"What was he like?" Hermione asks, sitting cross-legged on the armchair beside Draco's bed. She's leaning forward, looking at both Draco and Harry with a concentrated, rapt expression, and as much as Draco tries to dislike her on principle, he's far too fond of being the centre of attention to be nasty.

"Oh, he was arrogant," he says huffily, and Harry shakes his head slightly.

"He was weird," Harry says. "Really intense, and he didn't seem to blink much. He said something about terrible things happening to me this year." What the centaur had said sticks with him, and part of Harry wants to go out into the forest and find Firenze, ask for more information, but he doesn't think he should risk it.

"Well, that's not good," Hermione says conversationally, "That implies it's going to get worse for you." Harry nods his sullen agreement, and he shifts his position on the bed slightly, leaning back against the metal footboard of Draco's hospital bed. It was a bad shatter of bone, so Madam Pomfrey had ended up vanishing the bones and giving Draco a shot of something awful called Skele-Gro. Draco's foot had initially looked like a horrible, deflated balloon of skin, but it's slowly starting to fill out again.

Draco is laid back on the bed, reclining on pillows, and even though he won't admit it, he's obviously glad Harry and Hermione have decided to stay with him all day. It's a quiet Saturday, and Theo, Blaise, Pansy and Daphne have all been by, but now it's the afternoon Harry and Hermione are just settling in with him.

Before coming to see him, Hermione and Harry had discussed the figure in the dark, and Harry had said, "I think it was Voldemort," in a slow, very quiet voice. Hermione had stared at him, and then she'd nodded her head.

"Yeah," she agrees. "You can't know, but-"

"Yeah." The idea fills him with a quiet dread, but also- A defiance, almost. Why should he be scared of Voldemort? Why should he have to be? He's supposed to be dead, and all that exists of him is a shadow, a shadow that apparently has to feed on unicorn blood. "It keeps you alive, doesn't it? Unicorn blood? It makes you immortal."

"Not like the stone's elixir does. It keeps you alive, but it's not sustainable. You have to keep drinking it, and-" Hermione had trailed off, then said, "Professor McGonagall says it stops you feeling things, physically, emotionally. You live like a ghost does. You're there, and you're moving about, but you can't feel anything. It's a half-life." That sticks with Harry even now, as he sits beside Draco's leg, looking at the Slytherin.

"Who brought you the sweets?" Draco glances at the jar of pink, powdery sweets, and he grins a little. "Francois," he answers. "Like our great aunt used to make, apparently." Harry stares at Draco in sudden interest.

"He's your cousin?"

"Second cousin," Draco corrects, and Harry nods his head. "We shared a grandmother - my father's mother was his grandfather's sister." Harry thinks about it, and now he considers it, he sees some of the similarities. Francois doesn't have the same haughty attitude Draco does, and obviously with his dark skin and tendency to grin rather than scowl and look dramatic, there are a lot of differences between them, but...

"You've got the same nose," Harry says, realizing it all of a sudden. He'd never noticed before. Draco laughs, and he reaches for the jar, offering one to Harry. The bonbon is powdery and sweet and after Harry takes one, Draco pauses for a moment before offering the jar to Hermione. She smiles at him, and Draco offers a half-smile in response as she takes a sweet. "Do you want to say something, Draco?" Harry prompts, and Draco looks at him quizzically.

"Say something?" he repeats, tilting his head slightly.

"Starts with S, ends with Y? Five letters?" Draco stares at him blankly.

"You need to start doing the crossword in the Prophet," Hermione says after a few seconds of silence.

"Two Rs," Harry continues. "And an O?"

"Sorry?" Draco says. "Oh. Right. Sorry, Granger. For calling you what I called you." He stoppers the jar awkwardly, setting it aside, and Harry chews on the sweet, fragrant thing in his mouth - it's filled with strawberry gel, and it seems to explode in his mouth the longer it stays on his tongue. Harry swallows, and he glances to Hermione, who seems surprised, but not as annoyed as she could be.

"Apology accepted," Hermione says, slightly stiffly. "Though not quite forgiven. You don't know anything about Muggleborns, Malfoy. You don't need to be such a prat." Draco opens his mouth, but then he closes it again, just for a moment or two.

"We just need to educate him as to what the right sort of wizard is," Harry says, and Draco frowns at him, seeming honestly insulted, but Harry isn't going to apologize for that. He's not as bad as he was at the beginning of the year, with Harry or Hermione, but Harry still can't trust the other boy with anything actually important, and he wants to. Draco seems like he could actually be nice, if he thought about what he was doing once in a while. The same could be said of Ron Weasley, really.

"I'm going to head back up to the common room and do some homework," Hermione says, pulling herself and out of the armchair. Draco looks a little disappointed, not for losing Hermione particularly, but probably because he's going to have less company: Draco's social and driven by attention, and Harry's certain that if they weren't there he'd be kicking up a huge fuss for Madam Pomfrey's benefit. "Feel better, okay, Malfoy? Try not to break anything else."

"Do you want to play a game of snap?" Harry asks.

"Yes, sounds good." Draco moves a little to the side of the bed, and Harry pulls the chair closer so they can use half of the bed to play on - the sheets in the hospital wing are fire-resistant, and they don't singe as badly as Draco's and Harry's do. They play quick rounds, and Draco laughs when Harry hisses, drawing his hand back just in time to keep it from being burned.

"Wizards are bloody mad, I hope you realize that," Harry says, flipping over two cards. "Muggle games aren't like this. Nothing sets you on fire, or squirts stuff into your eye, or comes careening towards you at sixty miles an hour while you're flying about, minding your own business."

"What are Muggle sports like?" Draco asks, flipping over three sets of pairs in a row with nimble fingers.

"Well, there's football. Two teams, and there's a football, which is a bit like the quaffle in Quidditch. Each team vies for possession, kicking it around the pitch - you're not allowed to lift it or touch it with your hands - and they try and kick it into the other goal. Then there's tennis, where there's a big, square court and a net across the middle of it. Both players have this thing called a tennis racket, and it's like a wooden Quidditch ring with twine criss-crossed over the hole. They hit a little ball back and forth across the court, making it go over the net each time, and points are scored when the other player can't keep it on the court or hit it back." Draco's aristocratic brow is furrowed in concentration as Harry manages to match two pairs; Harry wonders if Dudley would make a similar expression were Harry to try and explain Quidditch to him.

"Tennis sounds fun," Draco says finally.

"You'd probably like ping-pong more."

"Ping-pong?" Draco repeats, sounding horrified. "What sort of name is that?" Harry laughs, flipping over another set of cards.

"It's also called table tennis. It's the same rules, but you have a little ball about twice the size of a gobstone, and you bounce it over the table, over the net in the same way. It's kinda like the tennis court is made miniature. And instead of rackets you have paddles about the breadth of someone's hand."

"How many sports do Muggles have?"

"Oh, loads, and I'm rubbish at most of them."

"Do-"

"Hello?" Draco and Harry turn, and the happiness that breaks out on his housemate's face is dazzling as he sees his mother in the doorway. She all but runs across the room, leaning and hugging Draco tightly, kissing his face and cupping his cheeks. Harry smiles a little at them, and he glances up to Lucius Malfoy as he walks over, leaning and cupping the back of Draco's head to lay a kiss on the top of it. Narcissa Malfoy is dressed in soft, blue robes, and Lucius' are a deep green. Harry knows from looking at them that they must be expensive - there's all sorts of details to the sleeves, the hems and the collars, and they look complicatedly made.

Narcissa makes her way to the other side of the bed, and Harry puts out his hand to shake, but she pushes it aside and pulls him into a tight hug. Harry goes still, completely surprised as Narcissa hugs him to her chest, and then she leans back, pushing up Harry's chin so she can look at his face. She's very pretty, but up close she doesn't look as severe and nasty as she had in Madam Malkin's back in the summer. She looks very pale, like she's been worried, but if anything she seems kind.

"Thank you, Harry," she says seriously. "You brought him out of the forest, didn't you?"

"It's not like I was going to leave him behind, Mrs Malfoy."

"Some might have," she says seriously, and she hugs him again. Harry leans into it, this time, and he realizes he hasn't really been hugged by an adult since- Well. Not in his memory, ayway, and it's nice, comforting. She draws her hand over his hair, and then moves back to stand with Lucius, leaning against him when he sets his hand on her waist. Together, like this, her, Lucius and Draco look like a picture-perfect family, like they've been made for TV or something. Against his better judgement, Harry laughs.

"What's funny?" Draco asks, and Harry shakes his head.

"Nothing, it's-" he abruptly reconsiders his decision to say "it's a Muggle thing", and instead says, "It's just how different you three look to Frank, that's all." Lucius smiles. He looks really good when he smiles, all white teeth and high cheekbones - Harry hadn't realized how similar Draco looked to him.

"Ah, Francois has been by? Very good," Lucius says approvingly, and he reaches out, drawing his thumb over Draco's face. Harry links the neat, looping handwriting he'd been reading for the past few months to the meticulously kept figure in front of him, and then Lucius says, "It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Harry, though I did not realize your hair was so... Unkempt, in person."

"No amount of conditioners would keep it down, sir," Harry says, and Draco looks between them.

"It's weird that you two know each other. It's like you're some sort of incredibly short, ugly uncle," Draco says, and Harry throws a card at him, forcing Draco to catch it with surprisingly quick reflexes.

"Oi!" Harry says, and Draco laughs, tipping back his head as he does so. "I'll leave you guys to catch up, then. You're lucky you came this afternoon, Mr and Mrs Malfoy. He was crying all this morning-"

"I wasn't!"

"Begging for pain relief, and for Madam Pomfrey to just put him out of his misery-"

"Shut up!" Draco's white cheeks are tingeing pink, and Harry grins at him. His parents have weird smiles on their faces, as if they've never seen someone Draco's own the age take the mick out of him - but then again, maybe they haven't. Draco's so upper class that children probably weren't allowed to play outside in case they got muddy when he was younger.

"Good evening, Harry," Lucius says, nodding his head, and Narcissa gives him a surprisingly friendly wave. Harry's seen pictures of the two of them in the Daily Prophet, mostly of Lucius, and they'd almost never smiled. He's seen a picture of two of Lucius smirking, but he's never actually seen them giving genuine smiles like that, and Narcissa definitely hadn't smiled when he'd seen her in Madam Malkin's.

It's almost unsettling.

"Are you returning to the common room, Mr Potter?" Harry glances up from his own thoughts, and he meets Snape's eyes.

"Uh, yeah, sir. Did you want me to take anything down?" Snape is holding a stack of folders, and he looks dourly at Harry, as if appraising his ability to perform tasks such as "sit" and "lie down", before deciding he's capable of taking one of the folders in his pile.

"This is Ms Lanjwani's essay," Snape says, handing a blue folder to Harry, and he takes it, carefully stowing it into his bag. "You will give it to her upon your arrival?"

"Yes, sir, sure. Uh, Draco's parents are here."

"Lucius mentioned he would make an appearance," Snape says dryly, and Harry stares at him for a second, utterly taken aback. Snape peers down at him.

"What is it, Potter?"

"You called him Lucius," Harry says, light dawning.

"What would you suggest I call him? Anita?" Snape's sarcasm is thick and drips from his every word, infused with the utter loathing he has for Harry, but Harry can't even care. Snape. A person. Friends with Lucius Malfoy.

"You're friends," Harry says. "God." Snape arches an eyebrow. "Sorry, sir. I just sort of, uh- Forgot you were a person." Snape looks like he wants to pinch the bridge of his nose, but with the folders leaning against his chest, he doesn't have the spare hand.

"When you give Ms Lanjwani her essay, Potter, I suggest you not bore her with your inane babble."

"I'll try not to, sir. Does he call you Severus? Does he call you Sev?" Harry doesn't know why he's asking so many questions - the idea of the man he's had writing letters to him about government policy and the Ministry of Magic and Draco being friends with Severus Snape is blowing his mind. This is even better than thinking of Snape having Christmas dinner with his family - what do they do? Go out for coffee together? Go to Quidditch matches? Have dinners with Narcissa, Lucius, Snape and a woman Lucius is trying to get Snape to go out with?

Potter, given your recent foray into potential death, would you like another detention?"

"I'll go give her the essay now, sir," Harry says, and he walks off down the corridor before Snape can deliver on his threat or take any points off him. He makes his way down to the common room, and Afifa thanks him for her essay. Harry glances at the clock. Dinner is in a half hour, but he has time to go up to the library and take out a book on grotesque transmogrication for his Transfiguration essay. He walks quickly back up through the halls, taking one of the shortcuts Fred and George showed him up to the second floor, but just before he exits from the stationery cupboard he's arrived in, he stops short.

The cupboard is in an empty classroom, but it's not empty right now - he can hear arguing, and he pushes the cupboard door open just slightly. Professor Quirrell is leaned right back against a wall, looking for all the world like he's trying to melt into it, and Harry's mouth drops open as he sees who's intimidating him into the position. The absent smile drops from his face, and his good mood vanishes.

"Well then," Snape says, "You've no doubt discovered the secret to Cerberus, but what of the other protections? Have you thought of a strategy around them?"

"P-p-please, Severus, I have no i-i-idea what you're-"

"Come now, Quirrell," Snape hisses, "What protection have you devised?" Harry slides to the floor, making himself as small and quiet as possible in the bottom of the cupboard, and listens to their conversation with a sickening feeling that weighs heavy in his chest.

Voldemort wants the stone, and Snape is trying to get it.

The realization hits Harry like a Bludger, and even after Quirrell scurries from the room and Snape stalks down the corridor the other way, he doesn't move. He can't move. His own Head of House is going to try the Philosopher's Stone, and there's nothing he can do about it.