~~~~HP~~~~

The conversation between Harry and Draco - and embarrassingly falling asleep during their chess game - on Saturday changed the dynamic between the young wizards and the atmosphere of the dungeon quarters as a whole. Draco seemed much more content with the situation than when he first arrived and Harry was relishing in the fact that he was finally starting his two weeks of no IV chemotherapy. The first week he still had the tablets, which caused his stomach to ache at times, but with no actual vomiting, it felt like a vacation to him and if this was what life in Maintenance would be like then he was ready to finish off Phase Three. Those two simple facts made the tension that was previously in the air almost disappear.

What he didn't like to think about, something both Snape and Draco had been cognizant of and therefore hadn't mentioned it, was that after these two weeks of IV chemotherapy free, he would go into hard quarantine. At his last treatment on Saturday, Dr Swanson promised - though it sounded more like a threat to him - to be back mid-week before his hell weeks started and help walk him and the other two residents through what that entailed. Going over it in his head about it now made him nervous and his palms became clammy, so he tried his hardest not to think about it at all. Ignorance is bliss, is what he told himself and that was fine by him. When Saturday the 22nd got here, if he was told he'd need to stay in his bedroom for the two weeks, he didn't want to ruminate on it now. After all, he might not even feel up for moving outside of his bedroom and lavatory, meaning it would be wasted energy anyways.

The wizards all fell into a routine early in the week. Each morning, they started the day at the small kitchen table and had breakfast together. For Harry that mostly consisted of scrambled eggs - a food he was already starting to hate - with peanut butter toast and yoghurt with fruit mixed in. It gave him a good balance if he ended up not eating it all, so he wasn't feeling as stressed out about counting his nutrients. It also helped that Dr Swanson had added the midday tube feeding, which also took some of the pressure off the actual food he was consuming. To Harry, it appeared like Draco ate less than he did on any given morning even though unlike Harry's very calculated meals, the two Slytherins were provided the same options that were being served in the Great Hall. Since Harry never paid attention to Draco's - or Snape's for that matter - eating habits before, for all he knew the blonde didn't usually eat a big breakfast anyway. Most mornings the Malfoy heir had a hard boiled egg, or a bowl of cold cereal before he went running off to class. What he did notice almost immediately that first calm day of breakfast was that much to his surprise, the Slytherin teen was definitely not a morning person.

During the day, Harry spent most of it in the sitting room sketching or working through his assignments while Draco and Snape went to their classes, or in Snape's case mostly worked feverishly in his office doing something Harry had no idea what. With the break from chemotherapy, the young wizard intended to catch up on his missing school work, but found himself daydreaming of what he'd do once all of this was over. He still had Voldemort to kill, but if the evil dark wizard had Leukemia too, then maybe he'd just die from it, leaving the Gryffindor without any need to actually battle him. Each day, that idea filled his head as he started to put his own pieces together. Voldemort couldn't die with the soul fragment inside Harry. So what if he just lived with the horrifying symptoms of the cancer - being unable to die from them - for the next three years until the soul piece could be removed. At that point, maybe Harry would finally get lucky for once and Voldemort would simply slip off into sleep and die from the Leukemia. Something about the irony that the megalomaniac was dying from a muggle disease was fitting and Harry chose that as his next sketching design to help get him through his two hard weeks of treatments.

Every afternoon, the two Slytherins and Harry would get back together for lunch. This meal for Harry was kind of moot because he had his new afternoon nutrient feeding that Snape prepared and set up for him every day, but he still nibbled at the table mostly to stay social; per Snape's and Dr Swanson's instructions. Usually, he had almonds, avocados, or yoghurt with granola if he didn't already have it at breakfast. Draco would tell him about what classes had been like that morning, especially Mondays and Wednesdays when he had defense and could fill Snape in on the things the professor might not have seen with the other students; which Harry was pretty sure never happened. Overall, it appeared like Draco was safe in his classes, with Slughorn's Potion's class being the only place he'd run into any issues and that had more to do with Slughorn's negligence than the fact that the class was a better place to stage an attack.

The period before dinner, Snape would leave for his open office hours, giving Harry and his student tutor for the day the privacy to go through his lessons without one of the harshest professors in the school present. Now that Draco was feeling better overall, the Gryffindor noticed that his sessions had gotten less tense with both the Slytherin and Hermione and since those two students accounted for 80% of his tutoring lessons, it was a significant improvement overall.

Finally, he had an official lesson with one of his professors for an hour and half after dinner. During these lessons, Snape was usually in his office - clearly not caring if he intimidated Professors Flitwick, Slughorn, or Sprout - and Draco was working on his own assignments in his bedroom. Occasionally, the blonde would come out and sit in on a lesson, especially if it were a particularly difficult one he had struggled with in class, but most of the time the other teen stayed away. It was these lessons that gave Harry something to look forward to during the horrible Phase Three side effect because he was allowed to use more than elementary-level spells under the supervision of a professor. This meant for the first time since last year, he could actually practice the spells he had been learning theory on for months. Yes, he'd been a bit depressed when he found out his "magic time" was not overlapping with his classroom time, allowing him to feel that much more normal, but it would have to do. Outside of his lessons, he could still use a little magic when a professor wasn't present, but it had to be limited to things like: lumos, accio, wingardium leviosa, or incendio; the last one being strictly to light the fireplace because Harry found himself constantly cold in this phase no matter how many layers he wore underneath his red blanket as a cover.

By Wednesday in Harry's first week of his chemotherapy break, when his tablet medication brought back his foul, aggressive mood, it was far easier for everyone to handle it. Draco was told, using healer level language, what was going on within the Gryffindor's body with the specific chemotherapy tablet to cause his change in behavior and though it frustrated Harry to be spoken about like a diagram in one of Snape's muggle medical books, he noticed Draco's patience level increased dramatically. That wasn't to say that Harry got away with his irritable mood. No, there had been plenty of times where Snape needed to step in and more-or-less give Harry a "teenager time out" for his attitude. This had been one of those nights after his Potion's tutoring with Slughorn.

"I don't see why I need Potion's to be an Auror," Harry complained to no one in particular. He was in the sitting room with Snape and Draco, frustratingly working on the essay Slughorn had just assigned him, but even with Snape's old book, he was struggling to stay focused enough to get a good start. "It's not like I'll need to be brewing anything while I'm about to catch a dark wizard."

Snape gave a very exhausted sigh and again Harry wondered what else the professor was dealing with besides Harry, Draco, and his N.E.W.T. classes. Thinking through it all, it had seemed almost too quiet on the Voldemort front. Harry hadn't gotten even a twinge in his scar outside of that random time with Lupin, but he couldn't remember any of the details. He'd been practicing his Occlumency, with quarantine there wasn't any good reason not to since he had plenty of time, nevertheless he doubted he'd gotten that good at it to keep Voldemort completely out.

"What would you do," Snape asked with his right hand rubbing small circles around his dark eyebrows, "if you walked into a scene where a person had taken a mysterious potion and you were required to find the antidote, which all Aurors would have readily available with them. Or should you need to identify and use specific healing potions in the field for either yourself, your partners, or a victim of a crime. I would hope the person responsible for my safety could tell the difference between a blood-replenishing potion, antidote to common poisons, or an anti-paralysis potion and the Draught of the Living Dead or Moonseed Poison."

Of course, Harry hadn't thought of those specific scenarios. In his mind, an Auror was responsible for hunting down and catching the next Voldemort before he gained this much power. Or he'd be called where raids were taking place and he'd be using a myriad of spells to help protect the innocent victims; like what he imagined happened at the second Privet Drive attack.

"I hadn't thought about that," Harry conceded.

"No one ever does," Snape replied, "if I had a knut every time I had to explain to a student why potions are required for occupations outside Potion's Master and Healer, I'd be a very rich man."

Harry tried his best to ignore the snickering coming from Draco at the other armchair, but after being frustrated from his classes that day and his medication having started to hit him, he stood no chance in ignoring the blonde Slytherin.

"What are you laughing at?" Harry called out, his face turned red and his hands started shaking. Misery loved company. That was his only excuse - and not a good one at that - for the words that came out of his month next, "You're completely mental if you think you'll live to see your Healer days."

At the blatant insult, Draco stood, his large arithmancy book tumbling off his lap with a crash as it hit the stone floor. Harry didn't even flinch at the loud noise or the intended threat that came with it. His thin, cracked lips were set in a line as he waited to hear whatever retort the Slytherin would come up with. What he didn't expect was the blonde to lose complete control over the situation and what went from a quiet evening working on their assignments became an arena to air their injustices.

"Says the person who can't take two steps out of this room without catching his death. Are you really that much of an ungrateful git?!" The blonde yelled back as he charged towards the sofa. For a split second, Harry thought he saw a tear forming in the corner of his grey eyes. "You really have absolutely no idea what all the people around you are sacrificing as you sit here not being able to lift a finger for the cause. Are you even keeping track of all the people whose lives have been flipped upside down for you? Or the people who've died for you? Because it's a fucking lot at this point!"

Time seemed to slow almost to a stop as Harry prepared for the punch that was most definitely coming his way. When nothing came though, he cracked open his eyes to the sight of Snape physically holding Draco's pressed collar of his shirt before pulling the blonde back into the armchair and standing between his two charges.

"That's enough!" Snape yelled in a booming voice that sent vibrations down Harry's spine, "Both of you, to your rooms!"

At first neither teenager made a move, both looking at the other with disdain for the situation they found themselves in. Somehow by spitting out the evil, ugly truth to each other released an unknown anxiety. Harry might not survive until he could become an Auror, just like Draco. It was something they had in common; a parasitic thought that sat in the back of their minds that neither wanted to feed. And yet that simple phrase yelled across their sitting room, bringing attention to its presence, helped to heal that parasite better than ignoring it had ever done.

"NOW!" Came Snape's angry voice vibrating against the stone walls.

Harry's bright green eyes went wide as he was reminded of what Snape wanted him to do. He'd let the man, his mentor, down and he was ashamed of himself for that. Living with the professor for eight months now, having gone through the ups and downs they had, he knew to obey. Snape gave him a lot of leniency when he was having a reaction to his chemotherapy, however the young wizard knew the limits and he was quickly approaching them, if he hadn't crossed them already.

Abandoning his books on the sofa, he took off running to his bedroom not caring that it was a juvenile reaction to do so. The heavy door slammed in his wake, vibrating across the walls and floor, and for good measure - to try to release some of his built up aggression - he kicked the edge of his bed and immediately regretted that action when his right toes started to ache. Snape wouldn't come in to see him; the professor would know by now that the young wizard needed time to cool off first. Tomorrow, he could apologize to both Slytherins for that immature comment that started it all because he didn't know why he needed to take Potion's for his Auror career. It was stupid; it was petty and he needed to do better.

The Gryffindor tossed and turned with the sound of Draco's accusations ringing in his ear. Of course he knew all the people sacrificing their lives, be it literally - like Charlie Weasley - or figuratively, like Snape. It was a thought that haunted him every single day, and yet one night of losing control and it had been thrown back in his face. He didn't want these people to sacrifice for him, he never asked them to. Hell, he didn't even know about his role in the wizarding world until he was eleven. He would never know how exactly they got to this situation - he was far too close to it right now - but he would need to be careful about what he said going forward.

Somehow he managed to fall in and out of a light sleep until sometime around half past two in the morning, when he finally gave up his quest for any decent rest and decided to try some sketching to keep his mind occupied. Hopefully the amount of focus required combined with the mundane strokes of his pencil would be enough to lull him into the much desired sleep his body needed. As he got out of bed, he looked through the contents of his desk and started to panic when he found no sign of his notebook. Trying to think clearly, he finally remembered that he'd left it in the sitting room with the intention of working on his Tom Riddle picture - he made the decision to use the bastard's regular name for this piece as he was drawing the evil wizard succumbing to a muggle disease - before he'd stormed from the room to his bedroom.

So, he opened his bedroom door as quietly as he could, for some reason thinking back to the times at Privet Drive, sneaking downstairs when he wasn't locked in his room over night, and made his way down the short corridor. When he saw lights flickering from the sitting room against the opposite wall in the corridor, he instantly knew that he wasn't the only one awake at this early hour.

Carefully, and quietly, he made his way into the sitting room. Snape was sitting in the same position he had been in before banishing Harry and Draco to their respective bedrooms earlier that night - or technically the previous night - but instead of the journal he'd been reading, the man was leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees and his head cradled in his left hand. But it was the man's expression that caught Harry off guard; he was staring emptily off at the wall across from him that was filled to the brim with books. It was the same bookcase that Harry had replaced the notebook he'd read way back before his first magical test, where he found the word Horcrux. That single event felt forever long ago, and yet was still so relevant in his life. The professor was still dressed in his long sleeved, black Oxford shirt and black trousers from earlier that day, suggesting he had not been to bed yet. Walking further into the room, Harry saw his left sleeve was rolled up to his elbow and a bandage was tightly wrapped around where the Gryffindor knew his dark mark was permanently located. A wave of guilt passed through him. He'd noticed the former Death Eater had been looking tired lately, but he hadn't given it much thought beyond that simple observation and questioning why. The man in front of him now appeared in pain and Harry knew there was nothing that could really be done for him. He was no stranger to pain, even more so now, but he also had an entire team of people working to make sure he was as comfortable as possible, whereas Snape was literally alone in his battle.

"You're supposed to be sleeping, Harry," the professor said, startling the young wizard.

"Sorry, sir," he uncomfortably replied, "I was just coming out for my sketch pad."

As Harry approached the professor, he could feel the pain, stress, and worry filtering from his body into the air around them.

"That will not aid you in sleeping," Snape's baritone voice explained, "therefore my statement remains, that you should be asleep."

"Well," Harry logically thought, "just because I should be sleeping doesn't mean I can. Why aren't you sleeping?"

The question was out of his mouth before he could stop it. He very well knew why Snape was awake, it was obvious his mark had started burning.

"I am not the child here."

Every fiber in the Gryffindor wanted to disagree and state that he was hardly a child anymore, but having spent too much time being overly confrontational that day, he managed not to say it. A feat he was immensely proud of himself for.

"My scar hasn't been hurting," he said, taking it upon himself to sit unsolicited onto the sofa. "Does that mean Tom hasn't been out… you know?"

"Killing muggles?" Snape offered and Harry gave a small nod, "Not necessarily... you could be improving at Occlumency-" Harry gave a small chuckle; they both knew he hadn't gotten that good, "- however, it's believed that the Dark Lord has not been taking part in any of the recent raids. Our watch hasn't seen him leave since New Year's Eve."

Oh. The young wizard had truly hoped that there simply hadn't been any at all and that was the reason for the silence.

"So have there been killings?" He didn't know why he asked a question that he already knew the answer to. If there hadn't been killings, Snape wouldn't look so distraught, especially now.

"Is that what's going on tonight?" Harry asked when Snape didn't answer the previous question. The Gryffindor gestured to Snape's mark just so he knew they'd be on the same page; so Snape knew Harry understood what was going on.

"I hope not," the former spy eventually said, "Draco's there now."

"What?!" Harry couldn't contain his astonishment, "Are you all mental? Why the bloody hell would you send him back after he was the target of an attack?"

"Supposed target," Snape corrected.

"That's bollocks and you know it," Harry continued on, feeling the injustice for his latest housemate, "if he's suspected as enough of a target to live here, then he shouldn't be going back to Voldemort's side."

In his fury, he'd completely forgotten about using the name in front of Snape. And now that he was thinking about it, he would need to be more conscious about it in front of Draco too.

"He has all the proper precautionary measures in place and the information he can bring us is exceedingly valuable," Harry heard the words the professor was saying, but his mind went back to the conversation he'd had with the blonde Slytherin - because you're Harry bloody Potter, the only one that's not disposable in this war- was that the way everyone thought about him? All these people were putting their lives in danger and he was sitting hiding away trying to live when deep down he knew he had to die for Voldemort to die.

"I don't care what information he brings back," Harry found himself saying. "He shouldn't be going. He's only sixteen!"

"Trust me, Harry," Snape leaned over and took Harry's right hand in his own, "I know this situation is bad all around, but this was the best option. If his cover hasn't been compromised, which we likely would have heard about by now and, to help prevent that from happening Professor Dumbledore has given him some very valuable information to take back. We need to make it appear as business as usual."

It really made no sense to Harry. How could his cover still be intact if Voldemort wanted to kill him? Unless of course the attack wasn't on the megalomaniac's command, but what did that say about what was going on in the world of the Death Eaters? If one of his followers set up the Quidditch attack independently, that might mean Voldemort wasn't able to make that decision - maybe because of the Leukemia - or there's trouble in Death Eater paradise and that would mean there's a rogue set of them going… against, for lack of a better word… Voldemort? The latter thought was terrifying, so he decided to focus on the idea that Voldemort could be too sickly to run his own missions.

"I'm sorry," Harry said quietly, his fingers intertwined tightly together. "For what I said earlier."

"I am hardly the one you need to be apologizing to," Snape replied. Harry obviously knew that, but since Draco wasn't here to apologize to, it seemed like the next best option. "I understand that this medication is pushing you past your limits, but what you said was insensitive to those around you risking their lives against the Dark Lord. Do what you have to do in order to find a way to get through this next week. If that means sitting in your room when Draco's here and vice versa, I will help make it happen."

"I'll do better," Harry said quickly. He'd said those words before, to prevent the feeding tube he had to get anyways. Lately it seemed there was always something he needed to work on. "I only have two doses left, I can keep things together through them."

"Thank you, Harry," Snape genuinely responded. "Go back to bed now."

Harry nodded, hating to feel like he'd let Snape down yet again. Without another word, he stood to go back to his room and was almost to the corridor where his room was located when he heard the floo roar to life. He gave a quick glance into the sitting room - catching the sight of Draco's disheveled blonde hair, a stark contrast to his black Death Eater robes - before making his way into his bedroom. He'd caused enough problems today and didn't need to cause anymore this morning.

~~~SS~~~~

Earlier that night

"What the bloody hell was that all about?" Severus yelled at Draco, following him into the blonde's bedroom after separating the potential fight between the two teenagers residing with him. It really was a good thing he'd been used to raising a moody teenager, though he had to admit this was much more complicated than he ever had in his old reality. Ultimately, Harry was lucky that Draco didn't take the swing at him before Severus managed to get there and stop him. The last thing he needed was an emergency visit from Dr Swanson because Harry's platelet counts had plummeted from the high dosage of chemotherapy in this phase. That would have been a difficult situation to explain.

"Oh c'mon, Severus," Draco said from his bed, "you can't tell me you've never wanted to say it out loud? He's completely delusional!"

"Like everyone else in this war, he's in an impossible situation, Draco," the professor explained. "All I ask is that you try to keep your own temper under control instead of adding fuel to his fire. You can get your point across just as effectively without the theatrics of throwing a muggle punch."

"So I should hex him next time? Seemed wrong since he can't defend himself with-"

"That is not what I said," Severus rubbed the back of his neck feeling the stress return. After all of this was over - when Harry's cancer was gone and the Dark Lord dead - he was taking a vacation; somewhere far away and completely alone. "Keep your temper under control. What should happen if you had that reaction in front of the Dark Lord?"

His protégé was silent. It was a hard position to be in, and Severus knew it all too well. The irony wasn't lost on him that the interaction he'd just seen was too similar to his own counterpart's goading to Sirius last winter; when he'd more or less told the elder Gryffindor that he was worthlessly sitting on the sidelines while everyone else was out risking their lives - himself most of all. Draco was now in Severus's old position and Harry was in Sirius's. He couldn't let history repeat itself; he flat out refused to let that happen.

The summons hit at half past eleven o'clock that night, and the burning in his mark took him completely by surprise. They'd been planning for this moment, made sure Draco had his emergency port key on hand, given him the information he could feed the Dark Lord, and the charmed galleon that Draco could use should he find himself in danger, but unable to port key out. They would have Order members ready to infiltrate should the young spy find himself in danger and Severus received his distress call. None of that made the professor feel any better about letting the sixteen year old in his care walk out the door to the apparition point and disapparate to the Dark Lord's side. He was tempted to go himself. It would be as simple as taking the same familiar walk Draco would be taking tonight and pressing onto his own mark that burned so fiercely. He wouldn't need his robes or mask, because he wouldn't be welcomed to the inner circle, at least not in that same way. If it weren't for Harry, he would give himself up in a second to save Draco from having to go back there, especially empty handed.

But that wasn't the plan. He knew the Dark Lord couldn't die because of the soul fragment in Harry. So rather than do what he wanted to do tonight, after Draco left he conjured a bandage and charmed it cool to wrap across his burning arm. If Draco was putting his life in danger, he would not use his modified burn salve, standing the burning until his Slytherin charge was back safely. As long as he could still think clearly, it was a plan he was committed to upholding.

The professor wasn't at all surprised to find out that Harry hadn't been able to sleep. What did surprise him was that his scar hadn't been burning. Unlike Severus's mark, he knew Harry's scar didn't always react when the evil wizard called his followers, however some of the raids the Order had been called to had significant damage done. Therefore knowing that Harry had been none-the-wiser to the events meant that Voldemort likely hadn't been present for them; thus confirming Moody's theory that the Dark Lord was not in attendance.

Around three that morning - directly after sending Harry back to bed - Draco returned. He did not appear to be in any pain, at least not physically, however Severus saw the familiar fear and anger sitting in his grey eyes. Without saying a word to each other, Severus gestured for the new spy to follow him into his office, where he would debrief the blonde and help him accept whatever had occurred at the meeting. While he'd sent Harry to bed, he still didn't trust the child not to wander out and therefore this was the best place to speak; where he could set some heavy privacy wards and alarms.

"It wasn't a raid," Draco announced once he was seated across from Severus in his office. "He had me go with Rabastan and discuss my plan to capture you."

This was not good. Given that Draco had been alone - per Harry's vision - the night he'd been tasked with Severus's capture, he assumed no other Death Eaters were to know about the task. If Rabastan knew, it would only be a matter of time before their hands were tied and either Draco had to come through or he had to go into hiding. They had options, none of which were good, but with a modified Polyjuice potion, for example, he might be able to get a convincing replica of himself long enough to get Draco out and hidden. Whoever was the decoy would be guaranteed death, nevertheless, it was one plan he'd had in his head should a contingency to their contingency plan be necessary.

"Luckily," Draco continued arrogantly, but the former spy could see right through his fasçade; he was terrified, "Rabastan likes me a bit after our training over the holidays and just went right into what he would do if it were up to him. Completely skipping the part of making sure I had a solid plan myself."

"Dare I ask what Rabastan would do?"

"They know you go to a muggle pharmacy every two weeks, as well as yours and Potter's aliases," Draco explained, his tone turning serious. "It caused some talk in the Manor when you didn't go last time. You sent Professor McGonagall instead?"

"I did," he confirmed, now feeling like he was the one in the spotlight. "However, I can safely make arrangements to be seen there next time to help ease any suspicion from you."

"Well, they definitely noticed you weren't there," he continued, "but I told them that sometimes you hand things related to Potter over to McGonagall. I don't think they fully bought it, so maybe just don't always send her. Why can't his muggle doctor bring his medicine?"

"She does have a life outside of her work," Severus flatly replied. "Besides, there's other things I need to get outside of his prescriptions, however that may need to change as well."

"That was pretty much what type of 'lessons' Rabastan went over with me," Draco claimed as he held up his wrist to show a platinum bracelet, "like how to find a weakness in your schedule and how to get you there when I did. This is a port key that supposedly will allow me to transport you directly to a cell in the Manor. It won't work in the school wards, showing just how useless these guys are because it won't be suspicious at all for me to go with you outside of the wards, but just in case, I'm going to write down the activation word."

This was getting more serious by the second. Draco grabbed a piece of parchment, Seamus Finnegan's latest exam, and wrote down the word Mort. The irony wasn't lost on him as he'd be taken to his death should the word be used.

"I told them about Potter's quarantine, like you'd said I should," the blonde continued, "I'm going to be honest, I didn't think he'd care, but you were right."

Of course he was right. For whatever asinine reason, the Dark Lord thought he had to be the one to kill Harry. He wasn't about to give the wizard any ideas, but had he used muggle methods to kill Harry as an infant instead of using the killing curse, he wouldn't have lost to begin with. Same with in the graveyard two years ago and last year at the Department of Mysteries; had he allowed any of his Death Eaters to kill the young wizard, this would all be over. In the end, the Dark Lord's pride would kill him, but for now it was protecting Harry - and by extension Draco, because Severus was now expected to be quarantined with the Gryffindor - and that was what he'd been planning on when he fed that piece of information for Draco.

"Tell me about the Dark Lord," he moved on to the next topic he had to cover before it got far too late.

Draco went into the long explanation on how the dark wizard did appear to be quite ill and the Healer - to whom Draco still did not know her name - was trying everything she could think of. With Matthew having been killed and no new brewer being brought in while holding out for Severus, the symptoms of the Leukemia would slowly deteriorate his body. He was becoming irrational and unpredictable, two things that were dangerous to both the wizarding and muggle world alike.

"Anything else of significance happen?" Severus asked and to Draco's credit he thought hard about the question before nodding.

"Yeah," the Malfoy heir sat up taller, as if to give himself confidence in whatever he was about to say. "I asked Rabastan who the fuck was trying to kill me on the Quidditch pitch."

Given the subject, he didn't correct the foul language, but he would eventually need to discuss it with the teen.

"And what did you discover?"

"Apparently the Dark Lord had no idea about it," there was a fire in his eyes that Severus hadn't seen before in the teen. "I don't know if he's even aware of it now, but I sure as hell wasn't going to say anything. According to Rabastan, Nott is the most likely culprit."

If that were true, it had been a good call to remove Draco from the dormitories, as Theodore Nott had likely been involved some way. Being one of his own students, it put them in a difficult position. Arresting Nott on Draco's information alone would draw unwanted attention to the spy, so they'd need to target their investigation in a way that they could be led to the answer as if they hadn't been given inside information. There was also the possibility that Rabastan was testing Draco's loyalty and focusing on Theodore Nott would also draw attention to the blonde. Again, he didn't envy Dumbledore's position, but he did trust the man to use the information in the correct way.

"Remember, you cannot take the word of your opposition at face value," Severus commented, treading lightly over the sensitive topic, "However, as Rabastan is the best source of intel on the subject, does he have any guesses as to why Nott wants you dead?"

A firm scowl crossed Draco's face, "If he had any ideas, he didn't share them with me."

"Great work, Draco. I'll take all of this to the headmaster in the morning," he said, nodding sadly. "Try to get some sleep. I'll be excusing you from your classes tomorrow."

"From Potter's tutoring too?"

"Yes," he answered, though on second thought the two of them here in their quarters together could prove to be a very bad idea. Unfortunately, it was just past four in the morning and there was no way he was putting Draco through a day of classes after the night he'd just had.

As expected, Draco was not at breakfast the next morning, an observation that did not go unnoticed by Harry.

"Why isn't Draco having breakfast with us?" The Gryffindor asked.

"Because he had a rough night," Severus replied, placing Harry's second to last dose of the chemotherapy tablets by his breakfast plate, "you will let him sleep and please if you can't keep your negative thoughts to yourself, stay in your bedroom."

"I was going to apologize to him," Harry screwed his eyes defiantly for being called out on yesterday's occurrence. "What about my Potion's tutoring today?"

"It's cancelled," he didn't add any other information to the statement. "I have a meeting with Professor Dumbledore this morning and then my seventh year class. I'll be back around lunchtime."

"Fine," Harry replied, "I'll just be sitting in my room all day."

"Don't be so dramatic, Harry, there is no reason to stay sulking in your room," Severus sat down, giving the young wizard a sympathetic look he rarely gave, knowing how much the teen hated it. "All I ask is that our home be in one piece when I return."

~~~~HP~~~~

Harry hadn't appreciated Snape's sarcasm that morning, however his mind was currently clear enough to be able to understand that he deserved at least some of it. If Snape had been up most of the nights like Harry saw him last night, then it would explain why the man looked so tired almost all of the time.

The young wizard had chosen not only to not sit in his room for the day to do his schoolwork, but not to work on his essays at all. So all morning he sat across the sofa working on his Tom Riddle sketch - which was going to be the evil wizard laying in a muggle hospital bed dying from the Leukemia - in hopes of crossing paths with Draco. It was about ten o'clock in the morning, and only a little over an hour after he'd gotten settled on the sofa, when Draco finally emerged from his bedroom. His hair was still more of a mess than Harry was used to seeing him, but he was dressed in his usual neat clothes - a white Oxford shirt, completely buttoned and a pair of black trousers - making Harry feel like a second class citizen in his jeans and green jumper.

"Trying to bring out your inner Slytherin, are you now?" Draco asked, crossing the room to the kitchen.

Harry closed his sketchbook and immediately took off to follow his housemate. When he entered the kitchen, the other wizard was already seated at the table with a small bowl of yogurt with granola, an appropriate breakfast given that it was almost lunchtime. When he noticed Harry enter after him, he had a look of surprise that the Gryffindor had even bothered to move that morning.

"I was almost put in Slytherin, y'know," Harry announced with no preamble. The statement had its intended effect as Draco was literally left speechless; his mouth hanging open was an added benefit. Harry sat down at the table and a small bowl of yoghurt appeared in front of him too. "It's true. We could have been dormmates if I'd let the sorting hat place me where it wanted to."

"Come off it," the blonde exclaimed, "there is no way the Boy-Who-Lived was almost in the same house as the wizard who killed his parents. Does Severus know?"

Harry rarely thought about how different his life would have been had he let the hat have its way, but now that he knew one key piece of information he was relieved he pushed for "not Slytherin". With a piece of Voldemort's soul sitting beside his own, was it possible the hat had made the suggestion on that alone? The thought made his stomach churn; his life could have been so drastically different if he'd let the hat read from Voldemort's soul instead of his own. Had he not heard what he had about the House of Snakes before getting sorted - and met Draco full of his arrogance - he wouldn't have had an issue and likely would have ended up there. He would have had an entirely different seven years that would have been chosen for something that wasn't even him.

"Earth to Potter," Draco called out.

"Sorry," Harry replied, shaking the last lingering thoughts from his head. "I don't know if Severus knows or not. I didn't tell him."

The true Slytherin narrowed his eyes, "Then how else would he have known?"

There was something in his voice that rubbed Harry the wrong way. While he couldn't know for sure if the professor was told about his Slytherin "close call" in his old reality, he certainly couldn't tell that to Draco now. What started out as a way to throw the Malfoy heir off this morning on his journey to apologizing, backfired on him in a hard way.

"I'm sorry for what I said yesterday," Harry filled in the silence with a heartfelt apology. "My medication does not give me the right to say that kind of stuff to you. And for the record, I am well aware of who's sacrificing their lives, literally and figuratively, for me. I didn't ask anyone to do that, and I wish they wouldn't have to."

The full apology almost caught Draco more off guard than the declaration that he was almost placed in Slytherin. He stared at Harry, making the Gryffindor very uncomfortable under his scrutiny. Before either wizard could say anything though, a piece of parchment popped up in front of Draco's face. Harry furrowed his brows in confusion because he had always assumed the parchment went to who the wards viewed as the "most relevant owner"; which was Snape most of the time, but in the current occupancy it should have been him, not Draco.

"Apology accepted," the blonde called out, vanishing his plate nonverbally using his Hawthorn wand. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm needed elsewhere."

This time, it was Harry's turn to stare open mouthed watching as the other teen strutted out of the doorway closest to the entrance. He'd taken the parchment with him, so Harry couldn't even see who was there. Unable to contain his curiosity, a habit he really needed to get under control, he went to follow Draco, but stopped in his tracks when he heard him say "hello" followed by the unmistakable sound of a kiss he really wished he hadn't heard. With a look of disgust upon his face, he waited until he heard Hermione give a small laugh and then greeted the pair right outside the kitchen doorway.

"Hey, 'Mione," he gave the witch a small warily wave. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh," she turned towards Draco with her eyebrows down, "um, well Draco sent me a missive about missing his classes today and asked if I could bring his notes."

She was nervous, and Harry didn't want to get between whatever they had planned during this time. Slowly nodding his head, he turned to go back into the kitchen, then to grab his sketchpad to work on it in his bedroom. Surely between the two of them, they knew enough privacy spells for Harry not to notice anything in the sitting room, but just in case he was content to spend however long he needed to in his room; at least until lunchtime.

"Harry," Hermione called out before he was out of view, "I'll stop by your room later, if that's alright."

"Of course. Good luck with your… notes."

He didn't smirk over the idea of Hermione doing something such as "going over notes" in her boyfriend's room as he would have had it been anyone else besides Hermione and Draco. Rather, he slinked away to his own room trying not to think about what was happening on the other side of his home.

Even after being up most of the night tossing and turning, and now completely exhausted, Harry did everything he could not to fall asleep before lunchtime. This meant that when his eyes grew heavy only a half an hour into sketching he put away his notebook and pulled out the box of pictures of his mum he'd gotten from Snape for Christmas. There was something comforting about sorting through them and imagining a time when his mum wasn't worrying about an evil wizard or going into hiding herself; she was just enjoying her life with her family, her friends, and later on her husband and son. She didn't know what was coming up in only a few short years, instead thinking that she had her entire life ahead of her. Her ignorance at the time was literally bliss. The young wizard sat there on his comfortable bed thinking that he would give almost anything to be able to say one word to her or to be able to hug her. With his thoughts completely wrapped up in the pictures he was holding, Harry never heard his door open.

"Everything alright?" Snape's baritone voice brought him out of his mother's past and back to his present.

"Yeah," Harry rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment that Snape had managed to catch such a private moment.

"I was calling you for lunch," the professor said, his eyes filled with the concern that Harry had gotten used to at this point. In fact, it was those eyes that kept him grounded here; that made it so he would only almost give anything to see his parents again. The longer he lived here, the more he found he wouldn't give this up to see his parents - to have them back was a completely different, much more complicated situation - he wouldn't sacrifice his long-term happiness for something so short- term.

"Let me clean up here," Harry said sadly, gesturing to the pictures surrounding him, "and I'll be right there."

Snape nodded and turned to walk away, but stopped at the last minute, "Have you seen Draco yet this morning?"

"Erm… yeah," Harry's face flushed what he could only guess was a deep red hue, "I apologized to him earlier."

Snape's eyes narrowed, already knowing that Harry was holding something back, "And where is now? I tried calling for him and received no answer. If he went to class, he should have returned by now for lunch. Perhaps I should contact the headmaster to search-"

"He's fine!" Harry quickly interrupted the professor, not wanting to start a whole search for the Slytherin knowing he'd been in his most likely heavily warded bedroom. To this, Snape raised a single eyebrow. "He's in his bedroom."

"Is he now? In that case, I'll meet you in the kitchen for lunch," Snape called out over his shoulder as he stormed out of Harry's doorway.

This would not end well and the last place Harry wanted to be was having lunch with Draco after Snape interrupted his and Hermione's "study time". It didn't take long for Harry to hear the loud commotion coming from the other side of the sitting room, specifically from Draco's bedroom. It was a combination of Snape's dark, menacing voice, combined with two he recognized as Draco's very articulate one and Hermione's overly logical one; both were stuttering through an explanation that he was sure Snape never heard.

The Gryffindor wizard carefully made his way to the kitchen, slinking along the wall to avoid being seen as he watched Hermione's bushy hair sweep across the sitting room and out the front door.

So much for getting to talk to her today, Harry complained to himself. He seriously considered sending her a note asking if she'd stop so he could talk to her before their last week of tutoring started on Monday, now though he doubted she'd want to be seen anywhere near the dungeons if Snape was home.

As usual, the kitchen table was set for three and it looked like Snape had already gotten his nutrients ready, all the supplies were sitting out by his own place setting, before he came to call them to lunch. With the voices of the two Slytherins getting louder, Harry paused, waiting to see if he was really wanted in the kitchen at this time.

"Thanks for ratting me out, Potter," Draco accused, slamming his shoulder into Harry's as the blonde passed by him to his own spot at the table; Snape followed on his heels less than a second later. Harry thought this was probably the angriest he'd seen the professor, at least since the pensieve incident that he really tried not to actively think about.

"This has nothing to do with Harry. Do you really think I couldn't tell what was going on the instant you could not hear my knocking at your door, or the fact that I could not hear anything from inside of your room?" Snape yelled, his voice becoming louder as the sentence went on. The Gryffindor sat down feeling uncomfortable. "What were you thinking? I don't care about whatever kind of rules, or lack thereof, you had back at your house, when you're living here, you'll abide by my rules."

It became clear about halfway through Draco's lecture about not having his girlfriend in his bedroom with the door closed, why Harry was asked to sit there during it; now if Harry ever found himself in that situation - which he never would, but Snape always thought ahead and was trying to cover every possible scenario - he knew what the house rules were. And once both teenage boys were as embarrassed as they possibly could ever be, Snape finally released them to work on their assignments. But before either of them moved, Draco cleared his voice and Harry's stomach dropped at the implication.

"So I'm guessing this means I can't have Hermione over for Valentine's Day tomorrow?" Draco asked much more confidently than Harry would have expected given the conversation - or lecture was more like it - they'd just gotten. "Seeing as I doubt I can go to Hogsmeade on Saturday, I'd hoped to have over here tomorrow."

Harry could see the former Death Eater clench his jaw so tight it hurt Harry's back teeth just watching it and he was surprised there wasn't literal steam coming from his ears as if he'd just had a Pepper Up Potion.

"You would be correct on both accounts," Snape growled, then turned on his heels and stalked out of the room. Though he wasn't wearing his teaching robes, Harry could almost see the outline of where they would have been billowing behind him.

The two teenage boys sat in silence, the only sound in the otherwise quiet space was Harry's small sip of his pumpkin juice before he said, "He didn't say anything about me having Hermione over tomorrow."

Maybe he was trying to make up for what he'd said to Draco yesterday, or hoped he'd be able to use that time to try to make sure things were alright between himself and the Gryffindor witch. Whatever the reason, it was worth the risk if that was what it took to make things right. Draco lifted his eyes toward Harry without moving his head and after about ten seconds, started laughing. It was a contagious laugh that had Harry following suit almost instantly and his previous sullen mood melted away, at least for the time being.