As days morphed into weeks that stretched into months, Harry found that his only source of solace was his weekly hour-long Defence remedial class. It took place every Friday at six and was the highlight of his week. He lived for those short moments when the dark-haired witch removed her square-shaped glasses and dropped the foreign accent and shy persona. For an entire hour, Professor Nine disappeared, and Saturnine was returned to him.

Unless Harry had a question regarding his homework due for the next week or something they’d studied in class that had left him puzzled, they would spend the hour discussing their respective week. Saturnine would mention any interesting moment that had happened in her Defence classes, and Harry would tell her the highlights of his.

They had a tacit agreement not to speak of the war or whatever recent attack the Daily Prophet had reported on. Their weeks had one hundred sixty-seven hours to be grim, dark, and depressing. But that one hour that they had together was not to be tarnished by outside forces.

So it was that when, during the first week of December, Saturnine broke their unspoken rule not to address the elephant in the room, Harry knew things had just gotten serious.

“What more have you discovered about Draco?” she asked minutes after Harry had arrived and they’d exchanged their usual greetings. “And of what keeps him busy at nights?”

“I’ve been careful, as you asked me to,” he said defensively, thinking that she would berate him again for his use of the Marauder’s Map and cloak. While he’d been scanning the map often, he hadn’t creeped out after Malfoy on nights where Snape was patrolling again, not since he got caught that one time.

Saturnine chuckled at his reply. “I know you have, lad. Trust me, if you hadn’t, you’d have heard from me.” She moved to come and sit on top of the table closest to Harry’s. “But I also know you, Harry Potter. And you won’t have me believe that you gave up trying to figure out what’s going on. So spill.”

And Harry did. “Draco practically lives in the Room of Requirement now. He has Crabbe and Goyle standing watch while he’s there. And he’s there a lot: every time he’s got a free period, every evening and late at night.” Harry frowned. “I still don’t know what he’s up to, though. Why do you ask?”

“What I’m going to tell you needs to remain between us, Harry,” she said, looking squarely at him. “I won’t ask you to keep it from Ron and Hermione, of course. But this cannot spread throughout the entire school. Do you understand?”

Harry nodded.

“The entire staff went to great lengths to keep this quiet, but there have been two attacks on the headmaster’s life since the term started.” Harry gasped in shock. “The second happened today, which prompts me to have this chat with you. The first attack was hard to make sense of, but now that there’s been a second—we can see a pattern emerging.

“Mid-October, an Imperiused Katie Bell was forced to deliver a package containing an opal necklace to Dumbledore. For some reason, she got into an argument with her friend Leanne, and the package fell to the ground and opened. Katie accidentally touched the cursed necklace through a tiny hole in her glove, and she was cursed herself.”

Harry was gobsmacked that none of that had filtered through. All he’d heard was that Katie had been sick. “Is that why she left school?” he asked.

“She’s been at St. Mungo’s ever since,” Saturnine said, her voice grave. “It’s going to be a while until she’s fully recovered.”

“How could we not hear about that?” Harry demanded. An Unforgivable had been used on a student, and she’d been cursed so badly she had been staying at the hospital for months.

“It happened outside of the castle, for one thing. And then, the headmaster decided that it would be best, given the current circumstances, not to add to the general worry and paranoia that permeates the school.”

Right, thought Harry bitterly. You-Know-Who is out there intent on whipping out half the wizarding community. But yeah, let’s pretend all is well—who would like another serving of treacle tart? Once again, adults were busy deciding behind their backs what to share and what to keep to themselves as if they had every right to do so. “What of today’s attack?”

“An Imperiused Madam Rosmerta gave Argus Filch a poisoned bottle of mead to give to Dumbledore. But the man kept it to himself and decided to have a toast after lunch today to fend off the cold. When his blasted cat started meowing like someone was trying to gut it, an elf stopped by to see what the ruckus was about. Professor Snape barely got to him in time with the antidote to save his life.”

“A pattern, indeed,” commented Harry. “And you think Draco’s behind it?”

Saturnine heaved in a deep sigh. “This is why we have kept quiet about it, Harry. No one wants a full-blown witch hunt on school grounds. And this is the moment when I appeal to your better judgement and beg you not to jump to any sudden conclusions. We have no proof of anything, and thus, we are not going to start throwing out random accusations.” She paused to let the words sink in. “Am I making myself clear?”

“But, if he’s—”

“Am I making myself clear?” she repeated, louder this time.

Harry nodded, biting his tongue.

“I am going against the rules telling you all this, Harry. I do it because I think you need to know and because I trust you to keep a cool head about this. Don’t make me regret it.”

Harry promised himself he wouldn’t—not this time. He might not be very trusting of adults, but he and Saturnine were a team. “I won’t let you down, Saturnine. But you do suspect Draco, don’t you? You wouldn’t have asked me about him otherwise.”

“It’s a possibility—one I cannot prove nor disprove. Which is why I wanted your insight on it.”

“What does Professor Snape think of it?” Harry asked, wondering what the Head of Slytherin House thought of his favourite pupil’s more than questionable actions.

Saturnine’s brow furrowed. “Why do you ask?”

“Draco’s one of his snakes, and he is a spy, isn’t he?” Harry couldn’t entirely keep the sarcasm from his tone, no matter how grave the situation was. “Can’t you ask him to do some snooping into his own House for a change?”

“I’ll have a word with the headmaster about it,” she replied.

Harry thought it weird that she wouldn’t do it herself, but he refrained from bringing up that subject. He had noticed how removed from the other teachers Professor Nine always was, keeping her interactions with them to the bare minimum. The only time he had seen her talk to their dreaded Potions Master was the night the dungeon bat had caught him on the seventh-floor corridor past curfew. Saturnine had let it slip once that she knew Severus Snape—after all, he’d been a student at Hogwarts at the same time as she was, for several years. And perhaps she feared that he would recognise her more than most.

“What’s your working theory?” Harry asked at last, certain that the dark-haired witch had one. Not only had she been an Auror for seven years, but she was one hell of a tactician. Though she had only introduced Harry to the works of Sun Tzu, he had no doubt that her knowledge of military strategy extended further than the Chinese General.

“Voldemort wants Dumbledore dead. There have been attacks before, but never with this much insistence, and never this close to home. He’s upped the ante, and that doesn’t bode well for us. Add to that the increasing Death Eaters attacks and the lack of response from the Ministry.” At Harry’s frown, she added, “Not that they are not trying, but they’re overwhelmed and understaffed. Our side is losing ground, fast. And I fear for the days to come.

“What you overheard Draco saying in September has remained in the back of my mind ever since. He is up to something; that is evident. What you know of his movements within the school doesn’t bode well for him. His odd behaviour in class adds to that.”

Harry hadn’t noticed anything particular about the obnoxious blond. Actually, Malfoy hadn’t been much of a bother in class at all recently. “What do you mean?”

“Haven’t you noticed the state he’s been in lately? He barely pays attention in class and neglects his schoolwork and prefect duties. And it’s not just my class; McGonagall and Flitwick reported the same thing. That boy has a lot on his mind, and it’s starting to show.”

“Of course,” scoffed Harry. “If he’s trying to come up with inventive ways to kill Dumbledore.”

“Open mind, Harry,” she admonished him, warning in her tone. “As a matter of fact, how would you do it?”

“Do what?” he asked, uncomprehending.

“Kill the headmaster. If you had to do it, how would you go about it? Humour me, if you please.”

Harry had never had to ask himself such a thing. He thought about it for a minute or two, not liking having to do such a thing. “I guess I’d ask to talk to him about something, and then—um—the killing curse?”

“Yes,” Saturnine nodded. “That’s what I would do, too. Quick and efficient, with a high percentage rate of success. Now, what do you think of the two attempts made on Dumbledore’s life so far? How would you rate those?”

Doomed to fail, came to his mind. “Sloppy,” he concluded. “A lot of things could go wrong with plans like that. Which indeed they did.”

“Exactly. Now, Draco Malfoy may be many things—but stupid he is not. And if he truly is behind all this, why hasn’t he come up with better plans? Why not a more direct approach?”

“You don’t think it’s him, then?” Harry had a hard time keeping up with her leaps and bounds.

“Remember, we’re trying to keep an open mind and a cool head here, okay? This situation reaches much further than your petty personal vendetta with Draco Malfoy.” She sighed, and it looked like she debated whether or not to continue. “I do think it’s him, but I also think that his heart’s not in it.”

“You mean he could be Imperiused, too?” Harry knew that if Malfoy ever tried to play that card one day, he’d have a hard time believing it.

“I am trying to look at the broader picture, Harry. And I would like you to do the same. This is bigger than you and Draco. This is bigger than Hogwarts. It’s a game of chess between two very talented players. We’re all pawns on their board, and it’s a game to the death.

“Think of who Draco is and where he comes from: sole heir to the House of Malfoy. His father’s son. I wonder how much of a choice he really has in the way he lives his life—and how much of his actions are truly his own.”

Harry had never tried to look at things from that vantage point, and he found that he had no desire to. “He could refuse to do what his father tells him.”

“It’s never that simple, but you wouldn’t know much about that,” she said. “All children feel the need to make their parents proud, to make them happy, to do what they expect them to. Family is a complicated thing.”

Saturnine was right; Harry didn’t know much about that. Or rather he hadn’t—for a long time. But he understood the pain that came from disappointing a parent. It was a recent discovery for him, but he was acutely aware of how much it could hurt. He kept those thoughts to himself, though.

When Saturnine’s gaze lowered to fix on his chest intently, it took him a full minute or two to understand why: the necklace. He was so used to wearing it, its weight a comfortable companion around his neck, that he’d forgotten he had it. Reaching under the hem of his shirt, he tugged at the silver chain until it was fully revealed before reaching up to unclasp it.

The dark-haired witch stopped him with a raised palm. “Keep it, lad,” she said. “Until the end of the school year. That was our deal.”

“I’ve never taken it off,” Harry admitted truthfully. The simple yet elegant necklace was Saturnine’s most-prized possession, and she’d entrusted him with it for the duration of the school year. It was a little something of hers to take with him while they were forced to keep apart. Cupping the small silver ‘S’ pendant in his right hand, he asked, “Who gave this to you?”

A sigh, and then she admitted, “My brother—and he’s got another one that’s similar. Or at least, he used to.”

“Is he—” Harry wasn’t sure if he was allowed to ask. But he did anyway, tentatively. “Is he dead?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Then why does it make you so sad to think of him?”

Pain clouded the features of Saturnine’s oval face as she looked inward for the answer. “I miss him,” she replied at last. “We haven’t talked in over fifteen years.”

Reaching forward, she covered Harry’s hand with her own and directed his fingers upwards until the pendant was safely tucked beneath his cotton shirt again. Harry couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t want to see her brother for so long or why he didn’t want to see her. Having grown up without anyone, he would have given anything for a sibling.

Then she let go of his hand, and the moment passed. Returning to their earlier discussion, Harry asked, “You’re not worried about the attacks, but you are worried about what Draco does in the Room of Requirement, aren’t you?”

“The attacks are not to be dismissed, of course, but they’re half-hearted attempts at best. What worries me the most about those are the third parties getting hurt in the crossfire. But whatever that boy has cooked up on the seventh floor, that warrants all of his attention and focus. And this has me very worried, indeed.” She heaved in a deep breath and seemed lost in thought for an instant. When she came back to herself, there was a focus to her gaze that Harry was familiar with. He was about to get a lecture.

“Are you familiar with the word Maskirovka, Harry? It’s Russian. It means the art of misdirection. The threats on Dumbledore’s life and all the recent Death Eaters attacks hit close to home, and we can’t stop ourselves from looking at them from every angle. And while we’re trying to come up with some explanation for those, we miss what this is really about. Blood is the best camouflage.”

Understanding her logic, Harry pushed the reflection further, “No one but us knows that Draco is up to something; if I hadn’t overheard him when I did—”

“—we wouldn’t even know about it,” she finished for him.

“Should we stop him? Whatever it is that he’s doing—it can’t be good.”

“I’ve been weighing that question often, lately. We could forbid Draco access to the Room of Requirement, but that would show our hand. In the end, I think that we don’t have enough aces up our sleeve to lose that one advantage we have on the enemy.”

“So we do nothing? And wait for—for whatever he’s cooking to blow up in our faces?”

“Like I said, I’ll talk to Dumbledore. Maybe Severus can get something out of Draco—if he can find a way to get through to him.”

Harry’s heart sunk. If their hopes hung on Professor Snape’s ability to play the role of supportive and understanding Head of House, they were screwed.

***

December was hot on the heels of November, sweeping in with its bitter cold and snowstorms. Winter in Scotland was a study in contrast. It was, at times, eerily beautiful and dangerously scary. On quiet mornings, snow covered everything, and not a sound could be heard for miles around. Nature itself was put to sleep beneath its white blanket. And there were violent nights of storming, howling winds, and gale—beasts unleashed in the raging night, brazing with their coldness. Unstoppable and relentless, they seeped in through every crack and fissure of the old, draughty castle, which shook and groaned under their attacks.

Students stayed inside more, Quidditch practice hours were reduced, and even Herbology lessons were moved from the now-glacial greenhouses to much warmer spaces within the castle, where classes became less practical and more theoretical. And the poor students who chose to take Astronomy classes bitterly regretted their choices, which forced them to stand outside in the cold one night per week. Harry had never been happier to have chosen Care of Magical Creatures over Astronomy.

Morning deliveries of the Daily Prophet had lost their appeal. Students still read the old rag, but it had become a perfunctory task, at most. They had become so used to the violence reported in black ink that they had become desensitised to it. Near-daily Death Eaters attacks had become the new normal for Wizarding Britain, and what a sad thought that was.

The Christmas holidays were fast approaching. There would usually have been bubbles of nervous excitement permeating the air and talks of buying presents and being reunited with loved ones. But now, apathy and feelings of moroseness seemed to engulf students and staff alike.

Sybill Trelawney had stopped coming to the Great Hall altogether, preferring to remain in her tower, where she spouted nonsensical prediction after prediction of the world-ending variety. Professors Flitwick and Sprout, typically lively and amusing, had become both tensed and closed-off—characteristics that could also be used to describe Professor McGonagall’s current attitude and that of most of the staff. Even the buoyant Rubeus Hagrid seemed to have been infected. He grinned only once in a while now, the smiles never quite reaching his eyes.

Surprisingly, the two worst-hit teachers were Professors Nine and Snape, though their symptoms varied greatly. The dark-haired witch became more discreet and demure than ever. She barely attended meals anymore, coming in late and leaving quickly after only a few perfunctory bites. It was as if she had no desire to be in the Great Hall at all but had forced herself to make an appearance for conventions’ sake. Her lectures also suffered from a change of tone, her speeches coming out less enthused and passionate than they had been at the start of term. She remained no less demanding of her students’ assiduity and application.

As for their Potions professor, the man was as vitriolic and short-tempered as Harry had ever seen him, if not more. But for the first time, his wrath wasn’t only directed at him but extended to encompass the entire class with no distinction—Slytherin House included. Snape seemed to have lost what little patience remained after years spent trying to carry inept students through to the N.E.W.T.s finish line, and there was now a zero-tolerance rule for interruptions of any kind. It got to the point where even sneezing at the wrong time would trigger his ire. As a result, students had never been more disciplined and quiet, and it had been weeks since a cauldron had so much as boiled over, let alone exploded.

As for the headmaster—well, Albus Dumbledore hadn’t been seen in weeks. In the beginning, this had caused many rumours of him falling ill, of kidnapping attempts, and even a ludicrous theory of a second honeymoon with one of the mermaids from the Black Lake. Until the theories died away, and his absence became another fixed point in everybody’s routine—something not worth discussing anymore.

As he sat by himself in the Gryffindor common room one evening, gaze lost in the fire dancing in the massive fireplace ahead of him, Harry couldn’t stop thinking about what Saturnine had told him two weeks ago about Draco Malfoy. He hadn’t stopped using the Marauder’s Map to check on the blond’s comings and goings. And he even went as far as to discreetly follow him about the castle every now and then under his cloak. But he hadn’t been able to discover his secret. And his attempts at wishing for the Room of Requirement to heed to his need to enter the room where Draco Malfoy goes had been for nought. Harry wasn’t giving up, though, and he would get to the bottom of this—one way or another.

What was currently eating at him, though, was Saturnine’s insistence that he be the better man and look at the bigger picture. That was no easy task, and he’d baulked at it for weeks. But the dark-haired witch had trusted him with sensitive information, and she’d had faith in him that he would follow her advice. He owed it to her to try. That was no easy task, for a very simple reason—Harry Potter hated Draco Malfoy, and he had no intention for that to change. So far as Harry was concerned, it was a fact set in stone. He had hated that snobbish git from the first time they’d met, when they were eleven and thus it would remain until the end of time.

Only, Harry hadn’t really hated Malfoy from the start. Happy as he was to be at Hogwarts, surrounded by other wizards like himself, his first instinct had been to try and be friendly to everyone, the small boy with the slicked-back platinum-blond hair included. And then Malfoy had opened his mouth, and at the contemptuous drivel that came out, Harry had refused to shake his proffered hand. And it was that small rude gesture—his own action—that had spiralled out of control to the all-out war they now found themselves in. But that wasn’t how Harry liked to tell the story; he much preferred to say that if there was one thing both boys could agree on, it was that they had hated each other from the start.

Draco Malfoy was an aristocratic brat, a pompous prick, and an annoying ponce with a holier-than-thou attitude. He had no redeeming qualities but the depth of his pockets, something that Harry couldn’t care less about. Oh, and he had a darker side, too. Harry hadn’t forgotten the many pranks the blond and his cronies had pulled on him and his friends over the years. But the Gryffindor trio had paid the Slytherins back in kind for those, hadn’t they?

Saturnine had called it a personal vendetta, and now Harry wondered at her words. Was this what this was? A childish loop of constant retaliation that they’d been caught up in and unable to extricate themselves from for years? Crabbe throwing a dung ball into Harry’s cauldron during Potions, followed by Ron calling him names. Then a Jelly Legs Curse, thrown at the ginger-haired boy by Goyle in the hallways leading to the Great Hall, topped by Hermione asking Dobby if he would be so kind as to pour salt into all three boys’ pumpkin juice today. Rinse and repeat, ad nauseam, as if none of them could ever learn from their mistakes?

Saturnine wanted him to keep a cool head and had asked that he examine the broader picture for once, and Harry tried to do that. He really tried. He thought of everything he knew about the Slytherin teen and expounded further, recalling his hair-raising meetings with Malfoy Senior, a man who embodied everything wrong with Pureblood wizards. Lucius was nasty, perverted, and cruel, characteristics that leaked out of his very pores so much that he was infested with them. His mother hadn’t seemed as bad. But maybe that was because all her emotions—good or bad—had been frozen to their core by a magical blizzard only a small eternity ago. Narcissa may be a cold beauty, but she was a glacier, nonetheless. Sharp as ice, she carried herself with the pureness of the first snowstorm and the inner strength of a northern gale.

An irrational part of Harry had always envied everyone that wasn’t him—everyone who had a loving home and affectionate parents. But now that he forced himself to look at life from Malfoy’s point of view, he wondered how he would have fared had he been forced to grow up under Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy’s care. And, for the first time in his life, Harry wondered if perhaps, just maybe, possibly—he wasn’t better off having had no parents at all.