Author Notes—I'm feeling good about once a week updates, so there should be a new chapter every Sunday. This week's is early because tomorrow's Easter, and I'll be busy.

The next time Draco's wand misbehaved, he was surprised to realize that he'd forgotten about it. Nothing had gone wrong since that first day, and he'd chalked it up as a fluke, until something else happened.

There was nothing significant about how the day began. He drank his three cups of coffee and managed to resist the urge to have more. (If he asked for someone else's mug too often, they'd know he wasn't sleeping, and Malfoys didn't show signs of weakness.) He'd gotten to breakfast late, having managed to doze off a bit at exactly the wrong time, so he only ate a few bites of food before putting an apple in his bag and heading to Double Potions.

If Draco had been hurrying less, he might have managed to avoid the Trip Jinx that someone sent his way. As it was, he was hurtled to the ground, bag ripping in the process. All of his supplies spilled, and he scraped the skin off the palm of his hand.

Draco got back to his feet, swearing. It had only been a few days since his confrontation with Potter, but it seemed he'd been true to his word: in those few days, Draco had become the victim of all manner of minor hexes throughout his day, most seeming to come from members of the DA. Not that he'd admit it to Potter, but it was fairly obnoxious, and he was starting to miss being ignored.

He managed to clean up his possessions and repair his bag fairly quickly, but now he would have to run to avoid being late. He sprinted down the hallways when he didn't see anyone, but whenever another latecomer approached, he slowed his pace to a walk so as not to be seen doing anything so undignified as running. Once he made it to the classroom, he regretted this choice (although he regretted being hexed even more) because, all though he was on time, there was only one seat left. The Golden Trio were sitting at a square table with only the seat next to Potter still empty, and wasn't life grand?

He slid into the seat and took out his textbook, determined not to look at any of his seatmates for the entire class period. A plan which was soon thwarted when Newton announced that they would be working in pairs today.

"Now, I know I don't do this often," he said, peering at them from his desk as though his students were some sort of anomaly that he was trying to explain to himself. "But this potion is exceedingly complicated, and the best Potions Masters work in tandem. No, don't give me those faces, you know I'm right. You'll be attempting Blood-Replenishing Potions today, and I don't expect any of you will get it right on the first try. It should be on page 164 of your potions book. Come to me with questions."

As though you could answer any questions I would have.

Draco sighed loudly, trying to make it clear how unhappy he was with this situation. "Well, Potter, shall we?"

Granger and the Weasel shared a look. Then, surprisingly, Granger spoke. "I can partner with him, Harry, if you don't want to."

"No, it's fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, he bloody well is!" Draco said defiantly. The last thing he needed to hear was an argument between self-sacrificing Gryffindors over who would be noble enough to partner with the Death Eater, who they really felt so bad for.

Granger continued to look at Potter questioningly until he nodded. Then he stood. "Come on, Malfoy. Let's go get the supplies."

Draco was about to question why they both needed to be there to get supplies, but Potter gave him a look, so he got up. "Afraid you'll accidentally poison yourself by getting the wrong things unless I help you? Figures. Famous Potter can't even tell the difference between potions ingredients."

Potter didn't even dignify that with a response, just grabbed his potions book and started towards the supply cabinet. Nobody else was there yet; most people made lists of what they would need before bothering to get up. Draco started grabbing items without even looking at the book (he bloody well knew what went into a Blood-Replenishing Potion), but then realized that since he and Potter hadn't coordinated what they were getting, they might end up with unnecessary duplicates. He leaned over to look at what was in Potter's hands.

"You idiot! There's no nettles in Blood-Replenishing Potions, not unless you're trying to kill someone. Surely even you know that their poison is only counteracted when used with eye of newt."

"I know," Potter said, sounding infuriatingly calm. "They're not for that."

Draco stalked towards Potter and picked up things out of his hands, reading the labels. Then he stepped back. "Why, may I ask do you have all of the ingredients for Dreamless Sleep Potion?"

"Because I know you need it and are too proud to ask Madame Pomfrey, and I also know that Newton doesn't trust you and checks your bag after every lesson. Now, let me put this in my bag before anyone else comes in here, or I'll get caught."

Draco watched in silence as Potter shoved the ingredients in his bag, almost crushing the nettles.

"What?" he asked, looked up to see Draco still staring at him.

"Why are you trying to help me?"

Potter sighed. "It's nothing personal. I just hate to see someone in so much pain." When Draco looked skeptical, he said, "Don't worry, I still hate you. Hermione thinks that I just got used to saving people."

"Fine. You want to steal me ingredients, I won't argue." Draco tried not to admit, even to himself, how badly he needed the help. Maybe now he'd be able to get through a whole night without waking up. But he wouldn't thank Potter, because if he did, Potter would have an advantage. "We still need some Porcupine Spines. Can you reach that container?"

They left the storeroom just as others were beginning to enter. Draco set the fire under the cauldron and began to work. He gave Potter instructions, not trusting him to be able to do anything on his own. Who cared if he'd beaten Draco for most of sixth year? He had five years of evidence before that, not to mention the past few weeks, that supported the theory that it had been a fluke or that Potter had cheated..

Granger and the Weasel, he noted with satisfaction, were having a good deal of trouble. Grange was studious by nature, but the Weasel kept distracting her with ridiculous questions, often at pivotal moments of the potion. She also seemed to have the idea that she had to make sure the Weasel understood every step of the process, which slowed her down immensely.

Potter seemed to be noticing the same thing; at one point he met Draco's eyes and quirked his head at their seatmates. For the most part, he and Draco didn't talk or make eye contact, just worked steadily until the potion was complete. When Newton made his rounds around the room, he gave them a few pointers, but was forced to admit that they'd brewed the best potion in the class.

"Twenty points to Slytherin and Gryffindor," he said. Any other teacher would have given more, but Newton didn't like to give or remove points at all, seeming to think the system silly and childish.

"I did most of the work," Draco interjected quickly.

"I'm sure Mr. Potter did his share, and if you continue to complain, the points will be only for Gryffindor."

Draco wanted to respond, but bit his tongue. Slytherin had the least points right now, and while he didn't care particularly, he wanted the younger students to have the excitement of the tournament. Besides, being upset about things as trivial as house points made everything seem more normal. Not that there was any chance Slytherin would win this year; too many teachers had grudges they hadn't let go of from the war, and nobody seemed to be thinking about the younger students at all.

At the end of class, Draco found a note in his book. Meet me in the abandoned classroom on the first floor for the ingredients.

He nodded slightly to Potter to show that he'd gotten the message, then did a quick Incendio on it so there would be no evidence. He'd picked an ideal moment to do it, too; Granger, having realized that there were only ten minutes left of the lesson, was berating the Weasel for doing so little, and therefore paying no attention whatsoever to what Draco was doing.

After the lesson, he went quietly to Newton to have his bag checked. The first few times he'd made a fuss about it, but that only made more people realize the humiliations he was being forced to endure. Once he'd been checked by the professor, he made his way to the first floor.

Potter was waiting in the classroom, leaning cockily against the professor's desk with his arms folded across his chest. "I thought that maybe before I gave you the ingredients we would have a chat."

Draco sneered. "What could you and I possibly have to chat about?"

"You need to stop calling Hermione a Mudblood."

"I thought this was an act of Gryffindor charity, not a bargain. I don't have to take the ingredients from you at all. I'm not actually even sleeping that badly, I just thought that Greg could use some. He has nightmares sometimes, you know." Come to think of it, sharing with Greg wasn't that bad an idea. Maybe that would help smooth things out between them. "So if you're trying to blackmail me into doing things, I can just leave now."

Potter moved away from the desk and stepped towards him. He seemed taller than usual, somehow. "I'm really not asking for much, Malfoy. Don't worry, it won't ruin your reputation as a scumbag. No one's likely to forget that. It's just—do you even really enjoy it, anymore?"

"Yes."

Potter ran a hand through his hair distractedly. "That's not what I meant, I meant—it's not doing you any good, to call her that, and it's really painful for her to hear after everything that happened—look, the point is, I'm not giving you the ingredients unless you agree."

Draco pretended to consider it for a minute, even though he knew he'd cave. He didn't really feel the need to say Mudblood anymore, actually, but if he didn't, everyone would wonder why. "Can I call her other things?"

"As long as they don't relate to her blood status, I couldn't care one bit what you call her," Potter said. "You notice I don't complain about you calling Ron the Weasel. So do we have a deal?" He held out his hand, and Draco was reminded ironically of first year, on the train.

"Deal," he said, giving Potter's hand one hard shake. "Now give me those ingredients."

He skipped lunch to make the potion, since it needed to sit for at least three hours in stasis before the final step or it wouldn't do anything. Probably he used his wand more than he should have (technically, it was always better to do things by hand), but he was in a hurry. That night he checked for all of the things that could have gone wrong, then took a dose. He wouldn't give any to Greg until he was sure he had made it right, but his tests had shown that he hadn't done anything wrong enough for it to kill him.

This was what made him remember that something was terribly wrong with his wand.

The potion should have stopped him from dreaming, but instead something else happened. He dreamed, but they weren't his dreams.

He was walking through halls at the Ministry of Magic, going towards a door, and he knew this was the right door, he was shuddering with anticipation, and he opened it, and it led to his house, and no, no, he didn't want to be there, he couldn't let Dudley find him, so he threw himself sideways through another door, into the woods, and when would they find all of the Horcruxes so that they could stop bloody camping?

And then there was a snake, coming closer with fangs outstretched, mouth open wide, ready to bite…

When he woke up breathing too hard but relieved he'd managed to sleep at all, he lay in bed for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling and wondering what had just happened. Then he Vanished the non-functional potion and started a new one with his remaining supplies. Because it was Saturday, he had time to do it right, so he cut and mixed the ingredients by hand. The he went to the library to try to find out what in the name of Merlin a horcrux was, but all he could find were references to it being an evil form of magic.

That night he took the new potion with some apprehension, but this time, his sleep really was dreamless, which led him to the only conclusion that made sense: something was definitely wrong with his wand.

Draco spent most of Sunday doing his neglected homework, and the rest doing research on things that could go wrong with wands. He found nothing, and went to bed frustrated.


For her required Muggle unit, Professor Trelawney taught about Astrology. They spent a class period looking at the position of the planets at their time of birth. Draco found this to be immensely dull, and was only pretending to jot things down occasionally so it would seem as though he were doing work. He wasn't sure why he was even going for an NEWT in Divination. His father had insisted that he take it when he was younger because of Trelawney's prophecy regarding Potter ("If she makes another, a Malfoy should be present.") but now his only reason to finish the class was that he had started it. Draco badly wanted to drop it, even though Malfoys weren't quitters, but he couldn't quite bring himself to do it.

He stopped taking "notes" for a moment to look out the window, and the minute he did Professor Trelawney swooped down on him and looked at his planetary chart. After a moment, she looked at him with wide eyes and spoke dramatically.

"Oh dear. That really is something. You'd best be careful, my dear boy."

"What is it?" Draco asked, in a bored tone. Already today Trelawney had predicted several people's deaths based off their moon signs.

She looked at him sharply. "My dear boy, your Venus is in Scorpio. This could mean trouble for you in the matter of love," she said, her mystic tones slightly less prominent than they usually were. She was not in her element, teaching a subject that had such firm rules, none of which related to death, but she more than made up for it trying. "A person with Scorpio Venus only values intense, painful relationships. They're easily jealous, and many fall in love once and never fall out of it. This could lead to lifelong unhappiness if you don't proceed wisely."

Draco yawned pointedly, and Professor Trelawney left, looking back at him in an annoyed manner. "Just be careful, dear!" she called back before swooping down on Finnegan.

As annoying statements often do, Trelawney's warnings stuck with Draco through the end of the day. That evening, he looked up Scorpio Venus purely so that he could stop thinking about it. Once he had read about it, maybe he could compartmentalize and shelve it in his mind so that he could ignore it.

Venus is the planet of love, and as such, people with their Venus in Scorpio love intensely. They set their eye on the prize and don't look back, but won't accept anything less than their partner's fullest level of love and adoration. Their partners don't seem to mind, however; many with Venus in Scorpio find that they have an innate ability to make their partner want the same things they do, or that they only attract the sort of people who can handle their intense love.

It went on to explain further, but Draco didn't read it. Firmly convinced now that it was ridiculous, he slammed the book shut, wondering why he'd bothered to look at this rubbish. He slid it back in his bag quickly, a little bit embarrassed that people might have seen what he was reading. I never should have taken that fraud seriously. She can't even teach real Divination properly, for Merlin's sake.


"Greg?" Draco asked quietly, almost hoping he wouldn't answer. He had just entered the dormitory to see his former friend lying on his bed reading, and had realized that this might be the best chance he got to make his offer.

"Yeah?" Greg didn't look up from his textbook. He was biting his lip hard, and Draco realized that he'd probably interrupted him when he really needed to focus.

"Never mind."

He looked up. "No, tell me."

"I was just wondering if you wanted some Dreamless Sleep Potion."

Greg's eyes widened. "Where did you get it? Pomfrey's not letting me have any. She thinks I'll get addicted to it." He looked at Draco suspiciously, as though he thought he might be playing a rather cruel trick on him.

"I made it. Don't worry, I've already used it a few times, so I know it won't kill you."

Greg nodded. "Yeah, that'd be—great."

"I'll leave some by your bed later."

The looked at each other awkwardly for a moment before Greg returned to his book. Draco cursed himself for not knowing how to bridge the gap that had come between them since the Battle of Hogwarts. He didn't have anyone to talk to, and he wished he did. But he wasn't lonely. Malfoys didn't need anyone but themselves.


Malfoy,

Meet me in that classroom after Potions.

-Harry

Draco burned the note, but sent Potter a quick owl letting him know that he would. After the lesson, he made it to the classroom first. For lack of anything better to do, he sat at one of the desks and started work on his Arithmancy paper. A few minutes in, the door opened and Potter entered the room.

"Sorry I'm late," he said.

Draco looked up at him. "Why did you want me to meet you here?"

Potter looked a little sheepish. "I got you a few more ingredients. I was in detention, and it seemed easy to take them, so I did."

"Your hero complex seems to have gotten the better of you once again. Wasn't it just a few weeks ago that you were telling me that you hated me and weren't going to help me anymore?"

An unreadable expression flashed across Potter's face. "Well, if you don't want them, I won't give them to you. But you should probably take them; if I steal any more Newton will notice. I'm sure he doesn't keep as close a count as Snape did, but one look at what's missing and he'll know it's for Dreamless Sleep. Of course, that won't narrow it down much, since everyone's having nightmares from last year, but it's still too risky." Seeming to realize he was babbling, Potter closed him mouth abruptly.

Draco narrowed his eyes. He was feeling too many emotions, and it was making him nervous. Part of him thought he might cry, for no good reason at all. His stomach clenched, and he recognized one of the feelings as distrust. "Why are you trying to help me? What's in it for you?"

"Not everyone has an ulterior motive for everything, Malfoy," Potter said, rolling his eyes. "I'm not a Slytherin. I'm helping you because you look like you need help, and that's what I do."

"Not good enough, Potter. Let me ask again. Why, in the name of Merlin, are you trying to help me?" He stood, and from the look on Potter's face, Draco still had his innate talent for looking intimidating when he wanted to. That was one thing that hadn't been changed by the war, at least.

"I don't know, okay!" Potter yelled, hand twitching towards his pocket as though he were about to draw his wand. "I've been trying to figure it out since—I don't even think you should have been allowed back into school, after that stunt you pulled sixth year—but you're here, and you clearly aren't sleeping, and I keep finding myself feeling bad for you, even though you don't deserve it, even though you're probably the last person in this bloody school who deserves it! Your aunt almost killed my best friend, and I can't even hate you for it, because I see you, see how you fall apart the minute you think no one's looking."

Draco stepped forward, glad now for the advantage his height gave him. He spoke in a low voice, almost a growl. "Listen, Scarhead, I don't know what you're playing at, but I don't need your pity, so you can bloody well shove off."

Potter's eyes were far too green to be allowed. If it weren't for the way they reflected the light, Draco would have moved right away. Instead, he hesitated (as though that weren't his whole life story in a nutshell,) long enough for Potter's gaze to become questioning rather than angry, long enough for Draco to realize that their proximity to each other wasn't necessarily appropriate, unless one or both of them was about to start throwing punches.

He could hear Potter's breath, see his eyes widen as he clearly got the wrong idea about what was happening. That was enough to bring Draco to his senses, and he realized that there was only one thing to do in a situation like this one. He put his hand on the other boy's shoulder, and slowly slid it down his arm, caressing softly. Potter's eyes, if possible, got even bigger. Then Draco smirked, and slipped his hand into Potter's bag, taking the promised ingredients.

"Thanks, Scarhead," he said, shoving them in with his own supplies. "By the way, it's good to know that there's one way to get you to shut up." He laughed, then left. From the expression on Potter's face as Draco exited the room, he was still trying to work out what had just happened.


As Ginny was leaving the Great Hall with Hermione, she felt a tug on her arm. She turned to see Romilda Vane, wearing an expression that managed to seem giddy and scheming at the same time.

"Is it true that you are Harry are broken up for good?" she asked eagerly, clutching Ginny's arm.

Ginny stiffened, and she decided that there was no good beating around the bush. "Yes, and he's free to date anyone he wants, but if I hear you tried to slip him a Love Potion again…well, ask anyone who's been the recipient of my Bat-Bogey Hex."

Romilda rolled her eyes and bounced away, probably off to scheme about how she was going to get Harry to date her without being hexed. Hermione bit her lip anxiously.

"We should probably warn Harry the next time we see him. I can't believe Love Potions are even legal—there's things like that in the Muggle world, that people use to impair people's judgment so they're more likely to shag someone, and they're beyond illegal. You'd think by now, the Ministry would have—I'm going to write George right now, he really shouldn't be selling them at all."

Ginny sighed and nodded. "Nobody should be forced into something like that against their will. If George doesn't listen to you, I'll talk to him myself."

Hermione rifled through her bag for a quill, as though she really were going to write the letter at this very minute. "Maybe I should go into Magical Law after all, because it's clear that whoever's drafting legislation isn't doing a good enough job." She looked up, and something in her face softened. "I'm sorry people keep asking you about Harry. I know that can't be pleasant."

"It's fine. Weird, though. I built most of my life around the idea of happily ever after, with Harry as my prince. It's just a little unsettling to realize that I don't even want that life anymore. I don't want to constantly be overshadowed by who I'm in a relationship with, you know? I want to be my own person, and that wasn't ever going to happen with him."

Hermione nodded. "I always thought happily ever after was overrated. Now, I need to go, if I'm going to write this letter before class."


Draco had managed to disguise a book on wandlore as his Charms book, so while everyone else plodded along with Chapter Four: Healing the Broken, he read increasingly dull paragraphs about wands getting old and malfunctioning, which he already knew wasn't his problem.

Granger came into Charms ten minutes late, looking immensely pleased with herself. Draco still hadn't come up with something new to call her, but it wasn't for lack of trying. He had a list in his dormitory that consisted of several well-worded descriptions of her appearance, as well as several jabs at how much she studied, but none of them seemed quite right. Nothing had the right sort of sting to it, and there was no point to an insult that didn't hurt at least a little.

He turned back to his book, flipping through a few more pages just to make sure that it really was entirely useless. What he really needed was a wandmaker, but that was where it got complicated; Ollivander was the best alive, but there was the slight drawback that he'd spent several months locked in the dungeon at Malfoy Manor. Draco couldn't very well drop by his shop, even if he could get permission to leave school, which he couldn't, because McGonagall wasn't going to let him leave without an escort, no matter what. He even had to take an escort to Hogsmeade; something about not being able to be trusted with that sort of responsibility after everything that had happened.

After class he went to the library to try yet another book. Greg was sitting at a table, bent over a spellbook and concentrating the same way he had been in the dorm. Draco realized that most of the time when he'd seen Greg this year, he'd had this same look on his face.

"Hey," he said, trying not to sound as awkward as he felt. "All right if I sit by you?"

Greg grunted a response that Draco took to mean yes. He sat down and tried to read, but finally looked up at his former friend.

"You've been studying a lot this year."

"What's your point, Draco?" he asked stiffly. "That I'm too dumb to study?"

"No, I—I thought you were working hard, and I was just wondering if I could help with anything."

Greg looked up, and Draco was surprised to see a flash of something sad in his eyes. "Your help is worse than no help right now. I probably won't finish school this year, but I'll stay until I get my NEWTs, and then I need to get a job. My family doesn't have much money left. I can't be as—asso—"

"Associated?" Draco offered.

"Yes. I can't be—that, with someone like you. Everyone knows what you did in the war, but they all forgot about me. I have a chance, but—not if I'm friends with you."

"Oh."

"I'm sorry," Greg said, and it sounded honest.

"No, don't be—I have to focus on schoolwork anyway." Draco stood up and shoved his book in his bag, trying to act as though he weren't seriously unnerved by this. "I should go."

He walked back to his dorm to study before his next class, and he managed not to cry until much later.


He didn't pay very good attention in Arithmancy that day. His thoughts were in turmoil, and most of them ran along the lines of how unfair things were. He'd always known that was true, but this was the first time he'd encountered it in this particular way. The war was supposed to be over, but it wasn't. It burned Draco to think of how everyone went around saying that it was.

Draco tried to loosen the knot in his chest, but it hurt to think of a perfectly good friendship being ruined because people were going to see Greg how they wanted to see him. He didn't really blame him for his choice to dissociate himself from Draco when it didn't seem like there was a better option. Mostly, he was bitter that they lived in a society that would blame teenagers for a war that they never should have had to be a part of.

The first time he'd been forced to torture someone, Draco had thrown up afterwards. Even thinking about it almost sent him reeling into a flashback, but he didn't let himself fall in. He couldn't even remember things like that without feeling as though they were still happening, would always be happening.

He was doing a decent job of holding off the memory until someone hit him with a wad of paper. (Which was really an incredibly childish thing for an eighteen year old to be doing, but there you go.) His focused slipped, and then he was deep inside of himself.

His Aunt Bella had a wand pointed at him, and was sneering. "If you don't do it, you're nothing to the Dark Lord. How can you be expected to kill that old coot if you can't even use the Cruciatus on a disloyal servant?"

Draco raised his wand, shaking all over in spite of himself, and—

"Mr. Malfoy, are you quite all right?" Professor Vector asked, wrenching him out of the memories.

Draco nodded shakily. Professor Vector was the only person who treated him the same as she always had, and he was more grateful for this than ever, now that she was looking at him with concern. Any other professor would be lecturing him about being disrespectful and not paying enough attention.

"You look ill. Perhaps you should see Madame Pomfrey."

Draco was about to say no, but then he realized how dangerously close to crying he was. He felt a million miles away from himself, and cues he would normally have recognized escaped him. "Yeah, okay," he said, trying to sound nonchalant. "I could use a Headache Potion. I'm sure Blaise will fill me in on what I missed."

Blaise nodded in agreement, although he didn't quite meet Draco's eyes. He'd stayed as neutral as it was possible to be in the war, so they had never been friends. Draco had always been "much too partisan" for his liking.

Draco didn't go to the Hospital Wing, but returned to his dorm fully expecting to cry, even though Malfoys didn't cry, and really, he'd cried far too much since the war. He didn't. He just sat there, bitterly resenting a world that would probably never be able to look at his choices and understand. A world that Greg would be left out of not just because he wasn't very bright, but because nobody would ever agree to let him in. A world in which Pansy no longer even wanted to see her parents because she'd been so hurt by them.

His chest tightened painfully, but he couldn't stop his brain, couldn't stop himself from thinking about how terribly fucked up it all was. This wasn't Potter's "fair and equal" world that he claimed existed now, or would soon once the wounds from the war had finally healed. Potter had neglected to think of the scars that wounds left, even when they were supposed to be gone. He'd forgotten that war didn't end when the battles were over.

Draco raised his wand, shaking all over in spite of himself, steeled himself, prepared himself, reminded himself not to feel—

And hesitated.

"Do it," Aunt Bella urged, a maniacal gleam in her eyes.

"Give him time, Bella," his mother said.

"There isn't time. Not if he's going to serve the Dark Lord. You know that as well as I do, Cissy." She turned back to Draco. "It's now or never."

He nodded, bit his lip, and turned back to his victim. Mentally apologizing to the slimy, rat-faced man at his feet, he lifted his wand and whispered, "Crucio."

A surge of power came from the end of his wand, hitting its mark and causing the man to writhe and scream.

"A good start, but it's not enough," Aunt Bella said.

Draco tried again. And again. An hour later, his aunt was satisfied, and let him go. He'd barely made it out of her sight when he began to vomit, over and over until he was sure he'd turned inside out from the power of it.

That night when he slept, Wormtail's screams mingled with his own, until he couldn't tell which one of them was the torturer and which was the victim.