Underwater Light

Three days after Professor McGonagall's death, Dumbledore addressed the Young Order.

"There is no doubt left," he said. "There is an enemy in our midst, and he will not stop short of murder."

Everyone was sitting huddled around the table, the Slytherins slightly isolated as usual. Harry looked at all the pale, crumpled faces and felt that familiar rush of rage and desolation.

"In the words of one of our Aurors-" Dumbledore almost smiled, but the attempt failed. "Constant vigilance must be exercised. Minerva was loyal, strong and wary, and she was still taken unawares on her way back to the dungeons. We must be even more careful, and even more united to discover this enemy, and cast him out."

Most people were just gratefully soaking up his words. Hermione's face was pinched with desperate attention. Hannah Abbott was crying again, and Padma Patil was staring at Draco with accusation in her eyes.

"We have received a serious blow. I won't conceal that from you," said Dumbledore. "But none of you are to despair. I have every confidence that we can catch this murderer. I have every confidence in you all. I know that none of you will rest in a world where Minerva McGonagall's killer is walking free."

The Slytherins looked just as pale and shell-shocked as everyone else, but their faces as they listened to Dumbledore were impassive. Everyone else noticed that, too.

"If any one of you sees or suspects anything at all, my door is always open," Dumbledore continued, and leaned forward. "Anything at all. Rest assured, they will be believed."

He directed a comforting twinkle at Dennis Creevey, who was ashen and who had fainted when he heard about McGonagall. Then he left.

When Dumbledore had gone and it was only the Young Council left, Lupin suggested new safety precautions.

"Mr Malfoy's suggestion of forming into pairs to work on projects was excellent, but has clearly been compromised," he said. "I suggest new pairings, and discretion advanced to the point where nobody outside the pair has any idea of what they are working on. Since people seem to talk inside their houses, I would advise another safety precaution - each pairing should be an interhouse pairing."

Harry looked at Draco across the table. He had spoken immediately, and in a sharp voice, and he did not look back.

"Miss Granger," Lupin said mildly, "do you have any objection to being paired with Mr Malfoy?"

"No," Hermione answered in a quiet voice. Harry was startled, and Draco looked vaguely surprised at her ready agreement as well. Lupin nodded, as if that was all settled then.

"I'll take Terry Boot," Blaise Zabini said, tilting his head back to give Terry an appraising look.

Harry was even more startled. He hardly knew Terry, and what he did know - obsessed with books, smiles too much at Draco - he did not particularly like.

"Um, all right." He needed someone intelligent. He wanted to make a difference, and if Draco and Hermione were already taken - oh, damn you, Draco - Terry Boot would do. He was definitely not going anywhere near Blaise Zabini.

Lupin nodded and paired them together. Hannah looked a little intimidated when paired with Padma, but she was probably cheered by the fact she was not with a Slytherin.

Harry looked around at the table and all the mis-matched pairs. What were any of them going to think of? What could they think of, to make it better?

Professor McGonagall was dead, and Harry did not have the first idea of how to avenge her. Some kind of study group with Terry Boot seemed so inadequate he could have screamed.

Once a lot of people had arrived on the scene that night, and Ron had taken Hermione very firmly from Draco, Harry had approached him. He'd just wanted to exchange a few words, a bit of comfort, something like a reconciliation to hold against all this. Someone to understand the rage that would frighten other people, someone to understand him.

Draco's mouth had tightened and he'd said, "I'm busy, Potter" in a strained voice.

He hadn't been able to talk to him since. They were both busy, talking to other people, comforting people and trying to organise panicked hordes of students. But he was dragging around a sick, heavy load of misery and anger and his Head of House was dead and it was all so unfair and Draco still wouldn't even talk to him. He wanted to take it out on somebody, but that wouldn't be fair either.

Harry took a deep breath, gave Hannah Abbott a small smile of encouragement and felt his heart beat too fast, almost painfully, when he caught Draco looking over at him.

Hermione did not like doing things when she had serious doubts about their wisdom. She went into the library uncertain of what she was doing there, and fighting the urge to turn tail and run.

She really resented Malfoy choosing her sanctuary to meet in. She was supposed to be safe in the library! It was her place, always filled with the other serious students who never bothered her, and she came here to rest.

But she had agreed to take him as her partner. She would have much preferred Padma Patil, who was just as intelligent and much less mean, but he had picked her, and coming from Malfoy that was almost a compliment. And then she had remembered holding onto him in terror, and him holding her. She had never believed Malfoy would do anything like that.

So she had succumbed to sentimentality, and now she was saddled with this blond bastard for the remainder of her last year.

Hermione held her head up high and walked towards the table where Malfoy sat, head bent over some parchment. She noticed he was using an eagle feather quill, which was sheer ostentatious display.

"Ah, Granger," he said with his nasty little smirk. "You took your time."

"I'm busy over in the tower," she replied shortly, and saw his expression change fractionally. She shut her mind away from thoughts of Professor McGonagall, choking off horror and fear, and concentrated on the wood grain of the table in front of her.

"Well, since we have to decide on our project I thought it would be sensible to start by discussing recent events and how to handle them," Draco said.

Hermione was surprised and pleased at this methodical approach. She always liked her study partners to be good planners. She almost forgot herself enough to smile at Malfoy.

"I think first of all the Young Council, and possibly the whole Young Order, should view this Somnasieve Potter told the Young Order about, the one McGonagall put Potter's dreams into."

Hermione crushed the flash of pain at the mention of her name, and took a sharp, indignant breath. Not in front of Malfoy. Don't lose control in front of Malfoy.

"Certainly not! Those are Harry's private dreams. A whole lot of people have no right to see them-"

Malfoy's voice was chilly. "Professor McGonagall might have been killed because she knew something. That something could be in those dreams, and so everyone has to see them and give us the best chance we can to find it. We have absolutely no time to consider anyone's personal feelings if we want to win this war."

"What about the fact that people have a right to privacy?" Hermione demanded, trying to keep her outraged voice down and finding it difficult.

"Oh, what about it?" Malfoy sneered. "Didn't Muggles invent peoples' rights? You want me to let someone get away with murder and kidnapping because of your Mudblood scruples?"

Hermione forced down her voice again. "I want you to watch your foul mouth," she told him coldly. "We're supposed to be partners."

Malfoy looked bored. "Don't get your knickers in a twist, Granger. Sticks and stones-"

Hermione winced on reflex, and before she could do anything, Malfoy had leaped up at the sound of that loud challenging voice and was staring into Harry's blazing eyes.

"We talked about that, Malfoy," Harry said rapidly, flushing with rage. "I told you it was petty and cruel, and you agreed. Just because we've fallen out doesn't mean that you have a license to stop using your brain - to stop acting like a decent person."

Hermione wanted to hide her face in despair, but kept watching. The lines of both their bodies were taut as bowstrings.

"I have no interest in acting like a decent person, you sanctimonious bastard," snapped Malfoy.

"That's rubbish! You're just acting like this because you're revolting against everything we talked about, and it's just stupid! You always did cut off your own nose to spite your face, you always behave like a complete little snot-"

"You don't know anything about me!" Malfoy shouted. He calmed down quickly

in the space between two deep furious breaths, chest hitching, and then he spoke more softly. "What about the way you're acting? Didn't you know that these projects are secret? And yet there you were listening - I'd say that's the behaviour of a spy, myself-"

Madam Pince was hurrying towards them and already speaking sharply, but both of them were beyond hearing her.

Students all around the library were staring, and Hermione could only bite down on her lip as Harry clenched his fist around Draco's shirt and leaned in, both their shoulders bunched in preparation for violence, hunched towards each other to block out the rest of the world.

"Why the hell did you have to insinuate something like that?" Harry ground out, eyes boring holes in Malfoy's face. "I know you don't believe it, I know that, why do you just have to lash out-"

"I'm only lashing out because you won't listen to me!" Harry snarled, and he kept snarling into Malfoy's face, and Malfoy pushed in further in order to sneer in Harry's face. "Why can't you stop being so awful, and-"

The boys finally noticed Madam Pince, but hardly seemed distracted. Harry looked as if he would have quite liked to break Malfoy's bones. Madam Pince actually had to grasp both their elbows in her hands, dragging them out of the library. While they were being swept in her wake, Malfoy's arm connected with Harry's and Malfoy jumped back as if he had been given an electric shock.

Hermione swept her parchment and quills haphazardly into her schoolbag and hurried after them, catching the tail end of Madam Pince's diatribe as she chucked them out of the library.

They were obviously beyond listening, just glaring at each other with concentrated, distilled fury until the door slammed behind Madam Pince.

"How do you think I feel," Harry said in a low voice, "with you saying those things, with you-"

"Well, how do you think I-" Malfoy stopped yelling. He stood there tensely for a moment, and then his mouth curled maliciously. "Just leave me alone," he said. "That's all I want. Granger and I actually care about doing work for the war."

"You-" Harry's hands curled at his sides. His face was full of sullen misery. "I care."

Malfoy broke away, wheeling around without another word and stalking down the corridor. Hermione glanced desperately at Harry, who was backing off from her with a look of fierce, private unhappiness, and then for reasons entirely unclear to herself ran after Malfoy.

He burst into a classroom and threw a chair at a wall. He stood in the middle of the room, still breathing harshly, and she hesitated in the doorway and wondered if he was unstable. She would definitely get a great deal of satisfaction from Stunning him.

Malfoy looked around at her, not seeming particularly surprised that she had followed him. She noticed his jaw was clenched, his teeth gritted, and she steeled herself for whatever was coming.

"I apologise, Granger," he said through his teeth. "I am aware that I chose you to work with, and it is my responsibility not to let my attitude interfere with what we have to do."

"You're going to be polite to me? I don't know, Malfoy. Are you even capable of that?"

Malfoy raised his eyebrows, and almost grinned at her. It was very bizarre. "I wouldn't go as far as polite," he said. "I was thinking 'not intentionally and overtly offensive.'"

Hermione realised that Malfoy was trying to convince her that he was in control of himself, which was a little much considering she had just seen him throwing furniture. She also realised that he was being halfway civil, and she hadn't thought of him as a bastard in over five minutes.

"Potter had nothing to do with it," Malfoy said curtly. "He can damn well stop bothering me."

Hermione closed her fingers around her wand. "He's bothering you because he wants to get your attention," she informed him. "You should know something about that."

You spoiled, sneering nuisance. Let's not pretend you didn't pester him for six years.

"All I want is to be left alone," Malfoy snapped. "And, don't have a coronary or anything, Granger, but in this particular case you are not in possession of all the facts!"

Hermione took another deep breath. That was true; she did not know exactly how things had happened. Malfoy, utterly unlikely though it seemed, could be entirely innocent. He was not acting like an someone whose cruel little plans had all gone perfectly.

Malfoy blinked. "Those aren't words I ever expected to hear from you, Granger."

Hermione chanced a smile. "Well, I never expected to hear 'I apologise' from you, Malfoy."

"Well. As I said, I have to make it possible for us to work together. I can't be relentlessly nasty." Malfoy looked sulky, as if being condemned to polite behaviour was an enormous burden.

"Be a nice change for you," Hermione said briskly. "This is a truce, then?"

Malfoy looked up at her, eyes wide and startled. "Only until the end of the war. Then I kill you and all of your mixed-blood friends."

"Sorry, I couldn't resist," he said. "The look on your face is priceless."

The little twerp clearly cracked himself up. A smile was still playing around his lips when he exited the scene of his desk crime, and he was in a good enough humour to offer to take Hermione's bag as they went down the corridor.

"You do seem to carry bulging bags as a hobby, but I thought I might as well offer. Always the little gentleman, yours truly."

Hermione snorted. Malfoy looked injured. Natalie McDonald, passing by, gave them a startled look as they went by, and then gave Malfoy an appreciative look. Hermione was going to have to have a talk with that girl.

She thought that Malfoy's jeans attracted attention not because he was, objectively, attractive, but because he wore them as if he were doing something forbidden and daring.

She then realised that she had given actual consideration to the matter of Malfoy's jeans, and felt vaguely dirty.

"Look, Granger." Malfoy hesitated, which was rare enough in itself to make Hermione glance inquiringly up at him. He was frowning slightly, as if in thought. "I was wondering. Would you like to come to my room in a couple of nights? I'm-"

He smiled. All the blood rushed to Hermione's head as she realised that he was serious.

"I cannot believe the nerve of you, Malfoy," she snapped, and for the second time in her life she slapped him around the face.

Harry walked around the lake, round and round with the wind lashing his face and misery in a tight knot under his ribs, and a strange feeling of relief easing the raging headache he had had for days. At least he had been able to relax for a while, been able to just let it out and not worry, and at least Draco had reacted. He hated it but he had felt alive, and if that was all they could have then he wanted more now.

He really did not want to go back to Gryffindor Tower. He felt like he was going to break apart with frustration if he stayed there a moment longer. There was a hush hanging over the whole tower since McGonagall's death, and he kept finding people crying and trying to comfort them, kept seeing people looking to him for answers and reassurance and having none to offer. It made him want to break things. No, it made him want to break Voldemort, somehow crush him and make him pay for everything.

He had sat up talking to Neville all night last night. Earlier today in the common room Ginny had hurled herself at him and wept, and he had patted her shoulder, gently and awkwardly as he had spoken to Neville. He was no good at this, all he had ever been good at was facing down something that had to be faced down, he was trapped, he wanted to act, and he wanted to scream out his fury to Draco and for Draco to scream back at him that he was an idiot, and then he could finally rest, sit leaning against Draco and talking, and not feeling so responsible.

Harry kicked a rock violently into the lake, and saw the squid stir in protest under the murky surface of the water.

Harry glared at it. "Sod you, too," he muttered, before he realised that he was talking to a squid and might be going irredeemably insane.

He glanced over at the looming lump of stone that was Hogwarts and then at the small light in the window of Hagrid's house. He left the lake and went towards it.

He hadn't been to see Hagrid for ages. He felt his spirits lighten as he approached the door. Hagrid wouldn't expect anything from him, Hagrid had been his first friend in the world-

"Well, o'course," Hagrid replied, opening the door an inch further. "It's just tha' - well, it's a bit of a bad time, don' you know..."

The awful idea that he might have interrupted Hagrid and Madame Maxime flashed on Harry and blinded his mind's eye.

"An' I know you two have had another fight, so I thought you mightn' wan' ter see him..."

Another fight, because of course all Harry and Draco did was fight, and nobody could have expected a friendship to last, and that was all there was to it. Hagrid's face was still worried and well-meaning, and Harry forced down another wave of desolation.

"No," he said with an effort. "I mean - I do want to see him, it's all right-"

He flung the door wide open and Harry followed him into the sitting room, where a fire burned brightly. Madame Maxime was reading a book with fanged horses on the front, the baby was sitting on the hearthrug waving what appeared to be a fanged rattle and the window was wide open, the curtain billowing in the wind.

"Oh, it's 'Arry," Madame Maxime said with a faint, uncertain smile. "I vondered vat inspired Draco to 'is - precipitous exit. 'E generally 'as such good manners, for an Eenglish boy."

"He's been comin' here a fair bit," Hagrid told Harry. "He likes playin' with the baby and havin' a bit of a chat wi' Olympe. I think things are gettin' a bit on top of him, ter be honest."

Him and the rest of the world, Harry thought. He found the concern in Hagrid's voice touching and bitterly ironic, and God, Draco was unhappy and he couldn't even talk to him.

"I've talked to him a bit, since you brought him round a couple o'times. He's a not a bad lad, in his way," he said. "I think we've all been a bit hard on him. This's no time ter be arguin', Harry. Couldn' you make up with him?"

Harry stared at the carpet, and hated every fibre of it. He had been fairly carpet neutral up to this point in time.

"I wish I could," he admitted finally, his voice sullen in his own ears. "He won't talk to me."

Ginny hugged her knees, pressing her face against the window. She had watched Harry walking around the lake until darkness fell, but now she could not make out if he was still there. She wondered what he was planning.

She wished he would come back. She thought she would sleep better if he was back in the tower. She kept having nightmares of that night, of darkness and terror and Hermione almost collapsed and even Harry helpless and Professor McGonagall... She kept waking up screaming. It was common enough in the dormitories to wake up screaming these days, so nobody minded much, but Ginny minded. She wanted to be better. She wanted to feel safe.

She had felt safe earlier, when she had broken down and Harry had held her. He wasn't scared like everybody else.

Ginny glanced over at Dean, standing by her window seat with a concerned look on his face. She hugged her knees tighter.

"You're not going to be able to see Harry," Dean said gently, sitting down beside her.

"I was just-" Ginny stopped, and looked up into Dean's face for some wordless comfort. He had always offered her that before, but he looked distant now, in pain and not reliable at all.

"I know," he told her. "I understand. It's only that - Ginny, I've been trying to understand for months now. I'm getting so tired."

He spoke quietly, in a weary undemanding sort of way, and Ginny did not understand why her throat seized up. She stared at him, and tried to speak past the sudden lump.

"You were all right before all this started happening. You were - better than all right. You were beautiful, and so alive, and - we were together, and it was right."

Dean stared at the floor when he spoke. Ginny looked up at him, stricken.

"Oh God damn it!" said Dean, so loudly Ginny jumped. "It doesn't have to be Harry! It wasn't Harry before people started being taken from Hogwarts! It was you and me, and I know you're scared and you want to be rescued, but how do you think watching this makes me feel? How do you think I feel without - Ginny, I've been waiting and waiting and I'm scared, too!"

Ginny swallowed. He was scared and Ginny was scared, and she could have taken anything outside and wanted to fight the good fight but this... this slow sapping of their numbers, this constant fear, this violation of their only safe place... She felt as lost and helpless as she had when she was a child whose mind was being invaded. She could not fight something she knew nothing about, but Harry could swoop in and defeat an enemy Ginny had not even been able to recognise. Harry was the hero, Harry was not scared, Harry would save her, and it was Harry she loved.

"I'm sorry," she said in a trembling voice, "but it doesn't change anything."

Dean's face made Ginny want to cry. "You were so bright and brave," he said, his voice low and dull. "I always wanted to draw you. You made me laugh and we held each other up-"

The shadows were closing in around her. Waking in dark corridors with blood on her hands and messages written on the walls, and now another corridor with another cat in it who was...

"I'm sorry," Dean told her, and he regained his usual quiet with an effort. "I didn't mean to - It's just all so-" He stopped. "I love you," he said. "You know that."

Ginny looked after him as he went with speechless misery. The other people were looking over at her curiously, but most of them were gathered around the fire talking in fearful whispers and did not come over to her. Parvati Patil was walking around the room, looking uncertain about something.

Ginny tried to cry unobtrusively. She felt as if she was drowning, they were all drowning, and she longed more than anything for Harry to come and save everyone.

Harry did not stay long at Hagrid's. Madame Maxime could not stop tiptoeing around the subject of Professor McGonagall, and the whole visit was a horrible failure.

He still felt wretched and in need of comfort and terrified that he would snap at people if he went back to the tower, though, so he went up to Sirius' rooms. Lupin had patiently explained to both of them that it would be an infraction of teacher and student relations for Harry ever to visit him, and so Sirius had always told Harry to do it discreetly.

They might be less close than Harry had hoped, but he knew he could rely on Sirius.

He looked up when Harry came in, and his mouth moved out of its usual lines of cynical endurance, and into a warm smile.

Harry looked at him for a minute, lost in sick unhappiness, and Sirius got up from his desk at once.

"Stupid question," he said shortly. "Come on, come sit by the fire, I'll make you a cup of tea." He paused. "I could put something stronger in it?"

Harry looked up, startled, from the chair where Sirius had almost forcibly deposited him. Then he grinned faintly. "OK."

"Great," Sirius told him, and grinned his slightly rakish grin back, going for a cupboard standing against the wall. "Don't tell Remus," he added sternly. "He'd have kittens. And then he'd have my head."

"Might be worth it to see a werewolf having kittens," Harry answered. Sirius actually laughed. Harry hadn't heard anyone laugh in days.

He came back with a bottle of Ogden's Firewhiskey, a glass, a cup and a kettle. He put the kettle on the fire. Sirius was still a little awkward with household routine, moving as if doing such normal things was odd, but Harry liked it that he tried. He sat back with a sigh, and then looked at Harry with attentive black eyes.

"I don't know if this will help," he said abruptly, "but Dumbledore just told me that I'm going to be the new Head of Gryffindor."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "He turned it down. He was wittering on about how he needed to retain a neutral position for the Young Order. If you ask me, the whole thing is ridiculous. You're almost out of school. You and Ron and Hermione should be allowed to be part of the real Order." He made a mock grimace. "Anyway, what's so wrong with me?"

"Nothing," Harry said quickly. "I was just surprised. I - didn't want to think about someone replacing..."

I don't want to say her name. He looked down at the stone floor, and then up again as Sirius reached over and closed his hand around Harry's shoulder. He did it sympathetically, but Harry thought he looked disappointed. He'd wanted Harry to be thrilled it was him.

Sirius brightened, and for a moment the lines left by Azkaban softened. Sitting in the firelight, Harry could see how Sirius must have looked when he was young and happy, before Voldemort had destroyed all that too.

"At least now there's a silver lining to Snape disappearing," he remarked. "I won't have to discuss house protocol with the slimy git."

The kettle boiled, and Sirius set about making Harry's cup of tea. Harry watched him do it.

"Sirius," he said quietly. "The Slytherins need Snape. He has to come back."

Sirius began to pour in the Firewhiskey. "Yes, well, I hope he does. I'm just pointing out the silver lining, like I said. You can't get on with that man."

As Harry recalled, Sirius never made that much of an effort - but it probably wouldn't have mattered if he had. Snape was impossible, he reminded himself. Just because Draco...

"You look down in the dumps, Harry," Sirius commented, handing Harry his cup. "I mean - I know that's natural, and there's not much I can do about it. But is there something else wrong I can help you with? Girl trouble?" He gave Harry another hopeful grin. "I can give you a lot of advice about that."

"Er, no." Harry took a hasty sip of his tea. It burned as it went down. "Not girl trouble. Definitely not."

Sirius looked disappointed again. "It beats me why the girls aren't swarming over you," he said, in a disastrous attempt to be cheer Harry up. "When James and I were young-" He paused, pouring himself a generous glass of Firewhiskey, and seemed to visualise the wrath of Lupin. "We were quite popular," he concluded circumspectly, and then smiled a brilliant and slightly wicked smile. "And you don't have any competition like me, do you? So shouldn't you be the school heartthrob or something?"

"I'm not the school heartthrob," Harry mumbled, aware that he had gone red. Please, please, Sirius, stop talking about women.

Sirius looked offended, as if someone was villainously stealing the title from his godson. "Who d'you think is, then?"

"I don't know..." Harry wished the ground was hungry and could be persuaded to swallow him up. "Draco Malfoy," he muttered. "Um. Maybe."

"Draco Malfoy?" he exclaimed, coughing. "That pasty, pointy boy? Snape's little disciple?"

Harry took another long drink, and said rebelliously into his tea, "He's not that pointy."

"The anaemic little prat who never stops mouthing off and who spends half his Hogsmeade time at Robe Wardrobe? Is that what girls think is attractive?"

You'd have to ask them. But I seem to think so. Harry decided there might be too much alcohol in his tea, and compromised on a "Yeah." After all, girls like Parvati were always hanging around Draco.

"Girls don't like boys who fuss over their hair too much," Sirius told him, still looking appalled. "Your mother told me that herself."

Harry took that sentence and filed it away in his memory. He'd been collecting little bits and pieces of his parents since Sirius and Lupin came in sixth year, even though Lupin confessing that his father had sometimes been cruel had made the depression grow even heavier. If he didn't even have his father to aspire to...

"Hey. Harry," Sirius said, frowning. "You look - upset. Look, I didn't mean-" He stopped. "You've been a little friendly with that Malfoy boy lately, haven't you?"

A little more friendly than he cared for, actually. Harry choked. Too much alcohol in his tea. Too much alcohol.

"Yes, I know. Well... it's the best thing, Harry," Sirius paused. "I used to know Lucius quite well. I - saw him around at family parties when he got engaged, to tell you the truth. I was fairly young then, of course, and he wasn't much older, but the man was foul." He tipped back his glass with a practised air. "I've never liked people who slither around to the strong looking for power," he growled, and Harry could see that betrayal in his eyes. "I can't stand people like that."

He was remembering Wormtail, and Harry thought, I let him go when I should have killed him myself.

One of Sirius' dark brows flicked upwards. "Oh, no? What exactly was the little Slytherin's reason for being your friend?"

"I don't know. He said it was morbid curiosity." Harry almost smiled at the memory, and saw Sirius' startled look. He hoped that the smile hadn't seemed tender. "Actually, I thought he liked me."

"Bloody Slytherins," Sirius said vehemently. "Being put in Gryffindor saved me, Harry, d'you know that? Otherwise I would have ended up... You don't need a friend like that, Harry. You're better off without him."

Harry focused on some point over Sirius' dark head, trying not to let his face show any expression. Then how come I miss him so much?

"Look," Sirius said with one of his abrupt changes of subject, "would you like to be with me and Remus during Minerva's funeral? I have the plans here, I could arrange for you and Ron and-"

The mention of a funeral grated on Harry's ears. He closed his hands around the cup, grateful that it burned him.

Sirius looked confused, and then shook it off and made a furious effort to be gentle. "If you want, Harry. Now I'm your Head of House, we can see more of each other, and if you ever need to talk..."

Harry had to get out of there. The plans for Professor McGonagall's funeral were on the desk, and he wanted to destroy something. He was up out of the chair and going towards the door almost before he realised it.

The genuine pain in Sirius' voice made Harry look around. His godfather had stood up and was looking at him, struggling to find words to throw over the breach for Harry. Sirius had been so busy, and he really hadn't known what to do with Harry, and Harry had been so angry and miserable and confused, and neither of them had been able to measure up to what they had both wanted.

"I'm a - somewhat rotten and hopeless godfather," Sirius admitted, mouth curling. "But... I do love you. As a matter of fact."

In the end, in spite of disappointments and distance, Sirius would always be there for him. That was why Harry had come here tonight. Besides... that wasn't something Harry had heard often enough to dismiss.

Harry smiled, a bit awkwardly. "Um, I love you too," he said, too fast. "I'll, uh, I'll talk to you later."

Sirius' smile leaped out, that bold flashing smile that made him look young again, and when Harry closed the door, against all the odds, he did feel slightly better after all.

Pansy reached over agreeably and poured Draco a cup. Draco grabbed her elbow.

"Yes, toss the starving man a crust, what a good plan," he sneered. "You leave that coffee pot where it is. Just beside me."

"You're such a morning person, Draco." Draco flung his head back in dramatic despair and Pansy relented, patting him on the shoulder with a distinctly over-familiar gesture. "Don't worry about it. You'll be amazing. Or we can fix your marks."

"Don't insult me," Draco snapped, reaching for his coffee. "I can do this, and I can do it right."

At that point, what was obviously meant to be a discreet cough but what sounded like quite a small earthquake sounded behind Harry. He jumped guiltily, and turned to look into Goyle's face.

"I was just standing here," Harry objected. He was just standing here eavesdropping shamelessly, but however.

That was when Draco and Pansy looked over, and after a moment Draco looked away again. His eyes appeared almost hooded. He seemed tired.

Harry felt another of those stupid pangs in his chest as he moved over to his own table and sat next to Ron, who was stacking his plate with eggs.

"Don't think so," Ron answered. "Why don't you eat something, Harry? Hermione, you should as well."

Hermione looked tired, and she dropped the piece of toast she had been playing with and dropped her pretence. She just leaned against Ron for a minute, and he put his arm around her.

Harry's head jerked up. Dean smiled at him from across the table, though his smile was a little strained. He looked tired as well - God, they were all tired and unhappy.

"I did mine last week," Dean continued helpfully. "The practical project's kind of important. It counts for-"

"I know, Draco told me." He didn't think it counted if Draco couldn't even hear him. Anyone could call anyone anything they wanted then.

Draco had talked about the project time and time again, tossing balled-up pieces of paper around his room and occasionally at Harry. Harry had resented it for taking up so much of Draco's time, but now he could only remember that Draco had talked about it and they had still been talking. Draco had complained about it in the boat before everything went to pieces, and another time Harry had said that he wished he could see it.

Draco had glanced up at him, surprised, and after a moment he had preened. Harry smiled remembering it, and then bit down on the smile.

"I might be persuaded to give you a private show," Draco had said. "If you promise to be very impressed."

"I'm not making any promises," Harry had grinned, and Draco had thrown another balled-up paper at him and ordered him out of his room. Harry hadn't gone.

And now Draco wouldn't speak to him, and his house rooms were blocked to Harry, and Harry was damned if he was going to miss the Creative Magic project on top of everything else.

Dean blinked. "On the second floor," he replied warily. "To the left of the portrait of Lady Violet."

He got up and Ron turned in his chair, arm still around Hermione. "What are you doing, Harry?"

"I'm skipping class," Harry informed him. "Tell Professor Trelawney something terrible happened to me, it'll make her day."

"Harry," Hermione began in a scandalised voice, but Harry was already leaving the Great Hall.

It felt good to be doing something at last, even something as small as this. He felt energetic and alive again. He took the steps two at a time, and even smiled at the Fat Lady as he told her the password, Chocolate Armadillos - Harry had never been able to manage a whole one, but some of the girls adored them.

It was strange to be invisible in broad daylight. He usually only used it after curfew these days, but it was also slightly thrilling to go down and walk through the milling crowds unseen. Ginny passed him and did not gaze at him. Blaise Zabini walked by and did not offer an obscene gesture.

He passed the portrait of Lady Violet, and got into the classroom before anyone else came in. Then he sat on the window ledge and prepared to be very quiet.

When students started filing in, he was inexpressibly relieved that Dean took the seat by the window. After a while, he noticed that Dean was the only Gryffindor in the room, and there was a short supply of Hufflepuffs as well. Slytherins and Ravenclaws seemed to dominate the scene. No wonder he'd heard so little about Creative Magic before Draco, Harry thought as he watched Mandy Brocklehurst and Lisa Turpin giggling together over some sort of journal.

When he came in, he didn't look as if he liked it at all. He looked as if he might have quite liked to bolt.

"Mr Malfoy, you may proceed," said the teacher, who Harry was startled to see was Professor Vector. He supposed Hermione had said he was in the habit of saying things like 'Mathematics is the music of the universe.'

Draco came and stood at the front of the class. He still looked too pale, and he swallowed nervously. Harry watched the motion of his throat.

It was Draco's innate sense of showmanship that saved him. He glanced around at the attentive faces, and seemed to realise that he had an audience. So he smiled his practised, brilliant smile and made a gesture towards the door.

Crabbe and Goyle came in, pushing what Harry thought for a horrible moment was McGonagall's Somnasieve. Then he realised, because of the different symbols, that it was an ordinary Pensieve.

Draco was, at least outwardly, calm. "We were supposed to display a facet of Creative Magic in our projects," he said. "The only problem was - I couldn't choose. So I distilled my favourite artistic memories, and mingled them together. It took... quite a while."

There was an intrigued murmur around the classroom. Draco, always one to seize the moment to show off, took out his wand with a flourish and dipped it in the stone basin.

The silvery liquid swirled around it, and brighter light began to concentrate inside the Pensieve.

"I'd like everyone to come and touch it," said Draco, who seemed to be enjoying himself by now. He gave Lisa Turpin a dazzling smile. "I want everybody to experience my mind to the full."

Professor Vector only had to nod before everyone was standing up in a mass to go touch the liquid, shimmering thoughts. Dean went last of the students and Harry paused, thought about the wisdom of following, dropped the pretence that he as capable of not following and put his hand into the Pensieve.

The whirlpool that sucked him in seemed brighter than Dumbledore's Pensieve had been. He ended up on a bench by Dean, whose perfectly impassive face did not indicate that he was aware of any invisible people beside him, and then realised that the bench was suspended in mid-air, and the air was...

Harry remembered sitting beside Draco as Draco pored over one of his art books, remembered some of the pictures catching his eye. The air was filled with snatches of paintings, mixed streamers of green and cerulean blue and a vivid intense gold. And then Draco, who was standing in front of the class, lifted his wand and murmured some more words, and the air was moving.

Melody seemed to come from nowhere, or all directions. Faint songs about love and sorrow, filled with passion, made people look around, and then there were sounds like instruments, music that Harry didn't think existed in the Muggle world and which he suddenly thought of as fairy music. The world around them was twisting in a wave of beauty, and words began to flow in as Draco made another gesture.

"...Fling forth to the sunlight your banner on high, inscribed with the watchword, We conquer or die..."

"... I could not awaken my heart to joy at the same tone, and all I loved, I loved alone..."

"... Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things you have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung..."

"... no such song have I heard in the darkness of night before. Where does this tenderness come from?..."

Snatches of everything he had ever read and loved. All those books piled up in his room.

And then, so faint and passing so fast that Harry thought perhaps the others did not see them, but this was Draco's mind and he was comfortable here and he could see everything... Images and emotion twisted up in those artistic sights and sounds, all bound up in them.

They were more impressions than images. He thought he saw a woman reaching out with golden hair flying in the strange light, and thought it was Narcissa caught in a rare moment of sweetness. There was a flash of Pansy Parkinson's voice made beautiful by concern and Lucius Malfoy seen from someplace low on the ground, enormous and stern and adored. There was the whistle of wind in Harry's ears like flying, the crash of surf against sand, the sound of a storm somewhere beyond the brightness and the sudden soft lap of water against the ground.

He had a sudden impression of himself, changed as the other images were into something... that shone more than reality, caught in a moment of wordlessness and pushing his hair back. He was very sure that was unintentional.

And there was pain, a whole rush of pain all mixed up in the beautiful things, screams and blind fury and horror and misery all flashing through Harry like lightning and then leaving him with nothing but the idea, vaguely reached for and never quite achieved, that it could all be beautiful.

He stared over at Draco, colour and images wrapped around him as he conducted the whole scene. A streak of sunrise red almost seemed to reflect off the pale line of his jaw, and there was darkness with a few stars in it behind his wild hair. He could take all this, take everything and care about it and rage about it and want it all to be beautiful, he could make a play of passion.

Harry realised, in a redundant painful sort of way, that he really liked this insane boy.

Harry felt himself rising with the others, in a flying mass, and then they were suddenly all back in the classroom. Harry hastily replaced himself on the window ledge.

The bell rang, and Draco, who looked drained, quickly picked up his bag and strode out of the room. Most of the other students seemed to want to stay behind and talk excitedly, but Dean got up immediately and, opening the door very wide, went out. Harry came with him and made a beeline for the nearest bathrooms, stuffing his Cloak into his bag and hurrying to Potions before Draco could get there.

He made it, and listened to Lupin with complete attention. Ron and Hermione crowded around him at lunch and asked where he had gone.

"I wanted to see a Creative Magic class," he answered. Hermione looked sad, but Ron only looked curious.

Harry stopped and smiled. "I'll tell you what, Ron," he said. "We should have taken it."

The next class should have been Transfiguration, and they stayed up in the common room and talked about extra wards for the common room. Neville hesitantly volunteered his knowledge of protective herbs.

The last class was Care of Magical Creatures, and Hagrid beamed at them all as he talked about getting them to breed small versions of the Flobberworm Harry had faced during the Third Task. He went into great detail on what they would have to do.

"You could help me supervise," Draco offered from across the room, and winked at her.

"You're supervising?" Ron demanded. Draco smirked in his direction. "Git," Ron said fervently under his breath. "Git, git, git."

All they had to do that class was study their books. It wasn't too bad, even though Parvati did keep threatening to be violently ill. Harry went over at the end of class and helped Hagrid put away his alarming diagrams.

He was crouched on the floor tucking away the final papers under Hagrid's desk, when he realised that Draco, Crabbe and Pansy were the last people left in the room.

"How did the display go? We didn't get a word together at lunch. Tell me all about it," said Pansy.

Their footsteps were coming towards the door and the desk, and they were about to see him and shut up. His bag was by his side.

Harry reached over for it, grabbed his Cloak out of it and threw it over himself.

Then he got up cautiously, slipped out of the door at the same time Pansy did, and walked along with them, masking his footsteps by walking in step with Crabbe.

"It went perfectly," Draco said with great satisfaction. "I was scintillatingly, overwhelmingly brilliant." He turned to Crabbe, chewing in his lip. "Wasn't I? Didn't you think?"

"But it was a scintillating, overwhelmingly brilliant minute, wasn't it?" Draco looked agitated.

Draco's agitation only increased. "Fine, don't lie to me," he said. "I can see what you think. I was too nervous. I overdid it. I made a complete mess of it, I was too theatrical, I'm going to fail the class, oh shame ruin dishonour. Is that what you meant?"

"Oh, what do you know," Draco snapped. "You wouldn't know scintillating brilliance if it shimmied in front of you in Pansy's lingerie."

Harry could not have agreed more. Draco, Pansy and Crabbe had reached the dungeons now, and were going to the wall that hid their common room. Draco leaned in and whispered something Harry did not catch to the stone.

"How long are we going to have to keep whispering the password?" Pansy asked.

"For as long as we have to," Draco said tersely. "Potter has an Invisibility Cloak. So could anyone else in the school, and there are other ways to go unseen. Do you want to make it easier for this spy to snatch us?"

Harry paused guiltily, especially at the grimace Draco made when he said 'Potter.' But Crabbe was directly behind him, and he was swept into the Slytherin common room with the others. He paused for a second at the closed entrance, wondering if he should wait until he could just slip back outside, and then he rushed into the common room and after Draco, following him as he went through the room and then went into his bedroom.

The door shut behind both of them. Draco paused, and Harry was positive for a terrible second that he could see him.

He breathed again when Draco walked across his floor, kicking off his shoes, and then stopped breathing when Draco undid his robe.

Right. Right. Clothes underneath his robe. I remember. Stop being so pathetic, Harry.

Draco was wearing a thin dark jumper and black jeans. He looked thinner without his robes, and strangely vulnerable. Harry couldn't remember ever seeing Draco in his socks before.

He said, "Lumos", and with the flare of light beside his face Harry saw the circles under his eyes. He was obviously exhausted and he had lost too much weight in too few days. Harry could almost see what Sirius had been talking about. His features looked more pointed than ever, and his pallor was underlining his tiredness, and he wasn't exuding conscious charisma in all directions.

He was almost colourless, and unhealthily angular, and Harry wanted to take care of him, but he didn't know how to take care of anyone. He just watched Draco prowl around the room, and watched as Draco sighed and sank into the chair at his desk.

Just then, Pansy came in. She was wearing a jumper and jeans as well, her dark hair pulled back and some parchment in her hand.

"Draco," she said in a subdued voice, "here are the papers for Professor McGonagall's funeral. We have to make arrangements for the Slytherins - someone has to supervise us in Snape's place, but obviously nobody will pay attention to any outsider's arrangements..."

Draco looked up, obviously alert and confident. "Don't worry about it," he said. "I'll handle it. I'll make the arrangements and I'll get Professor Vector to act as a figurehead, and I'll explain it to the others."

Pansy sighed with relief, and walked over to the desk to give him the parchment. He laid it on the desk, and she leaned her arms on the back of his chair and looked down at the top of his head.

He tipped back his head to look at her, and it was intimate and Harry's throat closed up with envy.

"The first years are having more nightmares," she said. "They don't feel safe any more, not with teachers dying, not since Snape could be..."

Pansy laughed. "Madam Pomfrey has all these tiresome rules about her medicine cupboard."

"I still think I could wheedle some sleeping powders out of her. I'll see about it." Draco frowned. "Till then, I think we can terrorise the house elves into serving up a round of hot chocolate after dinner, and then I can terrorise the first years with stories of how annoyed I will be if people don't start getting a full night's sleep."

Tension was almost visibly oozing out of Pansy. She began to sift Draco's hair through the fingers of one hand.

"Speaking of talking," she said reluctantly. "Everyone's so nervous. I'm beginning to hear talk about second thoughts. Maybe we could - maybe it's time to go to Professor Lupin-"

"Nobody would accept that. I'll go around explaining matters to people again." Draco's mouth was the mouth of a spoiled brat who did not intend to take no for an answer. "Everyone's bound to see reason. Or there's always the Imperius."

Pansy's mouth curved. "You're not funny, Draco," she informed him nonetheless. "People are afraid to come home. The summer's coming up-"

"They can all come to my house," Draco interrupted. "I've organised it. They'll be safe there, I'm going to..." He tilted his head up to look at her again. "Oh," he said in a different tone. "Letter from home?"

Pansy nodded, curling her free arm around herself as if she was cold. "Sort of an ultimatum," she said bleakly.

"Oh," said Draco again. "You should have told me right away. What, you expect me to read minds and offer sympathy? You should know I can't do either."

Pansy smiled at Draco's head, and only Harry saw it. "Why, Draco. You always told me you could do anything."

"Well, don't believe everything unprincipled young men tell you," Draco admonished. "That's how nice girls get into trouble."

They both stared at Draco's wardrobe for a minute, the silence stretching out.

"What did the letter say?" Draco asked eventually, and Pansy looked relieved that she didn't have to bring it up again.

"I can quit the Order immediately and come home now, or never come back again."

"I told them they could go to hell. Do you have room for me at your place?"

"I'll leave you," she said softly. "You have enough to be getting on with. I'll go order the house elves to hit themselves with kettles. We need hot chocolate, and besides it will cheer me up."

She let the hand drop from his hair, and he took it and smiled up at her.

"Hey. Wench." He pressed her fingers. "You're doing all right," he told her loftily. "Keep this up and there could be a place in the Malfoy harem in it for you."

Pansy laughed, and the laugh sounded real this time. She held on for an instant, and then left the room, walking with her head much higher than it had been when she had come in.

Draco sat unmoving in his chair for a moment, the candlelight casting bright points against his hair. Then he slumped forward, back hunched and wretched, and laid his head in his arms.

Sympathy and guilt went through Harry. He wanted to go over to Draco, put his arms around him, work out something awkward to say and try to comfort him. But he couldn't, because Draco wasn't talking to him, because he was not even meant to see this, because Draco would have hated that he'd seen him like this.

Proud, private Draco. This was voyeurism, worse than that, because Draco would have wanted anyone to see anything rather than his weakness.

Pansy had left the door ajar and he went through it, as fast as he could while still being discreet. He got out of the Slytherin rooms, up the stairs, back to the Gryffindor rooms, and threw himself in a chair and tried to fight down loneliness and self-disgust.

"Harry," Neville said tentatively, "could you help me with these Herbology books? The protection plants-"

Harry sat down with Neville and opened a book. They found some promising passages and Harry did not notice for quite a while that the common room had emptied.

When he did, he said, "Neville, you'd better hurry if you want to grab some dinner."

All these emotions twisting in the pit of his stomach seemed to take the place of food nicely.

He concentrated ferociously on the books for a while longer and stubbornly would not think about anything else.

Then Ginny came rushing up from the entrance towards Harry, her red hair blown about her face, looking uncertain and a little scandalised.

It was a nasty shock when the Slytherin outside turned out to be Pansy Parkinson.

Harry stared at her numbly, and thought that it was strange the kind of people Draco, looking the way he did, surrounded himself with.

Crabbe and Goyle were dark hulking gargoyles, and Blaise Zabini's slightly shifty good looks were similarly dark and sinister. Pansy was tall for a girl, her hard face framed by black, heavy hair that seemed to weigh her down.

Her face looked more forbidding than usual, even though her hair was tied back. Her heavy brows were drawn together and the expression in her brown eyes was distinctly alarming.

Pansy stood with her arms folded, her face set, looking as if Harry should be volunteering something more.

Eventually, Harry was unsettled enough by her accusing glare to offer a feeble, "Can I, er, help you, Pansy?"

Pansy sighed as if astounded that someone as imbecilic as Harry had not been put out of his misery long since.

"Do you know the amount of crap he had to put up with when he decided to hang around with you, Potter? We're Slytherins. He certainly didn't just receive lectures about his own good. He took whatever was thrown at him, though. He had the massively deluded idea that you might be worth knowing. But you seem to have disillusioned him."

"Er," said Harry, who certainly wasn't going to tell her how he'd done it.

"All I know is that he came storming in one day and trashed his room. We couldn't get a civil answer from him for days. He's still irritable, and whenever he sees you in the corridors he freezes up and gives you a death glare. Even Crabbe and Goyle have been able to work out that it's your fault."

"They wanted to come over here and rough you up a bit. You're lucky I decided you need a woman's touch."

Harry would prefer not to be pummelled by Pansy Parkinson, if that was all the same to her. He needed to go and think about what Draco had done - trashed his room - and what it could mean.

He had to deal with Pansy first, though. She had, after all, come here simply because...

He thought of her smile at Draco's head earlier. He had a sudden vivid memory of her when Draco had been hurt in third year, tears pouring down her face.

"You Gryffindors think you have a monopoly on emotions? Of course I care about him. We've been friends since we were children... and yes," she snapped. "Before you say it, I'm mad about him. I have been forever. Everybody knows that."

Harry felt a bizarre kinship with her. He mused on what she would do if he said, 'You and me both.'

"I told you. I want you to stop making him unhappy. If you were just trying to see if Slytherins have feelings, there you have it. We do. We also have great right hooks, as you will see if you don't go and make things right with him. Break off the friendship with a little respect. I don't care if it was all a game to you, you owe him that much."

"No, really, go straight to hell," Harry snapped. "A game - what do you think the rest of the houses are, aliens? You think Gryffindors don't have loyalty, you think that we can't really be someone's friend? Stop talking such rubbish."

"You are talking complete rubbish. You think Draco was some sort of inter-house experiment to me... You saw me try to talk to him! You saw me do it over and over again! How dare you come over here and lecture me and act like I don't care about him when I bloody well do!" Harry stopped yelling and stared belligerently at Pansy. He was breathing hard.

"Yes," Harry answered, his voice under control now and steely. "I do. So you can take your damn lecture and go marching back to your dungeons, you bitch, because I want to go to him and make things right and stay his friend and it kills me that I can't do it!"

Pansy kept standing there, just looking at him with her steadily unfriendly gaze, not going away.

"Potter..." she said at last, and then Harry saw her face soften for a fraction of a second. "He thought you were something. We could all see that. He thinks he's so cool, but he's not hard to read. Especially not when you know him."

Harry looked at her in astonishment for a second, and then felt his first really relaxed smile in weeks curve his lips.

Pansy shoved her hands in her pockets. "He thought you were - I don't know. He used to talk about you, you know? When you were the enemies who thought a Potions class without attempted murder with a cauldron was a Potions class wasted... he used to talk about you a lot. He used to fume. You know how he can go on."

"And then he stopped talking about you. We tried to get him to do it - it wasn't normal for him not to. We're Slytherins, we like to talk behind people's backs. But he wouldn't do it. He was so casual about it, but he tried to never ever mention your name. Still, sometimes someone else would say it, and he'd - he'd just smile this little smile."

"What are you saying, Pansy?" he asked, speaking quietly so as not to shatter the image.

"I'm saying he acted as if you mattered," Pansy said. "So he cares about you. So..."

She stopped, and made a brief gesture of frustration. She looked as if she wanted to punch the wall.

"So the Slytherin password is king cobra," she snapped. "Wait a few hours. And don't mess things up this time!"

He went inside. He sat back down to his Herbology books. He studied with determination for two hours.

He went down to the Slytherin rooms. He walked through the stone corridors. He spoke the password. He strode right past the stunned gazes of assorted Slytherins towards his goal, that particular door, steeled for confrontation.

Draco and Blaise Zabini were sitting on chairs by the fire, playing cards. The fire had warmed Draco's face slightly and he was laughing.

It was so different from the scene with the lonely figure that he had pictured that he just stood there for a minute with his mouth open. Zabini's face changed from ease to malice with commendable speed.

"I'll get Crabbe and Goyle," he announced, rising from his chair and fixing Harry with a menacing glare.

"No!" Draco snapped, swiftly, and Zabini's face fell and Harry's heart leaped. Then Draco turned to Harry and said in strained tones, "I'd really prefer it if you left, Potter."

Harry crossed his arms over his chest. "I don't intend to leave, Malfoy. I want to talk to you. In private."

"Shut up," Draco said. "Get out, Potter. I have had a tiring day, I need to unwind, you are not welcome and Blaise and I are not finished our game."

"Sit down," Draco ordered. "Fine then. Stay, if you like. It makes no difference."

Zabini sat back down with bad grace. "He's staying?" he asked, curling his lip in distaste. "Are the stakes changing?"

"No," Draco said, dealing the cards. "He's not important. The stakes remain the same."

Harry did not care what they were talking about. He had won this much ground. He was in this chair, he was staying in this chair and eventually he was going to talk to Draco.

Zabini raised his eyebrows, but made no further protest. The fire flared high and warm behind them, and the game continued in silence.

Harry waited. Cards slapped on cards, and there were long thoughtful pauses before they were laid down. The fire was hot and its crackle was almost soothing. The urgency of speaking to Draco was still with Harry, and he was still nervous and edgy about it, but almost against his will he felt his eyelids drift downwards. He was tired, and now he was warm and it was quiet.

Shh, shh, shh, said the fire, and Harry kept watching Draco and Zabini play cards with his eyes half-shut and a very detached interest.

Zabini was looking attentively at Draco, his dark eyes sharp. Draco was leaning back with an elaborate lack of concern.

"Care to specify the stakes further?" Zabini inquired, and Harry thought he glanced over at him. Then he smiled his sly smile.

"I only spoke out of concern for you, Draco," Zabini said, laying down his cards one by one.

"I'm touched by your concern, Blaise." Draco threw down his cards. "But it's really not necessary."

Zabini paused, looking down at the cards, and wet his lips rather deliberately. Even his voice was soft and made Harry feel slightly more sleepy.

"Oh, well. I can't say that I'm all that upset," he admitted. "So, Draco... what do you want?"

Draco smiled. "I want you to get out," he answered sweetly. "I need to talk to Potter."

Zabini stared for a minute, made an explosive and unrepeatable sound, got up and stormed out of the room. Harry was shocked fully awake at last when Draco rose from his chair and looked at him.

His gaze dropped almost immediately, and he stood in front of the fire with his hands clasped behind his back, like someone granting an audience.

"I think it's as well that we have a chance to talk," he said in a strange voice. "It's dangerous for members of the Young Council to be feuding in the present situation. We need to be able to get along in a civil manner, and communicate. I realise that I have made this difficult, but I was a little angry. Truthfully, I don't much care for your Gryffindor method of courtship-"

"Draco," Harry interrupted resolutely, "I am so, so sorry. What can I do to make things right?"

Draco glanced up, and blinked. At length he said, "I told you not to call me that." He paused, frowned at the carpet and then continued as if he was cross with himself, "What exactly d'you mean?"

To his absolute horror, Harry found that he had no idea what to say. "I mean... I'm sorry, I'll never do it again, I promise," he said, and then realised to his eternal shame that he was going red. "I want to be your friend again," he burst out rebelliously, hating words, hating most things in that instant. "That's all I want, I don't know what you're talking about when you say - say courtship, I didn't mean..."

He looked up. Draco stayed quiet and something under Harry's ribs twisted.

"I just want to be your friend again," he repeated helplessly. "I miss you, you stupid prat."

That last bit might not be conciliatory, but he was frustrated and felt ridiculous and why did everything with Draco have to be so difficult?

Draco glanced up, and there was an odd expression on his face. "I thought friends tended to be honest with each other," he said, not sounding entirely calm any more. "I was under the distinct impression that you liked women."

"I do!" Harry exclaimed automatically, and then bit down on his lip hard. "I mean, I don't know, maybe I do. I haven't really thought it through. Things are a bit unclear-"

"You're nearly eighteen, Potter," Draco said, his mouth doing something funny. "What are you, sexually retarded?"

Draco sighed and rumpled his hair, a sure sign of extreme inner turmoil. "So what exactly was it about, then?" he demanded, and there was definitely emotion in his voice now, but he pushed it down and it went steely again. "An experiment?"

"No - of course not! What do you think of me?" Harry almost shouted, and then realised he was on a mission of peace. "You're my friend," he added in raw, subdued tones. "I wouldn't do that."

"Well, forgive me, Potter, I'm really unclear on what you would and wouldn't do just now. And there was a rather extended time when you were not particularly keen to be my friend," Draco said sharply. "So what were the little boat trip and the picnic all about, then?"

"Er, you're afraid of water, Draco. I thought that I could help with that. I thought you might like the picnic. I did it because I was - wait a second, what did you think it was about?"

"Having high expectations never seems to work out for me," Draco replied.

"Well, I wouldn't do anything like that," Harry told him angrily. "Never. I know I made a mistake and you're furious or disgusted or whatever, but I wouldn't plot something and I promise, I promise I won't ever try anything again."

"No," said Harry crossly. He thought he'd made that clear. "I had no idea."

Draco did something else that looked strange with his mouth, but this time it looked a tiny bit amused. "So, what, are you going through some sort of crisis?"

"Shove off," muttered Harry, and then remembered that he had forced his way into these rooms and demanded the conversation.

"I said no," said Harry. "That's what I keep saying, and you don't listen. I didn't know and I didn't meant to and I would never do anything to upset you on purpose, and I'm sorry, and I just came here to ask you to be friends again, but if you won't-"

"Well, I can't stop being your friend if you're going through some sort of crisis," he continued, almost defensively. "That would be cruel. You need support. Otherwise," he added in speculative tones, "you might go crazy."

Harry rolled his eyes and made no attempt to control the enormous and ridiculous smile. "I'm not going to go crazy, Draco."

"You might," Draco argued stubbornly. "You're enough of a twit to do anything. Besides..." he paused, as if testing the words. "I suppose you were exposed to almost irresistible temptation."

"After all," Draco proceeded, looking charmed with the idea of his own charm, "I am gorgeous and marvellous and lovely."

"Shut up." Harry paused, and said awkwardly, "So it's all okay? Friends?"

"Oh, damn it, I'd better go," he said, extremely reluctant. Stupid clocks. Stupid time. Stupid curfew. It was all a very badly thought out arrangement. "Look, can we talk tomorrow? Can we talk at breakfast? I'm-"

"Wait," Draco interrupted, looking thoughtful. "If you like, you can stay."

Second Place- Alternate Universe Third Place - Romance

Second Place- Alternate Universe
Third Place - Romance