~~~~SS~~~~

Saturday 13 December 1997

Harry spiked a fever on Wednesday morning, sometime between Severus's repair duty in his classroom and his interrogation by Samson on Kingsley, pushing his encouraging early Wednesday discharge to almost a week later on Tuesday night. Although they never identified the exact cause of the fever, out of an abundance of caution, Dr Swanson kept Harry in the hospital until he finished a round of intravenous antibiotics, and the fever dissipated. Severus spent those additional six rough nights by Harry's bedside helplessly watching his future son fight another battle in his war against leukemia. During the days, he made brief trips back to the school to freshen up and to check on his Slytherins and Draco, at least until Lucius moved Draco to Malfoy Manor on Friday to finish his own recovery.

He ended up missing his Sunday shift at the MLD and, opting not to find a substitute as he wanted to be present for their first time back in the classroom after the draugr attack, he cancelled his Monday and Tuesday classes. And by Wednesday, once Harry was back in his own bed, Severus was thrusted into a half week of distracted lessons - his lack of focus caused by too little sleep and Harry's situation, and his students' still wondering how safe they were in the castle. Most of the staff had lobbied for the last ten days of classes to be completely cancelled, however, ultimately Severus empathized with Albus's position in answering to the Board of Governors when he decided against it. The politics surrounding the Headmaster's role were something Severus absolutely had no desire to get involved in.

Consequently, spending more time away from the castle than he originally planned meant Severus missed out on a lot of news surrounding the auror's investigation of the attack. At Albus's request, he met with him on Wednesday afternoon to discuss his schedule for the last days of term. Severus assured him he had no more planned days off before final exams. Albus appeared not to care. Instead, he casually 'let slip' two significant pieces of information uncovered during the aurors' stay: the discovery of a section of the Hogwarts enchantments near the greenhouses which had been effectively dissolved, allowing the draugr to enter, and that deep within the Department Mysteries one might find a room dedicated to the study of the undead - complete with living specimens. Obviously, the former piece interested them the most since the Dissolving Spell directly linked the attack to their ever-growing web alongside the Slytherin common room flood, Diagon Alley, and the Three Broomsticks.

The meeting concluded with Albus updating him on Draco's expected return the following week for his final examinations as well as providing him with a detailed list of the protective enhancements planned to add to the castle over the Christmas holiday. Severus agreed to review them - keeping in mind the characteristics of the unknown Dissolving Spell - and provide any feedback or suggested alterations. Neither wizard mentioned the fallout of Severus's interrogation, leading the younger professor to believe nothing came to fruition on it. No surprise there.

The rest of the week melted together into a blur of end-of-term revision, house meetings, and tending to Harry. Outside of a midweek meeting with Healer Smithe to discuss Harry's next magical block ritual - tentatively scheduled for 17 January, five days after the full moon and perfectly spaced between Harry's cycle and a clinic infusion - and Dr Swanson stopping by to tell him she cancelled Harry's Saturday treatment at the clinic to give his body an extra week to recover, things seemed to settle down by the end of the week. At least, until yesterday morning when he received a missive from Lucius inviting him to the Manor today to discuss his progress on his Felix Felicis proposal. And as if that wasn't alarming enough, a scribbled PostScript, courtesy of Draco, at the bottom asked for Harry and Ron - not Hermione, though his girlfriend had been to visit several times throughout the week - to join him. Remembering the debacle of Draco's visit to the hospital, with Ron mysteriously in tow, the peculiar request piqued his interest enough to ask both wizards about it after classes, yet neither gave a sufficient answer.

"Tell me again why Draco asked for you and Ronald Weasley, of all people, to accompany me to the Manor today?" Severus casually asked Harry as they sat at the breakfast table Saturday morning before leaving for the Manor. Harry's recovery from his potential illness had been slow, at best, so the young wizard's pale face when he froze with his spoon of yoghurt halfway to his mouth carried little meaning behind it.

Harry held the spoon right in front of his face for a whole ten seconds then continued its journey to his mouth, finishing his bite first, "Well, I'm pretty sure Mr Malfoy already made all the arrangements with Dumbledore for me and Ron to be there."

"Fantastic." Severus narrowed his eyes at the teen across from him, unsure if his response came from his normal sarcasm or his chemotherapy brain fog. "Except that's not what I asked you. I asked why Draco is requesting yours and Mr Weasley's presence in the first place."

"Oh," Harry's gaze averted to everywhere except Severus. "I… erm… don't know."

"You don't… know." Severus enunciated every word.

Harry shrugged. "Erm… no sir."

"And you expect me to believe you'd agree to go to a place you still have nightmares about-" his explicit statement had its intended effect by making Harry flush a bit, "-without so much as a hint of why?"

"Maybe?"

"In that case," Severus took a sip of his strong coffee, "Dr Swanson cancelled your chemotherapy for today to allow you to rest your body and if she understood the intricate happens to your body during apparation, I doubt she'd consider disapparating to Wiltshire for no decent reason restful. Therefore, I'll inform Draco you couldn't make it today."

"No!" Harry slammed his spoon down; unintentionally based on his jumpiness from the sound. The action caught Severus's interest. "You can't do that.

Severus raised a single eyebrow. "Unless you've learned to disapparate in the last fortnight, you are out of options."

Harry exhaled sharply. "Ron can apparate, you know. He got his license this year."

The suggestion made Severus drop his coffee on its way down to the table, spilling the little remains inside all over the latest Daily Prophet edition on the table in front of him. "Didn't he fail his first test? It was an eyebrow he splinched if I remember correctly."

"He still passed… eventually." Harry's smirk transformed their banter from partially aggressive to nearly humourous.

"By all means," the professor exaggeratedly said, pulling out his wand to clean the coffee off the table, "let's let the person with a history of splinching himself transport the person who can literally bleed to death from a paper cut. I sure hope whatever Draco's up to, it's worth your life."

"Don't be so dramatic," Harry huffed but rather than dropping the subject, like Harry surely wanted, Severus waited patiently for him to continue. As usual, his patience paid off. "Fine, I didn't exactly lie-

"Well, that's good to hear."

"I mean… I might have some idea… in general, nothing specific… of why Draco wants us there."

"Perfect." Severus motioned to Harry to continue his breakfast while they spoke. While the drama of three seventeen-year-olds was thrilling, he had his reasons for visiting with Lucius and didn't want to be late. "And that general idea would be?"

Harry took a small nibble of his peanut butter toast. "He kind of… erm… he's going to be… he's proposing to Hermione."

"He what?!" Out of all the scenarios Severus floating around in his head, Draco considering - or more, already deciding on - marriage was never one of them. "And how do you relate to this plan?"

Harry casually leaned back in his chair, obviously more comfortable with the secret out in the open. If only the dark circles under his eyes and his sunken cheeks could be erased as easily. "When he came to visit at the hospital, it was because he wanted to ask me and Ron if we thought she'd say yes."

"And?"

"Of course, she'll say yes," he exclaimed. "You've seen her this week. She's been a mess about him."

Severus gave a half nod, trying to buy himself time to process the news he'd heard. Despite his agreement with Harry's observation of his friend and his lack of experience in long-term relationships, he'd seen plenty of young relationships bloom and die to feel skeptical of Draco's decision. Unfortunately, with Hermione being one of Harry's best friends he had to navigate the waters carefully, if at all. And the more he watched Harry's excited face at the notion of his two friends marrying, the less he wanted to engage in the debate with him.

Best to ask Lucius, the professor internally decided. If nothing else, it gave him a buffer of a topic should the Felix Felicis update not go as planned.

"Take your medicine." Severus slid the small cup of six tablets across the table. "We'll be leaving in about an hour to floo home, then apparate to Malfoy Manor. If Ron isn't here by the time we leave, I have zero qualms with leaving him behind."

"Blimey, Harry," Ron whispered in Harry's ear as the three wizards stood in front of the gates of Malfoy Manor waiting to be admitted, "you voluntarily lived there over the summer instead of at the Burrow?"

"I heard that Mr Weasley," Severus warned, instantly regretting his decision to side along apparate Harry first. Apparently his conclusion of 'how much could Ron Weasley get into alone for less than a minute' had been wildly incorrect.

"Sorry, Professor," the redhead sheepishly replied. "So this is it? The infamous Malfoy Manor? It's a bit… scary… don't you think?"

"Yeah, it is." Harry's voice behind him sounded distant as he answered.

Another oversight on Severus's decision, one he hated he hadn't considered until that moment, was Harry's reaction to seeing the grounds of his imprisonment again. However, if the young wizard had any apprehension about standing outside the building, Severus never picked up on it. Perhaps the age-old saying 'time heals all wounds' was true after all, or Harry simply had too much other turmoil thrown his way recently to hold on to the emotions surrounding this specific building. And if he did not react to the grounds of the Manor, Severus was certain Narcissa's renovations to the inside would help Harry feel like he was walking into a different home altogether.

Still, Severus placed his hand on Harry's sharp shoulder and asked, "Are you alright? With being here, I mean?"

"Of course." Harry rapidly nodded his head, but the small hitch in his voice said otherwise. "It's fi- I'm ok. I promise."

The not-so-subtle change of words did not go unnoticed by Severus. Unfortunately, he didn't have time to address it because the sound of crunching gravel on the other side of the locked gate announced their host's arrival.

"Punctual as always I see," Lucius's smooth voice said with a smirk. "Even with two teenagers in tow, quite impressive, Severus. It seems I can hardly get Draco anywhere promptly these days."

Severus pretended not to hear the stifled chuckle from the two Gryffindors behind him. He quickly glanced over his shoulder at the two. "A sight I'm sure you never expected to see, willingly, outside of these gates."

"You have no idea." The Malfoy patriarch flourished his wand in an elaborate pattern across the iron bars, triggering a series of clicks and clanks until the left side gate swung open for them. "Welcome to Malfoy Manor."

Throughout the walk up to the Manor, Severus kept telling himself how grateful he was that Ron kept whatever ridiculous thoughts he surely had on the Malfoy estate to himself. Unfortunately, between the two worlds, he'd been around Ron long enough to know without needing to use Legilimency, the things a place like Malfoy Manor would make him think. Vampires, being a rather large one.

Like the perfect host she always was, Narcissa greeted them at the doors, giving them a warm welcome into their home and collecting their heavy travelling cloaks. As Ron handed over his cloak, Severus watched his gaze nervously shift between his obvious hand-me-down robes to Lucius's pristinely pressed black ones, and even gave Harry's newer, albeit very ill-fitted, set a sideways glance. For once in his life, Severus could relate to the redhead, intimately recalling how out of place his clothing felt next to Lucius's impeccable style. It took him years to become comfortable in his Pureblood friends' presence, most of which only came after he'd proven himself by rising in Voldemort's ranks. Hopefully, Ron would find a better coping method, especially if Harry was right about Draco's plans to propose. Once the third member of their trio officially became a Malfoy, both Ron and Harry would spend the rest of their lives crossing paths with the Malfoys and those in their social circle.

Ron's face relaxed during Narcissa's polite conversation about how he was doing in school, his plans for the upcoming holiday, and his for next year - which Severus knew wavered almost daily between the Auror program and working with his twin brothers in their joke shoppe, although he only stated the former to Narcissa. Her plan worked because by the time she held her hand towards the grand staircase, offering to guide them to Draco's room, all of Ron's discomfort seemed to disappear, and Severus couldn't hold back a small laugh when he heard the redhead whisper to Harry, "think my parents will kill me if they find out I was here" five steps up the sweeping staircase. Harry's response - "they're too nice to do something like that" - came right before they left Severus's hearing range.

"Shall we?" Lucius graciously swung his arm in the library's direction, where Severus assumed their meeting would take place.

"I must apologize in advance. With Harry unexpectedly ill last week, it put me behind in finishing the first draft of my proposal," Severus explained, officially shifting the conversation from friend to employer. Or so he thought, at least until Lucius waved off his apology.

"Off the record, consider it approved. We have another division interested in using Felix Felicis - Nadine Walker's, in fact. With more than one project using the substance, the financial risk is easier to justify. On the record, we still require the proposal for your pod's specific experimentation," Lucius stated as if he were explaining his latest shopping order. "Now that we got that out of the way-"

"I thought the purpose of my visit was to discuss my proposal?" Severus interjected, pausing halfway to the library. "While I would never turn down a visit, if it's unofficially approved, then why the formality of the invitation?"

It took Lucius a second longer to notice Severus no longer followed behind him. But when he did, he cocked a half-smile as he doubled back to Severus's location. "I heard through the grapevine, which is my son's newfound social life, that your son - and by extension, you - have the day off today. I thought you might appreciate some time away from your current responsibilities, yet doubted you'd come for a purely social visit." Severus nodded. He'd been right in that regard. "And as luck would have it, I had to make a trip to our Tiberian vaults earlier this week for a… personal matter. If you didn't know, Tibet is home to the best wizarding qingke in the world. It's an experience any worthwhile wizard has to have at least once in his lifetime, and I suspect you have not had such a chance yet."

The gratitude Severus felt for the village surrounding him swelled beyond anything he'd ever experienced in either world. When he took the red potion, he had obviously hoped to save Harry's life, but never in his wildest dreams did he think he'd end up with such solid, genuine friendships. In a way, he had saved himself too.

~~~~HP~~~~

"Draco, when's the last time you shaved?" Harry bluntly asked as he and Ron entered the Slytherin's exquisitely decorated bedroom, Harry's attention focused on how much better his Slytherin friend looked compared to Snape's description of him after the attack and Ron gaped at the room bigger than the entire first floor of the Burrow.

Draco sat prominently at a desk Harry doubted would fit in his bedroom at Spinner's End, placed in front of a window identical to the one in the celestial room they had been imprisoned in. Outside of the window, the room itself looked nothing like the room he'd spent months living in with the Malfoy heir.

Harry took a moment to eye his friend. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't nervous about visiting Draco after the draugr attack, which was probably why he focused on the newfound patches of hair attempting to grow on Draco's face. Being sick at the tail of his inpatient treatment meant he missed most of the updates Snape received on the investigation and by the time he finally felt well enough physically, and his blood counts rebounded enough to see his friends on Thursday night, it had been a whole nine days since the event. By that point, it was obvious they all wanted to move on from it. Snape hadn't been much help, either, in filling in some of the blanks. Constantly exhausted from managing his Hogwarts responsibilities from Harry's hospital room - and later, Harry's bedroom in their quarters with a little more success - the last thing Harry wanted to do was add to the man's mental load by asking him to relive the memory of Draco's injuries.

So when the invitation arrived for him and Ron to visit Malfoy Manor instead of going to chemotherapy, Harry had more than a few anxieties building up inside of him. Since Draco was due to return in two days - so he wouldn't miss his end-of-term exams - Harry assumed the Malfoy heir had been mostly physically healed. But the Gryffindor knew more than anyone how having the ability to attend a class for revision and an exam didn't always equate to being well. Clearly, that wasn't fully the case here.

"Merlin, Potter!" Draco loudly retorted. "One, is that any way to greet someone who invited you into his home? Let me answer for you… no, it most certainly is not. I know Weasley was raised in a barn, but I thought you had at least some semblance of proper manners. I guess that's too much to ask from someone raised by muggles.

"For two, I think I'll hold off on taking any advice from someone who looks like he's a step away from standing at Death's door."

As if to prove his point, Draco rubbed the patches of facial hair growing on his cheeks down to his chin. Harry shook his head and plucked one of the satin pillows from the wingback chair next to him and threw it at Draco, successfully hitting him square on the side of his head.

"Sorry I bruised your precious ego," Harry sarcastically replied. "All jokes aside, I'm honestly a little jealous you grew anything at all" He ran the back of his hand against the bare skin where he had only just begun shaving before hair fell out all over his body. Now, when he did actually shave, it was to stop the intense itchiness caused by the tuffs attempting to come back in some of the most random spots. "What did Hermione have to say about the fuzz?"

"Don't call it 'fuzz'. You've been here ten seconds and I'm already regretting allowing you buffoons to come," Draco argued, although the words had no sting behind them. "She suggested a book where I could find a hair-growing charm. Said I'd look more mature. Which, for the record, is exactly the point. I have my Cambridge interview during the Christmas holiday and I want to look the part."

"What part is that?" Ron chuckled. "Homeless?"

"That's it, get out." Draco stood and pointed to the door, but like before, his threat was empty, so neither of them moved. "She liked it. Or at least so she said to my face and I don't see Hermione as one to lie for my pride."

"Trust me," Ron added, his eyebrows rising up his forehead, "Hermione would tell you if you looked like a total tosser."

"On that note," Draco said, motioning his head to his door, "follow me, gentleman."

"Gentleman?" Ron silently mouthed with his face contorted into the same grimace Harry knew he'd never from their visit to Aragog in second year. Unconcerned, Harry shrugged and followed Draco out into the corridor.

When Harry had first entered Malfoy Manor behind Snape and Lucius, he'd been proud of himself for keeping his composure. His heart might have felt as if it were forcibly trying to beat right out of his chest while ascending the grand staircase, and his skin may have prickled from the anxiety within him as they took the same passage he'd been dragged through on his way to the Drawing Room, but he didn't outwardly react. He didn't pause, fall, or run away like he feared he would when he inevitably returned to the Manor; despite understanding Voldemort no longer lived there, no longer lived at all, actually. Narcissa's renovations certainly helped in transforming the dark and dreary torture chamber into a brighter, airier space, so his emotions didn't hit him unless he actively recalled the memories. If it were Harry's home, though, no amount of paint or transfiguration would be enough to remove the memories and he'd no sooner torch the whole place to the ground before continuing to live in it.

"Where are we going?" Ron wearily asked, taking each set carefully, like it might be his last.

Draco spoke over his shoulder, never stopping or fully turning around, "Why do I feel as if you never once asked Harry that question when he dragged you who knows where? But here I am giving you the knut tour of one of the most infamous Manors in the Wizarding World and you sound like you'll never get home again."

"To be fair," Harry said with a smile, "he sounded like that with me too."

"I did not!" Ron retorted. "And I wouldn't even pay a knut for this so-called tour. You haven't told me a single thing about what we've passed."

"Trust me, you don't want to hear anything about these." Draco waved his hand at the portraits as they descended the grand staircase once again to the ground floor, earning a dissatisfied grumble from all of them.

Figuring he'd seen almost everything in the Manor worth visiting, Harry tries to help ease Ron's nerves by taking the lead on his inquiry, "So where are we going? Have I been there?"

"Absolutely not." Draco scoffed. "And even if you somehow got to this particular location, my family has heavily warded with both magic… and… other means."

Harry and Ron exchanged a shared, uneasy glance. In their experience "other means" of protection ranged anywhere from a poison potion riddle to a basilisk to the Whomping Willow. And knowing what little he did about the Malfoys, they'd spare no expense to keep their secrets hidden. Why was Draco taking them, of all people, to a place of such importance, and how did it relate to the engagement? That was the purpose of their visit, after all. Or at least so Harry originally thought, he wasn't so sure anymore.

During the rest of their trip to the mysterious location, Draco pointed out several small, useless facts no one would ever want to know about the supposedly historic building - the floo room where his parents fought over the decision to send him Durmstrang or Hogwarts having just returned from lunch with Igor Karkaroff, the table in the conservatory where his father berated him about being academically beaten by muggleborn his first year, and the doors to the ballroom where Draco, with the help of Hermione, completed his first animagus transformation. Seriously, who needed a ballroom in their house? Harry guessed it was one of those rooms wealthy Pureblood estates had which went unused outside of maybe once or twice a year.

The Potters had been wealthy purebloods. Harry considered what little he knew of his magical ancestors. Did they have an estate? And if so, did it have a ballroom? What happened to it after my parents died?

Throughout his life in the cupboard, he rarely thought of his father's family. Living with his mother's sister gave him small glimpses into her side here or there - even if they didn't seem to have any living relatives left, his aunt still spoke of her parents from time to time. But he knew virtually nothing of the Potters outside of the fact they'd earned their fortune from Potions, of all things, and his father had been born to older aged parents. And now, with him on the verge of becoming a Snape, he had the urge to learn more of the family he had originally come from; the family he was the last heir.

Lost in his convoluted mind, Harry stopped paying attention to their location within the Manor until they stopped in front of a door tucked in the corner of one of the many winding corridors. Draco opened the door to reveal a dark set of stairs, presumably going to the basement.

"No." Harry flat-out refused to budge any further. All he knew of Snape's imprisonment was how they kept him in a tiny, dirty, basement cell. Harry took a hard step backwards, slamming into the wall behind him; his resolve quickly dissipating. "I'm not going into the basement. That's where-"

"The wine cellars are," Draco offered, "and the Family Chamber… all the old shite from generations past need to go somewhere, right… and the Treasury, which is where we are headed."

"The Treasury?" Ron's face brightened in awe. "How much do you have to have to require an entire Treasury?!"

Draco sighed. "Do you honestly think we'd store everything in one place? At our home, no less? Of course not. We simply have the more… usable… pieces brought here from our main vault in Tibet. We can get there by a port key in the Treasury, but I had a sneaking suspicion Severus wouldn't have an issue with my transporting you both out of the country, so I asked my father to personally bring the acceptable options here."

Harry nodded his agreement. If Snape had a fit over disapparating twice today, leaving the grounds via port key would be out of the question. He was curious, though, about what a Tibetan Malfoy Treasury vault would look like.

"What do you mean?" Ron's intrigued voice brought Harry back to the corridor. "Options for what?"

"Can I just show you?"

Harry firmly locked his arms across his chest. "No. Where are we going, and why?"

The blonde closed the stairway door, leaning against it in a way Harry recognized as supporting his aching body. Based on his awkward gait and the touch of scarring around his face, Harry assumed Draco wasn't nearly as healed as he let on. "Have it your way… so, I need a ring to propose, right?" The two Gryffindors nodded. "Well, my family happens to have a vast variety of unique, and rather rare, pieces of jewelry available."

"You want us to pick your fiance's ring?" Ron smirked. "Want us to propose to her too?"

"Absolutely not," Draco chided, massaging the small muscles in his forehead, clearly regretting this endeavour. "I have a couple of options I'd like your opinion on downstairs in our local Treasury. That's it… just a 'yes you like it' or 'no you don't'."

The hint of compassion in Draco's voice made Harry look at the situation from a different angle. He hadn't had to ask him or Ron for their support to propose. And he certainly didn't need their input on a ring. He wanted them there with him. Because they were friends and this was what friends do for each other.

"The cells…" Harry started, trailing off knowing Draco would pick up his meaning.

As expected, he did. "This stairwell leads down the backside of the basement." He opened the door again. "It'll take us a little longer to get to the Treasury, but we don't have to go anywhere near the cells. For what it's worth, neither my father nor I have been back down on that side of the basement since the battle. I'm sure my mother hasn't either. We can't do it."

Harry could, and did, appreciate that fact. Mustering up his courage, Harry crossed the threshold leading them down the dark stairs to an equally dark and musty corridor. The walls were made of stone, but not the polished kind in the Hogwarts dungeons, with lit torches every two or three meters casting a dark orange glow on the dusty stone floor. The air felt stale and moist, making the already claustrophobic corridor feel like a tomb they could suffocate in before they made it to the other end. Draco and Ron both pulled their wands, each muttering a half-hearted Lumos to better illuminate their way. Harry shuffled to the side, allowing Draco ahead of him.

"I think I prefer the cramped Burrow," Ron exclaimed. "At least I know there's no place to hide bodies there."

For once, Draco had no comment, and Harry was proud of him for it. It showed, in yet another way, the forging of friendship between the three of them.

They spent the rest of the walk in silence and by the fifth or sixth turn, Harry legitimately wondered if they were still beneath the Manor or if they had wandered far enough out to be below the gardens.

"What's that noise?" Ron sharply asked, after roughly two more turns.

They all stopped in their tracks, and Harry strained his ears to pick up any slight sound of movement. But heard nothing more than the flickering of the fire in the lanterns illuminating their path.

"I don't hear anything," Harry replied in a whisper as if speaking any louder would cause the thing Ron heard to suddenly jump out and attack them.

"You probably heard Harry's constant groaning back there," Draco sarcastically said, jerking his head back towards Harry.

"Hey!" Harry shoved the blonde, conveniently standing directly in front of him. "I didn't exactly expect to be dragged down into the depths of the Earth because you can't pick out a ring."

"I did this for your mental benefit," Draco argued. "Otherwise we could have gone the faster route, right by Snape's former cell. I'm fairly certain the door was never replaced on it, so you'd get a delightful view of his and Healer Walker's cramped quarters."

Harry opened his mouth to continue their banter, but a rapid scratching sound coming from the direction they were headed distracted him. He listened in, shallowing his breathing as much as possible so he didn't miss it. There it was again! And again! No, Ron hadn't been crazy at all. It sounded like nails - small pointed ones, like a rodent's - scraping against the stone followed immediately by a swishing sound; one he'd heard before but couldn't place. He closed his eyes to get a better mental picture, and it hit him: the basilisk! The swishing sounded like the basilisk moving through the pipes in the Chamber of Secrets.

"I heard it too. Some kind of scratching." Harry explained. "And then there's something else-

"Probably a rat," Draco interjected. His voice seemed off to Harry. Not afraid, but more… nervous.

"You're not afraid of rats, are you?" Harry asked as sensitively as possible. Having been around Ron and his fear of spiders long enough, he knew how debilitating it could be.

"Of course not! Let's… get moving… we're almost there."

Ron shrugged and took off down the corridor – now in front of Draco, Harry noted - with his wand held on alert in front of him, and not just for the lighted tip. Between his grip on the wand, his stance, and his constantly shifting gaze, Harry knew Ron was fully prepared to cast to protect them, and the realization filled Harry with pride, although he didn't seriously think they'd be needing it.

After another ten meters of walking Harry reassessed the situation as the animal noises - it was definitely an animal, magical or not, he couldn't tell - grew louder with each step and the corridor appeared to dead-end into the same solid stone as the rest of the basement walls. If that wasn't enough to sway him to stop, the rather small, shadowy figure pacing in front of the dead-end certainly did the trick.

"Is that a lizard?" He heard Ron call out from the front of their line. "Oh no, it's a bloody dragon! Why the hell do you have a dragon down here?!"

"It guards the Treasury," Draco curtly replied. "What else do you think it'd be doing?"

Harry craned his neck to the side as they approached the figure - sure it had been too small to be any dragon he'd heard of or encountered - and let out a laugh at the creature that looked like a teal chameleon with bright florescent pink and orange butterfly wings. Sitting at less than a meter tall, Harry didn't think the dragon could guard much of anything.

I guess it's better than running into a basilisk.

Harry gave Draco, and his so-called dragon, a skeptical look. "This thing guards your family's treasure? Erm… wouldn't you want something a little more… furious?"

"You guys are never satisfied, are you?" Draco threw his hands up in defeat. "Listen, we needed a replacement guard some odd decades ago and my great-great… great…. grandmother… someone way back then… wanted a dragon, got a fey on accident, and here it is. Mystery solved, can we move on?"

Standing there watching the dragon move in a specified pattern, Harry became interested in learning more about it. Exactly how did the small creature defend against a wizard? Where did the Malfoy ancestors get it from? And why didn't Hogwarts teach them about this type? Yet, as perfectly acceptable as any of those questions would have been, Harry, instead, blurted out, "Who feeds it?"

"Leave it to you to ask a ridiculous question like that." The sarcasm in Draco's voice didn't bother the Gryffindor as he stood waiting for an answer. "I don't know, a house-elf maybe?"

"Don't let Hermione hear you say that. She'll never marry then," Ron chimed in.

The three wizards stood completely still, staring down at one another until Harry started what ended up as a loud, boisterous laughing fit among them. Once he regained control of himself he asked, "So how do we get past the great Malfoy Treasure Guard?"

The air in the small corridor instantly changed, likely because of Draco's sudden uneasiness. As the moment dragged on, and Draco's silence became more profound, Harry's imagination took over. If not for Hagrid's constant warning of not touching a creature you didn't know how to handle - about the only real applicable lesson they learned in his class - he could almost picture himself reaching down to pluck the tiny creature away from the door. Honestly, what damage could this thing do? A lot, he determined by watching Draco nervously run his hand along the back of his neck, internally debating their next move. The answer, though, made Harry's jaw drop.

"Tickle it," Draco mumbled.

"Come again." Ron's face crinkled in pure confusion. "You have to do what?"

Louder this time, Draco clarified "I said, I have to tickle it."

"As in 'never tickle a sleeping dragon'?" Ron used air quotes to emphasize the infamous Hogwarts motto.

"Precisely," the Slytherin said. Then to the dragon, who'd been watching their debate rather patiently for an animal meant to protect priceless treasures, he muttered, "I can't believe I'm about to voluntarily make you two part of my extended family. Merlin, you'll probably get invited to the Christmas Gala and we'll have to see you at Easter or just a plain old Saturday night. For the rest of my life, I'm going to be associated with you two."

"Is that such a bad thing?" Ron joked. "Who else do you have? Who do you consider a closer friend than us?"

"Zabini… and… Goldstein's been pretty solid to me this year," Draco arrogantly listed, but too soon ran out of names.

"Told you. Now tickle the dragon so we can get going."

"Shut it, Weasley."

Tickling the dragon looked as daft as Harry imagined. The little creature walked right up to its youngest master and reached its small head out to give Draco access to its feathery neck. Harry wanted to ask if it did this action to anyone, and if so, what was stopping him or Ron from coming back to tickle it. However, during said tickling, its wings expanded wide and glowed a deep Slytherin green as soon as Draco's hand touched them. Somehow it knew this person was allowed entry; which was granted by the little being shifting to the left, revealing a door camouflaged so well Harry hadn't seen it in the minutes they'd been standing there.

The door made a crumbling sound when Draco pushed it open - one oddly similar to the sound Harry spent the last year hearing from the dungeons' doors - before it revealed not the grand, luxurious room he'd been expecting would hold the items the Malfoys viewed as their treasures, but another set of stairs. Circular and made of thick stone, they went almost vertically straight down into a pit of blackness; into a sub-basement to their basement, of sorts. Hesitant to enter, Harry stood to the side warily watching Draco step down into the secret stairwell. By the time he reached the third step - and was no longer visible to Harry or Ron - a series of lanterns burst to life, illuminating the marble stairwell.

Any decorum Harry had been determined to maintain, disappeared when he finally entered the cavern of the Treasury. At around the size of half of the Great Hall - if it were more of a circular shape than a rectangle - Harry imagined what their larger vault, or vaults, looked like. The off-white marble walls, trimmed entirely in gold, reflected the light in such a way that it created a strangely warm and welcoming space; one so different from the drafty basement corridor they had just left. Every few meters along the perimeter of the room, there were recessed alcoves framed by two large columns adorned with golden statues - mostly of the animal variety, though the first one to his left appeared to be of a shield and sword. As he moved further into the room, he cringed at the loud squeak his trainers made on the off-white and gold swirl smooth floor.

With his mouth agape - surely in the same expression when he first visited his Gringotts' vault, which thankfully neither of the other wizards had seen - Harry slowly travelled counterclockwise through the circular room, conveniently in the opposite direction of Draco and Ron to allow himself some privacy as he took in the intricate detail of a room he'd expect to see in a royal palace, not two floors below his friend's home. He walked past alcoves containing displays of jewels - more than he'd ever seen in his life, let alone in one small space - relics and artefacts he had no clue what culture or era they'd come from, and a series of landscape paintings, similar to those he knew Lucius donated to the school at the start of term.

Now I know where he got them from. Must have been cleaning out the Treasury for something more important.

Harry stopped opposite the circular stairs, dividing the room into two equal half-spheres, to examine an elaborately detailed tapestry hanging on the wall between two alcoves. From top to bottom, the articulately drawn Malfoy Family Tapestry was tall enough to go back to the late 1600s, and the sight of all the people, both those in good standing and those whose limbs were burned off, as Sirius's had been on Black's, made Harry's heart ache fiercely. As an orphan, Harry had naturally spent an abnormal amount of energy fantasizing about his family, silently wishing he belonged to a complicated web of relatives and that one of them would come to rescue him one day. In fact, until recently, there had been days during his summer holiday where he would have given up his magic for that fantasy to come true. And yet, staring at the hundreds of people Draco Malfoy had to call family, and knowing how lonely the Slytherin felt, Harry understood how a family could be defined as so much more than the people residing on a family tree.

"See any familiar names on there?"

Draco's voice coming from directly behind him didn't sound nearly as arrogant as Harry would have expected given the situation. In fact, he was certain he had heard a touch of sadness and nervousness laced deep within the words. Before answering, Harry peered over his shoulder. Ron was off wandering on the other side of the cavern, exploring a display of ancient swords, leaving the other two wizards practically in their own world.

"Yeah, there're a lot of familiar ones here."

Harry's hand was automatically drawn to the burned limb which would have held Andromeda Tonks neé Black if they hadn't removed her from their family for marrying a muggleborn. Trailing his trembling fingers down into the empty space beneath her name, he imagined a circle for Nymphadora Tonks, and continuing to the right, he mentally added Remus Lupin, a werewolf of all people and considered not worthy of their family name. Harry wanted to ask if Draco's name would get burned off too for marrying Hermione. Would the Malfoys go as far as ending their family tree to maintain their pureblood status? He decided against it, though, figuring the Malfoy heir likely already thought through the exact scenario and, gratefully for Hermione's sake, he did not care.

"I'm practically related to half the school on my mother's side, most by marriage." Draco stepped up to the tapestry to point out some key names. "Bulstrode, Crabbe, Flint, Prewett… which is Weasley's maternal side, Yaxley, Longbottom." A scowl accompanied the last two names.

"You're lucky to have so much family." Harry sadly smiled. "Even if you'd never publicly admit to being tied to a Longbottom on your family tree."

The blonde's head turned inquisitively as if Harry had abruptly become a complicated puzzle to solve. Feeling scrutinized by the grey eyes scanning him, the Gryffindor's face flushed. When the pressure of the silence finally tipped his patience over the edge, Harry demanded, "What now? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Draco blinked. Once. Twice. By the third time, he said, "Harry, you're a half-blood, you know, right? Your father's side would've been one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight if your great grandfather or something didn't royally piss off the others and get himself excommunicated. Every Pureblood knows that story. It's… kind of a parlour tale that's got embellished over the ye-"

"So?" Harry interrupted, a little too aggressively based on Draco's flinch. "Why does it matter if I should be part of your Prestigious Pureblood Society?" He placed a hard emphasis on the last three words.

"You were asking about family."

"It doesn't change me being an orphan."

"You're frustrating, you know that?" The other wizard sighed. "Look further up the tapestry… near the top… and tell me if you see anyone more familiar than the lot we go to school with?"

His emerald eyes scanned upward, skipping generations he had yet to explore, searching for any name that would have some significance. He found two. Or more accurately, one surname listed twice. Potter. The surrounding room disappeared as Harry examined those two names; a confirmation he belonged on someone's family tree. The entry closest to their generation fell on the Black side - Charlus Potter marrying Dorea Black - and made them related by marriage only. But if he was reading the tapestry correctly, a big assumption on its own, the one further up the line, near the seventeenth century, made them blood relatives.

"We're related," Harry said, which Draco had already known. He pointed up to the bubble marked Brutus Malfoy connected by a dotted line, to signify a connection by marriage, to Octavia Potter; Draco's however great grandparents. "This one here… it means we share Potter blood, not Malfoy blood, right?"

Draco scowled. "Regrettably, you are correct. We're technically blood cousins… like you and Dudley… through your father's side, albeit further back than Dudley. And then they crossed again on the Blacks side with your great-great-grandfather marrying my great aunt. Their one son died in infancy, so their line ended there.

"I take it you haven't seen the Potter tapestry yet?" Harry shook his head. "Figured as much. It's probably buried away somewhere in your family vault, or wherever it was your father ended up storing all his family's relics because I doubt he kept them in your old Godric's Hollow cottage. For the best, I suppose, since it-" he motioned his hands in an explosive gesture.

"Yeah," Harry said, but his mind was running in a million different directions. If Draco's family was so interconnected with the other Purebloods, were the Potters in a similar situation? Having already known they weren't part of the official Sacred Twenty-Eight like the Weasleys - a falling out based on Draco's earlier comment - he never thought much more about how far back the Potter line went, the line where he was the sole heir, or who else he might be related to. It also drove him to question Snape's history, the family he was being adopted into. The Snapes were muggles, but who were the Princes? Where did they come from? And how did they end up in muggle Cokeworth? Did Snape even know anything about them? Would he feel offended if Harry asked?

"I thought we were here to pick out a ring?!" Ron announced, sneaking up behind Harry and roughly draping his arm around Harry's shoulder, not noticing the grunt his friend gave in response.

"We are," Draco answered dryly. "But Potter just learned how we're related and now he's having an existential crisis over it."

"I am not!" Harry shoved the Slytherin's shoulder with all his might, which admittedly wasn't much as he hardly moved. Since his friends didn't know about the upcoming adoption, and Harry wasn't ready to tell them, he jumped on Ron's change of topic. "So where are these rings you were so desperate for us to see you had to drag us down here?"

Draco pushed him back. "I'd hardly say I'm desperate!"

Harry deviously smiled. It worked like a charm, and Draco flourished his wand in an equally complicated pattern as Lucius did when he unlocked the gates to the Manor.

The action instantly opened a cupboard between the display of weaponry Ron had explored earlier and the family tapestry. The shoulder-high cupboard, made of rich mahogany wood, had small lanterns embedded into the opened top enchanted to emit a white light rather than the typical orange onto the opened drawers below. Each of the six exposed drawers were lined in an exquisite royal blue velvet, like an upgraded version of the type he saw in Aunt Petunia's jewelry boxes whenever he dusted her bedroom. Except, his aunt's never made her jewels shine as much as the treasures he currently stared down upon.

It seemed the spell Draco used to open the cupboard couldn't isolate his specific needs because where Harry expected to see a series of engagement rings in the top drawer, he was met with three sets of coordinated jewelry, each containing a matching necklace, bracelet, rings, and earrings. He imagined Narcissa wore these during extremely specific events, like a gala with the Minister for Magic. And someday, after Draco officially traded his Heir Apparent title for Master of the Malfoy Estate, Hermione will need to journey down to the Treasury to choose her accessories for their gala. All of a sudden, for the first time since Draco asked him and Ron about Hermione accepting his proposal, Harry questioned if she'd say yes. And not because she didn't love the Slytherin or because of her journalism ambitions. No, because of what becoming Lady Malfoy would eventually entail. How would Hermione, the brilliant muggleborn witch, take to the social demands of Pureblood society? Not well, Harry suspected.

"I have one particular ring in mind but I want to see if you pick the same one out of all the options," Draco's voice grounded Harry back to the cupboard of jewelry options.

Sometime during his analysis of Hermione's future, the drawers for the cupboard had all been closed, besides one in the middle holding eight of the most stunning rings, in a shimmering rainbow of colours, Harry had ever seen spread out in three rows. Immediately, the one on the far left with a centre gem the same shade of green as his eyes drew his attention. A rectangular cut surrounded by diamonds and placed on a ring of gold, its clean straight lines were the perfect balance between Draco's boldness and Hermione's no-nonsense personality. But the more he thought about it, those characteristics were too superficial for this newer version of Draco. The next ring he liked was a white gold band with a teal blue teardrop gem held in the centre by loosely braided vines. One vine on each side was made entirely of diamonds, balancing the piece perfectly. The intricate details, combined with a touch of nature, were things he thought Hermione would love.

Although ready to select the teal one as his choice for Hermione, Harry gave all the other rings a last sweeping view, landing on a simple one tucked to the left-handed side of the top row that he missed in his first pass. An incredibly modest white gold ring, it had only an oval white stone that reflected vibrant red and green in the room's light as he shifted his position.

"This one," he confidently declared, careful not to touch the white gem as he pointed to it. "I mean, you can choose whichever you want, obviously, but if I were picking one for her, it'd be this one."

"Really? I was thinking of the red square one." Ron reached out to touch a decent ring with a large square stone - like a ruby, except it had flecks of black and gold speckled throughout. Hastily, Draco swatted his hand away from the jewelry so hard that even Harry held his own hand imagining the sting of the slap.

"This is an Antarctic Albino Dragon egg piece." Draco slowly picked up the white stone ring Harry selected, holding it securely on his first finger. As he moved it under the white lights, the surface exploded in radiant greens and reds dancing across the surface. "They're extremely rare to find and gorgeous when polished up like a gem and set. It's been in my family for at least a century, and I'm honestly surprised my father included it in the approved selection. But because of its more simplistic, some might say plain, nature, I don't think it's been popular among the Malfoy witches. I'm hoping Hermione loves it as much as I do."

Harry elbowed Ron roughly in the rib, earning him a scoff from the redhead. "That was going to be my second choice."

"Sure, Weasley," Draco muttered, "like we believe that." He handed the ring carefully over to Harry. "Think she'll like it?"

"I already said this is the one I'd pick." Harry turned the ring over in his hands, admiring its beauty and imagining how it'd look on Hermione's left ring finger catching the sunlight as she embarked on her life as a growing journalist and wife. "Do you know how you're going to propose?"

"My advice," Ron offered, unsolicited, "do something low-key. Hermione's not a big gestures kind of person."

Harry laughed. "Not like Lavender, right?"

"Thank Merlin, no. Hermione's a bit more… subtle… than Lav is."

Ron's face darkening to a deep red made Harry wonder if all things in the world of Lavender weren't as upbeat as the couple publicly displayed. He'd always thought Ron enjoyed the snogging and giggles, or more, her constant attention and doting for him. But it had been so long since Harry and Ron were alone together, that he couldn't even remember the last time they talked about it, or what Ron's feelings were when they had discussed his relationship.

"Of course, I have a plan," Draco said, taking the ring back from Harry and delicately replacing it in its rightful place in the drawer. Then with a tap of this wand on the top of the cupboard, the entire unit closed, ending with a loud locking noise. With a sly smile, Draco finished explaining his proposal, "It's brilliant. I'm going to hide the ring in the box I'm giving to her as a Christmas present. The box is going to be locked with such a difficult arithmancy problem, she won't be able to solve until next term-"

"So wait a second," Harry interrupted, physically holding his hands out like some old-fashioned muggle traffic guard, "you're not even proposing to her now?!"

Draco's whole body recoiled at the question. "Well, I'm giving her the box at her parents' Christmas party on Christmas Eve, but I doubt she'll be able to solve the problem there. She'll need at least a couple of months of research for it."

Harry tried to hold back his grimace - to be as supportive as possible - but based on Draco's face becoming more and more taunt, he assumed he was failing at it… miserably failing at it.

"It's perfect for her, Harry," Ron said, more excitedly than Harry would have expected. "Hermione loves puzzles, especially arithmancy, and she's going to need something to distract her from N.E. at the end of next term… otherwise we'll all be miserable. I fully endorse it, Draco."

"So happy to hear I have your support," Draco dryly stated. "I've only already had the hand-carved box made and enchanted, so naturally I was prepared to ditch the entire idea if you hated it as much as Harry."

"I don't hate it," Harry retorted. "I completely agree with everything Ron said. It's exactly the type of proposal someone like Hermione would appreciate."

"Then what's the issue?"

Nervously shifting his weight, Harry said, "I was already worried about keeping it a secret from her for another week because I assumed you'd do it at Christmas… like every other boyfriend does."

"I like to think of myself as one of a kind." Draco pathetically puffed out his chest, causing the two Gryffindors to laugh. "Besides, I think you have plenty to keep your mind occupied next term, don't you agree?

"And I'm sure Hermione'll come running to you both once she figures it out - after seeing me, of course - so it's not like you won't know when it's officially happened. So until then, it's not too hard to keep your mouth shut."

Harry spent the entire walk back to Draco's bedroom pondering Draco's assessment. He made it sound so simple, and perhaps it wouldn't be as hard as he thought. After all, next week's finals would consume them, and then they were going their separate ways for holiday; Harry to hospital for his second round of cycle B thru Christmas followed by spending the rest of the holiday at Spinner's End with Snape, and possibly Mae. And by the time they get back in January, he'll be preparing for his next magical block ritual, which, by then, the novelty of the news will have likely worn off. So realistically, it left him with a hopefully reasonable six days to actively keep it a secret from her.

I can keep a secret for six days, Harry tried to convince himself, as he entered Draco's room with no idea of what the other two wizards talked about on the trip back. How hard can it honestly be?