are stretched too thin in the Magical Law Enforcement department to stop him. Soon there will be no one to name as successor but the children you protect through the year.”

Dumbledore nodded. “There are 16 aurors assigned here on permanent duty. Take them back under your command.”

“But the children-” Fudge started. The Headmaster held up his hand.

“The barriers we have up now will protect them, and even if they were to fail, we fought off the tide of war before the aurors showed up… I cannot deny that it puts a small amount of peace in my mind to have them here, but at the same time, this castle and these grounds are the most guarded in all the wizarding community. Your people are needed elsewhere, at least for the time being.”

Fudge nodded. “Fine.” He looked around for his assistants, and was surprised to find them standing fifteen feet or so behind them, straining to hear what was being said. He motioned to the eldest assistant, a short brown haired man, still no older than 24, and told him, “Take Percy and go to the front gates of the school. Tell the aurors to leave their four best officers at the school. The other twelve will be returning to duty at the Ministry of Magic as soon as possible.” The man nodded and he and Percy hurried off, Percy scribbling notes down furiously as they went. Fudge then turned to his other two assistants, and said, “Go to the school owlery and send word to the head of Auror’s office that it is by my order that eight of his people return to regular duty.” These assistants also hurried off, and once they were out of earshot, Fudge turned back to Dumbledore, who had now raised a brow at the orders given.

The Minister looked around nervously, and said, “I trust three of my assistants with my life Albus… the fourth I believe to be an agent of the Dark Lord. Can you guess which one will run to him with all the information just exchanged between you and I?”

Dumbledore smiled sadly and nodded. “Mr. Weasley has long since fallen out of step with his family, and I believe it has done him only harm.” Fudge nodded.

“I’ll leave eight aurors with you… do with them what you will. As the months go on I will send them back to you one at a time until there are 16 again.”

For the first time in his life, Harry woke up with high expectations for his birthday. Draco’s birthday had come to pass a week ago, and Severus had made sure that there were presents and people waiting for him in the Great Hall at breakfast time. Draco had been greatly surprised by the gesture of other staff members, including Minerva McGonagall showing up. Harry wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw a present from Draco’s mother sitting on the small pile.

Harry yawned, and smiled to himself, alone in the seventh year boy’s dormitory in Gryffindor tower. He was now of age, and could use magic whenever he wanted. It was unfortunate, he thought to himself wryly, that he was stuck in the castle where he could already use magic whenever he wanted.

Somewhere just then he imagined Ron levitating plates and silverware to his dining room table for Mrs. Weasley just because he could… something Harry would be more than willing to do if he could only escape the castle for a day.

Downstairs Harry greeted the empty common room with a smile. He couldn’t wait for the rest of the students to return so that the tower and rest of the school would be full of people again. Sure he had no curfew and could go wherever he liked during the summer, but it was no fun without someone to go exploring with… that was the kind of thing best friends were for. Harry was quite lonely without Ron and Hermione. He had Snape for company on occasion, and other staff and Draco at meal times, but that wasn’t the same as finding some kind of trouble to get into with Ron.

The last week had been particularly empty and lonely for Harry. Severus had been gone on Order business and Harry had no one to talk to. But he would be back today Harry was sure. There was no way he would miss his birthday.

Harry made his way down through the castle at a casual pace. He didn’t really care about presents, but he wondered what he had gotten all the same. When he was almost to the Entrance Hall he was both pleased and surprised to hear familiar voices.

“Ron!” he called from the top of the stairs. Ron and Hermione looked up at him from where they stood, and Harry walked down to them.

“What are you two doing here?” he asked.

Ron rolled his eyes. “Did you think we wouldn’t come for your birthday?”

Harry grinned. “You have no idea how happy I am to have you two here,” he said with heart.

Ron snorted and said, “I’ll bet… I might kill myself if I was stuck in an empty castle with Snape and Draco…” he trailed away, remembering how Harry thought about Snape. Harry’s feelings for their Potion’s Master had never sat right with Ron, but knowing that Harry now had some kind of parent, which Hermione had reminded him of forcefully on several occasions that summer, made him hold his peace about it.

Harry shrugged. “I hardly see them… it’s pretty lonely here without you two.”

“Lonely!” Ron said incredulously. “You’ve got a fast broom and an entire Quidditch pitch in your back yard! Here, you go home to my mum and do all the chores she has me doing now I can do magic legally, and I’ll come here and sleep in til’ noon and play Quidditch all day long…”

Laughing, Harry shook his head. “No Quidditch for me. They won’t let us outside the front doors.”

Ron made a disgusted face and rolled his eyes again. “Figures. Mum almost wouldn’t let me and Hermione out of the house to come see you… Death eaters on the loose and all. We had to remind her for an hour that we’re of age now.” They made their way into the Great Hall, Hermione nudging Ron in the ribs because he’d made a comment about Snape earlier.

Inside Harry found Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Sprout, but no Snape. They made their way to the table the three Professors were sitting at, and had a seat. As Harry sat down on the bench between his two friends, a small pile of presents appeared before him, along with a small cake with sloppy red and gold icing. For a moment Harry wondered if Hagrid had made the cake, but discarded the thought when he noticed that he also was not there.

“Good morning Harry,” Dumbledore greeted him warmly, cup of coffee in both hands.

“Good morning sir,” Harry replied just as he had done every morning that summer.

Harry looked around for Snape again, hoping to see him walk through the door, but did not find him. Trying to distract him, Dumbledore turned to McGonagall, who was sitting next to him, and said, “Minerva… I wonder, could you tell me why there are presents stacked on this table?”

She rolled her eyes, thinking Harry was too old for this game. “Maybe because you put them there,” she said, trying to make the words not sound forced.

“Oh yes… that’s right… I remember now.” He turned to Harry and said, “Happy birthday Harry.”

Harry nodded, “Thanks,” and Hermione pushed a few presents from the stack towards him.

The first gift was a book on advanced defensive techniques from Hermione, and the second a Snitch with purple wings from Ron. “It flies almost twice as fast,” Ron explained. “Fred and George made it… they said you needed practice with something better than the beat up Gryffindor Snitch.”

Halfway through the third present, a new pair of khaki pants from Mr. And Mrs. Weasley, Draco walked into the Great Hall, forgetting it was Harry’s birthday and expecting breakfast as usual. When he was halfway to the table, he rolled his eyes and made a face at the presence of Ron and Hermione and the stack of gifts for Harry. Professor McGonagall sent him a warning look, and he sat quietly down the table a little ways and on the opposite side as Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Ron made a face similar to the one Draco had just let go of when he sat down, but Draco ignored him, eyes scanning the gifts Harry had already opened. There were two left from the stack.

The fourth gift was several new shirts from Ginny. Ron explained that she had wanted to come, but Mrs. Weasley wouldn’t let her because she was still underage, and he had gotten shirts and pants for his birthday because somebody had wrecked all his clothes the year before. Ron shot a glare at Draco as he said this, remembering the mess somebody had left his and Harry’s things in because they were searching for what they had supposed was homework Harry was supposed to be grading for Snape. Draco looked away, and remained silent.

Harry thought the final unopened gift to be from Snape, but was disappointed to find that it wasn’t. It was wrapped in shiny silver paper with odd shapes in a lighter silver color, and the tag revealed that it was from the Headmaster. Draco also had received a gift from Dumbledore on his birthday: A book about legendary heroes and their lives… Draco had been amazed that he had received the gift from the old man at all, which had intrigued him enough to open the book and read it, when it seemed completely uninteresting from the cover.

Harry pulled away the paper to find an even older copy of the same book: Heroes of Our Past, Present, and Future: The Life and Death of Those Who Sacrificed Themselves For Us. Harry tried not to frown at the gift, and Draco did it for him.

“I believed you would find the book interesting,” Dumbledore told him, warm smile still on his face.” Harry nodded.

“Thank you sir.”


After they had eaten cake, Harry, Ron, and Hermione roamed the empty corridors of the castle in the same way Harry had been doing since the first day of summer vacation.

“I’m sure he meant well,” Hermione said about Dumbledore’s gift. “I don’t think he would give it to you if he didn’t think you could find some meaning in it.”

“The only meaning he wants me to get from it is that I’m going to die if I don’t murder Voldemort,” Harry said, agitated.

“Oh Harry, I’m sure that’s not-” but Harry waved her off. Ron put his arm around Hermione’s shoulder and she didn’t say anything else about it.

As they walked, Ron asked, “What was that git doing at your party?”

Harry knew he was referring to Draco. He shrugged. “It was just breakfast for him I guess… I was there at his party a week ago.”

“They threw him a party?” Harry nodded and Ron made another face. “Well, at least you have the entire castle to avoid him in… I bet if you timed it out right you wouldn’t even have to see him at meal times.”

Harry didn’t respond. He had his hands in his pockets and was looking at the corridor floor as they walked. Why hadn’t Snape been there? There wasn’t even a gift… not that he needed a gift. He would rather that Snape had been there for the twenty minutes that everybody else had showed up.

Hermione nudged Ron in the side gently at the look on Harry’s face, and trying to get his attention, Ron asked, “Are you sure they won’t let you out to the pitch?” Harry nodded.

“I tried… so did Draco I think. I heard McGonagall telling him off one day… said if she caught him outside the castle he was going to be doing summer time detentions with Filch…”

“It would serve him right,” Ron said. Apparently he thought he was helping, but Hermione felt that he wasn’t.

“Ron!” she scolded him. “You just wanted Harry to go out there and play!”

“I never said he should sneak out.” He tried to look innocent, but Hermione knew that that’s where the conversation would have lead eventually.

Ron and Hermione stayed with Harry until five in the evening, and then said that they had to head home before Mrs. Weasley called half the Auror force out to look for them.

“We were supposed to be back by 4:30,” Hermione said. “Ron, your mother’s going to kill us… and I’m not even part of your family.”

Ron grinned and waggled his eyebrows at her as they stepped into the fireplace with floo in the Great Hall. “Not yet anyhow.” Hermione tilted her head at him in surprise, and Harry laughed as Ron shouted, “The Burrow!” and they disappeared. Harry watched the orange flames flickering for a moment, considering finding some floo powder somewhere and following them. He was seventeen now… he could do whatever he wanted, couldn’t he?

Just as he was about to take a step back and was thinking about where some floo powder might be, the flames in front of him suddenly roared purple, a color Harry had never seen fire turn before, an icy chill momentarily replacing the warmth the flames had given him, and then the purple flames were gone. Harry frowned. What was that about?

“They took it off the floo.” Harry turned to see Draco walking over to sit at the empty table they had been using at mealtimes that summer.

“What?” Harry asked him.

Draco rolled his eyes at having to repeat himself. “They took it off the floo… that’s what happens when they disconnect a fireplace from the floo network. They only opened it up for Weasley and Granger.” Draco thought this should have been quite obvious, but Harry turned back to look at the flames some more. They were back to regular flames you would expect to find in any fireplace.

“Do they think Voldemort would try to floo in?” Harry ducked as soon as he had said Voldemort’s name, because Draco had thrown a fork at him like a spear, and it had gone sailing past his left ear, coming to a clattering halt on the floor behind him.

“Don’t say that name in front of me,” he warned. Harry frowned, and continued toward the table where Draco was at, a little shocked that Draco had thrown something at him. He had a good aim.

Draco glared as Harry sat down opposite him and food appeared between the two of them. They stared at each other quietly for a moment, before Draco said, “They think we’ll try to get out.”

“We can leave any time we want,” Harry said, pulling a chicken leg from the platter between them. “We’re seventeen now.”

“Yeah, and be dead,” Draco scoffed. “Are you that eager to die?”

Harry shook his head. “How many times has Vol-” he paused as Draco picked up his empty goblet and held it as if he was going to beat Harry over the head with it. Harry rethought his question, and then asked, “How many times has You-Know-Who tried to kill me, and how many times has he succeeded?”

Draco put the goblet down and shook his head. “You’re worse than Crabbe and Goyle Potter.” Harry knew this was an insult, considering that Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle were most likely the two stupidest guys in school

“How do you figure that?” Harry asked, putting his chicken leg down and looking up at Draco.

“Because it doesn’t matter how many times he tries to kill you… it only matters the one time he actually does.”

“You think I’m that easy to beat?” Harry knew he sounded cocky, but he was already in a bad mood, and didn’t care.

Draco looked up at him, disbelieving for a moment, and then looked away. “I think you haven’t seen half of what the bastard can do. He doesn’t get followers because they want to join or because he puts them under a spell… he gets them because he tortures them in ways you can’t imagine until they say yes.” He looked down for a moment, clearly remembering something horrible, and then finished. “More than a Cruciatus was used on the Longbottoms…”

Harry frowned, trying to think. What kind of pain was worse than a Cruciatus? “Like what?” he asked, feeling stupid for having to ask Draco.

“It’s because of him that only one Longbottom goes to this school.” Harry didn’t like the implications of that. Not that he had been famished in the first place, but now he wasn’t hungry at all. He watched Draco, mouth slightly open, waiting for more.

“You don’t mean-”

Draco pushed his plate away and stood up. “Neville had two older brothers. The Cruciatus isn’t what made his parent’s go crazy.” He turned and began to walk away, also not hungry any more.

Harry wasn’t sure if he believed what Draco had told him. “Does he know?”

There was no answer for a moment, and Draco kept walking. At the door to the Entrance Hall, he said behind him, “Nobody ever told him.”


Harry wasn’t sure why he had to know, but five minutes later he was in the Library, pouring over old issues of the Daily Prophet that Madam Pince had pulled from a shelf for him. The paper they were printed on was crumbling and yellowed on the edges, and the cranky Librarian scolded Harry several times for not being more careful with the papers.

“We can’t get more of those you know!” she told him angrily. “It’s not like they make the same issue day after day!”

Harry slowed down a little bit as he rifled through the papers. Finally he came to an issue marked November 20, 1981. The bold headline on the front page read: Longbottom Children Mysteriously Die: Deaths Suspected Cause by You-Know-Who’s Followers.

Harry shook his head and scanned the article until he found the names of the two boys. Two year old Terrance and four year old Jason Longbottom were found at the bottom of the well on Malfoy Manor late this morning by Ministry officials. The well is dry and it appears that the two youngsters had been thrown… Harry stopped reading, disgusted. It made sense that Draco knew about the deaths now. Harry didn’t think that Draco had sat pouring over old newspapers like he had and just stumbled across the information. Anger boiled inside him as he wondered if Lucius Malfoy had been responsible for the two boy’s deaths. Harry was sure that he was responsible for so many others.

A cold chill overtook the hot anger in his veins, and Harry shivered. He was so sick of all the death and destruction Voldemort had caused. Harry carried the stack of Prophet’s back to Madam Pince’s desk and left the Library, not having any other place he needed to go, but not wanting to sit still and do nothing. Every day that he was stuck in the castle he felt more and more like a caged animal. He wondered if Draco felt the same way, but suddenly didn’t care.

Not watching where his feet were taking him, Harry ended up at the top of the East tower. He stopped in front of the attic door. Last year he and Ron had been sent to clean the attic with two other boys as part of a five-day detention. During the battle against Voldemort and his followers the previous fall, half the roof had been blasted off and had to be replaced. Harry unlocked the door with a first year spell and pushed it open. It was neat and tidy, but a new and thick layer of dust coated everything.

Evening sun still shined in through the four attic windows, and Harry crossed the dusty floor to look out one of them. He climbed on top of an enormous desk the size of Dumbledore’s that sat under the window, and sat looking out across the grounds. He could see part of the forest and a piece of the lake and a good part of the grounds. In the distance he could see the empty Quidditch pitch. Cold loneliness filled him from the inside out, and he pulled his legs to his chest to hug. Snape had shown up to Draco’s party, and given him a gift… why didn’t he show up to his?

* * *

Severus Snape strode angrily past the two aurors guarding the front gate to the school. They had tried to stop him in the darkness to verify his identity, but he had hurriedly flashed them his ID and they had let him pass, seeing the angry look on his face and not wanting to deal with him.

It was nearly two am. The cool night air breezed through his long, dark hair as he walked, angry at Dumbledore for sending him on such a meaningless task that any other Order member could have completed easily. It wasn’t so much that he minded putting his life on the line now that the Dark Lord knew who’s side he was on, but more that he had more important things to do than to go chasing down false leads on one of the stupid Weasley children. He had been running around the country for a week trying to find signs that that goody two-shoes Percy had been helping the Dark Lord. He highly doubted that the brown-nosing son of Arthur and Molly Weasley would ever relay information to the Dark Lord about the Ministry and it’s movements. He may as well have been investigating Hermione Granger for all the information he had found, which amounted to nothing more than Percy’s favorite restaurant, and the name of his current girlfriend.

As Severus made his way into the castle and then down to his room in the dungeons, he had no idea that Harry was sleeping fitfully against an old attic window more than ten floors above him because he had not shown up to tell him happy birthday. In his anger at Dumbledore over the last few days, he had almost forgotten his surrogate son’s birthday, and in the angry moment that he climbed into bed at two in the morning, he actually did forget.

Why had Dumbledore sent him away for such a meaningless errand?

Light filtered weakly in through the old attic window, lighting motes of dust in a beam that in turn lit up a hunched, sleeping figure.

Harry’s chest rose and fell, his body twitching every now and then in his fitful dreams of Draco throwing the school house elves at him and laughing as Snape brought him a new gift every time he hit Harry in the head with one. The third time Draco hit Harry with Dobby, finally knocking him to the cold stone floor, Harry woke up, achy from sleeping upright, and feeling as if he had actually been beaten down with many three-foot tall house elves.

For a moment he was confused as he looked around himself and did not find his bed or his dorm room, or even his small room at number four Privet Drive. Then he remembered with an unpleasant feeling somewhere in the depths of his stomach, that he had fallen asleep the night before feeling more alone than he ever had.

Harry stretched unwillingly and groaned as his muscles protested. He had woken once in the dark night, wondering where at that moment that Snape was, and then gone back to sleep, too tired to make his way back to Gryffindor tower. While he had grown accustomed to a pleasant feeling at having someone to call “dad,” at least in his own mind, Harry now felt sick each time he thought about Severus missing the one day he could call his own. Thoughts that the Slytherin head of house actually liked Draco more than him tugged at his heart as he climbed off the desk, and made his way out of the attic, re-locking the door behind him. He thought of going down to breakfast, seeing as how he was still fully-clothed from the day before, but discarded the thought immediately, half wanting to find Severus there waiting for him, and half not wanting to see him at all, just in case he had missed Harry’s birthday on purpose.

As Harry made his way back to Gryffindor tower, he thought to himself, it was just a stupid day… what made it so different from any other day? Why do you have to make such a big deal of everything? He shook his head; he didn’t know why it was so important to him, but it was. He tried to push all thoughts of the previous day from his mind, tired of thinking about it, and tired of feeling as rejected as he did, but was unsuccessful clearing his mind. In fact, it surprised him that Voldemort hadn’t stepped into his mind in his dreams as he slept, when he was so distressed before he had gone to sleep.

If Severus knew that he hadn’t occluded his mind… there he went again, thinking about Severus… the father figure he had to compete for, and had obviously lost the game. Or maybe he hadn’t lost… perhaps Draco had just played unfairly. Thoughts confused, probably from lack of proper rest, Harry thought to himself, I wonder if Draco planned on stealing away the only parent I’m ever going to get the chance to have.

He scratched the back of his head as he rounded a corner sleepily and was not pleased to find Draco standing there looking out a window in the corridor that showed the Quidditch pitch across the grounds.

“You look like hell,” Draco said as Harry stopped and stared at him dumbly, feeling numb and tired from lack of a good solid sleep.

For many moments Harry searched his mind for the words he wanted to say, and couldn’t find anything within his grasp. All of a sudden it was as if he didn’t know how to talk anymore.

“Leave me alone,” he finally said, and continued past the blond boy, a foot scraping the floor every once in a while because he was either too tired, or didn’t care enough to pick it up off the ground all the way.

Draco frowned behind him. “Fine with me Potter,” he muttered, shifting his gaze back to the pitch out the window.

In his common room, Harry flopped down on a couch, feeling hungry but not wanting to eat with the rest of the staff. He had no doubt that what Draco had said about his appearance was true. He probably had bags under his eyes and messed up hair. If Hermione were here he was sure she could spell him to look better, but she was somewhere in the freedom of the Burrow at the moment, probably eating with the Weasleys. Oh what he would give to be there with them now… with his surrogate family, eating breakfast at a table surrounded by people who probably cared about him more than anybody else he knew. These were the people, he thought sadly as he pictured the orange haired family and Hermione sitting around the table, these are the people who would never betray me. These are the people who will always be there when I need them, no matter what.

Harry took some comfort in these thoughts as he put his feet up on a tattered footstool in front of him and closed his eyes. As Harry drifted off, he could almost hear Fred and George laughing as they ran down the stairs to breakfast, and could see Hermione elbowing Ron for something he’d said or done that she didn’t approve of. The dreams that followed through the afternoon were much more satisfying to Harry than the ones spent on a desk by a cold window.

* * *

Severus snapped the paper open in front of him at his seat in the Great Hall. He was uninterested in the oatmeal that had appeared in front of him when he had initially taken a seat at the empty table, and was uninterested in engaging in meaningless conversation with the other staff members that filtered in over the next twenty minutes. Unfortunately for Severus, Minerva McGonagall had other ideas for him.

A hand appeared over the top edge of Severus’ copy of the Daily Prophet, and gently pulled it down so that he had to look up and meet her calculating stare.

“Yes?” he asked testily, raising an eyebrow. He was still in a foul mood from the night before.

“And where were you yesterday morning?”

Severus tried to snap the paper open again, but she held on tight, wrinkling the paper in the process. When she would not let go, he said through his teeth, “On an errand.”

“An errand more important that Harry?”

He lowered the paper completely now, even more agitated. “You grow more like Albus every day… why must you speak in riddles?”

“It humors me,” she said without humor in her tone at all. “I’m talking about his birthday.”

Severus closed his eyes and let out a pained sigh. He had forgotten. Put on his errand, he had known he might miss it, but he had forgotten the moment he had made it back to the castle the night before.

“Where is he?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, but he didn’t go back to Gryffindor tower last night.”

His brow creased, Severus thought back to how fragile the boy could sometimes be. At moments he was as bad as Draco, and visa versa.

“You truly believe that my absence from one breakfast was enough to throw his state of mind a kilter?”

“It’s Harry,” she said calmly, still staring Severus down. “What do you think he will believe when you showed up to Mr. Malfoy’s breakfast, but not his own?”

Snape grew thoughtful again. What ever made me think I was fit for the task of father figure? I didn’t ask for this. Indeed he had not asked for the position of being looked up to and trusted by one younger than himself, but he could not deny that it was something that he wanted.

Running a hand through his hair, Severus said, “I do not know what to do. I am not made for this.”

“Not made for thinking about other people?”

His eyes snapped up to McGonagall’s at the remark, and the look in them was enough to convey his distaste for her at that moment. “Do not think for a moment that I avoided the party. It was not my idea to go gallivanting off across the country on a meaningless task.”

She raised a brow. “Does Harry know that?”

Severus sighed again. They both knew the answer to her question.

* * *

When Harry awoke in the afternoon, he still felt achy all over, except that this was the type of ache one got from sleeping all day. It made him feel even more tired, which did not help his state of mind. Groggy, he rose from the couch and traipsed up the stairs to his dormitory to change into some of the new clothes he got for his birthday, so that it didn’t look as if he had just slept the past 16 hours in the clothes he was going to be walking around in.

The empty dormitory greeted him in a silence that suddenly made him feel uncomfortable. He wished his friends were there again. In his younger years, Harry was used to feeling completely alone as he spent hours on end hiding from Dudley or his uncle Vernon, but now he was far too used to the company of those who cared about him. The silence surrounding him in the darkened tower room took him back to a time where he desperately did not want to be. Again, he could not help but thinking that he was making too much of things.

Harry ran a hand through his messed up hair and sat down on the edge of his bed. He needed something to distract himself, and his broom, leaning against the side of his wardrobe caught his eye. If only he could sneak outside, he thought. At least Ron would be proud if he managed to get past the auror guards. What could they do to him if he got caught? Turn him into Dumbledore or Snape? He’d get a slap on the wrist, if that.

Making up his mind, Harry pulled out his invisibility cloak and covered his broom in it, pleased that it fit perfectly under the disappearing material. Once completely wrapped up in the cloak, Harry having a tight grip on it, and hoping he wouldn’t look too weird holding something that would appear to be nothing, he started for the common room again. He would sneak the broom up to the attic, he thought, and wait until night when he knew the guard’s shift change was, and then use the cloak to cover himself and fly out to the pitch. It wasn’t much of a plan, he admitted to himself, but he didn’t care. At the moment, it was enough to take his mind from other things.

With the broom completely concealed, Harry didn’t worry about bumping in to anybody in the corridors until he again walked around a corner to find Draco. Draco cocked his head to the side when he saw Harry, and narrowed his eyes.

“What do you want?” Draco asked him.

Harry shook his head and smiled, pleased that Draco had not noticed the broom. “I can’t walk down the halls now?”

Draco’s eyes narrowed further, and then finally his gaze wandered down to Harry’s hand. He lunged forward and tried to rip the hidden broom from Harry, but his Seeker reflexes kicking in, Harry sidestepped him and pulled the broom out of the way.

Draco grinned, suspicions confirmed. “Going out for a little joy ride were we?” he taunted.

Harry rolled his eyes. “What, going to tell on me? If I cared I wouldn’t be trying to get out anyway.”

“Oh no,” Draco said, “I’ve just been waiting for you and that cloak to appear. You’re going to carry my broom out with you.”

Harry laughed wryly. “Or what?”

Draco pulled his wand out and pointed it at Harry. “What fun is it chasing a stupid Snitch around by yourself? Besides, if we can get out, we can duel where no one will stop us.”

“You want to fight?”

Draco put his wand away and turned, excited now, back to the window through which he’d been staring. “I want something to do.”

* * *

Still not hungry, Harry avoided the Great Hall, and instead found a quiet spot in the castle that he had not been in before to wait until the arranged time to meet Draco in the attic. He had half a mind to not show up at all, but his sense of boredom got the better of him, and he planned on being there by the window with his broom at nine o’clock.

The hours passed by slowly, Harry having only his thoughts to keep him company. He did not like sitting around and doing nothing. During the school year, he sometimes wished desperately for summer to come so that he could sit around and be free of work, but now that it was there, he wanted only for the castle to be full of people again, and for somebody to give him something to do.

Harry sighed heavily and was startled when footsteps sounded behind him, seemingly coming from nowhere. He turned quickly from his spot on the windowsill and found Severus standing there behind him, arms crossed.

“Do not think of climbing out the window to go to the pitch.”

“What?” Harry worked quickly to occlude his mind, but realized that he hadn’t been thinking of flying at that moment, and wondered how he knew.

“I caught Draco sneaking his broom up to a higher floor an hour and a half ago.”

“Hm,” Harry turned around to look through the window again.

“Do you want to keep me locked up in here all alone?” Harry said, coming off more sarcastic than he wanted to as feelings of desertion came flooding back over him.

“I wish you not to break rules set down for your own protection.”

Harry didn’t answer, and Severus moved a few steps closer to him. In the silence that passed between them in the next few moments, a million things Harry wanted to shout came to mind. What was so important that he had missed his birthday? Was he spending more time with Draco? Did he like Draco more? The seeds of doubt that had been planted in Harry’s mind the day before had now grown into hundred foot tall trees.

Finally Severus broke the silence, and said, “It was not my intention to miss your birthday. I am sorry.”

“You made sure to be at Draco’s party…” Harry paused, thinking in his mind that no matter what Snape said to him, he was still going to break out of the castle somehow that night and go to the pitch… even if he had to leave his broom behind, he just wanted out.

“I was on an errand.”

“Was it that important?”

Severus moved the remaining steps to Harry now, and put a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “No, it was not.”

Confused with the answer he had been given, Harry looked up into Severus’ eyes with a frown.

“I was sent on an errand I do not believe was important,” he held up his hand to stop Harry’s oncoming question, and said, “and although I wish to, I cannot tell you, or Draco, the nature of the task. I can only tell you that it was not by choice that I went.”

Harry thought that over, and while he forgave the man behind him in his mind, his feelings were not so easy to win over. In one last defiant moment, Harry said quietly, “Just another wasted birthday.”

Silence. “Explain.”

Having said it, Harry did not know how to explain. He did not even know why he said it. It was one of those moments where he felt like a child with his hand caught in a cookie jar. Pondering on what he had said, he finally came up with, “I never had a parent at a birthday party… not that I can remember anyhow.”

“You did not have parties when you were younger?”

“The first party I ever had was after I started school and I was with the Weasleys.”

“Hm…” After a moment, a hand with a small box wrapped in plain brown paper appeared in front of Harry’s face. Harry stared at the box for a moment, and then looked up to Severus.

“I bought this a month ago,” he told him, still holding out the box. “I had intended to give it to you on time, and am… displeased, that I could not.”

Harry looked back at the box, and finally reached out and took it. It was light, and felt empty. He unwrapped the box and let the paper fall to the floor. Inside was what looked like a paper book cover.

Seeing the confused look on Harry’s face, Severus said, “You do not like it?”

“Oh no, I do… it’s just… what is it again?”

From within his robes, Severus pulled a small, but heavy looking book. He handed it to Harry, who immediately wanted to drop it because of its weight. He wondered how the man before him had carried it in his pocket and not sagged from the extra weight.

“Place the book on top of the cover, and wrap the cover around it.”

Harry did as he was told, and was amazed to find the cover shrinking around the book. Immediately the book was paper light, and Harry tossed it in the air a couple times, having to wait a few seconds for it to float back down to him.

“What’s this called?” he asked, amazed.

“A book cover,” Severus said, in his own mind thinking that he was funny. Giving him a small smile, Harry removed the cover to find the book extremely heavy again.

“It will wrap up to five large books. It is a rare item made in Malaysia by a dwarf named Gorgok. He used it to wrap heavy golden bars. I thought you might find it useful for carrying school books.”

Finally Harry smiled. He couldn’t remember what Severus had gotten Draco, but he knew it wasn’t as good as this gift. Inside, he felt he had won a small match between the two of them.

Severus nodded, and asked, “Have you eaten?”

Harry shook his head. “If you are not busy, I have also not eaten, and would not mind company in the Great Hall. The rest of the staff have already left to do other things.” Harry nodded and jumped down off the windowsill, no longer thinking of sneaking out of the castle for the moment.

Feeling the weight of his previous feelings of loneliness lift from him, Harry found himself feeling warm all over. Wondering how Severus would take it if he called him “dad,” as he had only called him this on three previous occasions, Harry smiled, and said, “Thanks for the gift… dad.”

Severus’ face remained as calm and free of emotion as it usually did in front of other people, but inside a warm feeling that he had hardly felt in the last twenty years crept over him. It was a feeling so foreign to him that it felt as if it was the first time he had ever experienced it every time he felt it. It wasn’t unpleasing to him. In fact, it was the opposite of displeasing, and he longed to hear the name again. For the first time in a long time, he felt as if there was something bigger at work than himself. It was amazing to think that someone who had every right to hate him, and for so long had taken advantage of that right, now thought of him not as an enemy, but as a father.

“You’re welcome… son.” That was a first for him too, he thought to himself. At one point in time he had entertained the idea of having children… of having children with Lily; but that seemed in another lifetime. His memories of that time seemed like a show he was watching where some unknown actor played him.

Harry grinned as they walked down the corridor and around a corner.

Appearing from a side hall where Harry had been sitting on the windowsill, Draco frowned deeply inside and out. Familiar hatred for Harry sprang up within him and heated his insides. Perfect Potter getting his way again, he thought to himself. Perfect popular Potter. The fact was, against their resident hero, he didn’t stand a chance. Why would anyone want Draco as a son when they could have the famous Harry Potter, who never did anything wrong, and had a million friends?

“Damn it Draco!”

Draco ducked as something heavy and silver came flying at him. A heavy sterling silver bowl clattered on the expensive wooden floor as Draco shook with anger and fear, adrenaline pumping through him, setting him on edge and making him ready to leap aside to safety at a second’s notice.

“Why the hell can’t you just do what you’re told!?”

Draco bit his tongue, trying to keep the tears from coming. Crying would only make things worse, he told himself as his father stormed around the room, shooting his son dirty glares and holding up his fist to threaten him every moment or so.

“I tried!” Draco said, trying to force respect into his voice so that he wouldn’t get smacked for it.

Lucius moved faster than Draco could, and was in his face before he could cover it with his arms. “I don’t care to hear, ‘I tried,’” he spat in his son’s face. “When I tell you to do something you had better do it!”

Tears threatened to overwhelm the small, blond haired boy again as his father took a step back and picked something else up to throw at him, this time hitting his target in the chest, and for a moment, knocking the wind out of him.

Draco shook violently for a moment with the effort not to let the tears spill forth. The last time he had cried in front of his father he had not been able to sit up on his own for a week and a half because of his father’s anger. “I will not have a weak son!” his father spat from across the room, mimicking what he had said to Draco the last time he had cried.

“I’m not weak!” Draco was terrified that he had let slip the wrong ‘disrespectful’ thing to say at that moment, but his father did not pick up anything else to throw at him just then.

“Then what are you Draco?” Lucius laughed a dry, humorless laugh that made his son shudder again. “You are certainly not worth anything to me as you are! You can’t even carry out a simple task that I’ve given you an entire year to do!”

“His friends were always around him!”

Lucius picked up something and threw it at Draco again. Draco successfully dodged the small golden statue, and it clattered to the debris littered floor of his father’s drawing room with the rest of the things he had been hit with in the last ten minutes.

“EXCUSES!” he roared. “If I wanted excuses Draco I would go and talk to Crabbe and Goyle! For God’s sake son! You’re twelve years old now! Why can’t you do something so simple!?”

Draco opened his eyes and lay staring at the green cloth ceiling to his four-poster bed in Slytherin dungeon. His chest rose and fell heavily, and he listened to his labored breathing for a few moments, not caring to gather the composure to calm himself just then. In this room, in this bed, Draco felt safe from the harm that had always fallen upon him at Malfoy manor. This was the one place where he had always felt safe, if even only for the short time of one term to the next.

He would have very much liked to tell himself that it was only a dream… only a nightmare that would not come back if he went back to sleep, but he knew it wasn’t true. At home, his life was the stuff nightmares were made of, and Lucius Malfoy took pride in knowing he scared his son into obedience most days, not caring of the hatred from Draco he brought on in doing so.

Draco rolled onto his side and pulled the soft, warm green covers up over his shoulder. I’m never going back there, he thought to himself silently. I will never be under my father’s wrath again. I will never treat my kids that way. That was an interesting thought, he thought to himself. Never before had Draco thought about having children. He was only seventeen, but still, occasionally he heard other students talking about getting married and having kids someday. Granted, those other students were mostly girls, but knowing he was not alone in these thoughts at his age helped to put his fears of abnormality to rest.

Unfortunately, there was no girl in Slytherin he would trust… not with his life or his children’s, should he ever have any. The unfortunate reality of the people he went to school with was, that Slytherins in general were not nice people. This was not always the case, but Draco had decided sometime in his earlier years at school there that he did not want to be with somebody like himself. He needed somebody who would have the guts to stand up to him and tell him when he was doing things wrong. The last thing he wanted to do was to make one of his children feel like his father had made him feel since he could first remember: terrified, alone, and unwanted.

As he lay in the dark, another thought came to him. Lucius wasn’t really his father… biologically he was… Draco looked just like him; but as a parent, Lucius was worse than an angry mountain troll. Inside, the emptiness that Draco had always tried to hide felt like an even bigger empty cavern. If Lucius was not his father, than who was? There was no one. Certainly not his head of house, no matter how much he would like him to be. Not with Potter around, stealing all of the attention and affection…

While attention was not foreign to Draco, seeing as how sometimes he had far more than he would have liked from his father, affection certainly was. In the rare moments when Draco and his mother were alone, she expressed her sorrow for his situation and her love for him as her son, but other than that, Draco did not really know the meaning of the word. Son had become a dirty name to him whenever his father had called him that… it was as bad as being called mudblood or blood traitor… two names Draco didn’t really care to use himself, but always had to keep up appearances as ‘his father’s son.’

Silently, Draco was disgusted with himself for many long moments as he lay there, thinking about the things he had been made to do to other students by his father’s command. He felt sickened to know he had given that much control over his life to somebody who would only use the control for evil. Again he thought, if I live long enough to have kids, they will never know the kind of life I have been made to have. More than hate for his father and for the Dark Lord now seemed to harden his resolve for ending the Dark Lord’s reign in those long dark moments Draco lay alone in the silent night every time he woke from a nightmare.

I will never have a parent, Draco admitted to himself, hating Harry right then for Draco’s own admission of loneliness. I am the creation of a monster, and will never be anything better, and who would love a monster for his deeds? Why would anybody choose me when they could choose somebody better? As Draco thought these things to himself, his mind kept trying to tell him that he was wrong, that he was better than Potter and always would be, that he had a parent at home who had taught him about life, maybe the hard way, but had taught him all the same, but he kept resisting the thoughts that had been drilled into him from day one.

Inside his head, Draco could hear his father’s words from years of lessons: “Nobody is better than you. You are a Malfoy. Always act like a Malfoy, and you will be treated like one. We come from royal blood… all other blood is filth.”

Draco stuffed his head under his biggest pillow, trying to block out the noise. “Shut up!” he said angrily into the darkness. Surprisingly, the thoughts stopped running through his mind, and for a short time, he had given himself peace.

* * *
In the morning, Harry felt refreshed from a good night’s sleep. His fears from the day before were almost gone, and he couldn’t help but walk around the castle with a smile. Professor McGonagall noticed the immediate difference in Harry’s attitude at breakfast, and was quick to return a warm smile across the table. Draco felt sickened by the display of friendliness between the staff and their perfect little hero. Draco felt like an outsider looking in every time he saw the way the staff talked to Harry, and then the way they gave Draco sideways glances in the halls, as if wondering what kind of trouble he was getting into.

Without finishing his breakfast, Draco rose from the long table and left to find better company, remembering only after he left, that there was nobody else in the castle that wasn’t in the Great Hall eating breakfast. On his slow walk back to the dungeons, Draco mused that this was the direction his life had taken… he had gone from having a great many friends, to having nobody at all. He had been ousted from the group, and for a very long moment in the empty corridor, Draco began to feel as if he may never have been in the group to begin with.

In the afternoon, Draco again felt sickened with his situation to find Harry in Severus’ office, talking about nothing in particular as the Potion’s Master brewed something in a small cauldron.

Harry and Severus looked up at Draco’s appearance at the open office door, Harry with a smile, but Draco could not find the words he would need to intrude on their private “father-son” moment, and left with a quick excuse that he could not remember later on.

Even though Draco encountered several other professors in the castle that day, and engaged in random conversations with them, he felt alone, and could not get the feeling to leave him, no matter how hard he tried. It was a feeling that he hated hanging over him. He couldn’t help but think that this was how he would spend the rest of his life. The worst part was, he didn’t even have anything to drink in the castle. He’d been stuck there since the previous Christmas, and hadn’t been able to get anybody to sneak anything in for him now that Crabbe, Goyle, and the better part of Slytherin house weren’t talking to him. He had no way of drowning his feelings. Remembering the friends he used to have, who would do things like lie, cheat, and steal for him, Draco also remembered that even with those friends, he never truly felt a part of anything. He was just another student in the house, surrounded by people who didn’t really care.

Just before dinner, as Draco was making his way back from the Library with a book that entailed the complicated spell/potion combination for brewing your own ale, he bumped into Harry in a corridor on the second floor.

Harry tried to step around Draco, content with not causing any trouble, but Draco’s stress and anger was at its peak, and he shoved Harry so hard that he almost knocked him to the ground.

“What’s that about?” Harry asked, regaining his balance and wiping the smile off his face.

“That! Right there!” Draco half shouted at him, meaning his smile but being unwilling to explain any further at Harry’s confused look.

“Just, stay out of my way Potter!”

Harry stepped back, but then thought better of it. Was Draco unhappy because he actually got to spend some time with Severus today? How selfish and arrogant to think he should get all the attention. How like Draco, Harry thought to himself… spoiled rich brat wants everything for himself. Can’t stand to see somebody else happy for once, Harry thought, getting angrier as he thought more about it.

“You know what your problem is Draco…” he started, but next second there were footsteps, and tiny Professor Flitwick appeared between them.

“All right, move along,” he turned and motioned with his hands to Harry. “Off you go. I’m sure you have something to do young man.”

Harry looked down at him and his innocent “shooing” away of them.

Flitwick turned to Draco and motioned for him to continue on his way down the corridor. “Please Mr. Malfoy, I’m sure you have something to do. I don’t want to break up a fight… off you go… both of you.”

Harry and Draco gave each other one last distasteful look, and then left in the original directions they were headed, both angry, and Harry unsure of why Flitwick was so willing to simply let them go, and not try to punish them for fighting.

After dinner that night (for which Draco did not appear) Flitwick pulled McGonagall, Severus, and Dumbledore aside.

“I just barely caught them before they got into it… I heard them down the hall and when I got there they were ready to face off.”

McGonagall shook her head, and said, “I’m amazed they lasted this long.”

“As am I,” Severus commented.

Dumbledore simply looked thoughtful, and after a few moments, said, “Good evening to you. I just remember a book I wanted to begin.”

He began to leave, but astonished by his uncaring attitude, McGonagall said, “Aren’t you the least bit worried that they will fight with each other Albus?”

The old man chuckled to himself and turned back to the three professors for a moment. “Keep them from fighting if you can, but this is one fight I believe we will not be able to avoid in the end.”

Over the next few days, it seemed that the moment Harry and Draco met in a hall or at a meal, there was always a staff member, occasionally a house elf, right there to stop any words from being exchanged between the two. This only served to aggravate Draco, especially because Harry seemed to find it amusing.

Twice they met in the hall without interruption, and Harry opened his mouth to tell Draco off, but just as wands were being pulled Madam Pomfrey or Dobby came running around a corner shouting for them to go find something to do. Harry was beginning to agree with Draco on one thing though, dueling would be something to keep the boredom away since they couldn’t leave the castle, and it seemed they were bumping into each other more and more often now that they were angry than when they weren’t.

* * *

Early one morning, Harry woke to find Dobby sitting on the foot of his bed staring at him.

“Er… hi,” Harry said, sitting up awkwardly so that his legs didn’t accidentally kick the small house elf off the foot of the bed.

“Dobby has a message for master Harry sir.”

“Ok…” Harry rubbed his eyes and squinted at the bright morning light beginning to shine in through the tower windows. His watch read eight in the morning.

“Master Snape wants Harry Potter to wake up and bring his broom down to the Entrance Hall and wait there for him sir.”

Before Dobby could finish the message, Harry was already out of bed and throwing a fresh change of clothes on.

“How long ago did he send you to wake me Dobby?” Harry asked as he hurriedly tied a shoe.

“Only moment’s ago Harry Potter!” Dobby said, looking pleased that Harry was hurrying to obey the command given him.

“Thanks Dobby!” Harry called as he grabbed his Firebolt and the new purple Snitch he got for his birthday, and ran from the room.

Harry tore through the corridors, still pulling on his jacket as he came to the top of the steps in the Entrance Hall. He was pleased to find the hall empty except for Draco standing there with his broom and his flying gloves.

Draco looked up and rolled his eyes. “Figures he would invite you.”

“You got a problem with that?” Harry asked as he came down the stairs, happy that he would be getting to go outside.

“Yeah actually…” Draco and Harry were almost face-to-face again, but there was a crack, and Dobby appeared between the two of them, ears flopping as he forced them back apart.

“No sirs!” Dobby called adamantly, holding his hands out to keep the two boys separated. “Master Snape orders you two sirs not to fights while he is not here!”

“Yeah, well I doubt he’ll let us when he is here,” Draco said, scoffing.

Harry gave him a cold look, and then took a step back, obeying the elf.

Dobby remained with them until Severus arrived a few minutes later, one auror guard in tow. Without a word to the two boys, he motioned for them to follow, and gave a nod to Dobby in thanks for his help. Dobby disappeared with a pop as they exited through the oak front doors out into the sunlight grounds.

The grounds were a little chilly with the morning air, but Harry didn’t care. He was outside, and in a few moments, he hoped to be flying through the crisp air as fast as his broom would carry him.

Severus and the auror named Mulvitch walked ahead of the two silent boys, and chatted about something neither of them could hear. As they reached the stadium, Severus turned to them and said, “Stay inside the pitch.”

Harry and Draco were both already on their brooms though, and zooming through the open Pitch doors and off around the arena.

Wind blew Harry’s hair in every direction, and he loved the feel of it. He pushed his broom faster and faster until he was lying flat to its handle, making many circuits of the field high in the air very quickly.

After a few minutes, Harry looked up and found Severus and Mulvitch in the stands, watching them and talking. Every once in a while Mulvitch raised his wand and uttered a spell that sparked green at the end of his wand and then disappeared. Harry suspected that it was some kind of intruder detection charm, but couldn’t be sure.

Remembering the new Snitch in his pocket, Harry reached in for it and let it fly away at near twice the speed of a normal Snitch. He took chase, but found Draco already ahead of him and almost to the Snitch. Moments later Draco had the purple winged ball wriggling in his fingers. He turned to Harry with a nasty grin, and threw the ball back into the air. Harry gave it a few seconds head start, and then both boys took off after it again.

This time Harry found himself elbow to elbow with Draco, and they both kept banging into each other in pursuit of the purple ball.

“Back off!” Harry yelled, but he only got elbowed for his trouble.

“Shove off!” Draco yelled, and urged his broom faster. Again he caught the Snitch and threw it into the air. Draco waited for a few moments, and then motioned to Harry to take a head start. Harry glared and took the advantage. For ten minutes they chased the Snitch up and down the field, in and out. The ball seemed to go faster and also seemed to evade them easier, maneuvering in and out more now that it seemed to be warmed up. Draco crashed into Harry several times, and finally with one last elbow in Harry’s ribs, got the advantage and stole the purple ball from the air.

Already low to the ground, Harry dove off his broom and tackled Draco, both of them falling the four feet to the soft green grass.

Draco released the Snitch, which took flight immediately, and pulled off his flying gloves, punching Harry square in the face.

High in the stands, Mulvitch stood up and turned to run down and break up the fight, but Severus put a hand on his shoulder and forced him to sit.

“They’ll kill each other!” the auror said, surprised that Snape didn’t seem to care.

“This is something that the other staff have been preventing for the past seven years. I believe the good that will come from this one brawl will outweigh the bad.”

“Yeah,” said the auror, “well let’s hope the good doesn’t kill the bad.”

Snape gave the young auror a challenging look, and said, “Do not speak of either of them in that manner again. Neither is as bad as you would think.”

Unsure, the auror relaxed a little bit, and peered over the edge of the stands to see the two boys better, who were now rolling over and over, trying to pin the other down.

Harry’s face was pressed flat to the grass and for a moment he could taste the green plant before he managed to push himself up and hit Draco in the side of the head. Harry, now sitting on Draco’s legs, had nothing else in his mind but to beat Draco senseless for all of the rotten things he’d said and done to him and his friends over the years.

“You stupid, selfish, son of a-”

Draco kicked Harry in the stomach. “Rotten, filthy, thinks he’s better than-”

“-death eater, piece of slime-”

“-everybody else, fake wanna be-”

“-waste of space-”

“-good for nothing Potter!”

Harry and Draco were barely hearing the names the other was shouting, but Harry did hear the last one. Tired, he fell off of Draco and threw up his arms in front of his face so that Draco wouldn’t take advantage of his lack of fighting just then. Draco raised his arm to hit Harry again, but saw that he was just lying there, and dropped it, too tired to continue anyway.

Harry dropped his arms and looked over at Draco, blood coming from his nose and bottom lip, awesome bruise beginning to color his left temple where Harry had hit him several times.

“I’m proud to be a Potter,” Harry said in the sudden stillness and silence, breathing hard.

Draco spat out a mouthful of blood on the grass beside him, and said, “Well I’m proud to be-” he let the sentence drop, realizing that he certainly wasn’t proud to be his father’s son. Harry looked away, realizing it too.

Looking around, Draco realized just how far they’d gotten away from where they had originally landed… it was more than twenty feet.

“I’m not a death eater’s son,” Draco said after a few moments.

Harry looked back over at him. “Then whose son are you?”

Suddenly laughing at the fact that he’d been asking himself that question for years, Draco quieted, and looked up into the stands to where Severus stood with his arms folded, and the auror stood looking dumbfounded, hanging over the rail watching them.

“Nobody’s,” Draco said, looking back to Harry. “I’m nobody’s son. I never have been, and never will be. You have seen to that.”

“What!?” Harry moved forward half an inch, but Draco had his wand out now, and Harry stopped. The move wasn’t to fight, but more out of shock. He sat back and Draco lowered his wand back to the grass. “What do you mean I’ve seen to that?”

Draco spat more blood out onto the grass, and wiped his mouth with his dirty sleeve. “Perfect Potter always gets everything he wants… popular Potter, our little hero gets himself a new daddy… fantastic Potter, that’s just fantastic. You were born into a good family, and you lost them, and got yourself another one… that’s just great, you have no idea how happy I am for you,” he finished his rant sarcastically.

Harry sat there dumbly, trying to figure out exactly everything the bloodied, blond hair boy on his knees in front of him had just said.

“You’re the rich one Malfoy… you’re the one who always struts around with your tight little Slytherin gang saying how much better you are than everybody else. You’re the one who goes back to a mansion every summer and every Christmas and who has enough money to buy a small country.”

Draco laughed. “You really think my life was that brilliant? What do you think being the son of a death eater is like? You think he treats me any different than he does you or a Muggle?”

“If you’re saying my life has just been all smiles,” Harry said, “you should meet my three hundred pound uncle and my two hundred pound cousin who like to use me as a punching bag on vacation.” Harry and Draco’s eyes met here for a moment, and Draco suddenly felt as if he understood something, although he wasn’t sure what yet.

Silence fell between the two boys again, and a soft wind ruffled through their hair as Harry reached up to feel the thick, sticky blood coming from a scratch on his cheek. From the way his eye felt, he could also tell he was going to have a great bruise there by the time they made it back to the castle.

Draco stood up gingerly and looked around for his broom again. Harry watched him, and wondered just what kind of life he had lead at Malfoy Manor. Was it so unreasonable to believe what Draco had said? From what Harry knew of Lucius Malfoy, and the way he treated people, Harry knew that what Draco had said was probably true.

A moment later, a hand extended down in front of Harry’s face, and he looked up to see Draco looking down at him. Unsure of whether or not it was a trick, Harry took the chance and took Draco’s hand, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. Once he was standing, he realized that he was more injured than he thought his was. There was a pain in his stomach, and he also thought he might have broken a rib.

“I don’t really have a family,” Harry said, referring to Draco’s earlier tirade against him. “I never did.”

“You have him,” Draco said, meaning Snape, who was still in the stands.

Harry shrugged. “I thought you did. I walked around the day of my birthday thinking how good you had it… thinking that he liked you more because you were in his house, and because he didn’t bother to show up for me.”

Draco snorted. “I hardly see him.”

Harry frowned. “Then maybe neither one of us have parents. Maybe neither one of us have anything.”

“At least you have friends Potter,” Draco pointed out. Harry shrugged.

“You do too.”

Now Draco began walking back towards the two fallen brooms and his gloves. Harry followed. “Not after I helped you last year… not after I cast curses at my father and Crabbe and Goyle’s father’s.”

Harry moved in front of Draco to stop him from walking any more. He looked him in the eyes, and said, “You have a brother…”

Draco eyed him warily. “What have you been drinking? I’m an only child.”

Holding out his hand to shake, and unsure why he was doing it at all, Harry said, “Not if you don’t want to be.” Draco looked down at the hand, wondering if he had knocked something loose in Harry’s head when he hit him.

When Draco did not take his hand, Harry shrugged and said, “Come on… we just beat the crap out of each other. You don’t have anybody, I don’t have anybody, we both think of… Severus… as ‘dad’… what does that make us?”

“Pathetic?” Draco offered.

“Blood brothers.”

Draco frowned and looked down at Harry’s hand again. “I don’t know what it is to be a brother.”

“It means blood is thicker than water… blood brothers stick together when they don’t have anybody else. You said yourself you don’t have any friends anymore in Slytherin… that’s going to make this year kind of hellish if you live with them. Wouldn’t you rather have somebody to be your second in a duel than nobody?”

“You wouldn’t do that.” Draco was confused and quite certain that Harry was putting him on.

“How come? Because we hated each other because we both thought the other had everything we wanted?”

Draco looked Harry in the eyes for a long moment, and then reached down and took his hand in a shake. “Don’t be lying to me,” he told him seriously. “I’ve never had anything… not like you. I’ve never had a real friend who wasn’t in it for himself. If you double cross me…”

“You’ll beat me to a pulp?” Harry offered, smiling.

Draco laughed. “I guess I can’t scare you out of it then.”

“Brothers,” Harry said again, gripping Draco’s hand tighter, “or at least… not enemies anymore. You don’t have to be my friend, but we can stop thinking the wrong thing about the other.”

Draco nodded. “Maybe you’re smarter than I thought.”

“Maybe I am.”

Watching him from the corner of his eyes, Draco said, “You weren’t supposed to agree. That was an insult.”

“Maybe you weren’t supposed to insult your new friend.”

“Are we friends then?” Draco asked as Harry picked up his broom and they began to move back to the doors of the pitch.

“I thought we just went over that.” Harry looked up to the stands, and noticed that Severus and Mulvitch were now no longer there.

“You said brothers,” Draco said. “Sounds like a dirty word to me… haven’t you ever heard, who needs enemy when you have family?”

Harry nodded as they crossed the grass, wondering if it hurt Draco to walk just as much as it did him. “I have, but that’s not really family if you can’t call them a friend.”

Draco wiped some blood from his nose again with his sleeve. “I told you Potter… I don’t know what it means to have a brother.”

“Hm…”

Just as the two boys made the door to the pitch, Severus and Mulvitch appeared there, Severus with his hands behind his back, and Mulvitch looking nervous.

“Done flying for the day?” Snape asked in what was supposed to be an innocent tone.

Harry looked down and said, “Yeah… sorry about that.”

“Sorry about what?” Severus asked, still trying to sound as if he didn’t know what they were talking about. “Crashing? That was a nasty crash you two had… next time I believe it would be wise if you both actually watched where you were going instead of crashing head on into each other. Perhaps next time your eyes will be open, and you might see each other coming.”

Draco and Harry looked at each other for a moment, confused, before they realized that Snape was going to deny just sitting there and watching them fight.

“Yeah,” Draco said, catching on just a little quicker than Harry, “nasty crash.”

The walk back to the castle was a quiet one, Harry and Draco thinking deeply on what had just happened, but not feeling alone in their thoughts. To himself, Severus wondered if he had done the right thing, and wondered what would become of it. He had seen many fights before, and had been involved in the majority of them, but he had not seen the kind of fight that ended in mutual respect for both parties.

Barely inside the entrance hall, the auror guard having already left them at the front steps to the castle, a cry of surprise and dismay issued from somewhere above them. “Oh!” It was McGonagall. She rushed down the steps and gave Severus an accusing glare as she appraised the state of both boys, bloodied, bruised, and limping in front of her.

“What happened?” she asked angrily.

Draco shrugged and walked by her towards the steps to find Madam Pomfrey, Harry following close behind.

“Crash,” Harry said calmly, trying to sound as if it were the truth.

“Big crash,” Draco said over his shoulder, and both of them left McGonagall and Snape alone in the Entrance hall. She turned on him as soon as they were gone.

He raised a brow, and said, “They didn’t even see each other coming… good thing they were close to the ground when they came down,” and walked away.

“Draco Malfoy, don’t lie to me!” Madam Pomfrey put her hands on her hips and looked down at the bruised boy sternly. During the school year she was used to seeing him just about as many times as she was Harry. Occasionally he showed up with an odd magical injury that he refused to explain, and other times he came in all bloody and bruised from a rough Quidditch match. She was surprised that she hadn’t seen Draco yet during the summer, and now she had both him and Harry sitting on beds across from her, bloody, bruised, and not telling her the truth.

Draco shrugged, and Pomfrey said, “I know fighting injuries when I see them… you can’t fool a woman who’s been a nurse at a magical school for near twenty years!” She turned to Harry, who had suddenly found his fingernails very interesting, and was giving them a close looking over.

With an “hmpf,” Pomfrey threw her hands up into the air and said, “Fine, fine! Don’t tell me that you were fighting, but I’m not going to treat your bruises just so that you can treat each other like punching bags again!” She turned promptly and strode to her office, muttering something under her breath that sounded like, “They turn seventeen and all the sudden they get the idea that they have the right to withhold information.”

Draco rolled his eyes dramatically, and seeing this, Harry gave a short laugh, remembering only after he had done so that his ribs hurt as if they were cracked. Draco rolled his eyes at Harry, and said, “Give me a break Potter… we’re off the field and Snape’s not watching… you don’t have to keep up the act anymore.”

Harry frowned. “Act?”

Draco got up off the bed he had been sitting on, and glared down at Harry. “Did you really think you could trick me with all that ‘friendship and family crap?’” Harry frowned now also. He stood up and looked Draco straight in the eyes.

“It was an offer,” Harry told him simply, trying to figure out what was going on inside of Draco’s head. “I can’t say I’ve made the right choice or anything in making it… I don’t know that I trust you or anything… you don’t have to take it, but don’t spit it back in my face. Don’t be my friend if you don’t want to be… but don’t be my enemy either.”

Harry turned to walk away, but Draco stopped him with, “Is that a threat Potter?”

Without turning, Harry said, “No… just a request,” and then left Draco in the hospital wing, looking confused, and wondering just how long Harry was going to keep up the facade.

As he slept that night, Draco dreamed of playing Seeker for the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Crabbe and Goyle were in the stands booing at him while Pansy Parkinson was busy trying to curse a Bludger to explode on impact when it hit Draco. Everybody on the Slytherin team surrounded Draco and pulled out their wands, and Snape stood by in the stands talking to Dumbledore, neither one of them noticing what was going on.

“It’s time you paid for your treason,” the Captain of the Slytherin team said with a grin. It was only after the Captain grinned that Draco realized it was his father.

“I’m not a traitor,” Draco said confidently, but still feeling nervous and trapped nonetheless.

“No?” his father asked with a nasty smile. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a Malfoy wearing Gryffindor colors…”

Draco frowned as he realized that it was true. He wasn’t even flying on his own broom, and as he felt less confident, his broom began to feel as if it would fall from the air. His father raised his wand and pointed it at his head.

“I wish to exact my vengeance on the one who used to be my son.”

Draco shook his head. “I was never your son.”

Lucius shrugged, and said, “It makes no matter to me-” just as he was about to kill Draco, another figure clad in deep red and gold flew past on Draco’s broom and knocked Lucius, screaming, from the sky. Draco watched as Harry then put himself in between Draco and the others that would have killed him. When Harry turned though, it was not his face, but Crabbe’s. “Brothers, remember?” he said in Harry’s voice.

Faltering, Draco said, “Ye, yeah… Cra- Harry…” Confused and feeling sick, Draco’s broom finally lost its ability to fly, and he plummeted from the sky, waking with a nasty start to find himself in the darkened seventh year Slytherin boy’s dorm. Sitting up to find himself covered in sweat, Draco put his head on his knees, wondering if he would always have confusing, but mostly nightmarish dreams. What was wrong with him?

To himself, Draco thought, you can’t be allies with a Gryffindor, but you can’t be allies with any Slytherins… what the hell kind of mess did you get yourself into this time stupid? If you become friends with Gryffindor’s hero, the people around you will kill you, but if you don’t, you could be handing your life over to worse fates. Remembering various acts of torture he had seen his father and the Dark Lord’s other followers commit throughout his life, Draco shuddered, and wondered that his nightmares were not worse.

Not wanting to sleep again and fall back into the same dream, Draco pulled the covers from himself and was greeted by the cool night air that permeated the room, which felt good on his achy body. He found his shoes and sweat pants, and pulled on a white t-shirt with no logo on it, and made his way out of his dorm and Slytherin house into the corridors.

It was four am and the castle was as quiet as he had ever heard it. For a few moments he wondered where to go, and could not think of any place he wanted to be. The thought of sleep tugging at him, he resisted it, and moved off in the direction of the Entrance Hall. Not far down the corridor, Draco noticed light spilling out from under a closed door. It was Snape’s office, and Draco was surprised that his Head of House would be up at this hour.

Leaning in to hear what he could, Draco listened intently, wondering if Harry and Snape were having another chat… the kind of talk Draco wished would come easy to him, so that he could be involved in idle conversation that meant nothing important with the only adult he trusted. Wrapping his arms around himself as he suddenly felt chilled, Draco wanted desperately to knock and go inside, and tell the man sitting at the desk beyond the door about his nightmare. He wanted to tell him about Harry’s offer… about the moonshine he was making in a hidden room deep within the castle dungeons, about the book Dumbledore had given him, and the questions he had about the stories he found within. And yet, he could not bring himself to knock. In all his want and need, he could not get his arm to move in the simple motion to rap on the thickly carved wooden door. Suddenly he wondered if this had been easy for Harry, or if he had had the same difficulties. Draco knew that the only way he would ever find out would be to ask, and also knew that he would never get close enough to Potter to do so, because Slytherin’s and Gryffindors could not be friends and live to tell about it.

Draco sighed heavily and felt even more alone than he did in his bed, standing there in the darkened corridor. He let his arms hang limply at his sides and was about to turn to go back to his soft bed when the door in front of him opened, and the corridor suddenly became flooded with light.

Severus watched as the blond boy before him threw up an arm to shield his eyes from the light, and then lowered it a little at a time, squinting to see him.

After a few moments of consideration, Severus asked, “Having trouble sleeping without Draught of Death?”

Draco frowned. “What’s that?” he asked bluntly.

“In lemans terms, moonshine.” Draco paled visibly, and Severus nodded, knowing why.

How did he know? Draco wondered, watching the Professor with awe. He had half a dozen locking charms and curses placed around the secret entrance to the secret room, and he had taken great care to go unnoticed whenever procuring the ingredients for the necessary brewing.

“I saw it in your eyes on accident almost a week ago when we spoke at dinner. Your mind was where it should not have been if you wished to keep it a secret.”

Draco looked away, ashamed. Occlumency was something his father had tried to teach him, but had gotten too frustrated with to continue. His lessons had ended one night with his father trying to curse him with a little known and painful curse.

Suddenly caught at something strictly forbidden at the school he was sure, Draco now felt even less able to find that place where he was comfortable with Snape that Harry had seemed to find. He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again, still not looking the Professor in the eyes. Severus watched as the boy struggled internally with himself, and seemed to lose in every way.

Backing up into his office, Severus motioned for Draco to move into it so that he could close the door. Draco did so, a horrible feeling in his stomach, as if he had just made a fool out of himself, or at least removed all doubt that he was one.

Severus took a seat behind his desk, freshly cleared of lesson plans for the coming year, and after a few uncertain moments, Draco took a seat in the visitor’s chair Harry always took.

“Tell me why you were waiting outside my door,” Severus said calmly, trying not to sound too commanding.

Draco looked even further away, not daring to look the man in the eyes knowing his ability to see right through him, literally.

Severus waited for an answer patiently, being far too used to Harry to give up so soon on Draco. From experience, he knew that silence usually made people uncomfortable, and he was hoping that this silence would force Draco into talking.

Long moments passed, where Draco tensed considerably, unsure of what to do. How could he have put himself in this situation? The question being asked of him was one that would force him to reveal a great deal about himself… something he had never done before. No one knew anything important about him but himself, as far as he was concerned.

Suddenly frustrated with himself, Draco thought, how do I do this? How does Harry do this? I wanted to be inside the office, and now I’m here, but now I just want out. How do I say what I want to say without him thinking that I’m a fool, or a big baby, or something…

“I- don’t know,” Draco finally said, not really meaning that he didn’t know why he was outside Snape’s door, but more that he didn’t know how to do what he was trying to do.

Severus watched him as the struggle within him seemed to worsen.

Wondering if the boy would answer a different question, he asked, “Why the liquor?”

This was a question Draco felt he could answer, but didn’t know if he wanted to. He was not used to telling the truth, especially when he’d been caught at something.

“Crabbe and Goyle usually bring a stash back with them at the end of breaks… seeing as how I’m not welcome to their… crowd, anymore, and I’m stuck here…” he trailed off, not wanting to finish, but Severus got the idea.

“Why are you drinking?” he asked more specifically.

Inside something was happening to Draco that he didn’t want to happen. He felt as if he was walking along a path and it had suddenly split before him and he was having to choose for the first time which way to go. On the path to the right, he could remain silent or lie. He knew where this path lead, because it was a continuation of the path he had been on for the past seventeen years. On the path to the left however, he could take a chance and reveal this one thing about himself. The only trouble with stepping down this path was that he could not see where it lead to, which was a scary thing.

After long deliberation, through which Snape waited silently for a decision, Draco said, “It’s the only way I know to get rid of the hurt.” As he said this, he felt like he was having to fight back some of the other things about himself that wanted to spill from his mouth, and he felt as if his heart was in his stomach somewhere.

When Snape did not reply after a few moments, Draco chanced looking up at him, which he found to be a mistake, because once he was looking up, he could not bring himself to break eye contact. Part of him wanted to be seen through. A big part of him wanted to feel the freedom of having somebody to tell things to. After a few moments, Severus was the one to break eye contact, unable to keep living the struggle inside the boy through his eyes. He had had enough of that kind of struggle in his own life over the years, and it was hard to know the boy in front of him was going through that.

Knowing that this was probably the first thing Draco had ever told him about himself that was the truth, Severus wondered if he could get more from the boy. He only knew bits and pieces about Draco’s life… some of the horror he lived at home, some of the things he had seen, and some of the things he had done there at the school… he also knew, from overhearing a conversation between Draco and Harry the previous year, that Draco thought of him as a father, just as Harry did, which was a continuing struggle for the two boys. It was a struggle for him also, suddenly having two sons, even though he had long since thought about Draco as someone he felt compelled to look after, as one would their own child.

“Tell me more,” Severus said, breaking the silence.

Draco sighed and felt shaky, hating the feeling that was coursing through him… it was the feeling of weakness… something he hardly felt and usually was able to keep at bay when the feeling reared its ugly head.

“I would rather drown in moonshine a couple times a month than have to think about things when it gets to be too much,” he paused here, trying to think of lies out of habit, but then remembered that he had chosen the other path, and no longer had to. “I can’t get rid of the nightmares,” he added, wondering if this was too unrelated a topic to the one they had been on, but needing to speak about it anyway. “Every night, something different… every night all I can do is lay there awake and try not to go back to sleep. I don’t know what to do. The moonshine doesn’t help really… it just makes everything dead for a little while so I don’t have to deal with it.”

“How long have you been drinking?” Severus asked, curious.

Draco shrugged. “We stole some ale from a seventh year when we were in third year… that’s when we started bringing stuff back after the summer and keeping it stashed away.”

Severus wanted to sigh heavily but refrained from doing so for Draco’s benefit. Thirteen was a young age to start drinking. At seventeen he could remember taking his first drink, and hating it, but he knew what Draco spoke of about deadening the senses for just a few hours. It was something he hated to resort to, and hardly had in his life, but he could remember a few times when he had just let himself go for the night… when he had decided he no longer cared to remain conscious of the horrors he lived through. It had been a long time since he had spent the night drinking. The last night was the night Lily had died.

The sun was starting to come up when Draco finally left Severus’ office. They had only spoken of a few things in the short time he had been there, but Draco felt as if the world had been lifted from his shoulders. When he climbed back into bed, and fell asleep, he found himself dreamless.


Draco awoke because he was being prodded to do so. He waved his arm to get whatever was trying to wake him to go away, but it wasn’t working, so he finally opened his eyes to find Dobby by his bedside, large round eyes boring into his.

“What?” Draco asked irritably.

Dobby’s large ears flapped as he spoke. “Somebody is waiting in the hall for yous sir.”

“Who?” Draco did not want to get out of bed because he ached from head to foot from fighting.

“Dobby cannot tells you sir… Dobby is only instructed to wake Master Draco.”

He pulled the blankets over his head, and said, “Well tell them to go away.”

Dobby shook his head, even though Draco couldn’t see him. “I can’t sirs!” he cried. “They tells Dobby that it is very very important!”

“Uugh.” Draco pulled the covers from over his head and looked over at the creature before him again. “Fine. Tell them I’ll be out in a minute.”

Bowing, Dobby disappeared. In no real hurry to dress, Draco got out of bed and looked at the clock on his bedside table. It was four in the afternoon, and he wondered that he had slept so long without waking.

In the corridor, Draco was surprised to find Harry examining a picture of the Bloody Barron. Harry turned when he heard the secret entrance to Slytherin common room open, and said, “This isn’t a very nice picture, is it?”

Draco scoffed and began to move off down the corridor.

“Where are you going?” Harry asked him.

“Somebody important is waiting for me,” he said, not turning back.

Harry crossed his arms and said to the retreating back, “Well, I’m glad you think I’m so important, but really, it’s ok, you don’t have to build me up like that Draco.”

Draco turned around, eyes narrowing. “You? You’re the one who sicked your little pet on me to get me up? What’s wrong with you?”

“Well, I didn’t think you’d take as kindly to me standing by your bed trying to wake you up.”

“Yeah, right,” Draco said. “You couldn’t anyway.” Harry shrugged, knowing that he could if he pulled out the Marauder’s Map, but not wanting to trust that information to Draco, he didn’t say anything about it.

“What the hell Potter?” Draco spat. “What’s so important then that you have to get me up?”

Harry shrugged again. “You’ve been asleep all day… I just figured you might want something to do other than sleep, even though that’s so fun…”

Draco stood there in the hall looking at the Gryffindor, and again he wondered just how he was supposed to do this. Having something to do did not sound like a bad idea, and in fact, most of his time spent there that summer was wishing he had something to do and somebody to do it with. But how did he say yes? What was there to do with a Gryffindor? It wasn’t like they could go play Quidditch again. Did Harry even like to do the same things as he did? Draco doubted it very much. With a sudden pang of guilt he missed having Crabbe and Goyle around.

“Well?” Harry asked. Draco frowned. What did he, Crabbe, and Goyle usually do together? The two goons hadn’t been much for studying or intelligent conversation. They had been good at drinking, and the kind of rough and tumble activities that Harry looked too fragile to handle.

“We could duel,” Draco suggested, surprised that his thoughts had come out in verbal form all of a sudden.

Harry nodded. “Sounds good to me. We can use the room of requirement.”

Draco sighed as if this was a bothersome adventure, something he was used to doing to keep up appearances, even if he was excited to climb onto a dueling platform and hex somebody senseless. Harry raised his brows and walked past Draco, who followed not reluctantly.

When they opened the door, the room of requirement turned into a long dueling room with a long low dueling platform only a foot off the ground. Around the platform was a padded floor.

Harry hopped up onto the platform and pulled his wand out. “Ok,” he said, “how about a couple rules…”

“Ugh,” Draco said, knowing that the more rules there were to the duel, the less fun it would be.

Harry ignored him and said, “No casting something you can’t undo, because I don’t want to go back to Madam Pomfrey and get told off again, and nothing too painful.”

Draco thought the rules over, and decided that they weren’t too bad. He didn’t care for pain, at all. He had lived through far too much already. In his mind he thought over the charms, hexes, and other spells he would use in the duel. There were several he knew Harry would most likely not know the counter to, which gave him the upper hand. He nodded, and stepped up onto the platform, still sore from the day before. He noticed that Harry did not move as gingerly as he had after the fight, and wondered if he had gone back to see Pomfrey.

Both boys raised their wands, and let loose.
* * *

In the weeks following the brawl Harry and Draco had gotten into, every Hogwarts staff member noticed a difference in the behavior of not only Harry and Draco, but in Severus as well.

While Harry and Draco were rarely seen except at meal times, it was generally known that they were now not spending all of their time alone, feeling sorry for themselves because they had nothing to do. Both Harry and Draco were pleased to find that they had at least a few things in common, which made the time go by faster, instead of seeming to creep by at a crawl. Draco for instance, liked to play Wizard’s chess, and had his own set. Harry found that some of the pieces to Draco’s set moved on their own, and were more violent than his pieces, which didn’t often get much use. Every day, Draco and Harry met in the room of requirement to duel, each time learning new moves and hexes from each other. It soon got to the point where Harry knew all of Draco’s favorite moves, and Draco was forced to switch things up by going to the Library to look up new things to hit him with.

Twice more they convinced Severus to take them out to play Quidditch, although this time there was no fighting, but instead a healthy competition. Severus was glad to see both boys happy, or at least not stewing in their own hate for each other.

In the remaining weeks until the beginning of the school year, Draco also found that each time he spoke to Snape about something in his life, he found it easier to talk to him the next time. Draco was still having nightmares, but he now sometimes gained a reprieve at night after talking to his head of house on his way back to his room. What surprised him, was that Snape seemed more than willing to talk to him, and never seemed to judge too quickly or come to false conclusions about him. This was something he was definitely not used to: somebody seeing him for him, instead of just assuming that he was somebody else.

A few days before the scheduled arrival of the rest of the students, Harry found Draco alone in the Entrance Hall trying to turn a piece of toast into a large square cookie. Harry took a seat across from him and pulled out a piece of parchment with his class schedule on it.

“What do you have this term?” Harry asked. Frustrated, Draco stabbed the piece of toast with his black wand and let it fall back to the table.

“Not Transfiguration, that’s for sure,” he said, not keen to take the one subject he was horrible at.

Harry looked over his list of classes, and said, “What about NEWT Potions… I got into that ok, along with NEWT Charms and NEWT Herbology.”

Draco nodded. “I have those plus Advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

Harry looked at his schedule and said, “I have that, but the schedule says Gryffindor and Ravenclaw for that one.”

Draco shrugged. What he wanted to say was, don’t expect me to sit next to you in every class, but what came out was something like a grunt. In almost every interaction Draco had with people now, he had to subdue the response that came naturally to him. It was hard work, and sometimes he slipped up, but considering the circumstances, he felt he was doing fairly well.

“I don’t have to sit next to Weasley and Granger do I?” Draco drawled.

Harry frowned. He hadn’t thought about Ron and Hermione having the same classes, and he began to wonder how they would take his new friendship with somebody who had previously been the biggest thorn in their side from day one.

“I don’t think Ron has NEWT Potions, and I don’t think you’ll have to worry about him in other classes… I don’t think he’ll be real eager to sit right next to you. As for Hermione, I don’t think she’ll care.”

“Hm…” Draco thought on that for a moment. Weasley annoyed him to no end, but he generally didn’t find Granger too bad, no matter the comments he made about her. She was one of those people who knew when to keep her mouth closed and when to speak up. Weasley on the other hand was probably the worst of all his brothers. He wasn’t even funny like Fred and George had been during their time at Hogwarts.


At dinner that night, Harry and Draco were advised to stay inside the castle and out of sight for the next two days, because students would be arriving in a number of ways with parents, and there were security measures that they would only get in the way of. Harry nodded obediently, but after dinner Draco complained, saying, “What do they think, we’re going to run around like chickens with our heads cut off and trip them up?”

Harry shrugged. He didn’t know, but he was curious as to the different ways in which people would begin arriving. To answer his question, before they had even gotten out of the Entrance Hall, the Patil twins and their parents stepped through the doors from the Great Hall, luggage in tow.

Surprised, Harry and Draco turned to look them over. “Where did you come from?” Draco half demanded. Looking affronted, Parvati and her sister turned away and ignored him as Dumbledore appeared through the doors from the Great hall.

“As you can see,” he told Mr. Patil and his wife, “we have innumerable security measures in place, both for the arrival of students and for the year. If you will please,” he motioned with his hand to a circle drawn in white chalk on the floor that Harry and Draco had not noticed there.

The four of them stepped inside and waited. Seconds later the circle flashed green and Dumbledore smiled, motioning for them to step out of the circle. “The circle of trust has deemed you trustworthy to enter into the school. If you’ll notice, there is a similar mechanism placed around each door and window leading in and out of the school. The second an intruder steps through, they will be temporarily incapacitated.

Harry snorted and said under his breath, “Well that rules out half of Slytherin.” Draco glared at him for a moment, but knew it to be true.

Dumbledore lead the Patils off up the stairs to let the two girls into their common rooms and also to show the parents some of the other security measures. Almost as soon as he was gone, Professor McGonagall stepped through the doors with several Ravenclaw students and an old woman who he assumed was somebody’s grandmother. They too stepped into the chalk circle with their luggage, and were deemed friendly enough to enter.

When nobody else emerged from the Great Hall, Harry and Draco grew tired of waiting, and moved off to a higher floor where they could see out over the grounds. Occasionally they saw an auror guard or Professor leading a group up the long dirt drive from the main gates, but it was growing too dark to tell who was arriving.

“What a slow way to get everybody here,” Harry commented. Draco nodded. They both knew that it would probably be too dangerous to try and transport hundreds of students by train though. It would be too easy a target for Voldemort and his followers.

Friday evening, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny appeared in the Great hall with Mr. Weasley, and Ron’s older brother Bill. Harry and Draco were busy trying to undo a transfiguration spell Draco had done in another part of the castle, so Harry didn’t know they had arrived until he went to bed later that evening. It took two hours before Harry finally managed to turn the talking stone statue of Alexander Henwick back into its original form, from the horse with two heads Draco had accidentally spelled it into. The entire time, Alexander, the famous spell inventor cursed at Draco and Harry for their improper use of magic. When they were done, they sped away from the cursing form, happy that they hadn’t been caught.

On the fourth floor, Harry bade Draco goodbye, and they both walked away laughing because of the statue.


“Harry!” The moment he had walked into the common room, Harry found himself in a warm hug from Hermione. For some reason, he was surprised to see her there.

Just as she released him from the hug, Ron came down the stairs from the boys dormitory, and asked, “Where you been mate? We thought you’d be waiting for us to show up.”

Harry grinned. “I didn’t know when you were coming, and the Headmaster warned us to stay out of the way.”

Hermione nodded knowingly, and went into a lengthy explanation about how they had been transported from a secret place in Hogsmead surrounded by anti-unfriendly charms, to the Great Hall. “According to the auror we came with, there are similar spots placed on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, and one in London near the train station. All the first years are scheduled to transport in Sunday evening right before the feast, although McGonagall told us when we came through that there were already a few here staying in guest rooms with their parents.”

Plopping into one of the beat up red comfy chairs on the edge of the common room, Harry noticed that Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were not the only new arrivals. The Creevy brothers were bent over a piece of parchment with two second year boys, and Seamus was sitting on the arm of a big red chair trying to talk a sixth year girl into a date.

“Well, at least we’ve got the day to hang around and do nothing tomorrow,” Ron said, pulling a purple candy bar from within a jacket pocket and plopping into the chair next to Harry’s.

“Yeah,” Harry said, thinking about his regular duel with Draco and wondering if Ron would want to be involved in it. Thinking that he would keep it to himself for the moment, Harry allowed himself to be pulled into a conversation by Ginny, who had taken to sitting on the arm of Harry’s chair as Seamus was doing to the girl across the room. Harry raised his brows at her and she blushed furiously.


The next morning, Harry found the Entrance Hall full of students and parents. He had left Gryffindor common room early thinking that he might find Draco and have their duel early that day, and was pleased to find him leaning against a wall next to the dungeon entrance, watching other students arriving.

“Well?” Draco asked at his arrival. “What are you doing here?”

Harry raised his brows. “Trying to find you for a duel.”

“Thought you’d be done with me now you’ve got Weasley and Granger back.” Draco rolled his eyes as he said this.

Harry shrugged. “I’m going to hang out with them later today, yeah, but I figured we could duel first.”

Draco rolled his eyes again, and was about to scoff, but a group of students caught his and Harry’s attention. Across the Entrance Hall, Crabbe and Goyle Jr. were being made to step in and out of the circle of trust, holding up the line of arriving students. Each time they both stepped inside, the circle turned red. Finally McGonagall made them step into it one at a time. The circle oscillated between green and red for a few seconds on Crabbe before settling on green. When Goyle stepped inside, it did the same thing. McGonagall looked to Dumbledore for help, who came over and lead the two boys away and into a small private room off the hall. Pansy Parkinson stepped into the circle next, looking smug, and it went straight to green. She glanced at Draco, and gave him a disgusted look when she noticed him standing next to Harry.

“Well, that settles that,” Harry said, grabbing Draco’s shirtsleeve and giving him a tug towards the marble stairs.

“What are you on about?” Draco asked, brushing Harry’s hand from his sleeve.

Harry shrugged. “If Pansy has you pegged then you’re going to have to find another place to spend most of your time this year. I doubt you’ll want to be in your dorm with her and Crabbe and Goyle lurking about.”

“Don’t worry about me Potter,” Draco said, scoffing, “I’ve got so many hexes placed around my bed… not even Dumbledore could get through.

“Well, if you want another one, I’ve got a great one that will keep people from getting into your book bag…” Harry trailed off and Draco looked away suddenly, knowing it was his fault that Harry had needed to go to so much trouble to keep the assignments hidden from him.

Because Harry was so used to spending his day with Draco, after they ended their duel they headed down to lunch together, Harry forgetting all about Ron, Hermione, and Ginny. They were just in the middle of a conversation about the last Quidditch World Cup when Ginny walked over to them and sat down next to Harry.

“Oh, hi Ginny,” Harry said. Draco looked away and busied himself with something else, not wanting to say something rude.

Ginny raised her brow, and said, “Ron’s having a fit because he can’t find you. You might want to let him know where you’ve been before he goes out on a hunt for Voldemort.”

“It’s that bad?” Harry asked. Ginny nodded, and looking up now, Draco laughed, trying to disguise it as a cough. Ginny eyed him for a moment, but then turned back to Harry.

Harry nodded and said, “Thanks Ginny.” He looked to Draco who still laughing motioned for him to go. When Harry had stood and left, and Ginny had not, Draco stopped laughing, and tried to act busy again.

It didn’t take Harry long to find Ron. In the Entrance Hall Ron jogged up to him and said, “Hey mate, where have you been? We’ve been looking everywhere!” Abruptly he turned and shouted, “Hey Hermione! I FOUND HIM!”

Looking a little embarrassed Hermione came from the other side of a large group being shown in through the main doors.

“Shhh Ronald,” she told him. “I was only over there talking to Neville and his grandmum.” Ron ignored her and turned to Harry again, questioning with his expression where he’d been.

“Er, have you seen all the security measures they’ve put in over the summer?” he asked, trying to divert their attention. “Some of the Slytherins have had trouble making it through the circle of trust… I don’t know if they still let them in or not if they turn it red. The Headmaster lead Crabbe and Goyle into a private room to chat when it happened to them.”

Because she was swift, Hermione caught that Harry was trying to distract them, and said, “He’s probably been given permission by the Minister of Magic to use Veritaserum.”

Momentarily forgetting his question, Ron said, “I don’t think ol’ Voldi is stupid enough to come marching in the front doors. If he is, the aurors will catch him.”

“I don’t know,” Harry said. “They sent most of them away early in the summer. I think they’ve been sending them back one at a time, but that’s a slow process.”

For the rest of the afternoon they discussed the new security measures and what Voldemort’s future plans as far as attacking the school might entail until it was time to go to the welcoming feast. Once the older students were all seated at their house tables, Professor McGonagall lead a scared looking group of first years in through the doors from the Entrance Hall. Harry wasn’t sure, but it looked to him as if there weren’t very many incoming students this year.

“Dad says a lot of parents chose to send their kids to foreign schools this year,” Ron said, also noticing that there was only half the regular number of first years. Harry looked around and noticed that most of the older student body was there, but quite a few second and third years were absent. At least a third of Slytherin table was empty, making Draco easier to spot sitting by himself on the end nearest the staff table. Harry wondered if he chose to sit close to the staff table for an easy get away, or because it was less likely that others would sit by him if he were there.

Most of the first years were sorted into Gryffindor and Hufflepuff this year, while a single solitary student was placed in Slytherin. Unsure of why he was the only one, the small brown haired boy sat across from Draco, looking unhappy about his choice after he had taken a seat.

As was custom, the Headmaster rose from his seat after the students were sorted, and the hall fell silent. Harry expected to hear a speech about all of the new security measures placed around the school, and how they should all feel very safe there. What he heard instead was something nobody expected.

For a time Dumbledore was silent, and every eye was on him. Finally, when the tension was high after such a long period of stillness, he cleared his throat, and said, “Silence is a tricky thing. You see, in a classroom, when a professor speaks, silence is good. It allows you as students space to fill your minds with what is being said, and it gives space to the professor to teach you. In a conversation, silence takes on the capacity of a friend or a foe. If a friend just needs you there to listen, and you are silent, it becomes the trait a friend would have. If somebody asks for your help, and you remain silent, it becomes one of the worst things you ever want to hear spoken.” Dumbledore became quiet again, and for a while Harry thought he was done and was going to take a seat, but he remained standing.

“In today’s world,” Dumbledore continued, “silence is death. You come home to a quiet house, and it could mean the worst thing. Unfortunately too many people remain silent for the good of themselves and the rest of the world. Today, we find ourselves face to face with the kind of evil that depends on silence. We find ourselves face to face with an evil we have allowed to take over. While silence can sometimes be a good thing, we have turned it into the worst kind of thing.” He paused, and his eyes scanned the crowd, finding Draco’s for only a moment, although for Draco it seemed much longer.

“How many times have you kept silent when you have seen things that people are doing to each other? How many times have you said to yourself, it’s not my business? How many times have you stood by and watched somebody doing something wrong, something that would harm others? We must not allow this silence we have worked ourselves into because of fear to continue! This is the time, here and now, that we must step up and take a stand against all that is wrong and evil! This is the time, when you as students may find yourselves thrown into the midst of battle! This is the time, when we as a people must band together to save not only ourselves, and our families, but also each other.”

Harry suddenly felt as if it were just him and Dumbledore there alone in the room, having a private conversation. He couldn’t feel the eyes of other students silently turning to him.

“Hate is silence.” Dumbledore said quietly now. “Hate keeps us from speaking out to stop others from being hurt. Hate puts us in a position where we allow ourselves to become distant from each other. I hate him, so I won’t help him. Look at all the horrible things she has done to me. Why would I help her now?” Dumbledore was picking out certain students with his eyes now, and holding on each of them for a moment or so before moving on to the next. “In such a time of darkness, where hate rules the world, and fills our lives with terror, and makes us to remain silent as others are hurt and killed, we must find something to replace hate. We must find a way to turn our world to light once more. Each, and every, one of us, must find something deep inside ourselves to put in place of hate. Find that one thing, deep inside of you, that will allow you to step forward when the time comes, and shout, THIS IS NOT RIGHT! THIS HAS TO STOP NOW! Find that thing, and hold onto it, with everything that you have! Through the fear, and through the pain, and through the dislike you have for others. If we cannot find that one thing today, right now, and stand up against what is wrong for everything that is right, then we are doomed as a people.

“Do not think you are safe within these walls. As staff, we can keep Voldemort and his men out. What happens inside is up to you.” Silent again, Harry was unsure if he was finished or not, but he finally took a seat. The hall remained still and quiet for many long moments, even after the food arrived, every student there was thoughtful. After many minutes, chatter began about what had been said, and Harry no longer felt as if it were just him and the Headmaster alone in the room.

“That was interesting,” Ron said as he piled mashed potatoes onto his plate. “I don’t know what he wants us to find inside though.”

Many of the new first year students around them looked over at Ron as he said this, and Hermione nudged him under the table.

“Friendship maybe,” Harry said quietly, thinking about Draco and Severus.

Ron laughed. “Yeah, well I’ve got plenty of friends, and I don’t hate any of them.”

In the morning, Harry awoke feeling anxious. He, Ron and Hermione would have two classes with Draco today. While glad that his best friends were back with him, he was unwilling to let his new friendship with Draco become stagnant because of them. He had a feeling that Hermione and Ginny would not have a problem with his choice in friends, but knew Ron would feel otherwise.

Ron stretched and yawned as he climbed out of bed. His hair was tussled and he was smiling. “New day mate, know what that means?” Harry shook his head as he tied his sneakers. “That means I have no chores to do because my mum isn’t here breaking down my bedroom door telling me what to do.”

Harry laughed in spite of the anxious feeling growing in his stomach. “Chores aren’t so bad so long as you have a place to live.”

Ron snorted. “That’s what you think.”

They met Hermione in the common room and made their way to the Great Hall. Again Harry took notice of Slytherin table and how empty it was. Draco looked tired, again sitting at the end of the table nearest to the staff. Harry wondered if the others in his house had given him much trouble after the feast.

“Charms and Herbology won’t be so bad,” Ron was saying when Harry tuned back in to the conversation. “Can’t say I’m disappointed about not having Potions this year.” Hermione was reading through chapter four of the NEWT Potions text as he said this and she ignored him.

“We have Defense today too,” Harry said, glancing at Ron’s schedule and noticing that as seventh years they had a lot more free time during the day than first through fifth years usually had.

“After Christmas we start the NEWT preparation class,” Hermione said, finally looking up from her book and holding her place with a finger.

“Oh, wonderful,” Ron said. “Well I’m not going to worry about NEWT’s until then. I remember Percy studying for them. Even Fred and George were walking around with their noses stuck in a book most of their seventh year.”

“Ron, these are very hard tests. I can’t imagine not studying for them all year. They should make that class available right now.”

“Ah, come on Hermione, this is our last year. It should be fun, not stressful…” Harry tuned out of the conversation again, losing interest in it. He could see Draco pushing his breakfast around his plate and making eye contact with no one around him. He hated to see people feeling as alone as he had so often felt in his life. He wished he were sitting at Slytherin table right then, if not to keep Draco company, than for no other reason than to annoy Draco’s remaining housemates.

After breakfast they made their way with most of the rest of the seventh years to NEWT Herbology out on the grounds. Professor Sprout didn’t give them much of a chance to group up because she lead them away from the green houses and around the side of the castle where there were massive green and purple vines growing up the side of it. Draco trailed awkwardly behind Harry, Ron not noticing he was there. Harry again felt sorry, and suddenly felt gutless for not having the nerve to invite Draco to walk with them when Ron was there.

“These vines are part of the new security measures,” Sprout was explaining to the class. “Our job for the next few weeks will be to make them grow over more of the castle.” She went on to explain that each vine was magically protected and enhanced, and even if the wall gave way to a blast behind it, the vines would serve as a barrier so that no one would be able to get through, just like the bars in a jail cell.”

“These aren’t in our book,” Hermione said to herself, pulling out her book as Sprout explained to the class how to make them grow that way.

Draco took half a step forward and said quietly, “They’re fortis vines. Durmstrang has them all over the place.”

Hermione gave Draco a look that said she was impressed with his knowledge of this, but Ron finally noticing Draco’s proximity to them gave him a heavy glare. Harry’s stomach clenched tighter. How was he supposed to tell his best friend that he was friends with his enemy? He tried to put himself in Ron’s shoes, and supposed that if three years ago, Ron suddenly became friends with Draco, he might have a problem with it too.

The vines were hard to grow, especially for Draco because some amount of Transfiguration was involved. Harry stood next to Draco and helped as much as he could until Draco was able to manage, but Ron noticed. After class on their way to NEWT Defense Against the Dark Arts, Ron nudged Harry in the ribs.

“What was that all about?” Ron asked seriously.

Harry frowned. “What was what about?”

“You helping that git with his work so he wouldn’t get in trouble.”

Harry thought on this, still unsure of how to tackle the situation. “It was just a vine Ron. Hermione was helping other students. Would you be mad at her if she helped him?”
It looked as if Ron was going to say something, but he remained silent.

In Defense they learned the beginnings to a long complicated protection spell that you could place on a building or a room to neutralize curses and hexes for up to a year. By the end of class nobody had mastered the spell, and Harry thought to remember to tell Draco about it so that he could master it more quickly and place it around his bed to keep Crabbe and Goyle away from him.

In Charms Hermione made Harry and Ron sit right up front. While there was a seat open next to Harry when Draco walked in, he chose to sit next to a group of Ravenclaws, who seemed thoroughly displeased by Draco’s choice. Halfway through the class Draco found himself canceling a hex that had been sent at him by Pansy, sitting in the row behind him that had made his seat grow unbearably hot.

Done for the day after Charms, Draco looked for Harry to tell him about being cursed or hexed in nearly every class, but found Harry being led away by Ron and Hermione.

Harry looked over his shoulder and saw Draco standing there alone. This is ridiculous, Harry thought to himself. Ron will have to get over it sooner or later. He decided to make his move at lunch.

Harry made Hermione and Ron sit on the end of Gryffindor table that was nearest the front of the Great Hall so that he could catch Draco on his way in. A few minutes into his turkey sandwich, Harry spotted him sulking in through the door, and waved him over. Draco was not the only one to spot this, and Ron set his chicken leg down in disbelief. Looking unsure for a moment, Draco finally came over and stood there silently, waiting to see what Harry wanted.

“You want to sit here today?” Harry asked.

Draco frowned, seriously wondering if Harry had lost his mind. “I figured I’d give you a heads up on what you’re going to get in Defense tomorrow. Nobody in our class got it by the end of the day.”

This was one of those times where Draco was struggling within himself. He didn’t want to sit at his own house table and be silently hexed all through lunch, but he wasn’t sure he could handle all the stares he would get from the Gryffindors if he took the offered seat next to Harry.

“What kind of spell is it?” he finally asked.

“A spell to neutralize hexes and curses in a room or building for about a year.”

This peaked Draco’s interest and after another moment’s hesitation, he moved to take the seat much to the surprise and dismay of the Gryffindors seated around them.

This was too much for Ron, who said loudly, “You can’t be serious Harry.” Draco paused and stood straight again.

Harry looked over at him silently and Ron raised a hand helplessly confused, and said, “Come on, tell him the joke so he can go sit at his own table.”

“There’s no joke Ron.”

Ron looked like he was going to choke on something, even though he had nothing in his mouth. His face started to turn red, and Hermione, hand over her eyes tugged helplessly on Ron’s sleeve from the other side of him. Harry didn’t know that Ron had been going on endlessly all summer about Draco and his family, along with the other Slytherins. The more he had talked about it the more of a deep, passionate dislike he had gained for them.

Ron stood up, “Tell him Harry,” Ron sputtered. “Tell him the joke.”

Harry shook his head. “I just want to tell him about Defense,” he said. Ron looked away around to the rest of the people at their table, as if looking for help.

“You actually want to sit next to this piece of filth?” he asked incredulously of his best friend, a note of betrayal playing on his voice.

Harry stood now and faced Ron. “Ron, I just want to tell him about Defense.” His voice was forced because he wanted to tell Ron not to call Draco filth.

Students at the tables around them seemed to notice what was going on now, and had taken an interest. Draco stood there dumbly, not knowing what to do, but knowing that Harry was about to lose a friend for him. As much as he hated Weasley, he did not want to be the cause of this kind of trouble for Harry… not anymore.

“Harry-” there was something in Ron’s voice that told Harry monumental amounts of information. If Harry didn’t bend to Ron’s will, they were in for a fight. If Harry didn’t bend to Ron’s will, they would no longer be friends. If Harry didn’t bend to Ron’s will, they were no longer brothers.

Harry repeated his last statement lamely, his heart sinking as he did it. “I just want to tell him about Defense.” The more Ron resisted, the more Harry felt the need to make clear his friendship with Draco. Maybe it was the Headmaster’s speech the night before that made him stand up for what he thought was right, maybe it was the connection he suddenly felt getting stronger between him and Draco as Ron got angrier. Somehow his relationship with Draco as a friend also meant his relationship with Severus as his son. If one ended, the other had to as well.

“You’re disgusting,” Ron said in a low voice so that others far away wouldn’t hear. “It’s wrong, you thinking of Snape like you do, and this just makes it worse. Why don’t you just join You-Know-Who and get it over with.” Harry stared at him blankly, willing his emotions not to overtake him. Willing himself not to tackle Ron. Willing himself not to shout and make things worse.

“Ron,” Hermione said weakly, still tugging on his sleeve. Ron ignored her.

“I thought we were brothers,” Ron said with finality, to show the permanent end to their relationship.

Harry never broke eye contact with him. “So did I.” Hermione had silent tears rolling down her cheeks now. She didn’t think she could go through this separation of Harry and Ron yet again. Each time they did this she was forced to choose sides.

Ron, perhaps a little shocked at Harry’s final response, acknowledging the end of the six-year friendship, strode away from the table, and out of the Great Hall.

Harry finally looked down at the bench in front of him, not entirely sure of what had just happened. He took his seat again and without looking at her, said gently, “Don’t cry Hermione.”

She shook her head. “I have to choose sides again. I hate it when the two of you do this.”

“You can be friends with both of us,” Harry said. Draco was still standing at the end of the table quietly, thoughts racing.

Hermione looked over at Harry and stood up. “Not as far as Ron’s concerned. The last five minutes should tell you that.” She left quietly, tears still flowing, and Harry was alone in the crowded room.

After a moment Harry looked over and realized that Draco was still there. “Have a seat,” he offered. The entire hall was still watching and Draco was acutely aware of the unwanted attention. He didn’t sit and Harry looked back down at the table. Had he just lost his two best friends for nothing?”

Doing as Harry sometimes did to him, Draco grabbed Harry’s sleeve and tugged on it to get him moving. Harry grabbed his book bag and stood up, following Draco from the Great Hall. As soon as they did so they could hear the hall explode in conversation.

In the room of requirement, which had turned into a large oddly shaped room with many puffy chairs, couches and bean bag chairs, Harry plopped down on a purple couch and put his head in one hand.

“That was stupid,” Draco said quietly, taking a seat on a fluffy chair opposite of him.

Harry didn’t look up. “Don’t say that,” he told him quietly. “Don’t you know why I did it?”

“Yeah,” Draco said, “and I’m not saying I’m not grateful but…” he paused here, surprised that he had expressed gratitude. He had never done that before, but in the moment he forgot to hide what he really felt.

“But what?”

“I’m not worth it,” Draco finished. “You just lost two friends for the price of one. What kind of sick deal is that?”

Harry looked up now. “I wasn’t going to tell you to leave. Telling you that would be admitting that it’s wrong for us to be friends, and it’s not. Telling you to get away from me would be saying it’s wrong to think of Severus as… you know.”

Draco swallowed, was this what it meant to be a brother? To sacrifice?

Long silent moments passed, and finally Draco said, “Well, you’re stuck with me now. I guess that makes us brothers after all.”

“Or pathetic,” Harry echoed Draco from the day they had fought.

“That too.”


Unwilling to go down to dinner because he felt sick with the day’s events, Harry sat in the room of requirement and waited while Draco went down to the kitchens to ask for food. After twenty minutes he returned empty handed.

“No luck?” Harry asked.

“Just wait,” Draco said, taking a seat on a soft suede couch. Harry wondered what he was on about, but a few moments later and Dobby and two house elves sparkled into existence in front of them, laden with trays of good smelling food. They placed the trays on a coffee table between Harry and Draco’s couches and Dobby grinned as Harry and Draco did at the amount of food.

“Dobby brings the best for Harry Potter and his friends!” he said proudly in his high voice.

Harry nodded and thanked the elves before they departed.

Mouth half full of freshly roast lemon chicken, Draco said, “You know, this fame thing has some benefits you don’t use enough. All I had to do was tell them I was bringing food for you and Dobby started running around like a mad chicken throwing things on trays.”

Harry laughed despite the uneasy feeling in his stomach that had been there since his altercation with Ron.

“You don’t want this kind of fame,” Harry told him after he swallowed a large bite of garlic mashed potatoes.

“Why the hell not with this kind of treatment?”

Harry took a drink of pumpkin juice straight from one of the pitchers the house elves had brought. When he set it down, he said soberly, “It comes with too high a price.”

Remembering about Harry’s parents, Draco let the topic drop, and said nothing more of it.

While disappointed that he was the cause of Harry losing his friends, Draco was not unhappy to suddenly have him back for the rest of the year. He now felt free to sit with Harry during classes and spend free time with him knowing that there would be no more objections from Ron.

In the morning Draco waited for Harry at the bottom of the steps to the Entrance Hall. Ron passed by him without a word or even a sideways glance, and after a few minutes Harry came ambling down the stairs looking as if he hadn’t gotten any sleep.

“Think he’ll throw a fit if we sit at the same table?” Draco asked.

“I think other people will throw a fit but I don’t care anymore.”

“Hm…” For some reason Draco was excited, and he didn’t know why. He had been trying to figure it out since he had woken up that morning. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t spent the last four weeks with Harry playing chess, and dueling, but now that Harry was in the same boat he was in it meant something different… Draco couldn’t figure it out.

Deciding to sit at the far end of Gryffindor table furthest from the staff where students rarely sat because the table was so long, Harry and Draco got odd looks from around the hall. The staff noticed nothing wrong with the two boys sitting together eating quietly, but some kind of moral code had been broken as far as the rest of the students were concerned. It wasn’t uncommon for Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors to sometimes sit at other tables with their friends in other houses, but this was the first time any of the students there had seen a Slytherin at Gryffindor table with a Gryffindor.

“Who does he think he is?” a third year Gryffindor halfway down the table asked loudly, referring to Draco. “He should sit with his own kind.”

Ginny, hearing this and other similar remarks scoffed and shot the third year a glare.

“Maybe you should sit with your own kind,” she told him.

The blond boy looked affronted and said, “What do you mean?”

“Well I think there’s bound to be some other stupid students around here somewhere… maybe you should go find them instead of sitting with the intelligent people.”

He glared at her but kept his mouth shut for the rest of the meal.

Harry only had one class on Tuesdays, which was Care of Magical Creatures. Draco had NEWT Defense, but promised to meet Harry in the room of requirement after class.

The two boys skipped lunch, surprised to find that Dobby sent them up a tray of sandwiches and a pitcher of juice without being asked, and spent the rest of the afternoon playing wizard chess and studying for Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Sitting together at dinner again, Harry and Draco garnered dark looks from most of the students around them, even from Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, and most especially from the Slytherins.

“They try to hex me every time I’m not looking,” Draco said. “Pansy’s favorite hex is to make my seat heat up til’ it feels like I’m sitting on lava.”

“Maybe she likes you,” Harry teased.

Draco made a face of disgust. “She’s disgusting. She was always trying to get me to date her. She’d come up to me and go, ‘Hug me Draco, come give me a kiss.’” He mimicked her voice and Harry laughed.

Not having been in the common room for most of the day, Harry didn’t know about the feud that had been going on between some of his housemates. It seemed that half of them had taken Ron’s side, and thought it disgusting that Harry would even consider being friends with Draco, while the other half either didn’t care, or didn’t see the problem with it. Unfortunately, the half that thought it was the worst thing in the world was ready to fight while the other half didn’t want to have anything to do with it at all.

When Harry entered the common room after dinner he discovered just how divided the house was. Hermione was nowhere in site, not wanting to deal with Ron and Harry. Harry tried to take a seat at a study table next to a group of third years, but they all got up and moved to the other side of the room. Ron sat with Seamus and glared at anybody who even looked like they might think about going and saying hello to his ex-best friend.

To Ron’s dismay, Ginny strolled casually up to Harry and took a seat opposite of him.

“Haven’t seen you much the last couple days,” she said, trying to make conversation.

“Just trying to stay out of Ron’s way,” he told her.

Ginny nodded. “He gets in these moods sometimes… he went on all summer about Slytherins and Voldemort and how you and him were going to beat them all.” Harry’s stomach tightened at this news. He was defeated before he ever tried to get Ron to understand about Draco.

Harry didn’t say anything and Ginny said, “Hermione’s really upset. She won’t talk to Ron. He tried to get her to come out of her dorm for an hour and a half today, but she just stayed shut up in there.”

“I didn’t mean to upset anybody,” Harry told her.

Ginny nodded again. She knew. “Neither did Ron.”

Harry bit his lip. “You don’t have to hang around with me to be nice,” he told her. “The rest of the house won’t.”

Ginny laughed. “The rest of the house is stupid then. For the record, Neville and Dean don’t care who you’re friends with so long as it isn’t Voldemort, and neither do I. Most of the first years don’t understand why everybody else is so upset, and a lot of other people just don’t care. It’s only the stupid ones like my brother who think anything of it.”

“Hm…” Harry didn’t like to hear anybody call Ron stupid, but he agreed with Ginny on this point.

“Me and Draco had a huge fight this summer… we beat the crap out of each other. After that… I dunno, things just changed. He’s nicer now. I can see him making an effort not to be rude to people. Ron doesn’t care, he just sees that Draco’s a Slytherin. For the record, I’m pretty sure Draco’s tired of being a Slytherin and he just wants to try being a human being for a while. It’s kind of hard to do that with Ron running around trying to turn people against him.”

Ginny looked over at her brother. “I tried talking to him… he won’t hear anything of it. Oh well.”

“You’re not afraid he’ll be mad at you?” Ginny shook her head.

“I’ve been on his shit list so many times I couldn’t care less anymore. He’ll get over it eventually.”

“I don’t know. I have a feeling he won’t this time.”

As if to make Ginny’s point about the entire house not being against him, Neville came over to their table and took a seat next to Harry with another piercing glare from Ron. Harry wanted to shrink away from that glare… the glare of the brother he’d lost. While Harry still had other friends to fall back on, he had never meant to lose Ron.

“Harry, I need help with that Defensive shield we were learning in class. Other people are starting to get it… I can’t even get it to shimmer into existence.”

Harry nodded and had Neville stand back up and hold his wand out. He had been through this with Draco earlier in the Room of Requirement and knew how to help Neville now that he himself had it down.

People from around the common room watched as Harry helped Neville, and Ginny giggled as she saw Seamus, who seemed to be against Harry, paying close attention in the corner, muttering the words under his breath as he waved his wand around. Ginny also noticed some of the expressions of others against Harry and his new friendship lighten as Harry tutored Neville. Perhaps it was because they saw that Harry was still the same old Harry they all knew and had come to trust.

* * *

“Damn it!” Draco was lying on his back on the hard dueling platform, panting for breath.

“I didn’t hit you with it that hard,” Harry was sorry that he kept throwing Draco to the ground with the hex.

Staring up at the tall ceiling, arms at his sides on the platform, Draco said, “I’m never going to get this. They are going to attack me with this every time and I’ll never be able to counter it.”

Harry walked over to Draco and knelt down so that Draco was now looking up into Harry’s face. It was Friday now, and things had progressed worse for Draco amongst the Slytherins now that he was spending most meal times at Gryffindor table.

“Know what they’re calling me now?” Draco asked as Harry offered him a hand and pulled him to his feet. Draco was frustrated. “Draco Potter, that’s what.”

“Hey,” Harry said, acting affronted but not feeling it, “being a Potter isn’t terrible.”

Draco shot him a look with daggers in them and Harry motioned for him to try the counter hex again. Draco turned away from Harry and took a few steps forward.

Harry uttered the hex and aimed at Draco’s legs. Feeling the warmth of the hex come at him, Draco waved his wand down to his feet and shouted the counter. It failed and his feet had suddenly gone out from under him again, knocking him on his hind end. He hit the wooden platform with his fist.

Standing up he said angrily, “Why can’t I just curse them all in their sleep? Then I’ll be the only Slytherin walking around the castle and won’t have to worry about this.”

Harry fought back a grin because he knew it wasn’t polite to laugh at other people’s suffering. He had an idea though, and knew it would work.

“You could do what we’ve had to do for the past six years to deal with you.”

Draco’s eyes narrowed as he thought. Coming up with nothing, Harry went to work explaining.

Monday Draco, who thought it a cowardly act to carry out such a plan, but who was too frustrated to care anymore, walked slowly up a second floor corridor lined with classes. Just as with the week before, a handful of Draco’s old friends, including Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle, followed at a short distance behind him, waiting to make Draco as embarrassed as they could.

Harry walked around a gentle curve in the wall and smiled at Draco, giving him the signal that there were many students up ahead, along with at least one staff member.

Once Draco and the small parade behind him rounded the corner, the other Slytherins took their chance seeing the crowded hall, but not seeing the Professor standing in the midst of the students because it was Professor Flitwick.

Pansy took aim and just as a dozen times before, Draco’s legs flew out from under him and he hit the ground hard, the wind leaving his lungs in a hurry. Immediately Professor Flitwick was through the crowd and was shouting up at Pansy. He had used a charm to pull her ear down to his level so that he could grab hold of it and drag her awkwardly through the halls towards the Headmaster’s office. Seeing this, the crowd laughed heartily at Pansy’s expense, and Crabbe and Goyle shrunk away back from the direction they had come.

Harry appeared at Draco’s side a moment later and pulled him to his feet.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Draco said, rubbing his lower back but allowing a small smile to come over his face anyway.

Harry grinned. “The philosophy is, if you’re going to get hit, make sure it’s in front of a professor. Cowardly maybe, but it’s using your brains when you can’t fight back with a wand.”

“And who taught you that?”

“What, the in front of the professor thing, or the brains thing?” Harry teased.

Draco punched Harry in the arm, maybe just a little harder than intended, and both boys made their way to Charms class to wait for Professor Flitwick to return.

* * *

Growing used to the glares from the Gryffindors around them, Draco ate his mashed potatoes slowly that night, taking some pleasure in causing his rival house this much discomfort. They now had most of this end of the table to themselves because nobody would sit as close as halfway down the table from them. From the staff table Severus observed the situation as he did every night at dinner, wondering at the growing friendship between the two boys. Harry didn’t surprise him this much, with the exception of choosing Draco over Ron, but Draco seemed to be making leaps and bounds in the direction of humanity. Not that Severus disliked all members of his house, but he knew what it was to be a Slytherin and live through it. At times, it was giving pieces, or in his case, chunks, of one’s humanity away.

Halfway through the meal, Ginny strolled up to Harry and Draco and took a seat next to Harry, another plate and more food appearing in front of them. Draco became quiet all of a sudden and seemed to find his roast chicken very interesting. Harry found this curious, but didn’t say anything to him just then.

“Any luck with your brother?” Harry asked.

Ginny shook her head. “He’s calmed down a bit as far as rallying others to him, but he still goes on and rants about you quite a bit. He’s also taken to keeping to himself a lot. I think he feels betrayed more than anything else.”

Harry sighed and set his fork down. “I just don’t understand why he can’t just accept this.”

Taking on the roll of a tutor explaining something to a student, Ginny said, “It’s always been you and him against everybody else… now it’s just him against everybody else. Hermione’s still not talking to him.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way.” Harry was frustrated all of a sudden. He had never told Ron he wouldn’t still be his best friend. “And you can tell him that Hermione’s not talking to me too if that helps.”

“I did,” Ginny said. “It might have helped a little bit.”

Draco was now mixing his mashed potatoes up with his green beans, having no intention to eat them like this, but wanting something to do to keep his eyes occupied. His cheeks were still tinted slightly red.

Ginny sat with them for the rest of the meal, and then departed to study with some of her friends. At the other end of the table, Harry saw Ron trudge off alone with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the floor towards the rest of the castle.

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.

The rest of the class was filing in as Harry was pulling out his cauldron and potions kit, waiting for Severus to enter the room and start their lesson. Beside him Draco was hurriedly finishing the essay that was due that day: two scrolls of parchment on “The uses of Hurgid root in healing and the dangers of Hurgid potion use with other potions.”

Someone flopping down on the stool on the other side of him brought Harry’s attention away from his potion’s kit and up to Hermione’s frustrated face.

“You are impossible, you know that?” she said angrily. It was more of a statement than a question.

Harry frowned, wondering what he had done to earn his friend’s wrath. She had not even spoken to him in the three weeks since the falling out with Ron.

“He knows he is,” Draco said quickly, not looking up from his near finished essay when Harry still hadn’t said anything a moment later.

Hermione took a moment to appreciate the fact that Draco had said something to her that wasn’t rude, and then turned her attention back to Harry.

“Both of you are insane.”

Assuming she was speaking of him and Ron, and not him and Draco, Harry reminded her, “I didn’t start the fight, and am still perfectly willing to remain friends with him.”

Draco scoffed, but didn’t say anything to him. If one of his friends had treated him like that he would have said to hell with them and been content never to speak to them again.

Hermione sighed and put her head in her hands, leaning on the desk. Instinctively Harry reached out to put his hand on Hermione’s shoulder for comfort. She didn’t resist, and so he left it there for a moment.

“Ginny said you weren’t speaking to Ron… does this mean you are now?”

“I don’t know,” came Hermione’s muffled voice. She took her hands away from her face. “Why couldn’t you two just keep things simple for our last year? Things aren’t this complicated with girls you know.”

“Ha!” Draco was finished with his scribbled essay now, and was rolling it up. He tied it closed and said, “That’s because you’re a girl, and to girls other girls are simple. To us normal people you are all impossible.”

Hermione spared a glare with no heart in it for him just as Snape walked in the door and tapped the board with his wand. The potion for the day appeared there and he cautioned them to use their time wisely as this potion was one quick paced in the brewing. They set to work, Hermione a step ahead of Harry and Draco the whole way.

Silently, Harry was thankful that Ron had opted out of NEWT Potions because this was the only class he had with Hermione that Ron didn’t have.

Halfway through their brewing and trying to sound innocent, Harry said, “You know Jacquelyn, right?”

Draco rolled his eyes… here it came again.

Hermione said, “Of course and I know what you’re going to ask me.”

“And?” Harry was hopeful of the answer.

“She likes you but she’d rather you talked to her instead of just mouthing wordlessly whenever you pass her in the hall.”

Draco sniggered loudly drawing a look from Snape that nobody noticed. Realizing for the first time, Severus looked up to find Harry, Draco, and Hermione all sitting together. Did this mean Granger had chosen a side in the battle?

Harry shot Draco a look as Hermione allowed a smile to creep over her face. “Don’t listen to him Hermione, he thinks he’s a lady’s man and can win over any woman’s heart.”

Draco nodded. That sounded about right. He had never had trouble getting dates with girls before.

Hermione glanced over at Draco from the corner of her eyes, secrets wandering her brain waiting to get out, but neither boy noticed.

“Well, I think you’re both pretty bad… not talking to girls that is,” Hermione clarified.

“You’re a girl,” Draco pointed out as he added several ingredients to his potion very quickly.

Hermione raised her eyebrows and said, “Thanks for noticing.”

Draco frowned and bit his lip. For the past six years he had always referred to her as mudblood. He could not deny that he had never acknowledged her as a girl.


Hermione seemed unaware of their presence again at lunch, sitting by Ron but not speaking to him. Ron sat looking as miserable as Harry knew Hermione felt. Shaking his head as he turned back from the once happy couple, Harry found Draco staring off into the distance down the Gryffindor table as if in a daydream.

Harry took a bite out of his sandwich and said, “You know, maybe you should try talking to her the next time she comes to sit with us.”

Draco’s attention snapped to Harry. “What?” Did Harry know that he had been staring down the long table at Ginny? He himself hadn’t even noticed that his gaze had automatically drifted to her when she entered the Great Hall and sat down.

“You heard me,” Harry chuckled for a moment. “She thought you didn’t like her you know… because you never look at her or talk to her when she sits with us.”

“What do you want me to say?” Draco asked sarcastically. “So how’s your brother doing? Do you know he tried to murder me in the hall last Saturday when my back was turned?”

Harry frowned. “He didn’t.”

Nodding, Draco said, “I felt the curse coming at me from behind just soon enough to duck… no idea what it was, but I’ve felt enough dirty magic to know it was dark.”

“How come you didn’t say anything?”

Draco raised an eyebrow. “Would you really have done something about it? You two were best mates for six years… I know you chose me over him when everything was quiet, but when it comes to hexing somebody…” Draco trailed off because Ginny had suddenly appeared at his side. She took a seat right next to him today, rather than across from him and next to Harry.

Harry was deep in thought now at Draco’s question, and only gave Ginny a nod hello as he chewed on a bite of his roast beef sandwich.

After a few moments when she hadn’t gotten a proper greeting, Ginny asked Draco, “What’s up with him?”

Draco shrugged. His voice caught in his throat for a moment, but he swallowed and figured that if he could exchange civil words with Granger, he could talk to Ginny.

“He’s just trying to figure out the answer to a question… I don’t think he’ll like whatever answer he comes up with.”

“Oh,” Ginny thought, and then asked, “what was the question?”

Harry looked up to see what the response might be to Ginny, but deciding to spare her the details of how stupid her brother was, Draco only said, “It has to do with family.”

Thinking he meant Harry’s mother and father, Ginny dropped the question and began talking about the last British Quidditch match, and how several officials had mysteriously turned up missing for several days, only to be found with their memories wiped clean.

“Sounds like Volde- You Know Who to me,” Harry corrected himself seeing the empty cup Draco had just picked up to aim at him.

Ginny watched the exchange interestedly, before going back to the rest of the story that had appeared in the Daily Prophet that morning.


Harry had his chance to master speaking to girls early that evening after dinner. Draco prodded him in the back to do something other than stop and stare when Harry had stopped in front of him yet again at the site of Jacquelyn.

“Hi,” Harry started off, pausing at a loss for words after that.

Draco put his head in his hand as he backed off to give Harry room, and thought that at least he had gotten one word out.

“Hi,” she smiled at him and waited patiently for him to say something else.

“So- some weather lately huh?”

Jacquelyn frowned and said, “Sure.”

Feeling an Imperius would be useful right now, as Draco had no problem speaking to the Hufflepuff, Draco sighed and watched his friend stumble awkwardly through the following conversation about being stuck inside the castle and not being able to go outside… Draco thought the same thing, but didn’t think it was a great follow up considering how Harry had just mentioned the stormy, cold, rainy weather they’d been having for the last week.

Finally it was over, and Harry was grinning as they walked up a long set of stairs to the fifth floor.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Harry said, feeling light as a feather for some reason. All he could see in front of him was her perfectly smooth, pretty face.

“Well, you didn’t have to listen to what was being said,” Draco teased him. Harry bumped into him with his shoulder playfully, making him stumble sideways slightly. Draco returned the gesture and they continued on. They had nowhere in particular to go, and had grown tired of sitting in the room of requirement lately. Even dueling hadn’t kept their interest as the feeling of being stuck in the castle had once again taken hold.

“I’ve got to finish my Defense essay,” Harry suddenly remembered.

“Me too,” Draco nodded and Harry told him to wait in the library while he ran to Gryffindor common room to retrieve his.

The castle was chilly as Draco walked through the empty corridors. The cold air made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, and it took him a minute to realize that it wasn’t the cold air doing it to him, but the fact that he felt like he was being followed.

Draco spun around and saw no one, just as in his nightmares. Eyes narrowed, he drew his wand and hid it up the sleeve of his jacket. He quickly continued on, but the feeling of being followed grew clearer and more defined. Draco never knew why, but he had always had a knack for knowing when he wasn’t alone, or when a spell was flying at him, even if he couldn’t see it. His father had told him that this was an uncommon gift, and that he should use it to it’s fullest potential. Now was one of those times Draco was glad he had the gift as a curse sailed through the cold air at him.

He spun around and dodged the sickly red light just in time. His attacker was still nowhere to be seen. Draco tried the Expelliarmus charm but no wand came flying at him. Blood pumping, Draco squinted into the dimly lit corridor, and hit the floor just as another hex came flying at him. This one was brown, and harmless he knew, but all the same, he preferred not to be covered in bat bogeys.

Just as a third hex was flying at him, and Draco was rolling away to the other side of the hall, Harry appeared and gripped something invisible, pulling hard to reveal Ron from underneath Harry’s own invisibility cloak.

Ron just stood there motionless for a moment, his nasty grin fading into the look a child gets when they are caught with their hand in a cookie jar.

Draco jumped to his feet and Harry stood looking at Ron dumbly, cloak in hand.

“What are you doing?” Harry asked him quietly.

“What do you think?” Ron asked, suddenly angry. “I’m doing what you should have done a long time ago!”

Suddenly Harry was against Ron, pushing him hard into the stone wall. His wand was out and was up under Ron’s chin, invisibility cloak dropped and forgotten on the floor behind him.

“Don’t you ever, attack one of my friends again! Do you understand me!?” Harry was furious. Suddenly all the anger he held for Ron was pumping through his veins right now, and he wasn’t sure if he knew a name dirty enough for the traitor that stood in front of him.

Ron seemed stunned for a moment as Harry continued on. “If you want to turn traitor on me go ahead and be a traitor, but don’t let me ever find out about you trying to hurt one of my friends!” Harry pulled Ron off the wall for a second and pushed him hard into it again at his last word. A mixture of fear and hurt displayed in Ron’s eyes just before a throat cleared somewhere behind them.

Harry let go of Ron’s shirt collar and spun around to see Snape standing there with his arms crossed. Draco stood there, wand at his side, looking no less guilty then Harry did. From Snape’s point of view it should have appeared as if Harry and Draco had ganged up on Ron.

“What is going on here?” Snape asked, eyes darting from Harry, to Ron, then to Draco and back again.

Harry was too angry to speak, and Draco took up his cue to tell the story. For once his story was true when speaking to a professor after being caught in a fight with another student.

“Professor, he had Harry’s invisibility cloak on and he attacked me… Harry walked up and caught him at it.”

Ron swallowed, feeling as if he wanted to sink right into the stone wall he was still up against.

“Is this true Potter?” Harry nodded, and Snape said, “Weasley, get back to your common room. Don’t let me catch you stealing or trying to harm another student when their back is turned again. I expected more from you being a Prefect. Perhaps the Headmaster was wrong to give you the position given your violent nature…”

Ron seemed in disbelief. Snape was taking their side in this? How could he? Even with Draco’s story it still looked like they had ganged up on him! Mouthing wordlessly, he glared at Draco one last time and stalked away, back towards his common room. When he was gone, Severus put a hand up to rub his forehead.

“Were you telling me the truth?” he finally asked after a long, silent moment of thought.

Harry frowned. Of course they were. Had he really taken their side not having believed a word they had said?

“Yes sir,” Draco said when Harry remained silent. Snape sighed, and said, “You two had better get back to your common rooms. I imagine Weasley is in Gryffindor right now telling them all about how I took favor over you rather than him.”

“It was the truth though!” Harry said indignantly.

Severus gave him a sympathetic look. “Truth or not, it has never stopped Gryffindors from claming that I take the side of my own house over others,” he paused, and said, “we will speak on this later.” He walked in the direction of the Headmaster’s office, and Harry stood there dumbly as he left.

After a moment, Draco walked up to him and slapped him on the back. “Life sucks mate… better get back to Gryffindor and make it suck a little less.”

“And how do I do that?”

“Lie, cheat, steal, do whatever you have to.”

Harry frowned before realizing that Draco was grinning. He had only been joking.

“Ok, see you tomorrow then.”

“Right.” They separated, Draco’s heart still pumping fast enough to make him keep his wand out and ready for another battle if one should happen to find him.


Severus had been right. Glares met Harry as soon as he stepped through the common room door.

“So, is it true Potter? You’re officially a Slytherin now?”

“What?” Harry frowned and looked around at the angry faces, some of them in disbelief. Ron stood with his arms crossed not looking at Harry.

“He must be if old Snape is sticking up for him…” Harry turned but couldn’t see who had spoken in the crowd.

Harry shook his head and said, “Maybe you’d better get your facts straight before you start making accusations. Did Ron tell you he stole something of mine from my locked trunk and then used to attack somebody from behind?”

People around him began to laugh, and a tall sixth year said, “Go on Harry, you’re getting pathetic. Just go up to bed and change your blankets and all your things to green.”

Harry shook his head incredulously. So much for Gryffindor the loyal. He stalked angrily up the boy’s staircase and feeling in a snarky mood he placed several locking charms on the door once he was inside so that it would at least take a while for his fellows to get in. He hadn’t realized until after he had done it that Neville was sitting on his bed watching him.

“Hi Harry,” he said, watching him with curiosity.

Harry dropped his invisibility cloak into his trunk and flopped down onto his bed. “Hi Neville.” He thought a moment, and said, “I’ll take the locking charms off the door if you want. I didn’t mean to lock you in here.”

Neville thought a moment and said, “That’s ok… they’re calling you Harry the Slytherin now… I don’t want any part in that. Once a Gryffindor, always a Gryffindor.”

He looked up at him, warmth spreading through him to know that not everyone in his house had turned on him yet. “Thanks Neville, that means a lot.”

Neville smiled. “My Gran said your parents and my parents were friends… and she said the Longbottoms were friends with the Potters for a few generations before that… I can’t see you going to You Know Who’s side… don’t let them get to you.”

Harry nodded. He lay back on his bed, hands behind his head. Other people were friends with people not in their house… how come he wasn’t allowed to be friends with somebody from Slytherin? Draco had fought against the death eaters last year when they had invaded Hogwarts too… who did Ron think he was suddenly putting Draco down for that?”

“Jacquelyn.” Harry walked up behind her, a smile on his face. For some reason he felt little apprehension talking to her today. Perhaps all of the drama from the night before had left him feeling he had had enough of it for a while, and didn’t need to be so dramatically pathetic when talking to her.

“Oh, hi Harry.” She seemed quiet and suddenly Harry’s confidence had gone away as he felt the conversation already beginning to take a turn toward awkward.

“I was wondering if you wanted to study later tonight… maybe in the library or something? Flitwick said we have that Charms test coming up.”

Jacquelyn bit her lip. “I don’t know Harry… maybe.”

His heart sank to the pit of his stomach now. “Oh,” Harry nodded. “Well, that’s ok if you don’t want to. I understand.” He began to back away, but she suddenly took a step forward.

“Harry?”

He looked up into her beautiful blue eyes. “Yeah?”

Biting her lip again, she said, “Is it true what they’re saying?”

He tilted his head. “What who’s saying about what?”

“You know… that you and Draco attacked Ron last night?”

“What!?” Harry began shaking his head. “Nobody attacked him last night!” Anger was suddenly filling him again, and he realized too late that he had just shouted at Jacquelyn… well, not really at her, more of in front of her, but by the look on her face, it seemed she couldn’t tell the difference.

Harry sighed, and Jacquelyn backed away, saying, “Well, I have class…” She turned and headed for the crowd nearest her in the corridor. Harry took a step back and met a wall, which he used to bang the back of his head against several times at his mistake. What was going on here? Had the whole world gone insane?


It turned out that for Harry the whole world, or at least the whole school had gone insane. At lunch when he sat down at Gryffindor table, the entire table, minus Ginny, Neville, and a few first years rose and moved off to sit at other tables or left the Great Hall altogether.

Harry felt awkward sitting there by himself until Draco finally showed up, and was surprised to find the table mostly empty.

“What happened?” Draco asked as he took his seat across from Harry.

Harry lifted his head from where it had been resting on the table. “They think I’m a Slytherin now… I had to lock myself in the boy’s dorm last night… thought they might come in and hex me in my sleep.”

Draco scoffed and shook his head. “Maybe you are a Slytherin… or maybe they’re just not Gryffindors anymore.”

“And what about you?” Harry asked. “Once a Slytherin always a Slytherin?”

Draco shook his head. “Don’t throw me in with the rest of that lot… I’m a Slytherin, they’re not. Slytherins aren’t supposed to attack each other, but they do it anyway.”

Shaking his head and feeling sick, Harry said, “This is all wrong. The school has gone mad, and it’s because of me.”

Thinking for a moment as he looked down the table and spied Ginny watching him, he turned back to Harry and said, “It’s not because of you Harry. It’s because of Weasley. He’s the one spreading lies around… come on, I have an idea.”

Together they rose and left the table. Once they had gone, the Headmaster watched from the Head Table as most of the Gryffindors reappeared at their own house table. He was becoming more displeased by the day to see the attitude his students had taken against each other. Had his speech at the beginning of the year meant nothing?

Because it was Friday, and they were done with classes for the day, Draco wasn’t worried about being caught at what he was about to do. He lead Harry to a secret passage behind a picture of Helga Hufflepuff beyond the kitchens, and hurried him inside.

“I shouted at her,” Harry said lamely, not paying attention as Draco lead him through the low stone corridor.

“Shout at who?”

“Jacquelyn… she asked if it was true that you and me attacked Ron last night. Then I shouted… it was kind of horrible.”

Draco gulped. “Maybe she wasn’t the one for you… what about Hermione? She seems ok.”

“Oh, yeah, brilliant. Ron would really love me then if I stole his girlfriend. And since when did you think Hermione was ok?”

Draco raised a brow, not knowing when he had decided that. It didn’t matter though because soon Harry wouldn’t remember anything that had happened in the past couple of days, and he wouldn’t have to remember either.

Harry squinted as they emerged from underneath the castle and from behind a large green bush into the bright sunlight. Today was one of the first sunny days in a week. The grass was still squishy with water from the final rain the night before.

“Where are we going?” Harry asked, feeling good to be out on the grounds again after so long.

“Does it matter? I thought you just wanted to get away from the castle for a while.”

Harry nodded in agreement and didn’t ask again as Draco lead him around the side of the castle, through a patch of trees, and down to the Quidditch pitch.

“If they catch us flying…” Harry said, knowing they would get detention for sure.

“We’re not flying, so they won’t catch us.” Draco lifted up a flap of canvas and Harry climbed underneath, Draco following. They walked around the underside of the pitch for a few minutes until Draco stopped in front of Harry and began trying to lift a large rock from the ground. Harry moved to help him, and when they had moved the rock, a large hole was revealed. Just large enough for several bottles of what appeared to be some sort of rum.

“Homemade, but not so bad,” Draco said as he pulled one of the bottles out and uncorked it. He took a swig and plopped down onto the cold, dry earth, leaning against a large wooden support beam.

“You want me to drink that?” Harry asked, sitting down across from Draco.

Draco shook his head, “No, this one’s mine. Yours is still down in the hole.”

Harry looked into the hole and pulled out a bottle with green liquid inside. He had never drunk anything with alcohol in it before, and wasn’t sure he wanted to start now.

“Go on,” Draco said, watching him. “Takes away that sick feeling that everything has gone wrong with the world.” Wanting to forget desperately, Harry uncorked the bottle and his nostrils were immediately assaulted with the foul smell of moonshine.

He replaced the cork and said, “Maybe later… I’ll just watch you for now.”

Draco nodded, “Ok, sounds fine to me.” He took another swig and waited for the sensation to wash over him.

Harry ran his hand through his hair as he remembered the look on Jacquelyn’s face as he shouted. It had been a look of fear. There was no way she was going to go out with him now… not now that she was afraid of him. Draco drank a bit more as Harry thought about what Hermione had said to him about this year being their last, and about how it should have been simple… Harry and Ron should have been laughing and joking about class or Quidditch right now, not be fighting in the halls late at night.

“Ginny’s pretty,” Draco finally said after a while, giving a small hiccup. Harry looked up and frowned at him.

“Er… yeah, I guess.” Was Draco already drunk? He must be to admit something like that.

“Think maybe she likes me?”

“I think you hardly talk to her,” Harry said. Draco took another drink. Harry noticed that a quarter of his bottle was already gone.

“Maybe Weasley will be nicer to us if I’m dating his sister.”

Harry laughed and finally uncorked his own bottle again and took a small sip. He coughed violently for a few moments, and then held his nose as he took a long drink. So what if they caught him? He couldn’t stand to know the whole school was against him anymore. Finally he said, “If you think Ron will like us better because you’re dating Ginny, you must be smashed.”

“That’s the point Harry,” Draco said, raising his bottle to toast his friend. “That’s why I come out here. Maybe we deserve to think everything will be ok every once in a while.”

Harry and Draco sat and talked for a long time, and perhaps because time seemed distorted now that they had been drinking, it was dark and cold outside before they emerged from under the canvas flap, stumbling and laughing wildly about something having to do with Marcus Flint, Oliver Wood, and a Gringotts Goblin.

“I dunno,” Harry said, his words slurred. “Maybe we should just sleep out here tonight… go break into a locker room where it’s warm… c, can’t have any Prefects catching us like this.”

Draco shook his head. “Trust me, the locker rooms aren’t that warm this time of year.”

As quietly as possible, which was not possible at all with the two boys giggling uncontrollably at every little thing, Harry and Draco made their way back into the secret corridor and out into the empty Entrance Hall.

Harry looked at his watch, and was hardly able to believe that it was nearly midnight. It had only seemed to him like they had been out side for a few hours… little lone 12.

“Come on you brain bucket,” Draco said with a laugh as he dragged Harry toward the dungeons. “There’s a guest room you can sleep in down there… I know the password.”

Harry stumbled after him but before they made it all the way across the Entrance Hall, they heard a voice from near the top of the marble steps. “What the-”

Looking up Harry and Draco found Ron standing there. Harry had forgotten that tonight was one of Ron’s nights to patrol as a Prefect.

Draco sniggered and Harry did too, unable to stop himself, even though there was nothing that he found funny about being caught drunk.

Ron shook his head and said, “I thought I knew you Harry.”

This statement seemed to sober Harry just long enough to stand up straight, and say without slurring his words, “I guess not. I guess you thought we were brothers too… must not be since our bloodline only seemed to be thick as water for you to throw it all away.”

Draco slapped Harry on the back, almost knocking him over, and grabbed the back of his jacket to drag him down the steps to the dungeons, leaving Ron standing there at the top of the steps looking dumbfounded.

At the bottom of the steps to the Dungeons, Draco giggled and said, “Guess we showed him… didn’t even have to pull our wands out and he looked cowed.”

Harry wasn’t laughing though, because he was looking past Draco to where Snape was standing in his open office door with his arms crossed.

Draco turned at Harry’s horrified look and stopped giggling immediately. Without a word Snape pointed to the inside of his office, and Harry and Draco tried to straighten up as they walked down the hall and inside.

Angry, Snape strode in after them, slamming his office door. “What do you think you’re doing?” he half shouted.

Harry and Draco looked to each other for help, but found none forthcoming.

“I asked you a question,” Severus said in a lower, more deadly tone.

Ashamed, Harry looked down to the floor. Draco who seemed more immune to the effects of alcohol when professors were around sat up straighter and cleared his throat. “Getting caught sir.” Although Draco had said this very seriously, Harry burst out in laughter again, clamping his hand down over his mouth to keep more from spilling out. He knew it was the wrong thing to do to laugh, and was suddenly very unhappy with himself for not being able to control his actions.

Snape slammed a fist down on his desk and Harry stopped laughing, both boys looking up at the tall, menacing man in front of them.

“I expected more from you! From both of you!” he clarified. “Getting drunk is not the answer! You should have at least had the common sense to stay in a room somewhere rather than wandering around the castle in this state!”

When neither of the boys said anything, Severus sighed and pulled open a desk drawer. From within it he pulled out a phial of something brown and nasty looking. He poured half of it into a cup and handed it to Draco, and then handed the other half in the phial to Harry. “Drink that. Now!”

They did as they were told despite the disgusting taste of the brown muck, and immediately Harry’s head began to clear. Suddenly the seriousness of the situation they were in came to him, and he sat up straight, eyes glued shamefully to the floor.

“If I ever catch either one of you drinking again, I will not hesitate to request your expulsion from this school… is that understood?”

“Yes sir,” both boys said in unison.

Sighing again, Snape said, “Fifty points from Gryffindor and Fifty from Slytherin. I expect that won’t help your popularity much, but that’s not my problem. And I suggest that you two find a better way of dealing with your problems than liquor.”

Harry put his head in his hand. He had a splitting headache that he had not expected after the potion. He wanted desperately to ask for a better way to deal with his problem of Ron and the rest of the school hating him, but wasn’t sure Severus would be any help to him at the moment considering how angry he seemed to be.

“Go to bed… both of you.”

Harry and Draco stood up, and moved for the door. Before Harry got to the door however, Draco said quietly, “Sir?”

“Yes?”

“We’re sorry.”

Severus gave the boy a long look, and nodded. “Good. Now to bed with you both.”

When Harry got back to Gryffindor common room, he found it mostly empty. Ron had obviously already been there, because the remaining people there watched him intently to see if he was indeed drunk. Fortunately for him Severus had made him drink the sobering potion.

Harry scratched his head as he passed Neville, trying to finish an essay by the fire, and said, “Night Neville.”

“Night Harry,” he said back brightly, happy that Harry wasn’t drunk, although he did smell faintly of booze from close up.

Ron lay quietly in his four-poster when Harry opened the door to their dormitory, but Harry could tell from the lack of snores that he was not yet asleep.

“You’re a right git, you know that?” Harry said as he sat on his bed and pulled off his shoes. “Coming back to the common room and telling people that I attacked you when I didn’t… then coming back and telling everybody that I’m drunk.”

Ron rolled over to put his back to Harry, but remained silent. Harry tried to feel bad for a moment about calling him a git, but couldn’t feel anything but dislike for him at the moment. They seemed to be long past the moment of forgiveness and reconciliation.

“Have you seen this?” Ginny was thrusting a copy of the Daily Prophet down in front of Harry at breakfast the next morning. On the front page was a picture of the bank in Little Whinging, blown to bits and smoldering.

“What happened?” Harry asked, scanning the article with his eyes to get to the important information. His family, if you could call them that, lived in Little Whinging. He could just see his aunt Petunia going into the bank Friday morning to withdraw some money and getting the shock of her life as it exploded.

“Voldemort happened… they determined from eyewitness accounts and from studying the type of fire that occurred that it was magical. Ten people say a bunch of hooded figures appeared from thin air and started lighting the place on fire… it only took a few minutes to burn down the entire building. I bet Dad just had a lovely day at work yesterday after this mess.”

Harry shook his head as he read. There were indeed casualties, but his family’s name was not on the list, although he wasn’t sure why he cared. Over the past few weeks Voldemort had been setting his followers on the Muggle population more than the wizarding one. Each day an article about a disappearance or a magical fire or explosion appeared on the front page. This just happened to be one of the nastier examples of his handiwork.

“If he keeps this up the Ministry is going to fall apart,” Harry said, handing the paper back to her. She finally took a seat and began to butter herself a piece of toast, using her wand to heat the toast back up and melt the butter more quickly.

“Maybe that’s the point,” she told him. “I never minded Fudge too much, but dad says he can’t handle all the strain… did you notice there aren’t any pictures of him in the paper anymore? Dad says all his hair is falling out from the stress… it’s all patchy in places now…”

Harry shook his head again. If the situation hadn’t been so dire, he might have laughed at thinking about the trouble Fudge was in. The man had certainly caused him enough trouble in his lifetime.

Breakfast was nearly over when Draco walked in, book bag slung over one shoulder, and a brilliant bruise blossoming over his right eye.

“What’s happened to you then?” Harry asked as Draco took a seat next to Ginny and dropped his bag roughly.

“Guess maybe that potion Snape gave us last night didn’t clear all the dunderhead out of me… I forgot to put up protection barriers around my bed last night and I woke up to Crabbe’s fist.”

Ginny bit her lip as Draco tilted his head so she could see his battle wound. “I don’t know any spells to make that go away,” she said, sorry that she couldn’t help.

Draco shrugged. “Madam Pomfrey refused to get rid of our bruises the last time me and Harry went up there… she probably won’t get rid of this one either.”

“Maybe Snape-” Harry started to suggest, but trailed off remembering how angry he had been the night before.

“What potion did he give you?” Ginny asked through a mouthful of toast.

Harry and Draco gave each other a look, both questioning if it was ok to tell her, and Harry finally said, “We er… became a bit intoxicated yesterday.”

Ginny’s eyes grew wide. “What Ron said was true?” Harry nodded, and said, “Only about the drinking though… we never attacked him. He really did attack Draco from under my invisibility cloak.”

“Tsk, tsk,” Ginny did a perfect imitation of Hermione. “Dad caught Fred and George sneaking his fire whisky once… it was the last thing they were allowed to do for a month. He wouldn’t tell mum why he’d grounded them… they got off easy since she never figured it out.”

“I bet,” said Harry. “I never thought about getting caught by her… we thought being caught by Professor Snape was bad enough though.”

“What did he do?”

“Said he was going to make sure we would be expelled if he caught us again,” Draco said. “Me and Harry, expelled by Snape, can you believe that?”

“Knowing Snape, yes,” Ginny said. “Besides, why were you off getting plastered anyway?”

“No good reason,” Harry said. “We shouldn’t have… it was a bad idea.”

Draco laughed, “Snape asked us what we were doing, and Harry burst out laughing. I thought I was going to die.”

Ginny shook her head again. “Well, it’s a good thing neither of you are Prefects…”

“I don’t know, Ron’s still a Prefect isn’t he?” Harry asked.

Nodding, Ginny said, “Yes, but he did get called into the Headmasters office a couple of days ago… he refused to say what he’d been told. I figured it had to do with him attacking Draco.”

“Good,” Draco said bitterly. “Maybe he’ll stop trying to kill me every other day now. I don’t know what half those hexes were he was using. That’s saying something when I’ve seen my father use most of the bad ones.” Suddenly Draco became aware of the candidness with which he had spoken in front of Ginny. Harry and Ginny seemed to be aware of it too, although it wasn’t anything they couldn’t have guessed that Draco had seen being the son of a death eater.


The school seemed to be abuzz about Draco’s black eye, and most people seemed to think it was Ron’s doing, even though Harry and Draco had never said a thing about Ron. Even Professor McGonagall stopped Draco after lunch and demanded to know what had happened. Draco only shrugged however, and said it had been an accident. Why Draco didn’t tell her the truth, Harry wasn’t sure, but he had a feeling it had something to do with not wanting to dig himself into an even deeper pit with the Slytherins.

Unfortunately for Harry and Draco, Severus caught them on the way out of dinner and forced them down into the dungeons and into his office.

“We need to speak about last night,” he said once they were inside and the door was closed and locked.

Harry and Draco bowed their heads instinctively to look at the floor as they waited for another blast of anger.

“What happened to your eye?”

Draco looked up… he didn’t want to talk about their public drunkenness? “Er… Crabbe happened to it sir.”

Snape sighed heavily and said, “How?”

“I forgot to put up barriers against anybody getting into my bed.”

“No doubt because of your drunkenness… you must have drunk a very large amount of alcohol for the potion to not have taken full effect on you.”

“I did,” Draco admitted. He had made his way through nearly two bottles, while Harry had hardly finished off one. Granted the stuff Harry had been drinking the stronger of the moonshine…

“As I stated last night, that kind of behavior will not be tolerated. Not in this school, and not by my sons.”

Harry and Draco both looked up at Snape now, hearts pounding furiously. Had he just acknowledged them as his sons?

“Sir?” Draco asked, voice catching.

Thinking on his words for a moment, Severus finally said, “If I am to protect you, you must also take precautions to protect yourselves. It is both stupid and irresponsible to parade yourselves around the school as the village idiots. I expect both of you to be on your best behavior, or else lose my protection, is that understood? I will not associate myself, especially as family, with those who would only end up doing themselves harm in the end by way of stupidity.”

The two boys glanced at each other, and then said, “Yes sir.” For Draco, it was more of an oath. Snape had never told him he thought of him as a son before… and yet, for some reason this relation with a surrogate father meant so much more than what he ever felt for Lucius. When Snape said he would protect them, Draco believed it.

Severus nodded, and said, “I expect to hear of any attacks against you by other students in the future, immediately. Do not let yourselves be goaded into fighting or you will find yourselves in more trouble than you wish. The Headmaster is already displeased with the way the year has been unfolding for you two… not because of your actions against others,” he added, “but because of their actions against you for becoming friends rather than remaining enemies.”

Draco was suddenly surprised. He never thought the old man had ever paid much attention to him. To Harry maybe, but he couldn’t see Dumbledore giving two hoots for him.

Questions burning inside of Harry, he asked, “What are we supposed to do to deal with everybody being against us in the mean time?” He had wanted to ask it the night before, but knew he wouldn’t like the answer at the time if Snape was the one giving it.

“Keep your friends close,” was all he said for a few long moments. “If your friends are true they will stick by you no matter what happens. If they are false friends, as so many are, they will not hesitate to abandon you when things get rough. If they are false friends, they are not worth having. Remember that and do not let yourself be goaded into unnecessary battles… of wand, fist, or will. I expect you to be able to control your emotions after so many Occlumency lessons… put those lessons to good use, or else let the time spent learning them be wasted.”

Draco bit his lip. All of this advice was fine for Harry, but he had failed every Occlumency lesson his father had ever given him. He had never had the patience for it.

“Speaking of which,” Severus turned to Draco now. “I wish you to begin the same training Harry has had. I expect you to both be able to defend yourselves adequately when the time for battle against the Dark Lord has arrived. He will not hesitate to use your own minds against either of you. He will also not hesitate to use you against each other,” he added almost as an afterthought.

Nodding, Draco was not sure if he was eager for the lessons, or dreading them. His father delving into his innermost private thoughts was bad enough… but Snape? How had Harry dealt with this? Draco made a mental note to ask him about it later on.


Albus Dumbledore waited patiently for Severus to call upon him. Fingers steepled in front of him, he watched the door to his office intently, knowing that conversation going on many floors below him. He knew that within each boy, a battle raged trying to be won, but was unsure of how each would handle their demons.

Finally a knock sounded at his door, and he waved it open with his hand. Severus entered and stood patiently waiting to be offered a seat. When he was, Albus simply gazed at him with his crystal blue eyes, waiting for him to begin.

“They did not put up a fight,” Severus finally said, feeling relieved. “I believe… informing them of my feelings towards them made them feel as if they had higher standards to live up to.”

Dumbledore nodded. “Good, as much I expected. And they will no longer be drinking?”

“Not after my reaction last night,” Severus told him. “They would hardly look at me today…”

“It was a necessary lecture,” Dumbledore told him. “One they would not have gotten unless a parent cared enough to give it. I believe they understand that, and will not hold it against you.”

Severus seemed deep in thought, and then said, “I do not believe I am cut out for this task. I am unaccustomed to… caring for other people in this manner.”

Chuckling, Dumbledore said, “In a sense I suppose you are a new parent, and with that guardianship comes all kinds of unwanted worry and fret. Do not worry, you are not alone in this. Children don’t need perfect parents… they are most often happy with ‘good enough’.”

Dumbledore stood and motioned for Severus to do the same. They moved down the spiraling staircase, still talking, and out into the corridor. Their conversation had just moved to magical barriers the Headmaster wished to place on the rear part of the castle and grounds when they heard shouting coming from down the corridor and around a corner.

“Draco, get down!”

“Filthy piece of-”

“Gerroff-”

“Avada-”

“EXPELLIARMUS!” Dumbledore shouted louder than any of the gathered there thought possible. Wands flew out of the hands of several Slytherins as well as Draco, Ron, and Harry.

The attackers: Crabbe, Millicent Bulstrode, Blaise Zabini, and a sixth year Slytherin named Evan Issacs, all looked panic stricken without their wands. Harry, and Ron lay on the floor, pinned under Crabbe and Blaise, and Draco stood, panting and out of breath, but looking glad to see reinforcements.

“What is going on here?!” Harry had seen Dumbledore angry before, but never this angry.

When none of the attackers spoke up, Draco said through ragged breaths, “Harry and me- came around the corner- they were going to kill- Weasley.”

Harry nodded his agreement to the explanation and with a wave of his wand and a spell he had never heard before, their attackers were bound by unbreakable ropes that sprang from nowhere.

“Severus,” Dumbledore turned to him and said, “contact the aurors and tell them we have four prisoners for them. Then find Minerva and have her process the expulsion paperwork.” Severus nodded, and with a last look of relief at the other three boys, he strode off quickly to carry out his orders.

“This is crap!” Blaise shouted as the Headmaster jerked his wand and they were tugged in their bonds towards him. He lead them down the corridor a little ways and into an empty classroom. Without being told to, Harry, Draco, and Ron followed behind wordlessly, amazed that four of their classmates were going to be handed over to the authorities, and were going to be expelled.

“You were warned long ago Mr. Zabini that this kind of violent act would not be tolerated. You agreed with full heart to enter into the school at the beginning of the year knowing what the consequences for your actions would be.” With a wave of his wand the four captured students were forced to sit, and their bonds magically molded themselves to the chairs and tightened so that they could not stand up.

Crabbe eyed Draco maliciously and Draco looked away. It was hard for him to believe that he had once been friends with the person who had just tried to kill him with the killing curse.

Professor McGonagall appeared a few moments later, looking disheveled and sounding out of breath as if she had run from another part of the castle. “My goodness, it’s true then!” she exclaimed at the site of the four Slytherins tied to the chairs.

“I’m afraid it is Minerva,” Dumbledore said sadly, eyeing the prisoners cautiously. He handed over their wands and McGonagall took them, waving her own and making four identical sheets of paper appear in front of her. They seemed to be a form of some kind.

“I haven’t had to fill one of these out in years,” she said flustered as she began writing hurriedly.

“Lets hope they are the last you ever have to fill out.”

Millicent, the only girl there gave a single sob as McGonagall snapped her wand in half and attached it to the form with her name on it. Evan rolled his eyes when his wand was snapped and muttered something about getting a new one as soon as he was released from the aurors.

“Oh no, I think not,” Dumbledore said with a wry smile, which seemed to aggravate Crabbe, Evan, and Blaise. “Mr. Ollivander won’t be selling wands to any student expelled from Hogwarts by contract with the Ministry of Magic. You’ll have to go to another country to get one, which I believe you will find hard after the aurors are done with you. Most likely, if you are released at all, magical restrictions will be placed on your movement, and you will be tracked wherever you go, thus making it most difficult to procure a new wand.”

Blaise hocked a lougee and spit it towards the Headmaster, but with a wave of his wand it disappeared before it was halfway to him.

“My!” McGonagall exclaimed. “If you have learned any manners at all during your time here, I would suggest you start to use them Mr. Zabini! The aurors and the Wizengamot will not take kindly to that kind of behavior, and it will work against you in the end!”

Harry glanced sideways at Ron as Millicent let out another loud sob, but Ron was looking off into space and not paying any attention. Would this change things between the two of them?

Draco fidgeted on Harry’s other side as he leaned against the wall, and Harry knew how uncomfortable he felt, watching fellow Hogwarts students go through this, even if they had just tried to kill them.

Severus appeared a short while later with five aurors in tow. The aurors questioned Ron, Harry, and Draco for a few minutes as they took a report, and then Severus and Dumbledore, before they finally took their prisoners and lead them and their broken wands and expulsion paperwork away towards the entrance to the castle and grounds.

Dumbledore pulled a pocket watch from a hidden pocket in his purple robes, and said, “We must summon everybody to the Great Hall. The school must be made aware of what has happened.”

The three remaining boys were motioned to move off, and were followed by the Professors for a short distance before they moved off to summon the rest of the students.

In the Great Hall Harry and Draco took up their usual seats, and Ron sat halfway down the table alone. It was only a few minutes before people began to file into the hall. Some were already in their pajamas, as it was nearing eight o’clock. Hermione ran in and took note of Ron and Harry’s presence before she settled herself next to Ron, looking relieved to see them there.

The hall was abuzz with chatter until the Headmaster came in and motioned them to silence. Every eye was on him except for Ron’s.

“An ugly beast has finally reared its head and showed its fangs. You may notice a number of our students missing from this meeting this evening… that is because they have been expelled.” The hall broke out in chatter again and people looked around wildly to see who was gone.

“Let it be known here and now… if you attack another student or staff member of this school, you will not only be expelled immediately, but you will also be placed under the authority of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry of Magic. I have no doubt your parents will be most horrified to find you have been sentenced to Azkaban. This is not a matter to be taken lightly!” The hall was silent. Nobody knew what had happened except for Harry, Ron, Draco, and their attackers.

“Hate, is the ugly beast which I speak of. Do not let it get the better of you! Once you let hate take over your life, you might as well throw yourself into the hands of Voldemort! I have sat by and watched long enough as you lock yourselves away in your hatred and throw away the key! The time has come to end this madness! Stop feeding the ugly beast! Step up and take a stand against hate and the things you see it doing to ruin people’s lives!”

Harry glanced down the table at Ron, who was still watching the wooden table in front of him intently. Across the hall, Pansy Parkinson let out a sob in the silence following the Headmaster’s speech. Harry had nearly forgotten that she and Millicent were best friends. Quietly, Harry wondered at the fact that Pansy had not been part of the attack.

“She’s not all bad,” Draco whispered to him when he noticed Harry looking across the hall at Pansy. “Her parents aren’t actually Death Eaters… she can be a right b*tch sometimes, but I don’t think she’d go as far as the killing curse…”

Harry frowned. Dumbledore had taken a seat now, and placed one hand up to his forehead as the students around them finally broke out talking once more, wondering what had happened and who had been attacked.

Ginny came down the table and sat with them for a moment before she asked, “It was you two and Ron wasn’t it… that got attacked I mean?”

“No,” Harry said, “it was Ron that got attacked. Me and Draco came around the corner in the middle of it. Crabbe was just aiming the killing curse at Draco when Dumbledore and Snape came around the corner and stopped them.”

Ginny shuddered. “I think Hermione wants to talk to you but she won’t leave Ron’s side,” she told Harry. Harry nodded, and feeling he would get no trouble from Ron, moved down the table at Ginny’s insistence.

Draco fidgeted and played with his hands. If this had happened last year, or the year before last, it could have been him getting expelled… so much had happened since then. What had changed?

“Is it still bothering you?”

He looked up at Ginny’s question, wondering what she was asking about.

“Your eye I mean.” She pointed to his black eye.

Draco grinned, and said, “I’ve had enough of them… besides… girls like pretty bruises like these. Gives them something to take care of.”

Ginny blushed wildly and Draco’s smile widened.

“Come on, hurry up!”

“Shh…”

Ginny giggled as Draco grabbed her hand to pull her to a stop in the darkened corridor. They had left the mass of students behind in the Entrance Hall as they had left to go back to their common rooms, and were now heading to a secret place Ginny refused to tell Draco the exact location of.

“There will be hell to catch after tonight if we get caught out after hours…”

Ginny giggled again. “Since when do you care about breaking rules?” She squeezed his hand and tugged him behind a tapestry into a hidden passage with stairs leading downward in a spiral.

Biting his lip for a moment, Draco remembered Snape’s words from earlier. He was expected to be on his best behavior… sneaking away with a girl from Gryffindor late at night didn’t exactly count as “best.” But then again, she wasn’t just any ordinary girl from Gryffindor was she, or else he wouldn’t be sneaking away with her. Would Snape understand that if he was caught? Draco shook his head in the darkness as they reached the bottom of the stairs and exited the hidden hall from behind another tapestry before Ginny lead him off again. In his mind, Draco knew he would do anything for Ginny, and it frightened him. Since when had he decided she was that important? He liked her sure, but wasn’t it just another relationship that wouldn’t work out in the end?

Ten minutes later and they were still winding their way in and out of secret passages. “Almost there,” she whispered to him. The ground was earthy now and there were roots protruding down from the ceiling. Draco was sure they were no longer in the castle but somewhere under the castle grounds.

“Still not going to tell me where we’re going?”

Another giggle and then, “Nope, you’ll just have to wait and see.”

She was right, they were almost there. A moment later and Ginny was whispering a password to a wrought iron gate. Draco could feel the cool night air hitting him from the other side of the gate, and was pleased when the gate opened and revealed a sprawling garden under the stars.

He inhaled the cool fresh air deeply and only after she had released his hand did Draco realize that he had been holding her hand for the last ten minutes.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Ginny asked him, twirling slowly and looking up at the stars.

Draco nodded. This was his secret place… this was the garden Harry had followed him to just before the Dark Lord and his followers had begun their attack on the castle the year before.

“I was never able to get that gate open,” Draco said more to himself than to her.

Ginny looked down from the sky at him. “You’ve been here before?”

He nodded. “I used to come out here all the time before they closed the grounds off… nobody else knew about it. How did you figure out the password for the underground entrance?”

“A portrait told me. This was Helga Hufflepuff’s old garden. Each of the founders had something put in just for their house… Ravenclaw made a hidden library somewhere near her house, Gryffindor made the room of requirement, and Slytherin made the huge Prefect’s bathroom with the pool on the first floor.”

Draco nodded. He hadn’t known that. He looked up to the night sky and took in another deep breath. It was even better out here at night than in the daytime.

He was so engrossed with the glittering stars after a few long moments, that he hadn’t noticed Ginny sidling up next to him until she brushed against his arm. Draco looked down and into her wonderfully green eyes. There was a depth to them that he wanted to fall into and never be found again.

“I’m glad you and Harry became friends,” Ginny said quietly, still gazing into his eyes.

Draco nodded and suddenly felt he was unable to speak. He wanted to kiss her so badly that he felt it in every muscle and bone in his body. If she didn’t look away, he was going to kiss her. Any moment, he thought to himself, any moment and she’ll look away… any moment.

Ginny did not look away, and Draco leaned in slowly, giving her a last chance to pull out of kissing range. She didn’t and in the next second Draco had his lips against hers in the sweetest kiss he’d ever had in his life.

Even as they kissed, Draco expected her to pull away, but she never did. Instead she wrapped her arms around his neck, and he wrapped his around her lower back, pulling her in closer to feel her warmth in the cool night.

When they finally broke for air, neither one seemed able to speak. Instead, their eyes remained locked, and Draco’s heart seemed to be speaking volumes for him.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Ginny frowned ever so slightly. “Why?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. It makes things complicated.”

She searched his eyes for more information, but found none. “Maybe I like things complicated.”

If his heart wasn’t beating fast enough before, it was running races now. “Me too.”

She pulled closer to him and put her head on his chest. This too frightened Draco. He felt like her head belonged there and like her body belonged there in his embrace. Things were so dark and dangerous right now… especially for him. How could he bear to lose something so precious if it were ripped away from him by the Dark Lord?

“Ron’s going to disown me,” Ginny said quietly, head comfortable against his beating heart.

Draco nodded, breathing in the wonderful scent of her hair. “We don’t have to tell anybody.” Even as he said it his heart slowed a little with disappointment. Inside he wanted to shout aloud to everybody he knew that he and Ginny had kissed, and what’s more that he was in love with her.

Ginny pulled back suddenly and shook her head. “I’m not going to let him get in the way. He’s being stupid.”

“Good.”

They stood there in the garden for some time simply enjoying each other’s embrace, and it was well into the night before they made their way back into the castle and to their common rooms.


The next day, Draco was walking on air. He felt invincible like nothing could touch him, and his near death experience from the night before had faded from his mind as if it had happened years ago.

Harry seemed to notice the change in Draco’s mood. “That must be some magical black eye,” he commented at breakfast.

Draco looked up, grinning. “Huh?”

“Well, yesterday you were your normal sullen self, and today you seem to be somebody else altogether.”

Draco shrugged, unable to rid himself of the grin.

“I know what that look is,” Harry said after a few moments with a mouthful of toast. “That’s the stupid grin every man alive gets when he’s fallen for someone.”

“Hm…” Draco took several drinks of apple juice and looked Harry straight in the eye. “Well maybe I have and maybe she fell for me back.”

Narrowing his eyes, Harry wondered if it was possible that Ginny liked Draco as much as he figured Draco liked her, but in the next moment his suspicions were confirmed when Ginny came up and had a seat next to Draco. Under the table their hands met and their fingers laced together. She wore the same goofy grin that Draco did.

“Ha! I knew it!” Harry pointed his fork at the pair. Lowering his voice he said, “You two snuck off somewhere last night and snogged when I went down the table to talk to Hermione!”

Ginny’s face reddened and Draco looked proud. “Well maybe you could wait until we had the chance to tell people before you shout it to the whole school?” Ginny asked him.

Harry nodded, proud of himself that he had figured it out before he had been told. “No worries here. I wouldn’t want Ron to find out anyhow… bad enough him disowning his best mate. No need for him to start picking off his family too.”

“Well I’m not worried about him so much,” Ginny said, though her statement lacked confidence. “If he wants to be stupid, let him be. It’s none of his business anyway.”

Harry glanced down the table to where Hermione sat. She kept shooting the three of them glances. “Do you think Hermione’s told him?” Harry asked.

Draco frowned. “Hermione knows?”

“Ginny and Hermione are girls in case you’ve forgotten… girls spread news like this like wild fire.”

Draco thought on this as Ginny told Harry that boys were just as bad. “And besides that, she won’t tell anybody until I say it’s ok to.” Draco’s attention was brought back to the conversation when Ginny moved their locked hands to rest on his knee. It startled him, but he was enjoying the contact with her immensely. His entire body felt energized just holding her hand, like an electrical current was running through him. He’d never felt that way holding a girl’s hand before.


At lunch Draco had Harry to himself for a moment before Ginny arrived. He took the time to ask Harry a burning question. “How did you deal with Snape seeing all of your thoughts? I mean… you know. There are some things in my head I don’t want anybody to see but me.”

Harry shook his head. He had no good advice for his friend. “I hated it too. I was having nightmares where Voldem- where he was killing me every night and Severus was just standing there watching. I… well, that’s how he figured out I thought of him as a parent. In my dream I was saying, ‘help me dad.’”

Draco swallowed hard. While what Snape had seen in Harry’s mind was embarrassing, he had horrors locked away in his that he kept buried there for good reasons. He had seen his father murder people in the worst ways from the time he was old enough to remember, and what’s more, he had had the crap beaten out of him more times than he could remember. He also didn’t want anyone to intrude on his private feelings for Ginny.

“So what do I do then?” Draco asked. Severus had approached him after breakfast and informed him that he wanted to start Occlumency lessons Monday night.

“Learn quick,” Harry said. “I can help you practice, but then you have two people seeing what’s in your mind instead of just one. It’s up to you.”

If he had a choice at all, he would opt out of the lessons altogether he thought to himself. He felt he didn’t have a choice though, because he didn’t want to disappoint Snape.

Ginny walked into the Great Hall and sat down next to Draco again as she had done at breakfast, taking his hand under the table. The warmth her hand gave him spread up his fingers and through his entire arm. She was just telling him and Harry that she had heard that Pansy had locked herself in the seventh year Slytherin girls dormitory and wouldn’t come out, but was cut off by a flurry of owls swarming in through the windows, dropping papers and letters in front of people.

“That’s odd,” Harry said. “It’s way past morning post and I’ve never seen them come in twice in one day like this before.”

Draco looked up and caught the newspaper his eagle owl dropped from above him and Harry took the copy Hedwig dropped in his lap. Ginny leaned in over Draco to see what it said and gasped at the picture on the front page. Students around the Great Hall were doing the same as they opened up their copy of the Special Edition Daily Prophet to find a picture of parts of the Ministry of Magic in ruins.

“A Ministry Mess,” Draco read the headline aloud and several students without copies of the paper came from Ravenclaw table to stand behind Draco and Harry and read over their shoulders.

“Read it aloud then,” a younger student who couldn’t push his way through the crowd said.

There were other nods from around him, so Draco took his cue, unused to so many people wanting to crowd around him, and read, “Ministry of Magic in ruins. It appears that the Ministry has finally broken under the strain. Minster Cornelius Fudge is nowhere to be found, and it is suspected that he and several other missing Ministry Members have been abducted in the attack lead by the Dark Lord and his followers around eight am this morning.

“While it is unknown what exactly prompted the attack on the Ministry this morning, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement stated in an official press release this afternoon that it may have had something to do with four newly expelled Hogwarts students that were taken into custody last night after attacking three unnamed students. The suspects 17 year olds Blaise Zabini, Millicent Bulstrode, Vincent Crabbe, and 16 year old Evan Issacs were reportedly freed from their holding cells this morning during the attack, and have disappeared with the rest of the Dark Lord’s followers.

If anybody has any information on the missing suspects, the attack on the Ministry of Magic, the Dark Lord, or the whereabouts of the Minister of Magic and other missing Ministry staff, please contact the Department of Magical Law Enforcement immediately.

Until the Minister can be found, the Ministry urges people to remain calm and to stay in their homes if at all possible. Diagonally has been closed until further notice to prevent the magical shopping center from becoming a target, and most store owners in Hogsmead have closed shop as well.

Further updates will be sent in the evening edition of the Daily Prophet.”

The listeners gathered around them were hushed when Draco finished reading. Ginny gripped Draco’s hand tighter, and finally a second year Ravenclaw girl standing in the back said, “My dad works in the Ministry of Magic. Were there any names of the people that were taken?”

Draco shook his head. “No.” He glanced at Ginny as people dispersed to go and find their friends from other tables or to spread the news to those that had not been at lunch. “I’m sure he’s fine,” Draco tried to offer her in comfort, referring to her father.

“Percy works there too,” Ginny said quietly. “And Bill and Charlie were there helping dad with a few things because he was swamped… they were going to be there until next week.”

Harry swallowed as Ginny leaned into Draco and he put his arm around her for comfort. Ron was halfway down the table towards them when he saw this, and stopped before he turned back and left he Great Hall. Harry shook his head, wondering that Ron couldn’t even come down to comfort his little sister.

Before the end of lunch, several other owls appeared carrying letters to students, but there was no letter for Ginny. Three Hufflepuffs jumped up from their table and ran from the Great Hall in tears when they received their letters, and a fifth year Ravenclaw boy slammed his fist down on the table in anger when he opened up the letter that had been delivered to him.

Hermione came over to them and sat next to Harry. “I hate this,” she said. “I wish Voldemort didn’t exist.” Because both of Draco’s arms were occupied, he didn’t move to pick anything up to throw at her for saying Voldemort’s name, but he did shoot her a dark look.

“It’s my job to make sure he’s stopped,” Harry said solemnly, remembering the prophecy.

Hermione looked worried, and said, “You’re not planning on going after him are you?”

Draco and Ginny looked up at him too. Harry shook his head. “I won’t have to. He’s going to make his way here again. But when the time comes, he’s going to pay for all the pain he’s caused the rest of the world.”

Feeling tied to Harry’s oath, Draco nodded. It might be the death of him to do it, but he would see an end to Voldemort. He wasn’t going to let Harry go it alone.

“Blasted piece of- uraggggg!” Bill and Fred pulled with all their might on the large concrete pillar that was pinning their father’s leg down. Panting and wheezing after several minutes, sweat pouring down their dirty faces, they finally managed to free his leg, and Mr. Weasley struggled out from under the collapsed roof.

“Oh… oh my. Thank you boys.”

Fred leaned on an upturned desk for support as he nodded. “You were lucky dad. Luckier than that fellow.” He nodded his head toward a dead body ten feet away, crushed by a large stone that had fallen from the ceiling.

Mr. Weasley nodded. “Yes… very lucky. Your mother must be having fits right now not knowing.”

Bill shook his head. “Charlie went to send an owl while you were unconscious. It said we were all fine so she wouldn’t worry.”

“Thank you Bill,” he said, rubbing his swollen leg.

Lights flickered on and off as Bill and Fred lifted Mr. Weasley to his feet and supported him towards the stairs, which were missing steps here and there. “That would have been a lot easier if we could have used magic… don’t know why Voldie had to make things harder on us by placing a magic mess up on the building.”

“I don’t know if that’s what it’s called,” Bill said, “but it seems as good a name as anything.” They had learned quickly that any spell they tried to cast in the area turned into an unexpected and unwanted spell. Bill’s hovering charm had turned into a water charm that he couldn’t get to stop for five minutes, and Fred’s healing spell covered his father’s arm in bat bogeys.

“Awful nice of him to set those… fanged whats-its on us too,” Fred said as he and Bill lifted their father up over a missing step. “We never learned about those in Care of Magical Creatures.”

“They looked like a mix between a small lion and a rotwhiler,” Mr. Weasley said. “It’s a good thing their bites don’t seem to be poisonous or else Charlie would have been a goner.”

Bill nodded, remembering the beast lunging down the stairs at his brother and clamping down on his arm.

They made the next higher landing and found the same chaos and destruction as below. A man who worked for the department of Games and Sports named Liam was trying to get his wand to stop shooting out water.

“Hovering charm?” Bill asked. He nodded and Bill moved to help him stop the flow of water.

“Don’t suppose you’ve seen my son Percy have you?” Mr. Weasley asked as Bill took Liam’s wand and uttered the counter to a Lumos charm to get it to stop spewing water.

Liam shook his head. “No, sorry Arthur. But the Minister is missing and Percy was always with him… don’t worry. I’m sure he’s fine. Probably on another floor. If you’re looking for healers they’re up in the atrium. Mungo’s sent a squad of em’ to get the injured prep for transport.”

Mr. Weasley nodded as his sons lifted him to his feet again. “Thanks Liam. Glad you’re not injured.”

They moved off and up the next flight of stairs.

“Watch out! Coming through!” Fred and Bill lowered their father to the ground quickly as a wizard ran towards them and then jumped over them, his wand on fire as he tossed it back and forth and headed towards one of the many fountains placed throughout the building.

“Bad luck,” Fred said. “Wonder what charm he tried to use to get it to do that.”

“Maybe a water charm?” Bill said, wondering if there was any order to the chaos in using their magic here. “Brilliant of Voldemort to put this charm on the building. Best way to break the Ministry of Magic was to break all the magic I guess.”

Finally they found the healers and lowered Mr. Weasley to an empty stretcher laid out on the ground. A frazzled looking healer hurried over to them and Mr. Weasley said, “I think it’s just broken is all, nothing magical.” Looking relieved the healer motioned to two burly looking wizards who came over and lifted the stretcher.

“They’ll take you outside and one of them will apparate you to St. Mungos. All magic seems to be working fine off the premises.”

“I’m going to stay here dad,” Fred told him, looking around and thinking they could use the help. Mr. Weasley nodded and motioned for Bill to do the same. “Find Percy if you can. Charlie should be around somewhere too. I’ll be back when they’re done with me at Mungos. Send another letter to your mother as well, and don’t forget to send something off to Ginny and Ron.” He shouted this last bit as they carried him onto the lift that would take him up to the surface and the lift doors closed.

“I’ll take care of the letters,” Bill said, and hurried off to find an owl he could borrow, unsure of where there might be one.

Fred moved to the side as two men carried an injured witch in from the stairwell and lay her on a stretcher. She wasn’t moving but she was breathing. Quietly Fred hoped she would be ok as he moved off towards the lower levels of the Ministry again to see if there was anything he could do. He felt out of place there and wished George was there with him. Things always seemed to be better when his twin was around.

* * *

Draco, Ginny, and Harry sat alone on the marble steps leading out of the Great Hall and up to the rest of the castle. It was late afternoon now and most other students were in their houses, some mourning the losses of their family, others waiting for any word from the rest of the wizarding world about what was happening.

“I feel trapped in here,” Ginny said quietly. Draco tightened his grip on her and she didn’t protest. Somehow being in his arms made everything seem all right.

“I know what you mean,” Harry said. He felt like he could be doing some good if he was allowed to go somewhere and help do something. “They should give us something to do… defense class or something.”

“It’s Sunday,” Draco reminded him.

“I know, but our time would be better spent learning Defense or putting up more barriers on the school… I don’t like sitting and doing nothing when the rest of the world is falling apart.”

From a window somewhere in the Great Hall an owl swooped in then and landed next to Ginny. She untied a piece of burnt parchment eagerly and read the scrawled handwriting eagerly, letting out a sigh of relief.

“What’s it say?” Harry asked.

“It’s from Bill. It says: Dad’s ok. The Healers took him to Mungos to fix a broken leg. Fred, Charlie, and myself also ok, no injuries. Ministry building in ruins, lots of injured people, some dead, some missing. We’re looking for Percy. Magic no longer works in the building. Charms turn into hexes, hexes into charms. Stay at school. –Bill.”

“Percy will turn up,” Harry told her. “Don’t worry about him.”

“He’s the Minister’s aide and he’s gone missing.”

“He’s probably hiding under a desk somewhere.” Harry, Draco, and Ginny turned to see Ron at the top of the stairs. They hadn’t been aware that he was there listening to them.

Ginny stood to hand Ron the note from Bill, but he waved her away, looking at Draco, then her, and then looking disgusted. “Keep it,” he said, and then moved off, shaking his head.

Draco stood suddenly, feeling angry that Ron had treated Ginny like that, but Harry reached up and grabbed Draco’s sleeve to get him to take a seat again. “Forget it Draco,” he told him. “He’s upset because of his family. Leave him alone.”

Draco gave one last glare to Ron’s back, and then sat back down, Ginny lowering herself to the marble steps with him.


As promised in the special edition of the Daily Prophet, more information about the attack on the Ministry was released in the evening edition of the Daily Prophet. Rain washed the windows, and the hall was silent at dinner as students read the five-page article concerning the matter, and the next two pages about other attacks that same day since the attack on the Ministry. A long list of names on the last page listed the injured parties, and the dead, as well as the missing. Percy’s name was on the list of missing people, while not fantastic, was still better than being on the list of the dead. Many of the younger students sat crying, and some of the staff had moved out amongst the house tables to help comfort their charges.

“Mr. Greenwald worked in the same department as my dad,” Ginny said, finding his name on the list of dead. “And we had Mrs. Rosky over to dinner last year. Her daughter Amy graduated Hogwarts two years ago.”

Draco too found people he knew on the list of dead people. “Henry Montgomery… he was an auror… he called on us a few times when father was out but mother wouldn’t let him in. Mason Haller worked for the department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. He was a dark supporter… I’m surprised he’s dead. Gertrude Kensington worked in the Ludicrous Patents office… she was friends with my mum.”

Harry shook his head. He didn’t see any names of people he knew, but then again he didn’t know that many magical people outside of Hogwarts. “There’s a lot of people on that list.”

“There’s going to be more too. I don’t understand why the paper said to stay inside your house… once the Dark Lord is out of large targets he’s just going to start in on smaller ones. I think he’s pretty pissed off after his failed attack on us last year. Anyone’s a target now.”

Not feeling hungry any more they rose from the table and left the Great Hall. Several students were milling about and it seemed as good as place as any for them to stop and kill time for a little while. They talked to some other students for a few minutes before all of the chatter quieted at a knock on the massive oak front doors.

Several of the first and second years scurried back into the Great Hall for protection fearing it to be Voldemort or his followers on the other side. Harry and Draco looked at each other, wondering who it might be and what to do as there was another knock. Finally, at the third knock Harry stepped forward to open the doors, but was stopped by Dumbledore sweeping into the Entrance Hall with Professors McGonagall and Snape in tow.

Harry stepped back and Dumbledore opened the massive door to reveal a man, a woman, and three small children standing there, soaked to the bone.

Surprised, Dumbledore looked to McGonagall and then back to the family.

“Please sir,” the man said. “Will you take us in? I have to protect my family. There’s no telling how long before You-Know-Who starts attacking random wizard houses. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to my wife or children.”

Dumbledore’s gaze took in the family again, as did the other students and staff gathered there in the hall. “Garrison, you need not plead your case. The castle is open to you and your family provided you are willing to live by its rules.”

The man nodded eagerly and hurried his family inside. Dumbledore closed the door with a wave of his wand and was giving instructions to McGonagall to put the family up in a large guest room when there was another knock. As McGonagall lead the family away to a guest room on the first floor, the Headmaster opened the massive doors again and found not one but two families standing there, soaked and scared, but hopeful looking.

Before they could begin to plead their case, he motioned for them to come inside out of the rain, and said, “Provided you are willing to live by the castle’s rules, you are welcome to seek refuge here.”

They nodded, and a scrawny looking man shook Dumbledore’s hand vigorously. “Just give me a job to do Headmaster, any job. We’ll earn our keep. My wife can prepare the best meals and my kids, well, they’ll do any job they’re told.” Harry looked at the two young children as the man said this. They were twins about the age of nine, and they looked scared and confused to have been whisked away from their own homes and been brought here.

“There may come a time when we will need your services Asher,” Dumbledore said, “but for now you should get settled in and rest.” More professors had emerged from the Great Hall now, and began leading the two families away down the same corridor McGonagall had disappeared down. Dumbledore didn’t bother closing the door because through the darkness he could see several lanterns bobbing closer to them. Harry watched in awe as the Headmaster admitted three more families, Cedric Diggory’s parents, one of Ginny’s fifth cousins, and Madam Malkin from the robe shop on Diagonalley.

“Safest place on earth this,” Madam Malkin told Dumbledore as she hurried inside out of the rain. “I expect every witch and wizard in the isles knows that and is on their way here.”

Dumbledore nodded. “And so long as we have the room, they will find the refuge they seek.

Before Harry, Draco, and Ginny could see who else was coming to the castle McGonagall shooed them away and told them to go back to their common rooms along with the rest of the students there because they were only getting in the way.

“Maybe he’ll be so busy he’ll forget about Occlumency lessons,” Draco said hopefully, nodding his head toward Snape who was helping an elderly couple in through the doors.

“Good luck with that,” Harry said. “I’ve never known him to forget anything.”

“Yeah, guess you’re right. Good night.” Harry gave him a wave and waited for Ginny as she leaned in to Draco to give him a quick kiss, surprising several of the other Gryffindors and other students around them, before they made their way up through the castle to Gryffindor tower.

Harry, Ginny, and most of the rest of the house watched from the tower windows well into the night as lanterns bobbed through the darkness up the muddy dirt drive towards the castle. “Has this every happened before?” Harry asked no one in particular around him.

“Yes,” Hermione said. “Its in chapter four of Hogwarts a History. When Grindewald was attacking every wizard home he came to, people flocked to Hogwarts. There are special rooms on the first floor of the castle that were made to expand to take in refugees. Each guest room down there expands into thirty or so rooms big enough to hold two families.”

“How many expandable guest rooms are down there?”

Hermione shook her head. “As many as need to be. They can just keep adding them on.”

“I wonder how come the aurors let all these people past the front gates,” Ginny said. “I wonder if they’ll let any death eaters through.”

“If they do the truth and evil lines at the castle entrance will get them. Besides that, I think Dumbledore was prepared for this. I think he told them to let people in if they needed refuge.”

They turned their attention back to the dark grounds out the windows. Harry had lost count hours before of the lanterns he had seen in the darkness.


In the morning Harry was surprised to find the Great hall relatively empty seeing how many people came to the castle the night before. As usual, the four house tables and staff table were filled with staff and students only.

“Where are all the refugees?” he asked. Ron was not at breakfast, so Hermione had moved down the table to sit with them this morning.

“Dumbledore doubled the food supplies and sent half to the refugee quarters. There are separate kitchens there and some of the house elves were sent to prepare food for all of the people.”

“I saw a few people in the halls this morning,” Draco said. He had been up early, unable to sleep with the dread of Occlumency lessons hanging over him, and had seen a few children and a couple of parents in the Entrance Hall.

“I heard McGonagall telling Madam Hooch that Filch will be getting extra help. About forty people offered their services to help keep the castle clean with all the extra people. And I think Madam Malkin is offering to repair all the students and staffs robes for free while she stays here as payment.”

“Gee, what will they do with us when we get detention if there are no toilets to clean?” Draco asked, giving Ginny a meaningful look saying that it might be easier and less risky to sneak around now.

“Well don’t think about going and breaking rules just because half of Wizarding Britain is staying in the castle now…” Hermione told him sternly.

“Why not?”

“Think of all the moms running around trying to keep their kids out of trouble,” Harry pointed out. “I don’t think they’d have any problem telling on us since Dumbledore’s letting them stay here for free.”

“They’re all on the first floor though, right? That leaves all the upper floors open for mischief making.”

Hermione clucked her tongue at him and said, “Is that all you think about? Making trouble? Don’t you do any studying at all? NEWTS are only seven months away you know.”

“Only?” Harry laughed. “Well, maybe they’ll cancel them this year because of all the trouble at the Ministry.”

“You think?” Hermione asked worriedly. Harry knew she had been studying for them since the end of their OWLS.

There wasn’t much new information about the Ministry attacks in the morning edition of the Daily Prophet delivered to them at breakfast, but the special edition dropped in their laps at lunch held devastating news.

Harry heard Hermione gasp from all the way down the table when she opened up Ron’s copy and read the Headline. Draco dropped his copy on the table and turned it for Harry to see, a dark look on his face. “Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge Dead,” was the Headline in bold stamped across the front page. There was no picture, but instead a two-page article concerning the details.

Reading the article quickly, Harry shook his head. “Everybody will really panic now,” he said solemnly.

Draco nodded. “That’s what He wants. He wants them to panic. If they panic, then they will welcome any form of order that presents itself, even if that form of order is him.”

Frowning, Harry said, “Do you really think they’ll except him as their new Minister of Magic?”

“No, but they’ll accept someone he puts up there. He’s got his hands in a lot of pockets… who knows who he controls anymore?”

Ginny bit her lip next to Draco and said, “Well, there are certain people we can be sure of, aren’t there? I mean, if they put Harry up for Minister or something…” although she was trying to lighten the mood a little with a joke, her tone was dark, and it didn’t have the effect she wanted.

“We’re doomed,” Draco said putting on a face of mock horror.

“I’m not that bad,” Harry said. “I just don’t think Voldie likes me enough to nominate me for the position.”

“I can’t believe this! How could you do this to me!?”

Ginny stared down her brother as he paced back and forth shouting at her. “Well maybe you wouldn’t be shouting if you realized I haven’t done anything to you at all!”

“Yes you have! First Harry, and now YOU! He’s dangerous Ginny! How could you want to be around someone like that piece of filth!?”

“He’s not filth!” she shouted back, finally raising her voice to match Ron’s. “And besides that, you’re my brother, not my parent! It’s not up to you who I love and don’t love!”

Ron shot her a look, and moving closer he lowered his voice and said, “Oh, I’m your brother am I? Are you sure about that? Because anybody who would step over the line and betray me like this sure isn’t family of mine.”

He stomped off down the empty corridor and left her there crying. She had told herself that she wasn’t going to let herself care what he thought about her and Draco, but here she was in tears over what he had said to her. It had always been her and Ron together growing up because they were the youngest and closest in age, and now it was just her all alone at Hogwarts, the only Weasley left.

Setting off in no particular direction Ginny tried to get her tears to stop, but couldn’t. She and Ron had had some big fights before, but none so bad as this one. For the first time she truly began to understand how Harry must have felt after Ron had disowned him.

“Ex- excuse me dear, but is everything all right?” Ginny looked up as a woman approached her carefully, as if not to set off a bomb.

Ginny shook her head. “It’s my stupid brother. He caught my boyfriend and I kissing in the hall and now he’s disowned me.”

“Oh, come now, I’m sure it’s not that bad,” the woman told her, putting a hand on Ginny’s shoulder in a motherly way that reminded her of her own mom.

“It is,” Ginny told her. “It’s just because he doesn’t like my boyfriend. He disowned his best friend earlier this year because he became friends with him, and now he’s told me I’m not his sister because I’ve started to date him.”

“Hm… it sounds to me like your brother has his own problems to deal with. I wouldn’t worry myself over it right now. So long as you’re happy.”

Ginny nodded. “I hate that he has to be like this. He’s just pushing everybody away from him. He thinks he owns me or something and can tell me what to do.”

“Brothers are like that sometimes dear. Be thankful he wants to watch out for you and protect you. My older brother didn’t like my husband until we had our first child three years after we were married. Besides, you look old enough to make your own decisions. You must be a sixth or seventh year. What year is your boyfriend?”

“I’m a sixth year and he’s a seventh year, the same year as my brother. I just can’t believe he’s being so childish is all.”

“It will work out dear, you’ll see. In the mean time just remember that it’s your relationship, not his. Don’t let anybody tell you what to do with your life, especially when it comes to love.”

Ginny nodded again. “I won’t. Thank you.”

The woman smiled kindly and left Ginny there.

It was Monday after classes, and Ginny wiped the last of the tears from her eyes, thankful that the woman had been there to talk to when no one else had been. Suddenly Ginny was homesick and wished her own mother was there with her now. She missed the rest of her family as well, still feeling alone without them.

In the room of requirement Ginny found Harry and Draco talking avidly about something. Both of them gave her their full attention when she walked in and Draco moved to put his arms around her when he saw her red-rimmed eyes.

“What happened?”

“Ron happened,” Ginny said. “He got angry because he caught you and me snogging before lunch.”

Harry bit his lip. Draco had informed him of the encounter, and Harry had wondered that Ron hadn’t drawn down on him there and tried to hex him senseless.

“Don’t worry about him,” Draco said. “Who needs him anyway huh?” This seemed to be the wrong thing to say, although he realized it too late as Ginny gave a sniffle and her emotions threatened to overwhelm her again. Draco pulled her into a tight hug though which seemed to steady her. She loved that he had that effect on her.

After a few minutes of sitting on the couch next to Draco, the two boys picked up their conversation again without missing a beat.

Draco seemed eager to find out all Harry knew about Occlumency before his first lesson with Snape that evening after dinner.

“Ok, go over it with me again, I do what now to block out images when he’s sorting through them like in a book?”

“You have to picture what you want him to see,” Harry said. “So, say you want him to see nothing, then you just picture blackness like you’re in a darkened room, or picture pure white light like you’re staring at the sun. You can picture anything really, a box, a wand, anything. It’s hard though because it’s like he’s turning pages in a book and each page has a different memory on it, and of course they’re memories you don’t want him to see, because the second he starts looking into your mind, you start thinking about all the stuff you don’t want him to know about.”

“Great,” Draco said unenthusiastically.

“I don’t understand,” Ginny said. “How can you not think about something you don’t want to think about?”

“Ok,” Harry said. “Don’t think about zebras for thirty seconds. Go.”

Harry waited for a few seconds and then said, “What were you thinking about just now?”

“Draco riding a zebra.”

“Oh God,” Draco rolled his eyes and ran his hand through his hair. “I’m going to fail miserably and the whole time I’m going to be picturing Snape riding a zebra…”

Harry and Ginny burst out laughing and Draco shook his head burying his face in his hands.

“Well, if all else fails,” Ginny said, “that could be your last resort. If he’s looking in on a memory you don’t want him to see, start thinking about him riding a zebra through the Quidditch pitch or something.”

“Or you could think of him riding a Zebra in a circus,” Harry put in.

“Or maybe sitting on a zebra while he teaches class…”

“Oh, you’re not helping at all thanks, if that’s what you were trying to do,” Draco said through his hands. Harry and Ginny laughed again.

The three of them walked into dinner late, and when they sat down Hermione hurried over to them and brought them a copy of the evening Prophet.

“They’ve already named a new Minister,” she told them, handing Ginny the paper. “It turns out Fudge planned ahead and authorized a new minister in case he died.”

Harry nodded in approval. “For once he did something right then. Who did he name?”

“A senior auror named Agustus Finch. I guess Finch was trained by Moody… he must not be too bad because Ron received a letter from Mr. Weasley saying that they were glad Finch had been named.”

“Finch helped dad out of a tight spot a few years ago in the Ministry,” Ginny said. “They caught dad with a horde of Muggle plugs… you know, the electrical kind. Nobody believed him that they were for electricity but Agustus was Muggle-born and he told them what Dad was saying was true.”

Draco eyed Ginny. “Your family sounds a little strange. Muggle plugs?”

Ginny turned slightly red and Harry said, “You should see the car he bewitched to fly. Too bad it’s running wild somewhere in the Forbidden Forest right now.”

Hermione shook her head, remembering the incident where Harry and Ron had flown the car to school, and bade them goodnight as she made her way back down the table toward Ron.

After dinner Harry and Ginny bade Draco good luck as he solemnly made his way down to Snape’s office. He didn’t have much hope for the lessons because he vividly remembered his last few lessons with his father before Lucius had given up on him and sent him out of the room covered in boils. That had been years ago.

“Come,” was the reply given to Draco’s knock on Snape’s office door. Draco went inside closing the door with a snap behind him, and plopped down in a visitor’s chair in front of the Potion Master’s desk. All through dinner he had been practicing blacking out his vision in his head with little luck because Ginny’s hand on his leg kept bringing his mind back around to her. He definitely didn’t want Ginny to pop into his mind during these lessons.

“What do you know of Occlumency?” Severus asked him.

“My father told me about the basics, and Harry tried to give me some pointers, but every lesson I had with my father went pretty badly.”

Severus nodded. He stood and motioned for Draco to do the same. “Forgive me for going over the basics again then. I will start out using lower power then one normally would. You must clear your mind of all thought, memory, and emotion, or else I will see, think, and feel what you do. Is that understood?”

Draco nodded. “Prepare yourself then.”

Closing his eyes, Draco envisioned blackness, but the memory of his father trying to teach him just as Snape tried to teach him now encroached on his concentration as Severus said the spell and delved into his mind.

Suddenly Draco was back at Malfoy Manor in his father’s drawing room, and his father was throwing a heavy goblet at him, and cursing him for failing yet again.

“Damn you Draco! This is so easy! How is it that you cannot master the simplest of tasks?!”

Before Draco could dodge the second item thrown at him though, he found himself back in Snape’s office. Severus crossed his arms and said, “Concentrate harder. Once I am in a memory do not give up and simply re-live it. Picture whatever you must to get me out of the areas of your mind you do not wish me to see. I will not lift the spell next time.”

Draco nodded. “Yes sir.” Severus lifted his wand and again Draco was back at Malfoy Manor, only this time he was a little younger, and he was sitting in a kitchen chair as his mother tried to heal a bruise over his left eye where his father had thrown something heavy at him and hit him solidly.

“You must be more careful Draco. Do not anger him so.” Draco tried to darken the image as if the lights in the room were going out, and he managed to darken it considerably before his mother spoke again, and he longed to hear her words because he had not seen her for so long.

“I know it isn’t your fault Draco, but this is our life and we must live it.”

Again Draco was back in Snape’s office, and Severus stood there with his arms crossed. “You are not trying because you wish to be there.”

Draco shook his head. “I wish she was here, but I don’t want to be back there living through all of that again.”

“Then don’t. Concentrate and force me out of your mind. I will begin finding more unpleasant memories to motivate you if you do not concentrate harder.”

Nodding that he understood, even if he didn’t like it, Draco allowed himself to be hit with the spell a third time, and the unbidden images of his father shouting at him in the living room and pulling out his wand to aim at Draco crashed down on him. Luckily for Draco, something in the background caught his eye. It was black and white and striped, and he was reminded of a zebra. Forcing himself to change his thoughts to that of a Zebra, he forced the image of his father hexing him out of his mind, and found himself seeing Ginny standing on top of a zebra in the darkness. Wondering at why Ginny had appeared there, and standing on the zebra no less, Draco lost his concentration and found himself back in Snape’s office.

Snape raised a brow, and said, “What, may I ask, was that?”

Draco bit his lip. “A zebra sir?”

“And why did you choose to picture a zebra with Miss Weasley on its back?” Draco shook his head.

“I- I don’t know. I saw something in the background of the living room and it made me think of a zebra. I don’t know why Ginny was there.”

“But you did not show me this image on purpose?”

“No sir.” He shook his head again.

“While the end goal was reached, you must work on the means with which it was obtained. When the Dark Lord enters into your mind uninvited there will not always be something in the background to allow your mind to stray to something else.” Severus paused, and then continued, “I know you to be stubborn Draco. Use that stubbornness to your advantage. This skill takes willpower. Sometimes you must work to achieve that.”

Draco nodded, and readied himself as Snape raised his wand again.


“How did it go?” Harry asked apprehensively, knowing that his own first tries at Occlumency… well, his first several dozen lessons in fact, did not go well at all.

“Badly,” Draco told him as he fell into stride with him in the hallway on their way to Potions the next morning. Several small children darted past them in the Entrance hall and Harry and Draco dodged them as a frazzled mother ran after them.

“Oh, that good huh?”

“I just couldn’t get it. I saw a zebra once,” he caught a glimpse of Harry from the corner of his eye as Harry sniggered, and then continued, “really, I did, with Ginny standing on top, but it was on accident. I couldn’t get the image to come up again. Every time he entered my mind I kept seeing something awful from home.”

Harry nodded his understanding. “It tends to be the awful or embarrassing memories that come around like that. It just takes practice. It took me months of lessons and I still don’t have it down all that well, but I can push somebody out of my mind if I really try hard. There’s definitely got to be motivation involved.”

“Yeah, well I hope I find some before the next lesson.”

“When is it?”

“In three days.”

Harry slapped him on the back. “Like I said, you and I can practice if you want. I know the spells and I’ve never actually tried it going the other way to look into somebody’s mind before, so it probably won’t be all that powerful if I use it on you.”

“Maybe,” Draco said as they walked into the Potion’s classroom and took a seat.

At the front of the room Snape stood looking out over the class, his gaze not stopping on Harry, Draco, or Hermione who took up her now usual seat beside them. When the class had gathered he tapped the board with his wand and the word NEWTs appeared there with a list of difficult looking potions.

“These are the potions you will all have mastered before your NEWTs arrive. From this point on this class will move toward independent study. While I will be here to answer questions, I will not be teaching you how to brew these potions. Part of brewing is knowing where to find the instructions and the ingredients, and how to create a successful potion. There is no order in which these need to be completed in, but you must each complete each potion before the end of the year.

“NEWTs take three days to complete. Some of these potions are one-day potions, some of them will take all three days. Your NEWT instructor will pick one of these potions at random on your first day of testing and you will be graded on its quality upon completion. While all of the necessary ingredients will be provided for you at testing time, instructions will not be. If you have any questions before NEWTs arrive, come to me. I will be unable to help you after the tests arrive.

“I suggest you copy down these potions and take the rest of this class period to begin your search for the texts in the library where you will find brewing instructions and necessary ingredients. I will assign each of you a private brewing room at the beginning of the next class period where you will brew your over night or multiple day potions. All one day potions will be completed in class starting in two days, so I suggest you come with the necessary instructions for each one day potion each time you come to class. Dismissed.”

Hermione was already scribbling down the forty potions on the board, biting her lip so hard that to Harry it looked painful.

“That’s a lot of potions,” Draco commented as he pulled out a quill and parchment.

“At least we don’t have to memorize them,” Harry said.

“Oh, but we should!” Hermione said. “What if the book we need is checked out during testing?”

“Are you a witch or not?” Draco asked her. “I thought you knew how to do a copying charm. Just copy the instructions and keep them in your room so you can get to them during testing.”

A light seemed to go on in Hermione’s head as she started scribbling again. She was the first to finish and the first to rush from the classroom toward the library.

“Tell you what,” Draco said as he copied the list at his own leisure, “we should just wait until she gets all those instructions copied and then get copies from her.”

“Good luck,” Harry said. “He told us that it was part of the assignment for the rest of the year to be able to find the Potion’s instructions… that means its cheating to copy them down. Hermione will help us but she won’t help us cheat.”

“Too bad,” Draco said, “because I thought it was pretty ingenious to know to go to Hermione to find the instructions.”

Harry laughed and continued to copy the list as well.


Harry pulled text after text from the library shelf as he waited for Draco to show up a few days later. Draco had promised to come help him look through Potion’s texts after his Occlumency lesson, and Harry figured he’d get a head start right after dinner.

Hermione claimed to have all of the instructions copied already, and most of the other students hadn’t even started yet aside from their first one day potion they’d copied to do in class earlier that day, so the library was pretty empty in the Potion’s section where Harry stood looking through the tall shelves.

A sudden noise behind Harry made him spin around, but he found himself being pushed back against the bookshelf by Ron, who had anger in his eyes.

“You’ll be the ruin of me Harry,” he said, more upset than he seemed angry.

Frowning, Harry thought about hitting Ron upside the head with the heavy Potion’s text he held, but instead said calmly, “What are you talking about Ron?”

“This is your fault that my sister is dating the son of a death eater. If you hadn’t gone and become best mates with him, she wouldn’t be around him all the time.”

“Did you ever think maybe he’s a different person than you think he is if me and Ginny seem to think he’s ok? Since when has my judgment of people been so bad? I was friends with you wasn’t I?”

Ron let go of Harry’s shirt collar and took a step back. “You just stay away from me and my family, got it? It’s bad enough we have You-Know-Who out there… we don’t need good people mixing in with his type and getting things all confused.”

Harry reached up and scratched the back of his head. “Step back and take a look at yourself Ron,” he told him calmly. “You didn’t hang around anybody bad and here you are stealing things, spreading rumors, and trying to hex people with dark magic. You can’t tell me that’s my fault. Now look at Draco. He came from the bad sort, and here he is trying to do good with his life and trying to do good by your sister by being there for her when you aren’t.”

Ron looked away and down to the ground. “I’m at the bottom of the barrel Harry. Don’t you let my sister follow me down.” With this he turned and walked away, leaving Harry feeling empty for some reason. What had he meant, at the bottom of the barrel?

Thunder echoed through the long dark halls as students, staff, and refugees slept. It bounced off the walls and magnified so that it sounded as if the world was ending. This was not a deterrent for Draco however as he hurried along the empty fifth floor corridor towards the statue of Alexander Henwick, where he had promised to meet Ginny.

When he found the statue that he had once accidentally transfigured into a horse with two heads, Draco stopped and waited, ears perked for any sign of the lovely redhead that had clouded his mind hours before during his latest failed attempt at Occlumency. Needless to say, Severus had not been pleased when all Draco could do was think about Ginny sitting next to him at meal times, although Draco figured Severus had to know that he and Ginny were dating by now.

“A little late to be out of bed isn’t it master transformer?” Draco tried to ignore the statue. It obviously still remembered that he had been the one responsible for the two horse heads.

“If you were smart you’d be using a disaparato charm on yourself so that you don’t get caught after hours.”

Draco turned to him. “A what?”

“A what? Did you just say a what young man? What do they teach you here? A first year should be able to do a simple disaparato!” The statue was obviously flustered. “To think that all those years of inventing spells went to waste! A what, really.”

Rolling his eyes, Draco crossed his arms and waited to be told what the spell was and how to do it. Seeing that his ranting was getting him nowhere, the statue went into professor mode and explained that it was a simple spell to make yourself disappear for short amounts of time.

“We learn spells like that, just not the one you’re talking about.”

“Well it’s time you learned this one then young man. This spell will get you out of many sticky situations!” The statue took his wand and moved it in a circular motion around his face, and said, “Disaparatus.” Nothing happened.

“That’s it?” Draco asked quizzically. “I can still see you.”

The statue waved his hands in the air. “Well what do you expect? I’m a statue! I have no magic in my stone wand! You try it! The counter is sutarapasid.”

“The counter is just the word backwards?”

“Well if you wish to make yourself undisappear…”

Shaking his head Draco lifted his own wand and muttered the incantation while waving his wand around his face. When he was finished, he looked down at his hand to see that it had vanished.

“How long does this spell last?” he asked.

“Five minutes,” the statue told him. “Perhaps they do not teach it to you here to prevent mischief makers such as yourself, but then again I always had a soft spot for your sort. I’ve only taught that spell to three people including you in the last five years.”

“Who else?”

“A pair of twins… flaming red hair and mischief written all over their faces.”

Draco nodded. Sounded like Ginny’s brothers. He always had gotten a good laugh out of them, even if they were Gryffindors.

Hearing footsteps from down the hall, Draco stood still and the statue became solid again, as if he had never come to life before. The steps only revealed Ginny though, who stopped at the statue to wait. Draco muttered the cancellation spell for the disappearing charm and reappeared inches from Ginny’s face, making her leap back into the wall.

“Where-”

Draco grinned. “Someone taught me a useful spell. I’ll show you later. Come on.” Taking her hand he lead her off around the corner and to a bare patch of wall. Here he touched the third brick from the bottom, which was slightly off color from the rest, and then a brick five over and five up, also slightly off color. The wall melted to reveal an archway behind it.

“What’s this?”

“Guess you’ll have to wait and see.” Draco pulled her gently inside and lit the lamps hanging on the round room with his wand. Once lit they revealed a tall library packed with books. The carpet and chairs were blue.

“Ravenclaw’s library?” Ginny asked. Draco nodded.

“I don’t think any Ravenclaws know about it at the moment. It’s a bit dusty. I had to convince Nearly Headless Nick to get the location out of the Fat Friar.”

Ginny ran her hand over the books on the shelves nearest her. “This is great. Hermione would have a fit if she found out there was a whole other library she’d never even been through in her seven years here.”

“Maybe we should keep this our secret,” Draco said, coming up behind her and putting his arms around her midsection.

Giggling because her stomach was ticklish where he had placed his hands, Ginny turned and asked, “Why?”

Shrugging Draco said, “Because then just you and me know about it, and we have a place to sneak off to that Ron won’t walk in on us.”

“Oh,” Ginny said, “so you want us to make out more? Is that it?”

Cheeks turning slightly red, Draco said, “I just meant, you know, I…”

She put a finger to his lips to quiet him, and then replaced it with her own. Draco was fine being speechless around her, because she always found a way to take the words from him and make it not matter at all.


“Oh, this is killing me.” Draco groaned as Harry lifted the Occlumens spell from him, weak though it had been. They stood in the middle of the room of requirement, which had taken the shape of a square, uninteresting room today to fit their purposes.

“Try something else,” Harry suggested. “Try picturing a house elf maybe, or… anything. Just something to push the images you don’t want out of your mind.”

“I have tried,” Draco said. “It’s no good. I’m useless at this. Snape was furious last night when all I could see was Crabbe and Goyle trying to beat the crap out of me the last few nights before Crabbe was expelled.”

“Hm… I don’t know how to help then. Your next lesson is tonight isn’t it?”

Draco nodded. “I hate this. I just want to quit and be done with it instead of making him angry every time I don’t get it right.”

“He’s just like that,” Harry said. “He shouted at me a couple times when I couldn’t get it to work.”

Plopping down in one of the two chairs in the room, Draco crossed his arms. “Yeah, well I wish he wasn’t like that. Not everybody can do everything, and not everybody can get everything as easily as he can. We’ve been doing lessons for three weeks now, and I was only able to push him from my mind that one time I thought about Ginny standing on top of a zebra.”

“Maybe you should try that image again,” Harry tried. “Maybe… Ginny standing naked on a zebra?”

Draco put his hands up to his eyes to block out the light. “No, no, don’t say that or that’s what I’ll be thinking about when I don’t want to be. I don’t want anybody to see her naked.”

“Well, maybe you won’t see that picture since you’ve never seen her naked.” Harry shrugged and Draco removed his hands from his eyes.

“Oh, and you have?”

Harry shook his head. “No, I didn’t mean anything by it. I just figured if you had I would have heard about it by now. No worries.”

Draco relaxed a little bit and went back to feeling sorry for himself. “This is going to be awful tonight.”

“Yep,” Harry said. “That’s usually the way these lessons go until you get it right. Dread, embarrassment, dread, embarrassment… maybe if you get rid of the dread the embarrassment will go away.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?”

Harry shrugged again. “I dunno. Believe you can do it maybe?”

“You’re no help at all.”


Draco’s feet felt heavy as he left his common room and headed towards Snape’s office after dinner that night. The only thing he had to look forward to was meeting Ginny in Ravenclaw’s library after the lesson was over, as had become their routine since he had shown it to her.

Inside the office Draco stood and waited, low hopes for the outcome of the lesson, as Snape finished grading the paper he had been working on and then turned his attention to Draco.

“Have you been practicing occluding your mind?”

Draco nodded. “Yes sir.”

“Good. Let us try again then. Remember, concentrate on one thing, and one thing only, and I will not be able to search through your mind like an open book.”

Trying to find something to concentrate on other than Ginny naked atop a zebra, Draco settled on the empty, boring walls of the room of requirement where he and Harry had practiced earlier that afternoon. Severus uttered the spell and Draco was hurrying down a darkened corridor on his way to meet Ginny at the spell inventor’s statue.

No, Draco thought, and he tried to picture clearly the empty room of requirement. For a moment the room flashed before his eyes, but he could not hold on to the image as the statue began to question him about being out so late. No. Draco was desperate now. He tried to picture the room again, and again it flashed before his eyes, but the corridor came back to him, and now Ginny was walking towards his invisible body.

Suddenly angry with himself that he was letting this happen, Draco added Harry into the picture and tried to picture the room of requirement again. This time he held the image for a few seconds as Harry sat in the chair talking to him, but Draco couldn’t remember all of the conversation. Wildly he cast his mind around for any other memory without Ginny in it as he lead her through the dark halls to the hidden entrance to Ravenclaw’s library. He tried picturing himself sitting in Potion’s class, he tried seeing himself on a broom in the Quidditch pitch, and even tried remembering the fist fight he and Harry had gotten into during the summer, but nothing so much as a flash of memory came to him, and he was forced to watch as he and Ginny entered the library.

Desperate, and barely aware of his body outside the memory, Draco managed to pull his wand from his pocket. Before he could take aim though, the memory changed, and he and Ginny were sneaking out of the castle and into the hidden garden out on the grounds under the stars. Again the memory changed, and he and Ginny were sneaking down to the kitchens for a midnight snack. Another flash and he and Ginny were kissing in an empty classroom at five am.

Feeling weak, Draco felt his knees hit the stone floor of the office, and finally he was with his own body again, wand in hand, shaking with rage.

“Get up,” Snape said angrily. Draco stayed where he was but stared up into his eyes.

“I hate you,” Draco said.

“Good,” Severus said. “Now what was that? Does be on your best behavior or you will lose my protection mean nothing to you? Sneaking out after hours with some girl is not what I would call-”

“I hate you,” Draco said again, malice in his voice.

“We’ve established that Malfoy.” Snape’s arms were crossed and he was looking poisonous. “Do not expect me to protect you when you can’t even follow rules laid down for your own protection. She is your weakness Draco, do not let her be that for you.”

Finally finding the strength to get to his feet, Draco pushed himself up off the ground and threw the office door open, slamming it behind him. He couldn’t remember a time when he had been angrier. Some girl? Ginny wasn’t just some girl. How could he have ever thought that Snape could understand him? He didn’t understand anything! Hadn’t he ever been in love before?

Disgusted, Draco shook his head and ran up through the mostly empty corridors towards the North tower, forgetting about his meeting with Ginny. It wasn’t after curfew yet and most students were still awake. Draco didn’t want to be around anybody at the moment.

Finally at the ladder that would lead him to the roof of the tower, Draco climbed up, still fuming about the man sitting down in his dungeon office hundreds of feet below. He pushed the trapdoor to the tower roof open roughly, and slammed it behind him. He wished he could get even farther away from the man he had been dreading spending time with for weeks now, but knew he couldn’t unless he left the castle grounds altogether.

A slight breeze whipped through Draco’s blond hair and helped to cool him after his long climb through the castle. How could he have been so stupid? Occlumency was worthless and he had just spent three weeks showing Snape all of his innermost embarrassing moments and thoughts with nothing to show for it.

Draco stared off into the night towards the Forbidden forest unseeing, not realizing that something black was winging its way towards him through the darkness, until it was almost to him. Leaping out of the way, Draco let the small black owl pass by him and land on the opposite tower ledge. There was a letter attached to it. Was it meant for him?

When he approached the owl waited dutifully as Draco untied the letter. His name was on the outside.

Draco was startled to find a quickly scrawled note in his father’s handwriting.

Dearest Draco,

I am in urgent need of your help. Please do not deny me the chance to meet with you briefly. I am in your confidence that you will not give away my close location to the castle. I will be waiting on the edge of the Forbidden forest and Hogsmead near the windy oak with your mother’s and my initials scratched into the base tomorrow afternoon. Please find it in your heart to grant me this request.

Do not respond to this letter, because I fear He will intercept it and find my location or put you in danger.

-Your father

Draco re-read the note three times. His father was afraid that He would find his location? Who was He? The Dark Lord? He must have been in deep trouble to call upon Draco for help, seeing as how Draco had tried to kill him during the battle on the castle grounds the year before. He was putting a lot of trust in Draco giving him a time and place where he would be. Perhaps he thought him worthy of the information, even after spending so much time under Dumbledore’s influence?

Draco was deep in thought all the way back down through the castle, his fight with Snape at the back of his mind, but still there. What was he going to do? Should he go? How could he not go when his father was in need of help? But then again, he wasn’t his father anymore was he?

Vicious thoughts circled Draco’s head as he climbed into his four-poster and lay on his back, note still clutched in his hand. Snape sure wasn’t much of a father to him… he told him flat out he wouldn’t protect him because he messed up and broke curfew a few times… what kind of parent was that? Lucius had put up with Draco’s mistakes thousands of times and had still held true with his protection for him. Snape didn’t even understand why Draco had broken curfew… at least his father had won over his mother’s heart at one time. At least his father knew what it was to raise a child.

The dormitory door opened and admitted someone. From the heavy steps Draco knew that it was Goyle.

“Draco?” Goyle’s voice was uncertain.

“What?”

“Are you in here?”

“Obviously.”

Goyle pulled back one of Draco’s curtains slowly, and gave him a sheepish look. “Can I copy your Transfiguration homework?”

“It’s full of mistakes,” Draco told him, knowing that it was probably the truth.

Goyle shrugged. “She took points off for not having it done at all last time.”

Draco waved him away and said, “It’s in my trunk.”

As Goyle rummaged through Draco’s trunk as he used to when they were still friends, Draco wondered why Goyle was even speaking to him. Since the battle the year before he and Crabbe had been intent on ignoring him or killing him. This was the first time Goyle had exchanged pleasant words with him since then.

After a short while Draco could hear Goyle scratching out a copy of the homework. Every once in a while the quill would stop, and Draco figured it was probably because Goyle was trying to figure out a word in Draco’s cursive.

“Goyle?”

“Huh?” it was more of a grunt, but because the quill had stopped scratching, Draco knew he was listening.

“Where do you suppose Crabbe is right now?”

There was silence as he thought, and then said, “His dad rescued him from the Ministry. His dad always gets him out of trouble. You know that. Just like your dad and my dad.”

When Draco didn’t respond, he heard the quill start scratching again. Note still clutched in his fist, he rolled over, feeling safe not putting up the protection charms around his bed for some reason. In his dreams, Severus yelled at him as he lay on his office floor dying.

“You’re a bad son, and I don’t want you anymore,” he told Draco over and over again.


As if he had formed a plan in his sleep, Draco rose before the first morning light and made his way out of the dungeons. His mind was made up.

Using the secret underground entrance to the hidden garden on the grounds, Draco made his way stealthily out into the cool morning air. It was so early that the birds weren’t even chirping yet.

The grass was crisp with frost underfoot as he left the garden and headed towards the edge of the Forbidden Forest. He would sneak through the trees thirty feet in all the way around the edge until he met the edge of Hogsmead and found the tree his mother and father had once shown him when he was a child. It would have been a lot easier to apparate, he thought to himself, but they wouldn’t learn that until after Christmas holiday when a representative from the Department of magical transportation came to give the seventh years lessons.

The morning sun was high in the sky by the time Draco made it around the edge of the woods and found the tree with his mother and father’s names carved into the trunk. There was no sign of his father, and as he waited, he traced the lines of the heart connecting their names with his finger.

Long hours passed by, and both hungry and anxious, Draco wanted something to do to pass the time. He pulled out his pocketknife and began to carve his and Ginny’s names under his father and mother’s names, connecting them with a heart in the same way.

“She is pretty isn’t she?”

Draco spun around. His father stood there wearing somewhat tattered and dirty robes. It looked as if he had been in a few fights and not had the time to change.

“Father?”

“The girl… Ginny. You made a good choice. I can see why you like her. She’s pretty, witty, intelligent.”

Draco frowned. “I thought you hated the Weasleys.”

“They’re pureblood son… how can I hate them. I dislike the way they choose to live, but I do not hate them.”

His father took a step forward as Draco ran this through his mind. He had imagined that his father might be angry if ever he found out that he was dating a Gryffindor… and a Weasley.

“How have you been?” The question stabbed at Draco unexpectedly. His father had never asked him that before.

“Ok,” Draco hedged. “I’ve been learning Occlumency.”

Lucius raised a brow. “My apologies for being such a poor teacher when it came to that and so many other things Draco. My patience has never been what it should have been with you. How are you faring in the skill under new tutelage?”

Draco frowned, remembering his dread for each lesson with Snape, and remembering the falling out with him the night before. “Not good,” he finally told him. “All I can think about is Ginny.”

“Hm…” Lucius seemed to think for a few moments, and then said, “She must be a great strength to you to be able to think about her so much. I would use that to your advantage. Your mother was always a strength for me in time of need. Perhaps you should keep your mind on Ginny more often instead of trying to steer it away from her?”

Even now as his father mentioned her, thinking of Ginny pulled at Draco’s heart. Snape was wrong. She wasn’t his weakness, she was his strength! Even in his nightmares, she was the one who always made the monster chasing him disappear! If Snape had been wrong about Ginny, what else had he been wrong about?

“You, you said you needed help,” Draco said.

Lucius nodded. “I need help protecting you Draco.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Soon there will be an attack on the castle. I’m disobeying orders right now just warning you about it. If you are there, you will die. Not for lack of prowess with a wand, but simply because the Dark Lord is against you. I need to get you as far away from the castle as possible. You and I can travel back to Malfoy Manor and get your mother, and we can travel to someplace he’ll never think to look for us. We can wait out the storm, and when it’s over, get him to place his trust in you once again.”

“I’m not leaving Ginny,” Draco said forcefully. “If he’s against me he’ll be against her.”

“You will never convince her to run away with us Draco,” Lucius told him truthfully. “But we will be able to protect her from afar off. There are students in other houses whom have fallen in with the Dark Lord recently, and I am friends with their parents. We can convince them to protect her during the battle, and then to bring her to us afterwards.”

Draco bit his lip. “I’m not asking you to betray your friends Draco… you need not give me any information. I only ask that you come away with your mother and I so that we can start over. It would kill both of us for you to die. You’re our son.”

This last statement seemed to pull at Draco’s heart as well. His father had never spoken to him like this before. Something must have happened to change him so. Was it the fact that Draco had turned on him last year? Had he finally come to his senses?

“She misses you terribly,” Lucius added in as Draco thought. “She cries for you in her sleep. It has pained her to not be able to see you during holidays.”

“I miss her too,” Draco said.

“Then will you come with us?”

Draco looked up at the spindly tree next to him, his parents initials carved over his and Ginny’s.

“I need to get my things.”

Lucius smiled and nodded. “You must hurry then. Wait until dark and then return here. I will fetch your mother and we will be waiting for you.”

Draco nodded and moved to hurry off back up to the castle, but before he could leave his father grabbed his wrist and said urgently, “Draco… be careful.”

He looked into his father’s eyes, and then nodded again before he hurried off back into the woods.


It was well after lunch when Draco returned to the castle, and his stomach was growling furiously. He made a trip to the kitchens before he made his way back to the dungeon, and asked for several things, which he stored in a bag the house elves let him take. What he could carry was not enough food for three people for more than a day, but at least it was something.

Almost across the Entrance Hall on his way to the Dungeons, a voice stopped him.

“Draco?” It was Harry.

Trying not to look guilty Draco turned to face him as he came down the marble steps.

“You missed Potions this morning. Snape was pretty upset. What happened last night?”

Draco shook his head. “He yelled at me because he saw in my mind that I’ve been sneaking out after hours to spend time with Ginny.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Everybody does that. Well, not to spend time with Ginny, but you know what I mean.”

“Guess he never did,” Draco said, feeling resentful towards Snape again.

Harry slapped Draco on the back. “Oh well, just have to figure out how to keep him from seeing those memories in the next lesson then.”

“There won’t be a next lesson.”

“You’re quitting?”

“I guess.” Draco took a few steps towards the dungeons, and Harry moved to fall into stride with him.

“I’m going into Slytherin,” Draco said shortly, wanting to be free of Harry long enough to gather his things.

“Oh, ok, see you at dinner then?”

“Maybe,” Draco called over his shoulder as he hurried through the dungeon entrance and out of sight.

Harry frowned at Draco’s retreating back. Something didn’t feel right. Draco seemed too anxious over something.


At dinner Ginny sat across from Harry, alone, and looked upset.

“Have you seen Draco?” she asked him.

“Only for a second today. He didn’t seem like he wanted me following him around so I let him be.”

“Did he seem mad?”

“He seemed anxious, why?”

She fidgeted and said, “We were supposed to meet last night and he never showed up. I waited for hours…”

“Hm… he’s not like that normally is he.” It was a statement. Harry knew that if Draco promised to show up somewhere, he would.

“He didn’t seem strange earlier in the day… I didn’t think I said anything to upset him.”

Harry waved her off. “Something’s got him anxious, but I don’t think it’s you.”

“I dunno, maybe he got the place we were supposed to meet wrong. I mean, maybe he went out to Hufflepuff’s garden or something and he thought I was the one who didn’t show up.”

“Hufflepuff’s garden?”

“Yeah. There’s a secret exit from the castle that leads to a hidden garden out on the grounds that used to belong to Hufflepuff.”

Suddenly remembering that Draco had been carrying a bag with the kitchen elf’s mark stamped on it, he wondered at the fact that Draco had so much food with him. “I think maybe we’d better go to this garden tonight Ginny.”

“What? Why?”

“He was carrying a sack of food with him when I saw him. I dunno. It just seems like he’s anxious over something and he’s got food with him, and he has a secret way out of the castle.”

“So… you think he’s going somewhere? Where would he go?”

Harry shrugged. “We can go wait in the garden and if he never shows up then we’re wrong. If he does, then we follow him and find out.”

“He would tell me if I asked him,” Ginny pointed out. “He tells me everything.”

“Something might have happened to change that.”

Ginny began to fidget again. “I don’t feel right spying on him.”

“I don’t feel right about it either, but something’s going on. This just doesn’t feel right.”

Silently Ginny nodded that she would go with him, and they finished dinner quickly so that she could show Harry how to get out to the garden. It would be dark soon and Harry knew that if Draco was planning on going somewhere, it would be under the cover of darkness.


Out in the garden Harry and Ginny hid behind a large overgrown bush beside the underground entrance to the castle. It had barely gotten dark before the gate opened again and Draco emerged with a backpack stuffed full of things.

Ginny moved to emerge from the bush but Harry held her there so she wouldn’t give away their location. After Draco hurried from the garden to the rest of the grounds, Harry let Ginny rise and said, “Let’s follow him for a little while.” She didn’t look happy about it, but she nodded anyway and let Harry lead off.

For at least an hour they followed Draco through the Forbidden Forest. A few times they thought he had heard them because he turned to check the woods with his wand in the darkness, but Harry had placed a charm on himself and Ginny to make them blend in to the background provided they stood still.

Another hour passed, and there was still no sign of where Draco might have been going. The charm wore off of Harry and Ginny, and Harry didn’t bother to put it back on. They would be coming to the edge of Hogsmead soon if they continued in this direction, and there would be more places to hide in the village if they needed it.

Out of the corner of his eye Harry caught sight of a hooded figure in the distance ahead of him, and out of instinct he pushed Ginny down to the ground and lunged at Draco, knocking him to the dirt.

They struggled for a minute, but Harry clamped his hand down over Draco’s mouth and Ginny dove on Draco’s legs to help still him. When he stopped struggling seeing that it was Harry and Ginny, Harry finally removed his hand from his mouth.

“What the hell?” Draco asked in an angry whisper.

Harry pointed over Draco’s head and held a finger up to his lips to be quiet. Draco rolled onto his stomach and watched quietly, seeing nothing. They waited for long moments, and then finally the hooded figure made its brief appearance again from one tree to behind another.

Harry pointed to their right and Draco looked just in time to see yet another hooded figure. Surely his mother would not wear a hood, and they were still another ten minutes from the edge of Hogsmead.

“I take it they weren’t who you were on your way to meet?” Harry asked when he saw the look of betrayal play across Draco’s pale face.

He shook his head. “My father and mother.”

“Looks like dad was leading you into a trap,” Harry said, a bit unhappy that Draco had chosen to go back to his father.

“He said I was in danger and he just wanted for my mother and I to start a new life somewhere else.”

“You have to remember who you’re dealing with,” Harry reminded him unnecessarily. “Has he ever told you the truth?”

Draco shook his head, ashamed that he had fallen right into the trap his father had set for him. His father had known the exact tune to play to get Draco to believe him, and he had fallen for it so easily.

“I just wanted him to be different.”

Ginny put her hand on Draco’s shoulder now, and he realized again that she was there.

“I was so worried about you,” she whispered.

Draco looked away, ashamed. “I’m sorry.”

Harry pulled out his wand to put the charm on the three of them that would make them blend in so they could get back to the castle grounds unseen, but Draco stopped him and put the invisibility charm on them instead. It would only last for five minutes, but it would be enough to get them out of the immediate danger they were in of being spotted.

It was nearly midnight when they made it back inside the castle.

“We should tell somebody that they’re out there,” Harry said.

“They’ll know I was about to go straight to him if we tell them,” Draco said.

Ginny grabbed Draco’s hand suddenly and pulled him down a corridor they were about to pass, Harry following. “Not if we send an anonymous school owl,” she told them. “We’ll send it straight down to the aurors.”

Draco looked into her eyes as they hurried up a long flight of stairs towards the owlery. “That’s why I love you.”

She seemed surprised to hear those words from him, as he had yet to confess all of his feelings for her, but she only grinned, and gripped his hand tighter.

Draco leaned against a wall outside of the Entrance Hall the next morning, looking down and scuffing his shoe repeatedly on the ground, regret and guilt still filling him from the night before. After they had sent the school owl off he, Ginny, and Harry had gone to the room of requirement to stay the night, but he hadn’t gotten much sleep. What if they hadn’t followed him last night? was the burning question that had plagued him as Ginny slept in his arms. He would probably be in agony somewhere under Voldemort’s Cruciatus curse right now.

Sympathy played across Ginny’s eyes as she came down the marble steps and spotted him there alone. It was well before breakfast, and Draco had snuck off to be by himself before he had to be around other people in classes all day.

She walked up to him and he was barely able to lift his eyes to meet hers. “Don’t feel bad,” she told him. He looked to the ground again.

“I should feel bad. He led me right into his trap. He would have taken me straight to the Dark Lord if you hadn’t come.” Not knowing what else to do she lifted her hand up to his hair and ran it through it before pulling him into a hug.

“Don’t be ashamed for wanting him to be like he should be. It’s not your fault that things are like they are.”

He hugged her tightly for a few moments before letting his head fall back to the stone wall behind him. “What would I do without you?”

Ginny grinned. “Sit around and sulk all day? Good thing I’m here then isn’t it? Come on.” She took his hand and led him into the Great Hall which was empty except for Professor Sprout sitting at the staff table reading a letter and a first year Hufflepuff sitting by himself looking unhappy at Hufflepuff table.

It was some time before more students began to show up for breakfast, Harry included, but Draco was pleased to find that Snape was not at the staff table this morning. Hurt and anger still coursed through him knowing that he now had no parental figure to fall back on.

“You left early this morning,” Harry commented as owls began to deliver the morning post and a very large edition of the Daily Prophet.

Draco shrugged as an owl waited for payment for Draco’s copy and he paid it. “I couldn’t sleep.”

Ignoring his copy of the Prophet Draco looked unhappily at his piece of toast and tried in vain to turn it into a large chocolate chip cookie. Ginny picked it up and transfigured it for him as Harry pulled the Prophet over and let out a sound of disgust. “Ugh…”

“What is it?” Ginny asked as she handed the square cookie to Draco.

Harry shook his head as he scanned the article. “Minister of Magic Finch Dead. Replaced by New Minister Jasper Trent Who Dies Later Same Day. Replaced by New Minister Casey Etherian.”

Draco frowned as he chewed slowly on his cookie. “Three in one day?”

“Looks like Voldie is getting anxious to get somebody new in office,” Harry commented as he scanned the article all the way to the bottom. “It says here Fudge apparently listed an unnamed number of new Ministers to be named in the event that they should die until the reign of Voldemort is over.” Harry glanced up to see that Draco had not picked up anything to throw at him, and then set the Prophet down. “The only smart thing he ever did in office.”

“I’ve never heard of Jasper Trent,” Draco said, but Casey Etherian is half elf. She’s not even from the isles. Father hated her.”

“Half elf?” The only elves Harry had ever heard of were house elves, aside from the ones on Muggle television shows his cousin used to watch.

“She’s from the Black Forest,” Ginny commented. “I saw her once when I went to work with dad for a day a couple of summers ago. She can do magic without a wand but she has one anyway.”

“So, she has pointy ears or something?” Harry was confused. “Like Muggle elves?”

Draco laughed and almost spit a chunk of cookie from his mouth. “No, like an elf elf. What’s wrong with you? I know Binns taught a chapter on Elves and the Ministry of Magic trying to place restrictions on their magical use but being unable to.”

Harry thought hard for a moment but drew a blank. “Sometimes I didn’t listen in his class… Hermione usually got me and Ron through his tests.”

“Well, elves are supposed to have more magic than regular witches and wizards… maybe Voldemort won’t be able to have her killed so easily,” Ginny suggested. She flipped through the Prophet for the next few minutes to see if there was anything else of interest inside, but found nothing.

“They must not have caught anybody last night,” she said. “There’s nothing in here about caught death eaters close to Hogwarts… although there is a short article about some anonymous information coming in to the aurors that turned nothing up… that might not be us either though because it’s really vague.”

Draco finished his cookie and looked down at the table, still feeling his father’s betrayal coursing through his veins. It had played out in his dreams all night as well.

From across the hall a group of girls burst out in giggles, drawing Harry’s attention momentarily as he reached for a piece of toast to turn into a cookie himself, suddenly feeling hungry for one now that Draco had eaten his.

“Wonder what that’s about,” Harry said distractedly as he turned half his toast into a burnt cookie before it turned to dust in his hands.

Ginny shook her head, “Honestly.” She picked up another piece of toast and transfigured it for Harry.

“Thanks Hermione,” he grinned knowing that Ginny had acted just like her. She blushed slightly before Draco turned to look at the group of giggling girls at Slytherin table as well as one of them rose and moved to speak to a girl at Ravenclaw table and whispered something into her ear. This girl in turn whispered something to a group of her friends, who proceeded to giggle just as loudly as the first group.

“Well, we’ll find out what’s so funny soon enough. Just another minute until it reaches our table.” Draco’s prediction was right. It was only a few moments longer before a girl ran over to their table and began whispering frantically into the ear of a third year named Anne. Anne however did not laugh. She rose promptly and strode to Hufflepuff and slapped a fifth year boy across the face, the sound of it resonating crisply across the Great Hall, drawing the attention of all gathered. Before any professors could ask why she had slapped him though, she ran from the audience, hand over her face to hide her tears.

Draco’s eyebrows rose. “What happened?” He turned to Ginny expectantly as if she had the answers.

“What, I’m supposed to know?”

Thinking about it for a second, Draco nodded. “You are a girl aren’t you?”

“And?” She narrowed her eyes slightly.

“And I thought, maybe, you know… you could go find out what happened. You can’t expect me or Harry to go ask any of those girls what happened. We’re the enemy… they won’t tell us anything.” He sped through this last bit very quickly, suddenly feeling on unstable ground with her.

Harry watched the exchange curiously as Ginny said, “Have you ever thought that maybe it’s none of our business?”

Draco’s shoulders slumped. The conversation resolved quickly however when Hermione came up to them and said, “Honestly! Boys are horrible at this school!”

“See!” Draco pointed at her and then said to Ginny, “I told you boys are the enemy… wait, that’s not what I meant.”

“What? Oh, never mind. Poor Anne.”

“Looked like poor Austin to me,” Harry said, referring to the boy who had been slapped and whose cheek was now very red.

“Apparently Austin went around telling people that he and Anne got to second base last night, and now it’s all over the school and she’s really upset and embarrassed about it.”

“Poor Anne,” Ginny agreed.

Hermione asked to speak with Ginny alone for a few minutes before class, and Draco told her he’d see her at lunch.

While the scene at breakfast had been enough to distract Draco from his thoughts and dreams of the night before, his feelings of guilt and self-loathing returned shortly after, even as the gossip about Anne and Austin continued to radiate through the halls as the day progressed. From his conversation with Ginny and Hermione at breakfast Draco knew better than to say anything, but from the way Austin looked down at his shoes as he walked, it looked to Draco as if he was just as embarrassed about all of this as Anne was.

Draco strolled into Potions taking up his usual seat, forgetting temporarily about his unhappiness with Snape until the Potions Master swept into the room and gave him a stern look. Then his feelings of anger rose up again and began swirling in the pit of his stomach somewhere near the bottom with the other unhappy feelings that had taken residence there. Harry found Draco in a sullen mood when he took his seat next to him just before class started.

“Today you will begin work on one of your two-day potions. Pick a partner and move your ingredients and cauldrons into a lab down the hall. You and your partner will be the only ones with access to your lab to prevent tampering.” Severus gave only a glance to Draco, but he was hastily throwing his books back into his bag and didn’t notice.

Harry shrunk his and Draco’s cauldrons to the size of a small pumpkin and picked them both up as he followed Draco out the door and to the empty lab at the end of the hall.

“How long are you planning on not talking to Severus?” Harry asked as he pulled his ingredients and instructions out of his bag and set them on one of the two small workbenches.

Draco resized his cauldron and shrugged. “He doesn’t understand anything about me, why should I speak to him at all?”

Harry frowned. “I dunno, maybe because he’s… you know.” He wasn’t sure he wanted to say to Draco what he wanted to just at the moment, especially with what had happened the night before.

“No, tell me Harry.” Draco rested one hand on either edge of his cauldron and looked up at his friend, making him feel slightly uncomfortable.

“Because he’s… our dad? I mean… he’s all we’ve got right? Isn’t he better than nothing?”

Funny how my own father, who would betray me to his master would know more about me than the supposed father who cares about me, Draco thought bitterly. “I’ve got you and Ginny haven’t I? What do I need him for?”

Harry was stumped. He himself knew why he preferred having a parental figure to talk to, but if Draco didn’t have this preference then he didn’t know how to explain it to him. Would he be betraying Draco’s confidence if he went and talked to Severus about all of this?

“And don’t even think about talking to him about this either…”

“Or what, you’ll throw goblets at me?” Harry chuckled and then made a mock duck as Draco narrowed his eyes and then mocked throwing something at him.

“I mean it Harry. You and Ginny are who I’ve got now. Don’t let me down.”

Harry’s mood sobered. He smiled however and said, “I won’t.”


* * *

“I don’t know… are you sure about this?” Draco fidgeted as Ginny nodded enthusiastically.

“Come on Draco, please?” She elongated the last word as if hoping this in itself was like a spell that would make him change his mind. “Hermione said she and Ron have been doing it for ages now and it’s perfectly safe.”

Draco furrowed his brow. “Since when has safety mattered to me in magic? It’s not that, its just…” he trailed off thinking about the nightmares he had always had. It was bad enough having Snape crawling through his waking memories… he didn’t know if he could handle Ginny playing a part in his nightmares.

“What? It will give us more time together… we won’t even have to sneak out anymore. It’s getting so hard now that Professor Dumbledore has all the mothers on the lookout.” In the last few nights Dumbledore had indeed sent many of the “mothers” as they called them out on patrol of the lower floors of the school. They had volunteered to try to help him keep order with all the fighting and rumors that had been going around the castle like wildfire.

Draco thought about it for a few more moments, and decided that any extra time spent with Ginny couldn’t be that bad, and nodded his head.

She smiled broadly and went over the spell with him one last time. “How do I know that you won’t be getting into other guy’s dreams now?” he asked playfully.

“I guess you don’t” she told him, “except that you have to be willing to receive the spell in order for someone to initiate dream contact with you. And besides that, I plan on being in your dreams every night. Ron and Hermione have been doing this for a month now so that she could give him extra help with his NEWT studying.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s what they’re doing.”

She gave him a mock look of shock, and then smiled again. “How long will it take you to get to sleep once you’re back in your dorm?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, half an hour maybe.”

She kissed him goodbye and reminded him to clear his thoughts before he went to sleep or else the spell wouldn’t work, and left the secret library. Draco lingered for a moment, praying that his dreams stayed calm tonight, before heading back to the dungeons.


Draco was dreaming about walking through the forbidden forest, a hanky tied around the end of a stick that he had slung over his shoulder, like a small child running away from home. Somewhere ahead of him he saw a death eater slither from tree to tree, as if it were a snake, and yet he kept heading toward it as if he were determined to get to him. Suddenly Ginny’s voice called out to him from a bright light behind him, and he spun around to see her standing there smiling, wearing a nightgown. When he turned back to where the death eater had been, he saw the empty Entrance hall instead of the dark forbidden forest.

“What were you dreaming about?” Ginny asked him.

“I don’t remember,” he lied. She gave him a knowing look and then took his hand and pulled him into a hug.

“I was dreaming about Percy and Ron before the spell took hold and I found myself here with you… this is much better.”

Draco smiled, and said, “Want to take a walk?” She nodded and let herself be lead off to another part of the castle.


* * *

“I don’t get it.” Harry stood in the potions lab and stared dimly down at his ruined potion the next day. It was frothy and brown, and bubbled like angry mud, ready to explode. “I followed the instructions down to the letter!”

“Mine’s pretty good,” Draco said happily, still thinking about his dream date with Ginny. “But I was doing a different potion than you were.”

“The door was locked… only you, me, and Severus had the key.”

Draco frowned. “We’ll don’t look at me. I haven’t been in here since class the other day.”

Scratching his head Harry went over to Draco’s cauldron. “What were you working on? Do you think some might have bubbled over and splashed into mine?”

Draco pulled out his instructions for his potion. “Doubtful, it was a mellow potion and I barely had the heat on so it shouldn’t have bubbled or splashed at all.”

Finally giving in to the fact that maybe he had in some way screwed the potion up, Harry bottled it and labeled it, knowing he had to turn something in. Surely a lecture on a botched potion would be better than a lecture on failing to do the assigned work.

Snape eyed the phial of brown mud doubtfully when Harry handed it to him along with Draco’s solution a few minutes later.

“And what potion was this supposed to be?”

“Draught of death sir.” Severus gave him a look that said, clearly this is not it, and waved him away to take a seat next to Draco at their desk.

“See,” Harry whispered to Draco as Snape continued to accept potions from other students as they walked in the door, “having him as a dad can’t be all bad. He didn’t say a word about what I turned in.”

Draco scoffed. “Just wait… I’m sure you’ll be hearing about it later.”

“Yeah, but not publicly,” Harry pointed out.

Later, at lunch Hermione gave Draco a knowing look and giggled quietly to herself as he and Harry passed by her on their way to meet Ginny at the other end of the table.

“Do I want to know?” Harry asked.

“Of course, but that doesn’t mean I’m telling you.”

“Uh!” Harry feigned offense but only grinned when Draco rolled his eyes at him.

The sly look Ginny gave Draco as he sat down only made him more curious, but he figured it was a couple thing and didn’t push it.

“Did you hear about Molly Evans and Tobias Gregor?” Ginny asked quietly as Harry took a bite of a ham sandwich.

“No. Do I want to?”

“They broke up because he found out she fancied some third year in Slytherin.”

“What, are we Slytherins that bad looking?” Draco sniggered.

Ginny sighed. “That’s not what I meant… he broke up with her because she liked another guy and didn’t tell him.”

Harry pointed his sandwich at Ginny and said, “What I want to know is how all of these secrets are getting out all of a sudden… it seems like just rumors to me.”

“But how can they be rumors if they’re true?” Ginny asked.

Thinking about it for a moment Harry said, “I don’t know, but there’s something strange going on when all of a sudden eight couples break up, five sets of friends start getting into fights, and…” Harry trailed off when a group of students at the next table pointed at Draco and Ginny and started giggling. Draco and Ginny turned to look at them, and the look Draco gave them silenced them immediately.

“I don’t like it is all,” Harry finished. “People have been turning on each other because of stupid rumors.”

“That are true…” Ginny again pointed out.

Harry frowned and thought on it some more.

* * *

Draco and Ginny sat on a puffy couch in the room of requirement as they waited for Harry to join them. Snape had pulled him aside after dinner that evening and said he wanted a word about Harry’s potion.

“So did you have a good time last night?” Ginny asked as she settled into Draco’s arms.

He scoffed. “You know I did. When else do we get to snogg in the middle of the hall and not worry about getting caught.”

She giggled. “Well, we did get caught, but at least we didn’t get into trouble.”

Draco shuddered. “I forgot we were in a dream when your brother walked up behind us. I have to say, that weirded me out when he just looked at us, and then kept walking.”

She shrugged. “Well, that was the first time we tried to dream-share. Maybe people from our dreams will randomly show up from time to time.”

“Ron and Hermione dream share… are you sure it wasn’t your brother really in our dreams?”

“Yes. Don’t forget we have to be willing for him to pop in on us… and besides that, he would have chased you down the hall if he were really there.”

Draco shook his head. “I guess… it was fun though. Do you want to try again tonight? Maybe we can keep your family out of it this time?”

She nodded and buried her face in his chest.


Harry laid on his bed, restless. By the time he had gotten done talking to Severus, and swearing that he had followed the potion instructions to the letter, it had been too late to go and see Draco and Ginny before curfew. He couldn’t be too upset about getting to talk to Severus though. It had been something he hadn’t found the time to do in a while. The conversation had only strayed to Draco once, but upon seeing the uncomfortable look on Harry’s face when he hesitated to answer, Severus dropped the subject. Draco was right, it wouldn’t be right for Harry to betray his confidence, even if it was to someone they both considered their surrogate father. Harry was pondering this and thinking that Draco still did think of him this way, even if he was angry at their professor, when the dormitory door opened and footsteps told Harry that Ron was coming to bed. The other boys had already been asleep when Harry had come in, and the only one missing had been Ron.

“Harry?” Ron’s voice was cautious, and Harry wondered why he was speaking to him at all after months of not talking.

“What?”

Suddenly his four-poster curtains were ripped apart, and Ron was standing there, seething, wand gripped tightly at his side.

“This is your fault!” he hissed at him. Before Harry could dive for his wand on his nightstand, Ron already had his up and had Harry in a crucio. The pain was excruciating and Harry writhed and arched his back, his mouth open in a silent scream. The pain seemed to go on for hours, and when Ron finally let his wand up so that he could laugh mercilessly, Harry managed to only get a single breath before Ron started the torture again, laughing all the while.

“This is your punishment for betraying me and becoming friends with that traitorous little scum you hang around all day. Just remember this brother… once a death eater, always a death eater.”

Panting, Harry suddenly sat up in bed, tearing at the curtains, and falling out unceremoniously onto the cold stone floor. The room was dark, and Ron was nowhere in sight. The other boys slept quietly, and did not stir when he scrambled to his feet and grabbed his wand off the nightstand. He was still dressed and still had his glasses on, and it took him a moment to realize he must have fallen asleep while thinking. A little dazed, the memory of the pain from the crucio still lingering, Harry wasn’t quite sure how much of it had been a dream. Had he actually gone and spoken to Severus after dinner? It seemed real enough, and he was still dressed as he had been the day before… but that crucio… it felt so real.

Just to be sure, Harry snuck quietly to Ron’s four-poster and pulled the curtain back. There was his ex-best friend, snoring peacefully with his pajamas on and his hair all messed up. He moaned something about Hermione and then Runes in his sleep before Harry let the curtain fall back into place and took a seat on the side of his bed. He lay back across the bed, his legs hanging off the side and his head almost hanging off the other side, and took slow deep breaths. It had been some time since he had had a nightmare like this. Was it possible that Voldemort had breached his mental barriers and gotten in? He had to admit that it was a possibility because he had not occluded his mind before he went to sleep this night, but he had started putting up spells around himself every day against the evil wizard. Spells that Severus had promised would work.

As he allowed himself to drift back to sleep, Harry thought that it could have just been a dream.


In the morning, Draco and Ginny kept shooting each other playful glances at breakfast. They failed to notice the light circles under Harry’s eyes, but did notice his altered mood when he turned down any food the table offered up to him.

“Feeling sick mate?” Draco asked.

Harry shook his head. “No.” His tone told Draco not to ask, so he dropped it there.

In Potions later that day they were assigned to another two-day potion, and Harry and Draco paired up again to share a lab, this time Harry was working on the last potion Draco had done, and Draco was working on the one Harry had previously messed up.

“Too bad we’re not allowed to brew the same potion,” Draco said as he began chopping rat spleen, being careful to get the cuts even and precisely the right size so as not to mess the potion up like Harry had done.

“Yeah, well, I got a good talking to, that’s for sure. I have to get this one right or I’m going to be doing it and the other one over again after dinner each night.”

“Well, that’s not too bad, is it? You like spending time with him don’t you,” Draco said, referring to Snape.

“Yeah, except I’ll be brewing alone and sleeping in the lab each night to ensure that I can keep an eye on my potion.”

“Ugh… that’s horrible, there’s not even enough room for a bed in here.”

“I think that was the point,” Harry said as he swept the ingredients he had just cut up off of his work-bench and into his potion.

At the end of the class, his potion looked perfect, and he and Draco made sure to lock up their brewing room tight, just in case somebody did try to get in and mess with Harry’s potion.


Careful to occlude his mind that night before going to sleep, Harry was confident that Voldemort would not be getting into his dreams. He even cast an extra protective mental barrier against the maniac wizard before drifting off, just in case. Unfortunately his dreams were much the same as the night before. Ron stood over him holding him in a crucio for hours on end, and Harry writhed in pain, knowing no end to his suffering. When he finally managed to wake, his watch read five am, and he couldn’t get back to sleep for that extra hour even if he wanted to.

At breakfast Ron didn’t bother to look at Harry as he passed, just like always, but Harry couldn’t help but feeling some kind of hatred for him, even if he had only been evil in his dreams. As he pushed his food around his plate and dared Draco and Ginny not to ask by the look he gave them, he could still hear Ron’s maniacal laughter ringing in his ears.

The third night that he dreamed about being crucioed senseless, he was at his wits end when he awoke, and actually felt the ache of hours of pain deep within his bones. It was very lucky for the real-life Ron that he was already dressed and down at breakfast when Harry awoke, because Harry wasn’t sure he could stop himself from beating him senseless if he met him in a private place like the dorms.

He rested his head on the table at breakfast silently, face down, and Ginny gave Draco a meaningful look. They had discussed Harry in their shared dreams the night before, and he had promised her that if Harry looked in bad shape the third day that he would press him for information until he got the story about what was going on.

Harry ran a hand through his semi-messed up hair, that he hadn’t even bothered to comb this morning as he and Draco met outside their Potions lab and Draco pulled out his copy of the key and keyed in.

“You don’t look so good Harry… haven’t been dipping into some secret stash of moonshine I don’t know about have you?” Harry gave him only a half glance as they walked in the room and Harry saw his cauldron, once again filled with brown, bubbling goop.

“What the hell?” Harry kicked his cauldron hard and turned on Draco. “You and I are the only ones with a key!”

Draco frowned. “I don’t know how-”

“Are you sure!? Because it seems pretty obvious who’s responsible for this!” Harry was shouting now and Draco had no doubt that Snape would come in any moment to see what the ruckus was about.

“What are you saying?” Draco was trying to remain calm. He knew Harry was on edge about something and didn’t to push him too far.

“You know what I’m saying. How the hell would anyone but one of us get in here? And I sure as hell don’t have motive to screw up my potions so that I have to come back and sleep down here for two nights in a row!”

Draco bit down on his tongue hard to keep from shouting the things at Harry that he wanted to, knowing that he would regret it if he did. “Just, calm down Harry and listen to what you’re saying. You know I wouldn’t-”

“Do I?” Harry kicked his cauldron again and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Draco stood there for a moment before he too kicked a cauldron. Was it that easy to lose Harry’s trust?

It was only a minute before Snape opened the door to see who had been shouting. Upon only seeing Draco there he asked, “Where is Harry?”

“How should I know, am I his keeper?” He tried to move past Snape but the larger man blocked his exit.

“You are his friend. Now explain what has happened.”

Draco threw his hands into the air in frustration. “He thinks I messed with his potions!” Snape peered into the cauldron with brown goop and then looked back up at Draco. “And no, I didn’t,” Draco said angrily pushing his way past him, mistaking Snape’s look for one accusing him of the crime.

Severus walked to his office and found Harry inside sitting in one of the chairs looking livid. “I want a different lab partner,” Harry said calmly, his voice betraying his appearance.

“That will not be necessary,” Severus said as he took a seat behind his desk. “I do not believe that Draco sabotaged your potions.”

“So what, I’m just that big of a screw up?” Harry demanded, his voice and temper rising again.

Severus took in his appearance calmly. “No, but you will be able to rule out Mr. Malfoy tampering with your potions when you sit with your potions tonight. I will conjure a bed to replace his workbench and cauldron.”

“Fantastic,” Harry said lamely, knowing there was no way to prove that Draco had indeed committed the crimes Harry had just accused him of. And if his potions turned out just as fouled after he had spent the night with them, then he was doomed to fail. Either way he lost. Either he was to lose his second best friend that year, or he was to fail out of Potions and be disowned by Severus.

“Is there something you wish to discuss with me Harry?” He had noticed Harry’s appearance growing more ragged over the past three days.

“No sir,” he said, getting a good view of the floor.

“If you change your mind, I will be grading papers for most of the night.”

Harry nodded, grabbed his bag and left.

Even though he had lived through the hormonal teenage years himself (barely) it was ever a wonder to Severus how moody his students grew. It was amazing to see them go from snotty, innocent eleven year olds to hormonally imbalanced teens on the brink of emotional disaster. Of course, he reminded himself, Draco and Harry were not your ordinary teenagers. They had been through evils most people couldn’t even fathom.


Draco was so upset that he skipped dinner that night and met Ginny in the room of requirement. He told Ginny what had happened and she sympathized. “I wonder what’s wrong. Maybe he’s sick?”

“Yeah, he’s mental.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she told him. “Maybe he’s physically sick and he doesn’t want to say anything? Ron’s like that too you know… I’ve no idea why.”

Draco sighed as he looked at his watch. “I don’t want to be alone right now.”

“Then don’t.” She smiled at him and said the spell that would link their dreams as she curled up in his arms. “We can be together now and in our dreams.”

“This is why I love you,” he whispered gently into her ear.

“This is why I love you,” she echoed back to him.

Down in the dungeons Harry put several locks on the lab door from the inside and sat at his workbench, exhausted. He wouldn’t be surprised if he had made a mistake now that he was so tired, but at least he had gotten both potions started and they wouldn’t need anything else done until the morning. He desperately didn’t want to fall to sleep but knew that aside from a strong potion there was nothing he could do to fight it off, and he wouldn’t be able to fight it forever.

Letting his head rest on the bench he closed his eyes and tried hard to occlude his mind, trying to forget his anger at Draco and not think about the horrors that awaited him in his dreams. Soon he had drifted off into his mad little world where Ron stood over him as he lay writhing on the lab floor.

“Once a death eaters son, always his son Harry. You would do well to remember that,” Ron told him as he knelt down beside him in a momentary break from the torture. Harry breathed hard and opened his eyes to look up at his tormenter, but found no-one there. He sat up and pushed his glasses back onto his head. When he stood up, he found both of his potions ruined and the door still locked, although only from the outside.

Harry knew there was nothing he could do to Draco at the moment when he was safe inside Slytherin common room, but he suddenly didn’t feel safe here, and could think of only one place where he did. He opened the door and left it open, and headed for the room of requirement, where he knew he could make entrance impossible for anybody but him.

It was four am. He knew he would only be able to sleep for a couple of hours, but maybe it would be Ron-free, and a couple of hours was still something.

Harry was to the second floor before he heard footsteps from around the corner and Draco appeared.

“You!” He dove for Draco but being so tired missed as Draco side-stepped him.

“What?” Draco asked. Harry picked himself up off the floor and pointed an angry finger at the blond.

“You sabotaged my potions again! I had the door all locked and I fell asleep and you came in and ruined everything!”

Draco again side-stepped as Harry charged him. “Get a grip Harry!” Draco shouted. “I’ve been in the room of requirement with Ginny! Ask her yourself, we were dream-sharing!”

Harry stopped mid-way through his third attempt to charge Draco. “What?”

“Hermione told Ginny how to do it and we’ve been dream sharing for the last week!”

He was slowly trying to wrap his tired mind around this. “Hermione?”

Suddenly Draco was uncertain. “She and Ron have been doing it for ages so he could catch up on studying…”

Harry stood there as the answer to his nightmares had finally come to him. Ron was torturing him and making him try to lose his mind… only it was in his dreams. He turned and strode off towards the stairs. Nothing was going to stop him from killing the traitor that he once called his brother.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“To kill Ron.”

Draco hurried after him and tried to block his path. “What are you on about? You aren’t serious?”

Harry tried to dodge him but Draco was firmly planted in front of him.

“He’s been using dream sharing to crucio me in my sleep every night Draco! He’s a traitor! He’s probably the one that’s been spilling secrets all over the castle! This is what he wants! He wants people to fight!” Harry was suddenly remembering a comment Ron had made to him earlier that hadn’t made sense until now.

“Wait, it doesn’t work like that Harry, you have to be willing to-”

“Draco, get out of my way.”

“You don’t want to do this.”

“Get, out, of my, way.” Harry was trying to keep calm.

“I can’t, you can’t, just wait a minute.”

Harry’s mind was so tired he didn’t have the patience in him to deal with Draco at the moment. He charged Draco and pushed him to the floor, but suddenly Draco was on top of him and pinning him down, and then Harry was swinging like he had never swung before and Draco was shouting as Harry’s fist repeatedly hit him, though what he was shouting, Harry never knew. And then Draco was on the floor and Harry was hastily pushing himself up.

“And you Draco? You’re a traitor too.” Draco wasn’t moving although Harry saw his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. He sped off to find Ron with tears in his eyes, and left Draco there for somebody else to find.

When Draco woke in the darkness he had blood dripping from his nose and mouth. Harry was nowhere in sight, and he feared Ron was already dead. He had no idea how to get into Gryffindor common room as Ginny was supposedly already inside, and he didn’t know where McGonagall’s private quarters were. He could only think of one man who could get in, and sped off to find him.

Harry found Ron in the common room sitting on the couch. With a wave of his wand he sealed both doors tight that lead to the girls and boys dorms. He couldn’t handle anyone coming down to see him become a murderer, and at the same time he had to kill him. He wasn’t really Ron anymore, he was an agent of the dark lord now.

“Harry?” Ron had a bewildered look on his face as Harry dove on him and forgot his wand entirely. He was going to pay for all those nights of torturing Harry. He was going to feel it in his every bone as Harry still felt the crucio in his every bone.

Harry didn’t know for how long he and Ron struggled, perhaps because he was so tired he no longer had a sense of time or of what he was really doing, but the next thing he knew there was someone very strong pulling him off of Ron and restraining him. He tried to struggle free of the unnamed wizard’s grasp, tears in his eyes as he heard Draco speaking in the background, but he could not get free and soon resigned to the fact that he had once again failed. It was then that his sleepless body gave out and he just let himself be held as he sobbed.

Severus hurriedly dragged his crying charge out into the darkened corridor as Draco knelt next to Ron, waiting for McGonagall and Dumbledore to show up. Before climbing out the portrait hole with Harry, Severus instructed Draco not to open the locked dormitory doors and let the people banging on the other side out. The last thing Harry needed was onlookers to see what he had done. Severus didn’t think he could stand to see Harry demonized. Somewhere in the back of his mind the father in him thought of the possibility that they could somehow cover this up, though he knew as a teacher he could not make that happen without losing his job and possibly being locked up for trying.

Harry’s sobs echoed down the otherwise quiet halls and resonated deep within Severus. Harry just might have killed Ron this night had Draco not come tearing into his office mere minutes before. And why? They hadn’t had time for questions; Draco had only said that Harry was about to kill Ron. It pained him to know this, but Severus hadn’t doubted for a second the truth in Draco’s words. Harry was capable of murder… he would have to be if he wanted to live through this war with the Dark Lord. Perhaps it was not only the fact that Harry was his son that made the boy’s cries of agony run their course through his veins so painfully, but the fact that Severus himself had sobbed so many times over the many lives he himself had taken. Even the blood of Lily and James was on his hands… that was a stain that could never be washed off without the help of some eternal all-powerful being.

Harry could barely stand to be within his own skin as Severus mostly carried him through the castle to some unknown destination. He wanted to just crawl up inside himself and die for the hatred and shame that overtook him. How had it come to this? How could he ever come to the resignation that it was ok to take somebody’s life, even if they had so wronged or offended him that they deserved it? Was he God? Did he now reserve the right for himself to take lives as he pleased?

Though he continued to half drown in the misery of his own sobs, Harry was dimly aware that he was being lead into an empty classroom now and being sat down on a chair, though Severus never let go of him for a second as he sat down with him. Perhaps Severus’ tight embrace was the only thing keeping Harry from giving up within himself and dying right there. “It’s ok son, I’m here.” To Severus’ dismay this only served to make Harry cry harder in the darkness. Severus simply let him cry, knowing there really were no words to make this seem better. If he didn’t have to be strong for Harry he might have put his head in his hands or even pulled out that aged bottle of moonshine he kept locked in the bottom drawer of his desk… there was a good possibility that Harry would be expelled and possibly locked up in Azkaban for this. He didn’t know if he could deal with that.

It wasn’t long before Dumbledore rushed into the room with his night robes on. He knelt next to Severus and said urgently but quietly, “What has happened Severus?” His worried gaze had rested on Harry the moment he had entered the room, and refused to leave the site of the broken boy.

“I don’t know.” Suddenly his voice was betraying the calm visage he was trying to give Harry to hang onto. It wasn’t everyday that he had to explain that his son had tried to murder another student… in fact, it was the first time that he had ever had to explain away his son’s behavior… and again he was reminded that now he had a son… two of them.

Harry had half quieted himself now. Somewhere in his muddied mind he was told to pay attention, because his fate was involved now. It would be the Headmaster’s decision weather or not he would be expelled, and Dumbledore also had a lot of pull with the Ministry in legal matters involving students.

Quietly Dumbledore’s eyes asked for Severus’ permission to speak with Harry. Severus could not hide his surprise at being consulted like this when Dumbledore knew he could do as he pleased in a matter like this involving a student. Severus looked at Harry and gave a single nod however, seeing as how Harry had quieted now.

“Harry, can you explain this?” the elder man asked gently.

Harry was nowhere near feeling up to explaining his murderous rampage, and so chose not to respond, even with a nod or an acknowledgement of the Headmaster at all.

The two professor’s eyes met briefly in concern again before Severus tightened his grip once again on his son’s shoulders. “I think he needs some rest. Is it at all possible to do this in the morning sir?” Not for the first time that night Harry suddenly felt grateful for Severus being there.

The Headmaster nodded and said quietly, “Take him somewhere where he will feel safe enough to sleep, and give him a dreamless sleep potion. Mr. Weasley will be fine, but I need to speak to Minerva and contact his parents. We will forego questioning Mr. Malfoy tonight as well.”

Severus nodded, and stood as the Headmaster left and looked down at Harry. “Come on son,” he cajoled gently, lifting Harry from under one arm. Harry let himself be coaxed out of his seat and out into the corridor, never once meeting his father’s eyes.

Draco had nearly paced a rut in the stone floor of Severus’ office by the time he heard them coming down the dungeon corridor. His head popped quickly into the corridor just as Severus was opening the door to his quarters and moving Harry inside.

“Dad!” In the excitement of seeing Harry ok it slipped out, and Draco bit his lip for a moment as both Severus and Harry looked up, although Harry’s shame at beating Draco overtook him again and he looked down to the floor immediately again. “Are you ok Harry?” Draco hurried over to him. He had a black eye, and dried blood crusted in several places on his face, although he had managed to wipe the blood from under his nose before it had crusted up. Severus noted that he needed to take care of Draco’s injuries after putting Harry to bed. He motioned the blond inside and gently nudged Harry in the back to get him moving.

This was the first time either of the boy’s had seen his quarters. They were spacious and had two rooms leading off of the living room, one bedroom and a large bathroom. Draco paused inside the entrance for a moment in awe, wondering if all the professors had such large living arrangements, before he turned his attention to Harry again, who had let himself be set down on the worn brown couch in the center of the room.

Severus was busy rummaging through a cabinet against one wall, and Draco wondered if Harry would talk to him if he started up a conversation. Finally the Potion’s Master gave up on his search and abandoned the cabinet. Into Draco’s ear he quietly murmured, “Watch him. I will return shortly,” and then he disappeared back into the hall beyond the entrance.

Draco was suddenly filled with both pride and concern. Pride that Severus trusted him enough with such an important task, and concern that it was such an important task to watch Harry. Did he think that Harry might hurt himself… or possibly go after Ron again? He fidgeted uncomfortably. Had Harry lost it for good? It wasn’t long before Severus returned however and made Harry drink a potion before leading him into the bedroom. He was gone for a few minutes, and then returned after closing the bedroom door.

Finally away from Harry and the need to be strong for his broken charge, he allowed his hand to meet his head. Draco was definitely not accustomed to seeing his Head of House in distress, but knew that tonight warranted such feelings.

After a few moments, Severus turned his attention to his other charge. “Sit. I will get some salve to put on your bruises.” He returned to the open cabinet and pulled a tin from it, before closing the doors. “Is anything broken?” Severus asked as he came around the couch and sat on the coffee table in front of Draco, opening the tin of salve up.

Draco shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he paused in thought for a second and then said, “I didn’t know he could hit that hard. I don’t know how long I was out for even…”

Severus looked up. “He knocked you out?” Draco nodded and Severus sighed. He rose again and returned from the cabinet a moment later with a phial half full of silver liquid. “Drink this. You probably have a concussion and this will ensure that you do not slip into a coma after you go to sleep.”

Draco took it and drank before Severus began applying the clear salve to Draco’s black eye and the side of his face, which was fast becoming one large bruise instead of several small ones.

“Do you think he’ll be ok… dad?” Draco tried the name again, deciding that he liked it and was no longer angry with Severus. He had after all been there in Draco and Harry’s time of need. Perhaps it wasn’t necessary that a parent know his child completely… only that he be there for him when needed.

“I don’t know. I am still unclear about what has happened,” Severus admitted as he began applying a second layer of salve to his son’s face bruises.

“Harry was convinced that Ron had been torturing him in his sleep every night with the cruciatus and spilling everybody’s secrets all over the castle.”

Severus paused for a moment with the salve, and said, “What would make him think that?”

“He thought that Ron was dream sharing with everybody. I tried to tell him that it doesn’t work like that because you have to be willing, but…”

Severus held up a hand, cutting him off. “Dream sharing? Tell me the spell that you speak of.” It was not a request, and Draco got the feeling from the tone in his voice that somebody was going to be in big trouble.

“Hyutua conichulia,” he repeated, just as he had done earlier in the week.

“Where did you learn this spell from?” Again Draco got the feeling that somebody was going to be in trouble, and he didn’t want it to be Ginny. Nevertheless his father’s words and gaze were urgent, and he was compelled to tell him the truth.

“Ginny. And she learned it from Hermione, who’s been doing dream sharing with Ron so that they can get more time together. But it’s no big deal, because Ron can’t have been doing that to Harry because you have to agree-”

“It is a VERY big deal Draco!” He suddenly cut him off. “This is very dark Egyptian magic you are dealing with. And you don’t have to agree to use it in order for someone to slip into your dreams. This is the magic that Voldemort sometimes uses to get into people’s dreams. This is magic that is forbidden to be in books in the Library, even in the Forbidden section. If students are using it, then somebody had to have learned it from someone dark.”

Draco averted his eyes to the floor for a moment before looking back at Severus. “I… I didn’t know. I thought it was harmless, I…” he had tried very hard to stay away from dark magic. He had hated learning dark spells from his father when he was a child, and had never once used them after he had been forced to learn them. And now he and Ginny had been using it for an entire week.

“I believe you,” came Severus’ sincere reply. He stood quickly and said, “I must see the Headmaster. If Mr. Weasley really has been using this spell to get into Harry’s dreams…” he trailed off. How awful. Harry must have been enduring the pain of the cruciatus even in his waking moments if it was being used on him like this in his sleep.

“Wait.” Draco stood up too. “Ron appeared in mine and Ginny’s dream every single time we dream shared… he never said anything or even seemed angry… he was just… indifferent. He looked at us and then walked off.”

Severus thought on this for a moment, and then nodded. “Please stay here with Harry. Do not let him leave. I do not expect him to wake before morning, but if he should…”

“Got it,” Draco nodded, accepting his duty for the time being as his brother’s keeper.

If Severus’ mind was not so busy with the possibility of Ronald Weasley being a death eater, his heart would have swelled with pride to see such a change in Draco from the boy he knew just a year ago. Before he stepped out the door into the hall, he turned and said, “Good night son.”

Draco looked up, and let the feeling of being owned as somebody’s son wash over him once again. It was a good feeling. Then his father left, and Draco was left alone, wishing Ginny were here by his side.

* * *

In the morning Harry awoke to find himself laying in somebody else’s very large bed. Where was he? Confused he stood and looked around the room, before realizing the gravity of the situation he had gotten himself into, and the reality of his circumstances once again came crashing down over him. Momentarily he considered going back to sleep just so he could awake and once again have the peace of mind that comes with not realizing what exactly is going on. He sat on the edge of the bed and readied himself for the possibility that aurors might be coming through the door at any moment to take him away. He felt for his wand and didn’t find it. Had they already snapped it in two? He had no idea.

When aurors had failed to appear after ten minutes, Harry stood and made his way into the living room, where he found Draco asleep on the couch. Draco must have been sleeping very lightly, because after a moment he woke and looked around until he found Harry standing by the bedroom door. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. Harry noticed that the bruises that had masked the blonde’s face the night before were almost gone.

Quietly Harry moved to sit on the opposite end of the couch. They sat silently for a few minutes before Harry asked, “Do I still go to school here?”

“Er…I think so.” Draco wasn’t sure if Harry was all right or not. He seemed normal… if not a little depressed. “So… are you going to be ok?” he asked, feeling awkward about the question.

Harry scratched his head. “I guess I’ll have time to think about it in Azkaban.”

Draco frowned and shook his head. “Oh no. I don’t think you’re the one going to Azkaban. If anyone’s going its Ron.”

Bewildered Harry finally looked up at Draco. “Ron?” Draco went on to explain about the dream sharing spell and how it was dark magic from Egypt.

Were it not from that dead feeling that was weighing him down, perhaps an aftereffect of the potion, Harry thought that his stomach would be on fire with rage again. But he knew that should he escape sentence to Azkaban, he could never again let himself be so overtaken with anger, not even if he was forced to endure the cruciatus for days on end. It was not ok to decide to take another’s life.

At that moment Severus appeared through the entrance to the quarters and took in the site of his two sons sitting on the couch. He paused for a moment before moving to sit on the coffee table once more as he had done the night before when attending to Draco’s bruises. Looking Harry directly in the eyes he said quietly, “The Headmaster wants to speak with you.” Harry nodded.

“Am I going to prison?”

With a heavy sigh Severus brought his hand up to his forehead. “I think not, but you must know how lucky you are considering what you have done.”

Harry hung his head and nodded. He knew he deserved to be in Azkaban… he probably deserved worse than that. “Is Ron going to Azkaban?” he looked up again as he asked this.

“No. Harry…” he paused, wanting to say something else to his son, but discarded it, knowing it was not the right time. “We must go to see the Headmaster. He wants to ask you some questions.”

Suddenly Harry felt more afraid of the wizened wizard, even knowing now that he was not going to Azkaban. Maybe it was the shame that still filled him. “Dad, I don’t know if I can do this.”

Severus reached out and put a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “I will be with you. You needn’t fear anything.”

Harry had no idea how to explain the way he felt… was it fear? Was it shame? It was something very nasty. It took Harry a few moments to realize that it was hatred for himself that was eating him alive.

Severus stood and Harry, taking his cue, did the same. Draco also rose, unsure if he was supposed to come or not. “The headmaster wishes to speak to you as well Draco. Come, both of you. They followed him out of the quarters and into the dim stone corridor beyond.

In the entrance hall Harry had to avert his eyes when he spied Mr. and Mrs. Weasley entering through the front doors. They had seen him though and Mrs. Weasley was hurrying over to him. “Harry! Are you all right? What happened? They said somebody attacked Ronald last night. Do you know who?”

Harry was speechless. He wasn’t sure what to say. Did he lie, and then let them find out the truth from Ron or Dumbledore? Or did he tell them the truth and have to endure their looks of disbelief. Could he stand being disowned by his once surrogate family? Severus suddenly had his hand on Harry’s shoulder however and was saying to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, “Harry has been summoned to the Headmaster’s office. He needs to get there right away as this is a time sensitive matter. My apologies Molly…”

She nodded and was about to say something when Ginny’s voice rang out across the hall. “Mom! Dad! Then she spied Draco and ran down the stairs, meeting his open arms much to the surprise of Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. “I heard you were hurt. Are you ok?” As she said this, Harry’s hatred and shame of himself was again renewed with such ferocity that he again thought he might as well crawl up inside himself and die of it.

“I’m fine,” Draco told her, squeezing her tightly. “Just some bruises but they’re almost gone.

Harry thought that Severus must be growing impatient now, but instead of ushering them along, he spoke to Draco quietly. “Harry will be awhile Draco, so you have some time before the Headmaster wishes to speak to you. Do not be too long though.”

Draco nodded, and Severus could not fail to notice the gleam of gratitude in his son’s eyes. Did Ginny mean that much to him?

“Excuse us.” Not wanting to put Harry under more scrutiny from the Weasleys, Severus steered the boy up the marble steps and towards the Headmaster’s office.

“What’s going to happen to me?” he asked when they were alone in an empty hall.

“I have spoken to the Headmaster, and under the circumstances he feels you should be allowed to remain at the school, especially considering the danger currently gathering outside the school’s protective wards.”

Harry stopped and Severus almost walked into the back of him. “What do you mean?”

Possibilities of setting Harry over the edge again came to the Potion Master’s mind as he considered whether or not to tell Harry the full extent of what was going on. He finally decided that it was in Harry’s best interest to be honest with him, and that Harry would be able to handle it. “Ronald Weasley is not the death eater that you saw torturing you in your dreams.”

Harry listened intently, waiting for the truth, and so Severus continued. “Ron learned the dream sharing spell from his brother Percy. The Headmaster has long suspected Percy of being a traitor and spy for the Dark Lord, and when he disappeared during the Ministry attack, his suspicions seemed to be confirmed. This alone would not have been enough to condemn him, but he was later seen in the company of Lucius Malfoy. The Dark Lord knew he could no longer enter your dreams himself because you had placed wards around yourself, so he taught Percy many dark magiks. Even Percy could not enter your mind, because you were warded against direct entry from death eaters. This is why he taught Ron dream sharing. He knew that eventually Ron would do this with Hermione, and knew it was only a matter of time before the magic spread throughout the school. Once Ginny and Draco began dream sharing, then Percy was able to disguise himself as Ron and jump from Ron’s dreams to Ginny’s, to Draco’s and then into yours, because you were not suspecting an attack from Draco.”

Harry was shocked, but was so emotionally exhausted from the last week that he could not muster the strength to show the shock on his face. “So it was Percy. Where is he now?”

“We do not know, but our sources tell us that the Dark Lord readies an attack on the castle even now.”

“What are we doing about it?”

Severus looked his son in the eyes. “We are waiting Harry. That is all we can do.”

“But shouldn’t we be getting people out of the castle? Can’t we apparate them somewhere… out of the country or something?”

“No Harry.” Harry turned to find Dumbledore standing behind him, waiting patiently. Harry wasn’t sure what to say to him, or if he even dared look at him. The old man’s crystal gaze made him feel as if he was being looked right through to his soul, and he didn’t know if he could endure it just now… or maybe he couldn’t endure the look of disappointment he imagined to be in his eyes.

“Are you all right my boy?” he asked after Harry was silent for long moments.

Harry looked down to his shoes. “Yes.”

“I am glad,” he said softly. “I see that your father has already spoken to you. I need a word with him for a few moments. Would you do me a favor?”

Harry looked up. “Yes.” He supposed it didn’t matter what the favor was, because he wanted to redeem himself in the eyes of both Severus and Dumbledore.

“Please wait for us in the hospital wing.” Momentarily he wondered if there were people waiting for him in the Hospital wing to take him away in a straight jacket, but he decided that Severus wouldn’t let that happen to him, and moved off down the hall towards the hospital wing.

When Harry first slipped inside Madam Pomfrey’s domain, he believed the ward to be empty, but then he spied an orange head, and saw Ron sitting on the edge of the bed nearest the farthest wall, just staring out the window. Harry was rooted to the spot. Did he dare approach his former friend and brother? What if Madam Pomfrey was nearby? Would she see him advancing on Ron and think he was sneaking in for another attack? He would never be able to explain himself if she saw him that way. And yet, Dumbledore knew Ron must be in here recovering from his injuries, and he at least, trusted Harry enough to send him to the Hospital wing alone. Mind swirling, Harry stayed put, unsure of what to do.

“Come to finish me off?” Ron’s voice was quiet, and he didn’t turn around. Harry didn’t answer right away because he wasn’t sure what to say.

“Not really,” he told the back of the orange head awkwardly.

“Well you might as well… I’m a dark wizard now… in case your dad didn’t tell you, I’m the one that brought dark magic into the school.”

There was a long, pregnant pause as Harry wondered what to say next. “Have they been hard on you?”

Finally Ron turned around to look at Harry. “Not hard enough. They couldn’t spare any aurors… something bigger than me going on somewhere else I guess.”

Deciding that since they were speaking it would be ok to walk nearer to Ron, Harry took a few steps forward, and then his feet were leading him to the bed next to Ron’s, where he sat down facing him. “I’d like to think it’s bigger than both of us… I wish it were. My dad said Voldemort was preparing an attack on us right now. That’s all I got from him though.”

Ron’s brows met in concern and Harry was sure that for a moment his worry and uncertainty about his future was gone just as it had been for Harry as he realized the gravity of the impending attack.

“It’s gonna be a big one,” Ron said quietly. “I can’t believe Percy will be on the other side of things… what do I do when I come face to face with him in battle? I don’t think I can… you know, do him in.”

Harry looked Ron straight in the eye. “Maybe you won’t have to. One of the aurors might get him, or he might not be in the battle at all. I’m still hoping Professor Dumbledore has something up his sleeve to hide us all from whoever’s going to be trying to knock the door down.

“Can’t we handle it ourselves? Just like last year?”

Harry shrugged. “I don’t know. A lot has changed since then. The ministry is ruined, the aurors are off somewhere…” here he wanted to point out that things had greatly changed in their personal lives as well, but was sure it would be too awkward.

“Harry I-” Ron paused, unsure if he could say what he wanted to to the boy sitting across from him… the boy that had been driven to the edge and had gone over temporarily before being dragged back to sanity. Harry looked up and met his eyes, and knew what he was going to say. He waved Ron’s attempt at apologizing away. “It’s ok Ron.”

“No, it isn’t. I can’t believe what I did this year. I can’t believe what a prat I acted like. I’m so stupid.”

Harry grinned a little sheepishly. “Me too.”

“Do you think anyone will buy it if I tell them Percy had me under an Imperius all year?” Harry wasn’t sure if Ron was serious or if it was in jest, and so he laughed.

“I don’t think so… maybe if the twins were still around…”

Ron laughed too.

“I am sorry Harry.”

Harry nodded. “Me too.”

It was then that Harry believed the world to be ending there in their own little corner of it. His space in the world was being obliterated in an explosion of stone and glass, and he and Ron were being thrown into the air, perhaps even into the dark ages. And Harry would have believed that too because of the darkness that overtook him as he landed on the ground with a sickening crunch, wood and small bits of stone raining down over him as he tried to shield his face with his arms.

“Harry! Harry!” His mind was filled with fog and uncertainty. He could hear Ron’s voice in the distance, calling him back to the world of the conscious. Ron shook his arm hard. “Harry, you can’t be dead, wake up!”

Harry opened his eyes. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Ron said, his voiced tinged with anxiety. “I think its happening. They’re coming!”

Harry sat up with help from Ron, whom he noticed had a nice bleeding gash on his left temple. He looked around and saw the gaping hole in the wall where the window used to be. Together he and Ron moved to the hole that was twice as tall as they were and at least 12 feet across, and looked out over the castle and grounds. They didn’t see any death eaters, or for that fact, anyone at all. And yet, they heard another explosion, and somewhere beneath them they heard more crumbling stone and breaking glass.

“Where are they?” Ron asked himself, “Where is the fire coming from?”

Just as Harry was thinking that Voldemort couldn’t be close by because he didn’t feel any pain in his scar, his forehead seared and he felt as if his head were going to be split in two.

“Aarg!” Ron turned as Harry grabbed his forehead.

“Is he here? Where?”

Harry shook his head thinking that it was a stupid question. It wasn’t like his scar was a compass or map and he knew exactly where Voldemort was. And yet, somehow he did know. He couldn’t explain it, but he knew that Voldemort was there in the castle, somewhere below them. It was like the pit of his stomach had a falling feeling and he knew he needed to go down to get rid of it.

“Down,” Harry said. Ron looked at the floor, as if he was seeing right through it, and for a moment Harry wondered if Percy had taught Ron some kind of x-ray vision like the superheroes in the Muggle movies.

A moment later Ron stood up and looked as if he had mentally prepared himself to go into battle, possibly against his brother, and likely for his life. “Half of wizarding Britain is down there in the guest rooms… we can’t just stay here.” There was a resolve in his voice that Harry had never heard before.

Harry nodded and got to his feet. Ron searched in the rubble for his wand near where it had been sitting on the bedside table, and found it under some stuffing from the mattress. “Don’t die, ok?” He looked very serious as he said this to Harry.

With another small nod, Harry said, “You either.” And then they hurried out of the Hospital wing, Ron transfiguring his pajamas and slippers into day clothes as they went.

They had only to turn a corner in the corridor before screams and frantic cries of students and civilians alike met their ears. The halls were filled with people scurrying from room to room searching for lost friends or children, and most importantly, safety. There was an ominous rumble and Harry was sure that they had just lost another sizeable chunk of the castle.

The further down they went the more impeded they became as the halls became more crowded. Harry’s scar seared hotter as they descended through the castle.

“Well, where is he at?” Ron asked loudly as a group of first years hurried past, ushered by the arithmancy teacher into the center of the castle, where no walls had been destroyed yet.

“I don’t know. We’re getting closer though.” Harry had hoped to find his father and Draco on their way to meet Voldemort, because he felt strengthened by their presence, just as he did by Ron’s, but in the chaos and crowds there were no sign of them. Were they searching the crowd for him somewhere?

Somewhere close by they heard another explosion and Harry was sure the entire castle was shaking, as he was sure it was the largest yet. A stream of people ran in the opposite direction, making it hard for Harry and Ron to make their way up stream toward the fighting.

They rounded a corner on the second floor and finally saw three hooded death eaters aiming their wands at the walls and causing them to explode with angry orange and red bursts from their wands. Two of them were laughing as they walked down the hall destroying the school. Harry pulled Ron into a broom cupboard they had once hidden in from Filch and Mrs. Norris, and luckily they went unseen as the death eaters passed by.

“Handy, this,” Ron said of the closet as they left it, also remembering the times they had hidden there before.

They were almost to the grand marble steps that lead down to the main floor when another crowd of people pushed against them going the opposite direction as blasts of magic fired over their heads. In the throng of terrified cries they heard Hermione’s voice.

“Ron! Harry!” They tried to get to her but the flow of the crowd was too strong and she was being pulled away from them. “Get to safety Hermione!” Ron shouted to her as she disappeared back the way he and Harry had come.

Suddenly Harry was pulling Ron down to the ground as death eaters appeared in pursuit of the group of students that had just passed, and Ron was shouting in pain. Harry hadn’t been quick enough and Ron had been hit with a nasty spell that had cut a deep gash across his shoulder.

“Crap, Hermione’s going to kill me if I die,” Ron wailed as he hugged the ground trying to stay as low as he could and out of harms way as Harry fired over his head and hit a death eater square in the face with a fire boil hex. The death eater grabbed his face and ran straight into a wall with a loud crash before falling to the floor. One of the two remaining death eaters was hit from behind with a sizzling orange light and fell to the floor, and Harry took care of the third one with an expeliarmus and a petrificus totalis. He pulled Ron to his feet and they ran on. Harry spotted Severus and a sixth year Hufflepuff in an intense battle against a humongous death eater, and he suspected that it had been Severus who had knocked out one of Harry and Ron’s attackers.

Severus only caught a glimpse of his son and his former best friend running down the hall before he was forced to deal with the man in front of him shooting flames at him from his wand. Where Harry and Weasley were going he could only assume was into the battle somewhere, and he hoped it wasn’t to find Voldemort.

Finally Harry and Ron were on the ground floor, but Harry’s stomach still felt as if it were falling, so he and Ron dodged several spells as they passed Dumbledore and several older students from other houses battling a number of death eaters, and ran through the entrance to the Dungeons.

The stairwell leading to the under parts of the school were a stark contrast from the raging battle filled halls they had just left. In fact, they were eerily quiet. Had the death eaters left the dungeons alone because they knew that Slytherin’s resided there? Or perhaps Slytherin house had emptied and had ascended up to the rest of the school to fight with their families against all that was good and right?

At the bottom of the stairs Harry and Ron stopped, listening for any sound that could mean danger.

“It’s too quiet,” Ron said flatly. Harry nodded.

“There’s got to be a lower part of the school… we’re still not low enough.”

“There’s the one lower dungeon,” Ron suggested. There was indeed one lower dungeon classroom that was sometimes used for classes brewing extremely explosive and hazardous potions.

“It’s flooded,” Harry told him. “Last term one of the 4th years mixed something wrong and flooded it with magical never drying water.”

“Oh…”

Not wanting to stand still they moved off, not in any particular direction. Harry just didn’t want to be a target standing there in the open.

“Wait!” Ron had half shouted and in the silence of the halls it was enough to make Harry jump.

“What?”

“What about the stairs we came up in our first year? There’s got to be a door to them down here somewhere… the ones that lead to the caves under the castle where the underground part of the Black Lake is. Remember?”

Harry nodded and thought hard. He couldn’t remember the path they had traveled six and a half years ago. Had it really been that long since Hagrid had lead the scared group of first years up to the Great Hall from the fleet of rowboats to be sorted?

“Let’s walk until we find it.”

They checked every door they came to, and doubled back several times to check behind tapestries for hidden doors, as well as take different, smaller corridors. Finally they found an unlocked door in a cramped little corridor with a low ceiling.

“I think this is it,” Harry said, pulling the door open. The smell of damp earth and the blast of cold air that met them confirmed it. At the same time Harry’s scar gave another searing pain that threatened to overtake him.

“Ron, you should go back.” Harry didn’t want to be responsible for his death. Funny, he thought to himself, how he hadn’t thought of that the night before when he had been the one about to become a murderer.

Gripping his still bleeding arm tightly, Ron shook his head. “You can’t make me leave my best friend again.” And there was that solid resolve in his voice again. Harry knew it was unshakeable and so he nodded, and lead off through the small door and down the thousand stairs.

As Harry knew they must be getting close to the bottom soon, he felt the dropping sensation in his stomach lessen bit by bit, and finally it had gone when they reached the bottom step. “He’s here.”

The massive cave was mostly dark except for the reflection of the lake that played on the ceiling and walls. It was exceptionally cold and Harry wondered for a moment if there were any dementors in the cave with them.

“Where is he?” Ron’s voice was quiet now and some of the resolve had gone, but Harry still detected it there.

“UGH, ARRRRG!” Harry screamed, dropping to his knees suddenly as his head was surely splitting open from the pain within.

“Harry? Harry!” Ron hit his knees next to his friend, unsure of what was happening.

A nastily strange sensation came over Harry, and grew every second… he felt oily, and dirty. His mind and heart felt muddied and he felt like there were pieces of himself missing. Even stranger was that he felt like more than himself… he felt like two people. It was several moments before Harry realized what was happening to him and he began to struggle against the takeover of his mind and body.

“You are mine Harry Potter, do not struggle anymore,” came the silky, oily voice within his own mind.

“AGH!” Harry screamed aloud, and pulled his hair as hard as he could… he had to get out of this body… he had to get out of his body if Voldemort was there in it with him. He would rip himself in two if he had to. He didn’t know how, but his heart felt black, and his mind giddy with excitement and anticipation. As hard as he tried to force Voldemort out, he couldn’t do it, and then Voldemort was standing him up and pulling out his wand calmly. Harry screamed for Ron to run but no scream issued from his mouth. Instead he felt Voldemort using his body to say, “I am here Ronald Weasley… right where I have always been.” Harry felt his hand lift up to touch the scar on his forehead. Through his eyes he saw Ron’s brow crease as he held his bleeding arm.

“Harry?”

“No,” he said, “Lord Voldemort! How else would I know where I was, unless I was myself?” And there was that giddy excitement that Harry had felt from him, coming through in his tone.

Harry struggled with all his might to stay Voldemort’s hand from lifting his wand and to keep his mouth from saying those fatal words that had killed his parents, but the wand was still lifting and his mouth was still forming words. Instead Harry concentrated his entire being on keeping Voldemort from uttering those words. Instead a simple Jelly legs jinx came from his wand and hit Ron’s legs, and then Voldemort was cursing and using his mind to cause Harry extreme pain in every part of his soul and being.

Because Voldemort was in his head, Harry knew where the other wizard’s true body was, and was able to pull his strength together to force his body to look at it, standing on the edge of the lake in a shadow where Harry and Ron had not seen it before. And then he was walking to it. Was it really Harry making his body move, or was it Voldemort? Ron looked on in horror, his legs immobilized.

“Yes, it is a fine specimen of a body Harry,” Voldemort was saying aloud with Harry’s mouth, mistaking Harry’s want to get to it for admiration. “Though now it is a mere shell waiting for my return.” He stepped in front of it and looked it up and down, full of pride in what he had transformed it into… neither living or dead it could not be killed.

And then he was running his hand up the sleeve of the long black robe and down again, and then taking hold of the arm. “It was here in this very cave that I preformed the first spell to make myself invincible you know.” Harry’s other hand took hold of the other arm, and when it gripped it too tightly for comfort Voldemort figured out what was happening. As he had stood admiring himself, Harry had grabbed hold of his body and was now leaning his own body backwards towards the lake. It was too late, Voldemort could not get balance and Harry, he, and the shell of Voldemort fell into the Black Lake.

“YOU INSOLENT LITTLE MUDBLOOD!” Voldemort was screaming in Harry’s ear as they sank. He could feel Voldemort struggling to retake control of his body, but Harry was struggling not to let him.

“You think you will kill me Potter, just as your parents, but history has a way of repeating itself, especially when God has control, and I am your GOD!” Voldemort seemed confident as they struggled, still sinking deeper and deeper. Harry didn’t answer, and instead concentrated on more important tasks. The energy he had once poured into getting out of his body, he now poured into keeping Voldemort in it. Funny how it seemed so long ago that they had been standing on the shore and Harry struggled to get out.

“Do not think that you will win!” Voldemort screamed in his mind again. Harry felt the last of his breath slipping away and saw the last of the light at the surface of the lake slipping away with it, and finally said, “I already have.”

Too late, Voldemort realized that he would not regain control of Harry’s body, and that Harry would not let him regain control of his own shell of a body, which he held tightly in his arms as they sank. “Goodbye,” Harry told Voldemort, and then all he knew was darkness, and then he knew no more.

On the cave floor Ron struggled to pull himself to the edge of the lake. “Harry! Harry!” He couldn’t even feel the gash in his arm anymore, and he felt weak from the loss of blood, but he couldn’t let Harry die. Thinking only of the friend he had only an hour before regained, he pulled himself into the icy lake, and tried to swim with only his arms. He only got a few feet from the cave floor however when he realized that he wouldn’t even be able to get back to the shore because his legs were all locked up and his wand was broken in two from when he had fallen to the floor and landed on it.

“Harry!” He struggled to keep his head above water and failed as he swallowed a large mouthful of it. “Ha… ry!” Ron slipped under the surface and struggled to get back to the top but couldn’t, not without his legs and not without any energy. This was it for him, he thought, and he was both scared and saddened that his life was ending like this…

He kept his eyes open, hoping to spot Harry coming to his rescue. He was surprised when something grabbed the neck of his shirt and dragged him back to the surface. He spluttered and coughed up water, thankful that Harry had gotten to him in time. When he turned and saw Draco’s face however, he struggled against him. “No! Get off! I have to get Harry!”

Draco kept a firm grip on him and swam him to shore. Ron was surprised just how far away from the cave floor he had gotten. Without a word Draco climbed out of the water and hauled Ron onto the cold wet stone.

“What do you mean you have to get Harry?”

Ron was sobbing quietly now, head in his hands. He looked up to Draco’s confused face and pointed to the lake. “He’s down there! He grabbed Voldemort and they went in! Voldemort had control of his body!” Why he was screaming, he didn’t know. He knew there was no chance of saving his friend now… he had been down there too long… it had been hours already, or maybe just minutes, he didn’t even know.

Suddenly Draco felt sick to his stomach because he knew somehow that it was true, although he longed to call Ron a liar and tell him off for playing such a nasty joke on him. But it had been Ron’s distant screams that had drawn him down the dark stairwell and into the lake. This was it, his brother was really gone. And by the way that Ron sobbed; he could tell that Ron felt the same way. He put his hand on Ron’s shoulder and took a deep breath, finding it strange that it was so difficult for him to breath. He had lost the person who had saved him from himself… who was supposed to be his family now?

Severus Snape did not want to get out of bed. He lay there staring at the ceiling, emptiness filling his body, as if he were not even there at all, just a shell of the man he had been but a day before. It had taken two years for him to open up and let Harry in, and only seconds to realize that his son had been stolen from him so cruelly. He had replayed the scene he had found the day before in his mind all night as he lay in bed unable to sleep. He had not seen Harry die, but he might as well have. He would never be able to get the image out of his mind of Ron and Draco holding each other on the cave floor next to the lake, soaking wet and sobbing. Never. This was one thing a parent should never have to endure. Suddenly he felt sympathy for Molly and Arthur Weasley, whom he had come upon in a fourth floor corridor after the battle the day before, holding their dead son on the stone floor. Molly was so saddened and looked so dead and hollowed that she could not even bring herself to cry over Percy. Not then anyway, although Severus was sure she would cry for days or months even, later on in the privacy of her own home… maybe even years. Would he do that? Would he allow himself to cry over Harry’s death? He couldn’t, because should he allow himself to do that, he would never stop.

Throughout the night Severus had wormed his way into a hole so deep and filled with self loathing that he felt he would never be able to look at himself in a mirror again. If only he had done things differently… if he had never betrayed Harry’s parents… if he had not treated Harry so unkindly during his first five years there… if if if. The list went on and on. If not for him, then things would have been different.

An ache in his gut told him that he needed to eat, but he didn’t feel like eating, not now, or ever. He should sooner crawl up inside himself and die. If Harry’s funeral wasn’t today, then he would have no motivation to move or leave his bed ever again. But the fact was that he was expected to be there, and he would not miss it even if he wasn’t. It was his only chance to say goodbye to the surrogate son he had come to love and admire.

Severus sat up and moved no further. He felt so unbelievably sluggish that he wasn’t sure he would even be able to stand up. Even though his body felt numb and weak, and his soul empty and dead, his mind raced with all the things he hated about himself. He had done too many things to ever forgive himself. Memories flashed through his mind like a preview of a Muggle movie. First he was brewing forbidden potions for Lucius Malfoy and his cronies during his fifth year. Then he was slipping a dangerously forbidden potion into somebody’s drink for Lucius during the summer between his sixth and seventh year. Then he was running around at night Muggle hunting with Lucius and Crabbe and Goyle Senior the week after he had graduated. His stomach gave another loud grumble, pulling him out of his thoughts. Unsure of how he managed, he stood up and moved for the bathroom. Once inside he avoided the mirror as he relieved himself and started the shower. He stood there in the shower unmoving until the water ran cold, and he was prompted to finish up and move onto his next task, getting dressed. Just one thing at a time, he reminded himself, already feeling overwhelmed with the tasks ahead. He was to give the eulogy for the funeral today… and in the coming days he was to attend 23 more funerals of fallen students… God there were so many. Five of them had been first years. All five of those first years had been Gryffindors.

He stepped out of the shower and went to the sink to brush his teeth and comb his hair. Out of habit only he wiped down the mirror so that he could see what he was doing. The second he saw his reflection however he slammed his fist into the glass shattering it into a million pieces and shouted, “DAMN YOU SEVERUS SNAPE!” The words rang in the silence of the empty bathroom. They rang in his empty life.

Hands on either side of the sink he hung his head, eyes closed. When he had calmed himself enough to continue getting ready, he opened his eyes and noticed all the blood flowing from his hand, which was cut in several places. Angry with himself for injuring himself, he grabbed a towel and wrapped his hand in it. It was a temporary fix, but it would have to do. There was no longer a hospital wing, and he would not busy Madam Pomfrey with such a minor injury when there were so many others that she needed to tend to.

He stared at the sink full of blood for long moments. This was not the first time he had seen blood flowing freely, draining the life out of somebody. No, he had seen many people die horrible deaths… many of them had been by his own hand. Who did he think he was kidding enjoying life when Harry had come along in the last couple of years? He didn’t deserve that! And now Harry was gone because Severus Snape hadn’t deserved a son.

“You old fool,” he said to himself, knowing he was being stupid, but still, the thoughts coursed through him like an angry swarm of hornets, stinging him all over his soul.

Going on autopilot, Severus finished dressing himself and combing his hair. He left the shattered glass all over the bathroom sink and floor, no reason to clean it up. So what if he stepped in it and sliced his feet up later on? Didn’t he deserve it? Harry sure didn’t deserve to die…

Some life this was turning out to be, he mused: full of death and destruction and loss and devastation… if this trend continued he would lose Draco as well. He paused in his reverie. He still had Draco, the second surrogate son he had gained, although this was no consolation for the loss of Harry. Foolish boy, why did he have to go and sacrifice himself like that?

Severus sighed. This was something that needed to be said at the funeral. Damn, how could they even ask him to do this? How could they even have a funeral without Harry’s body? He remembered standing on the edge of the lake as Ministry divers combed the bottom and found no sign of Harry or Voldemort. They had even spent the night out in the rest of the lake on the grounds using magic trying to turn something up, but there was nothing, and Severus knew better than to expect to see Harry roaming the school halls as a ghost… he was too good for that.

On his coffee table Severus found a basket of fruit, a cake, and several plates of food that had appeared there since he’d entered the bathroom. Probably sent from the elves and other well wishers, he thought. Most other people didn’t even know of the fatherly relationship he had with Harry and Draco… unless someone had told them.

Severus did not allow himself to touch any of the food, and instead passed it by and exited his quarters, wanting to be alone, but feeling that he needed to find Draco. He was only halfway to the stairs leading out of the dungeons when he wondered where he might find his son. Thinking to check the house common room first, Severus spoke the password to the bare stretch of wall and peeked inside. The common room was empty except for three first years and Pansy Parkinson.

“Ms. Parkinson, have you seen Mr. Malfoy?” His voice was dull and lifeless, even to his own ears.

Pansy turned, eyes red. “I think he might be with Ginny. You might try the Gryffindor common room sir.”

Surprised, Severus nodded and gave his thanks before exiting into the cold corridor once again. He knew that Pansy must have been crying over the 12 Slytherins they had lost in battle. Most of them had been fighting against the death eaters, as well as former friends who had turned on them when the time came.

Severus also checked the Entrance Hall and Great Hall, which had once again been turned into a makeshift hospital wing, before making his way up towards Gryffindor Tower. The portrait of the fat lady gave him a pitiful look and didn’t even ask him for the password. She too had red puffy eyes as Pansy had. “Go in. They’re all in there.”

He nodded and ducked into the small Gryffindor entrance. It had only been two nights ago that he had come running in in order to save Ron from Harry’s frantic attack.

Opposite of the Slytherin common room, Gryffindor was full of students, 15 or 20 of them not even from Gryffindor. The room was mostly silent with the occasional sniff or quiet crying. Severus was not sure he wanted to enter such a solemn place lest his own emotions take him over and he found himself unable to stop.

Every head lifted when he came in, and some of the crying stopped momentarily. He spied Draco sitting on one of the worn red couches with Ginny, who was crying quietly on his shoulder. Ron and Hermione sat on the floor in front of them, and he could tell by Ron’s eyes that he had also been crying, as most of the other students had been.

Feeling out of place amongst the Gryffindors, he suddenly wondered how Draco had stuck by Harry all year. Urged to move forward by the awkwardness of it all, he took a few steps. People stepped out of his way, giving him a quiet “sir,” here and there.

“Draco,” he said finally when he made it to the couch his son was sitting on. Draco stared into his eyes, and Severus saw the same pain in them as he was sure was in his, but he also saw strength there that he had not expected. Was he only being strong for Ginny?

“I cannot stay,” Severus told him quietly, “but I wanted to see how you were.”

Draco nodded. “I’ll be fine.” Strangely Severus believed it. Draco was a survivor, and he would pull through, he just hoped that Draco would take the time to mourn that he needed to, to properly get over Harry’s death.

“Ok then,” he felt awkward saying it. “I’ll see you at the funeral.” He turned quickly to leave but a small voice stopped him. It had come from one of the first year girls.

“Sir, you can stay.”

Severus stared at her, unsure of what to do. “Sorry?” he asked.

“You… you can stay. All of Harry’s friends and family are welcome here. You’re in Gryffindor now.”

He was stunned. Gryffindors were actually accepting him?

“Yeah sir, have a seat,” Neville said, no hint of the fear in his voice that he had always had when speaking to him.

When Severus still hadn’t said anything or made a move to sit a few moments later, Ron said quietly, “We want you to. Harry would have wanted this.”

Draco and Ginny scooted over on the couch and made room for him and Severus stared at the empty spot. Something in him tugged at him to sit down and mourn with Harry’s friends, but at the same time he fought the urge. Teachers weren’t supposed to mourn with students were they? And yet he felt like he should.

Still feeling awkward, Severus sat down next to Draco and sighed heavily, as if a weight had been taken off of him.

“Hagrid’s upstairs crying his eyes out on Harry’s bed,” Draco informed him.

“He is?” The students sitting closest to them nodded, and as if on cue they heard the distant wail of the half giant that had been Harry’s first friend from the magic world.

Long silent moments passed before Hermione wiped her wet eyes on her sleeve, sniffed and said, “Remember when Harry stuck his wand up that troll’s nose?”

Ron sniggered and nodded at the memory. “He looked like he was riding a wild bull until the thing grabbed him and turned him upside down.”

“What about the time he caught Neville’s Remembral?” Seamus asked.

All of the older students nodded.

“He helped me with my homework sometimes,” Neville said.

“Me too,” a fourth year girl named Brenda chimed in.”

“And me,” said the only remaining first year boy from Gryffindor, “and all of my friends.”

There were several nods and similar murmurings from various students whom Harry had helped.

“He was a good man,” Draco said. Quietly he thought to himself that if he could turn out to be half the man that Harry was, then he would live a happy, fulfilled life.

Severus pondered on what Draco had said as other people agreed with him. Harry had only been a boy in his eyes, but he had indeed become a man somewhere along the way. A man who had sacrificed so much of himself, even unto death, so that others may live.

He sat in quiet reverie for hours it seemed as stories were passed around about Harry and the other’s who had died in Gryffindor and some of the other houses. The only thing that pulled him out was several people standing to get ready for the service.

“I guess we’d better get down there,” Draco said. It was almost noon and the service was to be held at noon on the front lawns on the edge of the lake, seeing as how it was a beautiful day outside, and how there was no room large enough inside the castle that had not already been mostly destroyed.

Severus pulled himself up, although he felt very old and weak in doing so. He felt as if he had aged several years in just the last 24 hours.

“May I speak to you alone?” he asked Draco. Draco nodded and they exited into the corridor outside the common room and walked down the hallway a little in case anyone else came out on their way to the lake.

Unsure of how to say what he wanted to, he fumbled his first few words. “I uh… I don’t…” Draco stared at him. He had never known his head of house… his father, to not know exactly what to say in time of need. Finally Severus managed though, feeling guilty as he told his son his dilemma. “I don’t know what to say at the funeral.”

“What do you mean? Just say all the things everybody said in there… say what a good guy he was.”

“I wasn’t there for all of that Draco. I wasn’t his friend for that long. You know how cruel I was to him for so many years, and everybody else knows it too. I do not deserve to be the one giving this speech. Such a dark person should not be giving this speech.”

Draco stared his father in the eyes. “Are you kidding me!” he half shouted, feeling like he wanted to shout even louder. “You think you’re dark!?”

He felt even more ashamed that his own son had to shout at him. He didn’t even respond.

“What is the depth of darkness?” Draco asked.

Severus looked up. The question seemed far too complicated to be coming from Draco’s mouth. “What do you mean?”

“How dark is dark and how dark are you?” When Severus didn’t respond, Draco said, “Listen, I know you must have done some horrible stuff, but you have to think about something. There’s a depth of darkness. Harry was one of the most good, honest, kind people I knew, and if we use him to judge how dark something is, then you’re pretty close to him.”

Severus shook his head. “You are mistaken. You do not know what I have done.”

“No, I don’t! But I do know what you have done for me and Harry.” His statement hung there in the air, waiting for Severus to pull it in and use it to strengthen himself, but Draco could tell that he was doing no such thing, so he continued.

“Voldemort was the most evil man on earth. He did unspeakable things. My father was right there with him, and he did unspeakable things to everyone in his life, including my mother and me. But you, even if you did do some horrible stuff under Voldemort, you changed! You came to the other side, and you were there for me and Harry! Was my father ever there for me? No! Did he ever care about me? No! Did he ever try to help me because it was to my benefit? No! But you did. You cared enough about me and Harry no matter how screwed up we were to be there for us whenever we needed you! If Voldemort and my father were at the bottom, and Harry was at the top… dad, you’re somewhere near the surface!”

Severus took a deep breath, somewhere inside surprised and pleased with the high esteem with which his son regarded him in.

“How are you so wise and so young Draco?” There was a tone of awe in his voice.

Draco stared him in the eyes. “Harry felt the same way you know. He loved us even though he knew we had both been horrible to him for years, and that was the kind of man he was. And that’s what you say today,” he added.

Severus nodded and put a hand on Draco’s shoulder. “Thank you.” He took a deep breath and turned towards the other end of the hallway. “Should we go then?”

“You go, I have to talk to the rest of the house first,” Draco said. “Maybe at the end of your speech you could say something like there’s some others who would like to speak about Harry?”

He nodded and said, “I will do that.”

They parted, but not before Draco surprised Severus with a heartfelt hug, and then ran back to Gryffindor common room.

Severus had not realized just how much Draco had changed, and he had not known just how much of a role he had played in that change. Somehow he had turned into the parent that both boys had needed… the parent he had wished he had always had. He reflected on this and a number of other things as he made his way down through the castle.

The sun shone brightly down on their heads and backs as Severus sat in a folding chair on the platform behind the podium. He was starting to get nervous as people filled in the empty seats in front of him. Not only the entire school had turned out, but it seemed that the entire wizarding world had also shown up. Not one of them had a smile on their face, even Rita Skeeter was sitting quietly in the audience with a handkerchief in her hand instead of that damn quick quotes quill she usually had out dictating lies for her.

Finally Dumbledore was walking across the grass towards the podium as the last few seats filled up and people began sitting on the grass and standing behind the back row, and Severus readied himself as best he could for the service.

Albus stood behind the podium, and as was usual people quieted and waited for him to speak.

“We used to think to ourselves, there will come a day when this darkness is come to pass… there will come a day when the sun will shine through the clearer… there will come a day when we will not have to worry about evil standing on our doorstep… tomorrow is that day. Today, we mourn for those lost to unnecessary hate. Today we remember what has come to pass, so that it cannot happen again.” The crowd was silent.

“While we do not have Harry’s body to remember him by, we do have his closest friends… and family.” Here he turned to Severus, who stood and felt as if there was an awkward moment because most people had not known that he was Harry’s surrogate father. When Dumbledore took his seat, Severus moved to the podium and cleared his throat.

Figuring that he should introduce how he knew Harry better than most, as he could see the dubious looks on some faces in the crowd already, he started, “Most people don’t know that Harry was like a son to me. It didn’t start out that way… things between us started out with me treating Harry unfairly, and assuming that he was someone that he was not. It took a long time for me to figure out that the boy who lived was really the boy who lacked. He lacked a family that cared for him, and he lacked the love that he deserved.” Here he paused and cleared his throat again, trying to look at the crowd in general and not pick out any one face, although he did spot Draco, who gave him an encouraging look.

“For most of Harry’s life he lived with Muggle relatives who mistreated him. They made him live in a cupboard under the stairs until he came to Hogwarts, and they did unspeakable things that no child should have to endure. For all intensive purposes he was not a nephew or cousin to them, but a slave. Until two years ago, most people had no idea the kind of life that Harry lived, including myself. But by a twist of fate Harry and I were thrown out into the wild together, and I began to see Harry for who he really was. After that I spent the next year getting to know him and realizing the kind of young man he was. He saved my life twice over the course of that year. That’s the kind of young man he was… the kind that sacrificed his own safety to save others, even if they had treated him unfairly and unkindly.

“Finally Harry was allowed to get away from his Muggle relatives and live at Hogwarts last summer for safety reasons. He continued to show us not only what kind of young man he was, but what kind of man he was becoming. He was the student who broke all the social rules and bridged the gap between feuding houses. He was the student who stood up to his friends when he felt they were doing wrong, and who stood up for those who needed help. Harry lost friends in the process of uniting school houses, but he continued on because he believed it was right. I am privileged to have gotten the chance to learn who he really was. I am privileged to have gotten his forgiveness and his affection as a surrogate son. And I am privileged to be here today speaking on his behalf.

Harry Potter was not only the boy who lived. He is the man who died saving us from the worst evil the world has ever seen. He was my son, and I will miss him.”

He stepped back from the podium as he felt tears getting ready to burst forth and tear him asunder. Once he was in his seat he remembered Draco’s request and whispered it into Dumbledore’s ear.

Albus stood again in front of the podium and said, “A few of Harry’s friends would like to say some things about him.”

Here around 200 students stood up, including students who had already graduated but had shown up anyway. They formed a line leading up to the platform and podium, and the crowd was in awe of how many people wished to say something about him, including Severus.

Draco was the first to the podium. “Professor Snape was a father to Harry first, and I was jealous of that, because like Harry I really had no parents… at least not ones who cared about me. Because of that I was pretty awful to Harry for quite a while. I ended up staying here for the summer too, and I can tell you I wasn’t happy about spending my summer with him. But Harry didn’t see things that way. He offered his friendship to me freely, even though I had been awful to him, and even though my father was one of Voldemort’s followers who was after him. My own house had pretty much disowned me because I had decided to fight against Voldemort, and Harry offered to be not only my friend, but my brother. I was the one Harry stood up for all year when other’s turned their back on me, and I was the one that Harry lost friends over, because they didn’t think I deserved a second chance. But Harry was the one who didn’t lose hope in me. It’s because of Harry that I had such a good example to follow, and it’s because of him that I now live a different life… one filled with hope instead of despair. I honestly believe that if I can be half the man he was when he died, then I will live happily.

“Harry and I spent a lot of time together this year, and I would like to think that I know him fairly well. Harry liked it when people were happy, and I know he wouldn’t want everybody moping around because he did what had to be done. Harry would want us to remember all that was good about him, not how he isn’t here anymore. If people look at the good example Harry set about how to be good and righteous, then he’s not really dead… just living on in a different way… through us.”

Here Draco stepped down from the podium, and Hermione stepped up. She spoke about what a stellar student Harry was and what a loyal friend he had been. Ron spoke after that, tears in his eyes about how he had been his best friend for so long and had lost sight of what it meant to be best friends and brothers in their last year there, and how he hadn’t realized it until the end.

Student after student filed up to the podium and then back down. Some students only had a few things to say, such as, “Harry helped me with my homework whenever I needed help, even though he was busy trying to do his own,” and, “Harry saved me from a bully who was making me stand in a girl’s toilet last year.”

It was at least an hour before the last people stepped up to the podium. It was Fred and George Weasley. “Harry was one of the only people who truly appreciated our jokes when we were still at school,” Fred said solemnly. “He gave us the money we needed to start our joke shop on Diagonalley, and he continued to support us thereafter, testing products and giving us feedback.”

“You might not believe us when we tell you this,” George said, “but Harry knew that this might happen. There was a prophecy, and he knew that he was the only one who would be able to get rid of Voldemort. In case of his death, he left us this note,” here he held up a note written in Harry’s own writing, and he read it aloud. “Fred and George, don’t let them cry over me. I did what I was meant to do. They are going to live better lives now. If I die (although I don’t plan on it anytime soon) please give them something to make them laugh. –Harry.”

“We intend to honor his last wish,” Fred told the crowd. People had looks of curiosity, wondering what was coming next, as most of them knew some of the outrageous stunts Fred and George often pulled. Fred pulled a small box out of his pocket, and opened it up. Nothing happened until he took it to the back of the platform and dumped it into the lake. The water began to turn colors, and people began to stand to see what was going on. The colors spread and even Severus stood and turned to see the lake turning red and yellow. There was a sudden bubbling coming from the center of the lake and people held their breath, unsure of what to expect. Another moment and the giant octopus that took residence there in the depths of the lake surfaced, looking confused. He had an enormous lightening shaped scar on his forehead and his tentacles were different colors, alternating in red and gold…Gryffindor’s colors.

“We hereby dub this unofficially, Potter lake. Because from now on whenever you see the octopus he will be a member of Gryffindor to take Harry’s place.”

People chuckled as the octopus looked confused and submerged himself once again, one tentacle curled and waving as if he were waving a fist at the twins.

“Cry today, but celebrate tomorrow,” George finished at the podium. “Celebrate the death of Voldemort and the life that Harry lived. He wanted it that way.”

People in the crowd nodded, and began to talk amongst themselves, sharing stories and memories that had not yet been said, and laughing at the octopus as he surfaced here and there trying to wash the colors off of his body.

Draco found Severus sitting on the edge of the podium with his hand in his head. “Dad?”

Severus looked up and Draco said, “Harry’s gone, but we still have each other. We’re family now. We should do like Harry wanted and just remember all the good things about him.”

Without warning Severus pulled his son into a hug and said, “I know. There is a time to mourn, and after that there is a time to live again. We will get there… son. We’ll get there.”

* * *

Four Years Later:

Sun shone brilliantly down on the back of his neck, and he reveled in the smell of freshly cut grass and newly bloomed spring flowers. A gentle breeze blew through his hair, making his blond bangs fall down into his eyes.

“Daddy!” Draco turned and knelt to scoop up the strawberry blond haired little boy running toward him. Harry was three years old now and had been promised a toy broomstick for his birthday.

Draco ran his hands through his son’s loose hair and kissed the back of his head as he carried him towards the tent filled with orange heads laughing and joking, telling stories of the old days when things had been different. That dark world seemed a lifetime away to him now.

Draco remembered all too well the shadow that he had lived in for the first seventeen years of his life. Even the dimmest day now seemed so bright in comparison.

Looking around, he spotted his wife, and made his way over to her through the crowd that was her family.

She smiled when she saw him and gave him a warm kiss past their son’s head. Harry was looking over Draco’s shoulder at the pile of presents stacked on the picnic table waiting for him to open.

“Presents!” he called happily, reaching past his father with one hand towards them.

Hearing him, his uncles and grandparents laughed.

“Somebody’s getting anxious now aren’t they?” Mrs. Weasley cooed at the child.

“They spoil him,” Severus told her, taking a drink of lemonade as he smiled over at his adopted grandchild.

Draco grinned. “Guess we better get to it then,” he said, setting his son gently on the ground to run to the gifts. Ginny wrapped her arm around Draco’s back and they watched as Fred scooped up the child and set him on his lap. George handed Harry the first gift and Draco called, “That’s not something from your shop is it? I don’t want to change his hair back from purple again this year!”

Everybody laughed. Last year the twins had given Harry a sack of candy that turned his hair colors. After the first piece his hair had turned a violent shade of purple. It had taken Draco and Ginny three days to transform his hair back to its original color, and they hadn’t been entirely sure the candy’s effects hadn’t simply worn off.

“Of course it is!” the twins called back in unison. The present, paper torn off in a hurry revealed a small box of jellybeans labeled: “Better than Bertie Botts.”

“Nothing too dangerous,” Fred told Draco as he approached to look inside the box. The beans were all white. “All they do is transform to whatever flavor the person holding a bean says.”

George handed a bean to Harry and said, “Tell it what flavor you want to try.”

A grin on his face, Harry shouted, “Poop!” The bean turned a mucky color brown immediately and Ginny had it out of his hand just as it went towards the boy’s mouth.

“Harry,” Draco admonished, unable to help the smile creeping across his face as the others around them laughed. This was just one of those things that was too precious to forget.

“I think you should eat this one George,” Ginny said, holding it out to him as Harry reached for another present and began ripping the red and gold paper off of it.

George made a face and pushed the bean away. “We’ll give that one to somebody else and tell them it’s chocolate.”

“George Weasley!” Mrs. Weasley called, trying to sway him against the idea.

Draco took a step back, arms crossed as he watched his family teasing each other, and his son opening a box with a large, soft red Quaffle made of foam. Four years ago, he could not have imagined his life having turned out so well. Four years ago he could not have imagined being able to marry Ginny, the only one he trusted to stand up to him and tell him when he was doing things wrong; the only person aside from their son he could love so much.

His chest rose heavily as he sighed, holding the smile on his face, but remembering his friend… his first best friend; his brother. Harry would never have the chance to know how much he had done for him. He could only hope that somewhere Harry was looking down on them now, smiling and laughing. Harry was the beginning of a world filled with light, and the ending of one filled with darkness, Draco thought to himself. He owed him so much, and yet had given him so little in return.

After his father had died, Draco’s nightmares had stopped for the most part. This was unfortunately for him not enough to erase the painful memories that had been imprinted on him as a child. Harry’s putting an end to Voldemort’s reign of terror however had given Draco the chance to keep his promises to himself. His son would never know the life of terror, hate, and pain that he had known. His son would never feel unwanted, or unloved. And this, Draco thought, was the best way to honor the memory of his blood brother. This was the only way to tell him thank you.

“Draco,” Ginny called, eyes bright.

Draco looked up from the grass and into his wife’s round eyes. Brought back to this lifetime, he smiled, and moved off towards his wife and child.

The End