‘Harry?’

He stopped at the portrait hole. ‘Yeah?’ he asked, turning to look at Hermione and Ron.

‘Going to train with Malfoy?’ Ron queried cautiously.

‘Yeah. I thought you two were okay with that?’

‘We are!’ Hermione assured him. ‘It’s just ... don’t you normally train on Monday?’

‘We do. But we couldn’t this week. Occlumency ran long and Draco ordered me upstairs.’

‘At least one of you knows to be careful,’ Hermione responded softly.

‘I’m careful!’ Harry protested.

‘What if one of you got hurt?’

‘We practice defence every Wednesday. You were the one who started that!’

‘We practice together. There’s only two of you.’

‘Neither of us has got hurt yet. And if we did the other would deal with it. Unless you think he wouldn’t?’ Harry asked warningly.

‘Harry, mate,’ Ron started, ‘it’s not that we don’t trust him. Or you. But we never see you together when you’re not...’ He trailed off.

‘So you want to come along?’

‘We’re asking if you mind,’ Hermione clarified. ‘We’d feel better if we could check you were both okay.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Harry said, going back upstairs. He came down with the invisibility cloak. ‘Coming?’ Ron and Hermione exchanged a grin.

Draco sat on the edge of the Quidditch pitch, waiting. He turned at the slight sound, smiling, and froze.

Recovering, he twisted the smile into a sardonic one, and aimed it at Harry. ‘Bodyguards?’

Hermione was the quickest to deny this, regretting being the reason the uncommon smile had left Draco’s face. ‘No! We just wanted to make sure you were both okay.’

‘They’re worried we’re going to knock each other out,’ Harry added, grinning.

‘They’re going to watch us train?’ Draco asked.

‘No,’ Harry answered, smirking at the confused looks on Ron and Hermione’s faces. ‘That wouldn’t be fair, would it? They need to train too.’ He smiled at Draco conspiratorially. ‘Two on two. You and me against them?’

Malfoy nodded, smirking.

‘Harry, wait,’ Hermione protested. ‘We haven’t tried anything like this.’

‘Neither have we. That’s what makes it fair.’

‘We could get into trouble and there’s no one that knows where we are. It’s an unnecessary risk.’

‘Professor Snape would know. He always does. And if it comes down to it, all four of us knocked out makes a more interesting picture. Before he kills us all.’

‘She just knows they’d lose,’ Draco interjected challengingly.

Ron took umbrage at this. ‘How long have you two trained together? Five months maybe? We’ve been doing it for five years.’

‘Okay then, Weasley. Prove it,’ Draco said.

Harry looked worried for a moment. But both Ron and Draco were still smiling. If it gets out of hand we’ll stop, he resolved. ‘Okay then. Rules. Nothing permanent. Nothing that requires hospital attention. If it’s too much, say that. No abusing that rule to catch people off guard.’ He stared pointedly at Malfoy who nodded innocently. ‘Does that sound okay?’ he asked Hermione.

She thought through what Harry had said, holding it up against a mental checklist. ‘Obscuring charms?’

‘Sorry, that too. There shouldn’t be anyone here but if there is they can’t see us.’

‘Okay then,’ she sighed, resigned. ‘Traditional opening?’

Harry nodded. He walked the regulation number of paces away from her. Draco and Ron took up positions alongside them. They bowed, counted and begun. The four spells were called at so precise a moment as to be indistinguishable from one another. Four bodies dived apart from each other to avoid the hexes. Harry was caught a glancing blow with the Jelly-Legs jinx.

Draco called out the counter-curse, glaring even as he did so. ‘Speed up.’

‘Never be a medi-wizard, Draco,’ Harry retorted, standing up.

Hermione had been hit by Furnunculus and Ron was quick to undo it. Or try to anyway.

‘Oh for goodness sake, Ron,’ Hermione snapped. ‘It’s Extergeo...!’

As she moved to undo it herself, Draco threw a full body bind preventing her from speaking the counter-curse.

Ron stepped forward to attack Draco. ‘Rictusempra!’

Harry was quicker, staying a step behind Draco to call up a shielding charm. The curse reflected away, singeing the Quidditch pitch.

Ron used this distraction to help Hermione who smiled gratefully at him. Reacquiring her position alongside the redhead she adopted Harry’s strategy, doing her best to deflect Draco’s jinxes while Ron called his own. Without any signal she could perceive, the other two suddenly changed places. Harry’s Expelliarmus was enough of a shock to disarm her. Ron, using skills every little brother learns, simply held on tight enough to keep his wand.

But now he was in charge of both attack and defence. ‘How much wand-less magic do you know?’ he whispered at Hermione.

‘Just what we did in DA,’ she replied apologetically.

‘Can you think of anything distracting?’

He could see her running through the list. ‘Ummm...’

‘Quickly!’ he said, deflecting another curse, closer this time.

‘Got it!’ she exclaimed. ‘Close your eyes. Lumos Maximo!’

The blinding flash of light stopped Harry and Draco in their tracks. ‘Expelliarmus!’ Ron called, thankful that Hermione had the presence of mind to warn him what she was going to do. The other boys looked as though they’d be seeing spots for a while. He grabbed their wands and returned Hermione’s, grinning approvingly at her. The curse he threw at Harry and Draco knocked them over. He stood over them, pointing his wand down. ‘Yield?’

Harry and Draco exchanged a look, as if considering the possibility. Wandless, dizzy and lying on the ground at wandpoint. ‘No.’

‘Expecto Patronum!’

‘Legilimens!’

Harry’s stag drove them back and Draco’s mind-break prevented them from calling out any curses. Harry disarmed them neatly, leaving Draco to do the full body bind he was so fond of. Draco hovered over Hermione and Ron. ‘Yield? Blink once for yes, twice for no.’

‘Draco!’

‘Fine.’ He undid the body bind. Ron and Hermione got up gingerly.

‘Since when could you call a Patronus without a wand?’ Hermione demanded.

‘I’m not sure. This year I guess. I’ve been practicing with all the spells I use a lot. And I have been using that one since third year.’

‘Still...it requires a lot of power, Harry.’

‘I know.’ He smiled, rubbing his head. Hermione didn’t believe that he had fully grasped the import of his actions, but decided to let it go for now.

Ron was watching Draco and Harry with a semi-disturbed look. ‘You do that on each other?’ he finally asked Draco.

‘What?’

‘Legilimency.’

‘Practically every week,’ Malfoy said. ‘Stronger of course. And Harry’s better at it than I am.’ He glared at Harry. ‘Don’t smirk. I’m better at Occlumency.’ He noticed that Ron still looked perplexed. ‘What?’

‘I’m just wondering how you don’t blow each other’s heads off. That was bloody sore!’

‘Sorry,’ Draco answered casually. ‘Just be grateful that Professor Snape wasn’t the first one to do it to you.’ Ron nodded emphatically.

Harry was staring off contemplatively. Noticing Hermione’s concern, he smiled. ‘I was just thinking that we should do that in the DA.’

‘Perhaps. We’d need to be careful though. We can’t even have normal duels without someone getting hurt.’

‘Not that badly though. And we could do a demonstration. Chance for a rematch.’

He smiled at Malfoy who didn’t smile back. ‘Small point of interest, Harry. If I went into one of your meetings they’d hex me before I got through the door.’

‘Not right now,’ Harry answered dismissively. ‘But later, I’m sure we can sort out something.’

‘A Slytherin outreach programme?’ Draco asked. He was smiling now, but in such a way that Harry preferred the blank stare. ‘I’m not one of your projects.’

Ron and Hermione backed away from the intensity of the other two.

‘I never said you were. I just meant that we could fix this.’

‘Fix me. The great Harry Potter saving people once again!’

Harry went very, very still.

‘If that’s all you think I am, why are you still here?’

‘I was just about to ask myself the same question.’

Malfoy turned and left the Quidditch field, not looking back. Harry looked at Ron and Hermione and forced a smile. ‘Back to the common room?’

‘Harry...’

‘Don’t. Just... don’t’