Draco trudged towards Hogsmeade, trying at act as though Hagrid wasn't following him. The only way he was allowed into the village was with an escort, and of course they'd assigned him the most conspicuous person possible. Draco was sure that it was out of spite. He wouldn't have left the school at all, except that he needed more supplies for a few classes and wanted to get out. Tonight was the Halloween feast, which was going to be held in Potter's honor because it was the night his parents were killed.

Technically, the feast was a memorial for those who died in the war, starting with the Potters and their contemporaries, but that didn't explain the way all of the decorations seemed to revolve around Potter. It was after seeing a bloody painting of the "Boy-Who-Lived" floated into the Great Hall that Draco decided that he had to get out of the castle, escort or not.

"Where'd yeh need ter go firs'?" Hagrid asked gruffly. "I wan' ter be outta here before too long."

"I need to stop at Scrivenshafts," Draco said coldly. He needed to get new quills for note-taking; several of his were broken due to minor attacks from other students. He walked alongside the half-giant, annoyed that everybody who saw him knew that he needed an escort. McGonagall had claimed that it was for his good, too, but nobody would think that. Nobody worried about the possibility of a Death Eater being attacked.

After going into several stores for necessary supplies, Draco had everything he needed. "We can return to the school now," he said haughtily. He wished they'd assigned him someone a little more dignified, because the thought of being seen with someone as rough and uncultured as the half-giant made him want to spend as little time as possible out where people could see them.

"Hold up. I'd like ter stop at the Three Broomsticks an' get a drink before we go."

Draco froze. "I'd rather not."

"'S too bad, 'cos Professor McGonagall put me in charge of yeh, so we'll go where I say."

Draco refused to move. "I'll go back to Hogwarts on my own, then. See how McGonagall likes it when she finds out that you let me leave unescorted."

"Yeh'll be the one that's in trouble, skulkin' around on yer own. C'mon now, I'm not waitin' all day."

There was nothing else for it. He had to tell the truth; it'd be far worse to try to go in and have a spectacle made of himself by getting kicked out. "I'm not allowed in there, okay?" Draco said quietly. "I've been banned from entering. So we can't go there."

Hagrid looked bemused. "Ah, righ', yeh used that curse on Madame Rosmerta a few years back, didn' yeh? All righ', we'll go to the Hogs Head. C'mon."

Draco followed at as much of a distance as he thought he could get away with. He'd never been into the Hogs Head before. Once he'd gotten close, but it looked far too dingy and unappealing to go inside of. He was unsurprised to find it mostly empty, although it was dark enough that he couldn't tell exactly how empty.

Hagrid led him up to the bar. "'Lo, Aberforth," he said cheerfully. "Me usual, please, an' a butterbeer fer this'un."

Draco looked up the the bartender and knew in an instant who he was. "You're Dumbledore's brother," he said without thinking.

"Yes, I am," the man said sharply. "And if I'm not mistaken, you're the idiot that got him killed."

Draco normally would have said something rude or hurtful, but the man's sharp gaze made him want to be understood. "The Dark Lord got Dumbledore killed. I was the idiot who couldn't go through with it."

Aberforth cocked his head for a moment, considering this, then nodded sagely. "It's not a bad thing, not being able to go through with murder. Makes you better than most of your side, and a quite a bit of ours." He reached under the table and pulled out a bottle, then filled a flagon with a brown, sticky looking liquid, although Draco couldn't tell if that was how it was supposed to look or just how they made it here. All of this was done slowly, as though he had all the time in the world. "That'll be seven sickles."

"I've got it," Draco said quickly, putting the money on the counter. Something made Draco want Aberforth to like him, and he knew part of it was because when the man looked at him, there was no fear in his eyes. So unlike most of the people he talked to, especially those that didn't know him.

They moved to a table against the wall, and Draco got out a book, not feeling much like talking. It was hard to be sitting at this table, alone in the world except for one man that didn't particularly like him. It made Draco think that maybe he should go out and make more friends. Pansy didn't want him, and Vince was dead, and Greg couldn't be associated with him, but they weren't the only people in the world. Draco could still have friends. There was Blaise Zabini, and the Greengrass sisters, for a start. He could form a new group, build new alliances.

He had just started composing a list of possible friends in his head when a voice made him look up.

"Hagrid!" called Potter, hurrying towards them. He stopped short when he saw that Draco was also at the table.

"Harry! How are yeh? Where's Ron an' Hermione?"

Potter looked embarrassed. "They clearly wanted to be alone, so I—pretended I was meeting someone here so they'd be able to leave me without feeling guilty. Anyway, what are you two doing?"

"I've bin lookin' after youn' Malfoy here. Professor McGonagall asked fer one o' the staff to come up ter Hogsmeade with him today."

"Oh." Potter thought for a minute. "Can I sit with the two of you? It's just—I don't have anywhere to go, and Ginny's off with some friends from her year so I can't find her—"

"'Course yeh can," Hagrid said, pulling out a chair for him.

Potter looked at Draco questioningly. After a moment, Draco sighed and nodded.

Potter sat down and Draco returned to his book, trying to ignore the conversation going on around him. At this rate, it would be a while before Hagrid was willing to go back to Hogwarts. He was so immersed in his book that he was surprised when a question was directed at him.

"What are you reading?" Potter asked.

"A History of Wandlore, not that it's any of your business."

"You're studying wandlore? Why?"

For half a moment, Draco considered telling Potter the truth, but dismissed the idea quickly. It could have solved a few problems if Potter or the Woodchuck (his temporary name for Granger, even though she'd fixed the problem with her teeth) knew what was going on, but it would also involve working with them if they got into their heads that he needed help. Bloody Gryffindors. "I wasn't aware I needed a reason to be interested in learning about the objects that allow us to channel our magic, Potter. Maybe I just care more about the future of our society than you."

"I didn't mean—I was just curious." Potter shrugged awkwardly. "I don't know very much about wandlore. Just what Ollivander told me when I was trying to figure out what the deal was with the Elder Wand."

Draco blinked. "What was the deal with the Elder Wand?" Shit. He'd meant to ignore Potter's attempts at conversation, or at least be openly hostile. Now he was engaging in polite chit-chat. What was wrong with him?

"Well, Dumbledore had it, apparently, but then you took it from him, but Voldemort thought Snape had it, so he killed Snape, but I disarmed you, so I got it because—"

"Hold on, Potter. Slow down. What in the name of Merlin is the Elder Wand? And what do you mean, I took it from Dumbledore? I dropped the wand I took from him on my way out. I still don't know what happened to it."

Potter blinked. "Oh, right. I forgot. I spent so long thinking about it that I forget not everyone else did. It's the most powerful wand in the world, and Dumbledore had it. You disarmed him, which means it belonged to you even though it got buried with him—"

"Wait, disarming someone means their wand belongs to you? With that logic, everyone I know owns everyone else I know's wand."

Potter shrugged helplessly. "I don't entirely get it either. But the Elder Wand was yours until I disarmed you last year."

Draco frowned. "But it wasn't the Elder Wand you took from me. It was this one," he said, holding up the hawthorn wand.

"Yes, but the Elder Wand had sworn allegiance to you, and it saw that as a defeat."

"Did it swear allegiance to me, or my wand? Because from that logic, it had nothing to do with me. Just whoever owned the wand that disarmed it."

Now Potter was frowning. "You're right, it really doesn't make sense. But it worked. Remember when I disarmed Voldemort while he was in the middle of Avada Kedavra? Well, he was using the Elder Wand, but it had already sworn allegiance to me, so it wouldn't kill me."

Draco shook his head. "I don't think that actually makes sense. You got something wrong somewhere in that, but I don't know what." Then something Potter said caught up to him. "Where is it now? Do you have it?"

Potter shook his head firmly. "It's hidden, and I'm not telling anyone where it is. People have died over it. If I die without it being taken, it'll lose its power."

"Why would you want it to? It's the most powerful wand in the world, think of all that you could do with it—and if you're right, all it will take is for someone to disarm you now for it to swear allegiance to them, whether or not they know where it is."

"I don't think so," Potter said, but he'd gone a little bit pale. "I'll have to ask Ollivander. Anyway, I should head back to school."

Hagrid, who had been silent during that exchange, nodded. "We'd bes' be headin' back as well. I'm s'possed to help with the rest o' the setup for the feast."

Hagrid and Potter talked on the way back to school, but Draco remained silent. When they reached the gate, Potter turned to him suddenly. "You've been much less of a git than usual today."

"Well, it's my day off," Draco sneered, trying to regain some of his pride. Had he really engaged in a friendly conversation with Potter? If he wasn't careful, the next thing he knew he'd be asking Longbottom for Herbology advice. "I'll go back to hating you and your friends by later tonight, maybe sooner if I have to see one more of those hideous decorations."

Potter groaned and put his head in his hands. "I know, aren't they awful? I tried to talk them out of the pictures of my face, but McGonagall gave me a stern lecture about people needing a reminder of the good in the world, especially while we're honoring the dead."

"Well, some of the dead," Draco said under his breath. He highly doubted that Vince or Aunt Bella would be honored at tonight's feast.

Luckily, Potter didn't hear him. "She said I was being selfish by not wanting my face plastered all over the place. Maybe she's right. I just—it reminds me of the wanted posters. Undesirable Number 1."

"I remember," Draco said quietly. Then he realized that he was once again getting drawn into conversation. "I'm going back to Slytherin now, before my reputation is damaged by being seen talking to you."

As he walked away, he heard Potter laugh. Probably because he knew that if anything, it would be his reputation that was damaged, not Draco's.

And that laugh made him hate Potter just a little more, hate him for knowing how far Draco Malfoy had fallen.

Over the next several days, he worked extra hard to be mean to the "Golden Trio" to make up for his lapse on Saturday.

Draco's magic continued to feel as though it belonged to someone else, so he kept reading, although he'd long since given up on finding his answers in a book.

Maybe he was on the wrong track entirely. His conversation with Potter had had one good outcome, which was that he knew a thing or two more about wandlore. Maybe he hadn't properly earned the wand back, since it was just given to him. But his mother's wand had worked for him.

There had to be a missing piece to what Potter knew. The disarming thing didn't make any sense at all. With that in mind, he spent several hours reading about how wands could be won, although the information was very limited. What he found was that if his wand didn't have allegiance to him, his magic wouldn't work very well, and that wasn't true; to the contrary, he was performing better magic than ever.

It was when he was working in the library that something hit him. The Elder Wand had sworn allegiance to Potter when he'd taken Draco's wand, but now that he'd given it back…if the wand considered that a victory, that would mean—

Draco needed to start researching the Elder Wand, because unless he was wrong, there was a decent possibility that it belonged to him.

He didn't make progress very quickly, but part of that was his method of studying. Something would go wrong with his wand, and he would spend the next 48 hours doing intense research before getting frustrated and deciding that it didn't matter anyway. He'd go until the next issue without even looking at books, because he would manage to convince himself that he was just imagining things. Besides, the books he could find didn't lead him anywhere.

If he were anyone else, he'd have gone to Ollivander. Instead, he tried to think of how to write a letter asking about this without Ollivander realizing it was his. He'd have to find a way to make his writing different, but if he did any magic, his magical signature could be traced. He wasn't going to fool himself into thinking that Ollivander wouldn't recognize it instantly; it was what the man did, after all.

He thought about this through Arithmancy, so that he almost didn't notice when Vector assigned a project.

"You'll need to work with another person on this, as it's rather extensive. I'd suggest finding a partner before next class, or I'll have to assign one to you, and I know everyone hates when I do that." She smiled kindly. "No homework today; just find a partner. Class dismissed."

Fuck. Draco looked around at his exiting classmates and wondered who the bloody hell would pair with him. There were only twelve people in the class, and of them, the only ones he knew were Daphne, Blaise, and Granger. (He'd had a lot going on in the past few years; there just wasn't time to get to know everyone in school.)

He got up slowly and put his things in his bag. A shadow fell over his desk, and he looked up to see Granger hovering near him. Once she saw him looking, she moved forward with a sudden sense of purpose. "Would you like to be my partner? I don't mean to be rude, but you don't seem to have anyone to pair up with, and I wouldn't mind working with you."

Draco sneered. "'Wouldn't mind?' I'm touched. Thanks, but I can find a partner on my own."

"All right," she said, looking more amused than anything. "But if you can't, let me know. Otherwise, I'll work with Ernie."

Merlin. Even Granger thought he was pathetic. Draco finished putting away his supplies and left the room, more determined than ever to get a partner.

That night after dinner, Draco saw his chance. The common room was empty except for him and Blaise, so he sat down on the chair across from Blaise and took a deep breath. "Do you want to be partners for the Arithmancy project?" he asked, trying not to sound too desperate.

Blaise didn't even look up from his book. "I'm partnering with Daphne."

"Blow her off. I'm better at Arithmancy than her."

"Sorry, Draco. I made a promise to a friend."

"Well, what about me? Aren't I your friend?" Draco was fully aware that he sounded petulant, but he couldn't help it. He had no one to work with, and he was so tired of having no one to talk to. He scratched his fingernails across the leather of the chair, suddenly scared he wouldn't be able to make Blaise change his mind.

"Quite frankly, no," he said, turning another page.

"Well, why not?"

It was then that Blaise looked up. "You don't get it, do you? Not everyone's lives revolve around you. You tortured people, Draco, and before that you were a bully. Why in the name of Merlin would I want to be your friend?"

"You don't—I didn't want to hurt anyone. He was going to kill my family—you know what, fuck you. I'd like to see what you would have done in that situation."

"Not what you did, that's for sure," Blaise said, frowning. "You had other choices and you know it." He looked back down at his book.

Draco couldn't let a comment like that go. "Such as what, exactly?" He asked icily. "Betraying my family?"

"Yes, that is one of them, actually. You knew what you were doing was wrong, or you would have had no problem killing Dumbledore."

"How do you—"

"Everyone knows, Draco, or at least, everyone that was paying attention. You'd be surprised how much I've figured out. I don't take part in a lot of the stuff that happens here, but that doesn't mean I don't know what's going on."

"Well, then what's your point? Of course it was wrong, but it also made sense, and it fit in with everything I'd been taught, and he threatened to kill my parents, and I'm so goddamn tired of having to justify myself to everyone!" Thank Merlin there was nobody else in the common room; Draco may have been letting his emotions get away with him, but at least nobody else was around to witness it.

Blaise looked at him evenly. "Has anyone besides me asked you to justify yourself?"

"I've seen how everyone looks at me—they don't ask, but I know what they're thinking. Everyone thinks they have the right to judge me, but no one fucking knows what I went through! I didn't have a choice!" Draco felt to frantic too stay put, so he leapt to his feet and paced in front of the fire.

"I think we've established that you did in fact have a choice." Blaise's voice was infuriatingly calm, and Draco would have quite liked to punch him.

"To risk my life? To risk my parents' lives? Why would I do that? I'm not a bloody Gryffindor, Blaise, I'm a Slytherin. I'll always look after myself first, the people I love second, and everyone else can come in bloody third!"

"You're not tied down to your house, Draco; it doesn't define you. Stop acting like it wasn't a choice. Being Slytherin didn't force your hand."

"You don't fucking get it, do you? Nobody fucking gets it. You don't know what it was like—you have no idea—people I loved were dying. What I believed—whether or not I wanted all Mudbloods to be killed—it didn't matter at all. I had to do what I could to survive, and if you want to call that a choice, call it a choice, but if you think you can judge me based off my decisions in the war, you can bloody well shove it."

"The war wasn't the only time you've been an idiot, Draco. You've been a bully since day one. The other Slytherins may have worshiped the ground you walked on, but it's always been clear to me that the only thing you've ever been good at was hurting people. Don't tell me you didn't have a choice about that."

Draco felt like crying. How could Blaise bring that up? Didn't he know how hard it was for Draco to even think about how stupid and awful he'd been before? "People are allowed to make mistakes when they're young."

"You made people cry."

"I was eleven! And yes, I was a bully, and yes, it was wrong, but you can't spend your whole life blaming me for that. And you wouldn't be trying to if you didn't have your knickers in a twist about which side I was on in the war!"

"You've never thought about anyone but yourself."

"That's funny, because neither has Potter, but when it's him doing it people say it's because he's 'introspective, or 'working through the horrors of his past.' Well, he's not the only one with 'horrors in his past,' and if everyone else could just realize that maybe I could have a moment's peace!"

Draco stalked out of the common room. Maybe he never should have come back to Hogwarts. He was never going to be accepted anyway; why bother trying?

His conversation with Daphne was only marginally better. He cornered her after Transfiguration to ask her to ditch Blaise and join up with him.

She just stared at him. "I'm not going to do that, Draco. Blaise is my best friend, and I barely know you. Quite honestly, I'm not sure why you even asked. Are you really so arrogant that you think I'll just drop everything to work with you?"

Not arrogant, just desperate. He put on his best Malfoy sneer. "I assumed that you'd jump at the chance at working with the best Arithmancer in the class."

Daphne actually smirked. "I did consider working with Granger, but Blaise asked me first."

"What? Granger's not—oh, fuck you, Daphne. It's your loss."

He started to walk away, but he'd only made it a few steps when he saw Granger standing against a wall, nose buried deeply in a book. "Oh, fuck it," he muttered to himself, then approached her. "I'll be your partner, all right?"

She looked up. "Oh, good. I wanted to work with someone who was good at the subject."

This mollified Draco slightly, but he still said, "Don't tell anyone about this, all right?"

"You mean that you came crawling back after declaring that you could find a partner on your own?" Hermione asked, smirking.

"Malfoys do not crawl," he said loftily. "I merely decided that you have value as a scholar, and as such, your suggestion had some merit.

"All right, whatever you say," she said with a wry smile. "I won't tell."

On the 14th of November, Draco was escorted to Azkaban to visit his father. There was nothing significant as to why that was the day he went, except that it was a Saturday and he didn't have much homework. He shivered going past the Dementors; even with a Ministry official nearby, he didn't like them. They'd always made him feel as though he wasn't nearly as good as he thought he was, and that everything he'd thought about life was wrong. Today they weren't as bad as usual. Draco couldn't tell if it was because he was better at dealing with them or because all of the things they made him feel had already been in such strong force. Reliving your worst memory wasn't that bad when you were still living it.

The Auror assigned to escort Draco led him through the building. He walked past many Death Eaters sitting quietly in their cells, many of them for the rest of their lives. His father's sentence was only 30 years, mostly because he'd failed so miserably in the end. Most of the people Draco recognized didn't seem to really be there anymore, but a few shouted insults at him as he walked past.

Mother got off easy. 10 years of house arrest and a permanent ban from wand use is nothing compared to this. Just another thing he owed Potter for, come to think of it. He'd testified at her trial, and explained that she had saved his life and ultimately ended the war.

"Here he is," the Auror said, pointing. "The conditions of your visit don't allow entrance to the cell, but you can talk to him through the bars if he'll respond."

Draco moved closer and looked at the shell of a man within the cell. "Father?" he asked, voice cracking. Lucius looked up from his position sitting against the wall. His eyes were dark and empty.

"Hello, Draco," he said softly. His once blond hair had become grey from soot, and Draco wondered how often prisoners in Azkaban were permitted to bathe. It couldn't be often, or Lucius would be cleaner.

"Hello, Father," he said, looking at the Auror out of the corner of his eye and wishing the man would bugger off.

Lucius put out his arms in a mockery of grandness and said, in a mocking tone, "Welcome to my spacious abode." He laughed, but it sounded hollow, more so than it had even in the last year with the Dark Lord. "But tell me about yourself. You've returned to Hogwarts, yes?"

"Yeah, I went back to finish up my NEWTs."

"Of course. A Malfoy must have the right credentials. Are you still playing Quidditch?"

"No. None of the eighth years are allowed to play." Draco was glad he had an excuse to give his father; he had the feeling that he wouldn't understand if Draco said he was scared to fly now. Of course he wouldn't. He hadn't been there that day in the Room of Requirement, with the fire, and Potter rescuing him on a broomstick… after an experience like that, he didn't much like brooms or fire.

Lucius tugged absently on a lank lock of hair. "I suppose there was pressure from the Board of Governors. They wanted others to have a chance. How are your studies?"

"They're going well, thank you for asking." How could they carry on a real conversation when the residents of the other cells were staring at them so openly? Azkaban didn't have an official visiting area, and for the first time, Draco thought of the unfairness of that. Even criminals had basic rights that needed to be upheld.

"Are you still studying the topics you were previously?" Lucius was making eye contact now, and it was a little unnerving, really.

"Yes, I am."

"Very good."

"Father, how are you? Are the Dementors affecting you too badly?"

Lucius shook his head. "Not like most of the others. They prey on fear and regret, Draco, and you know as well as I do that Malfoys don't have either of those things. They won't be able to hurt me."

Draco thought he heard the Auror snort, but he chose to ignore it. "Mother sounded well in her last letter," he said, pushing down the tears that were threatening to emerge. His father would never forgive him for embarrassing him by crying in public. "She's getting tired of being inside, but the terms of her House Arrest allow the occasional visitor, and last week they let her go into Diagon Alley with a few Aurors. She wasn't allowed to get any magical supplies, but they let her buy a few books and some new dress robes."

"I'm delighted to hear that," Lucius said. "You realize that you were quite lucky to get through without any sentence, I assume?"

"Yeah, I know." Draco had made it out on a mere technicality. He had been under 17 when he'd tried to kill Dumbledore, and there was no proof that anything after that had been of his own volition. The Wizengamot had tried to sentence him, but as they couldn't prove anything, they'd given him as big a fine as they could for his actions sixth year and had had to leave it at that. Underage wizards couldn't be tried as adults, and in the end, that was all that had gotten him out of something much worse.

"Good. You should always understand the ways in which you are more fortunate than others."

"All right," Draco said. This had been his father's mantra throughout his entire childhood, although he'd never explained what Draco should have done with this knowledge. At the same time as telling him to understand how he was lucky, Lucius also taught him that he deserved everything life had given him, and it was because of their stupidity and inability that families like the Weasleys were poor. Draco had never quite figured out how to reconcile those two facts.

"And hfow is Miss Parkinson? Are you still seeing her?"

"Not anymore," Draco admitted.

"That's a shame. She comes from a very good family, you know, and you should never underestimate the power of bloodlines. However, there are many other suitable women you could marry. I don't know if you've ever considered Astoria Greengrass, but she seems like a fine woman."

"No, I've never considered her," he said shakily. Why was his father acting as though everything were normal? They were talking through the prison bars, and the way Lucius was talking you'd think they were sitting in a nice restaurant having a chat.

The Auror saved Draco from having to consider this pretense at conversation by tapping him on the shoulder. "It's time to leave," he said gruffly. "Your time is up."

"Okay." He looked at his father, trying to see some true remnant of the man he had once known, but none was there. "Goodbye, Father."

"Goodbye, Draco. Return for another visit soon."

Draco was escorted out of Azkaban, then taking by Apparition back to Hogwarts. McGonagall was there to make sure everything was in order, but as soon as she'd spoken to the Auror, she turned back towards her office, not even sparing a glance at Draco.

Instead of going to Slytherin, he found an empty classroom to sit in and think. He'd always known that Azkaban changed people, but he hadn't thought it would make his father like—that. The only thing left of him seemed to be his sense of decorum, things in their proper order. Nothing like what had happened to Aunt Bella.

Maybe the Dementors took everything, after all, and all that anyone had left to project was what they'd always projected. Draco explored this idea tentatively, wondering how Aunt Bella had been before. Or maybe all that happened was you were condensed to your barest traits. So all his father was was decorous, and all Aunt Bella had been was crazy.

A few tears that had been threatening to spill out finally did. He bit his lip, working not to make any noise, and looked out the window at the ground below.

"Malfoy?" someone asked questioningly.

Draco turned at the sound of the voice, which was a mistake since he didn't want to be seen like this. It was Potter (of course it was, who else would be around to see Draco at his worst?), and now he was staring openly. Draco realized they probably both remembered the last time they'd been in a similar situation, it hadn't worked out well for either party.

"What are you doing here?" He demanded, half tempted to hex Potter in spite of the memories of sixth year.

"I'm—I was—Romilda Vane, she was trying to corner me, and I panicked and—were you just crying?"

"No," Draco said quickly, pulling himself upright. "Somebody hit me with Aguamenti."

Potter looked at him skeptically. "On your face?"

"It's been known to happen."

"I'm not an idiot, Malfoy. You wouldn't be hiding out in an empty classroom because of Aguamenti. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Potter, and you're mistaken. Malfoys don't sit in classrooms crying."

Potter rolled his eyes. "Okay, enlighten me. What do Malfoys sit in classrooms doing? You're obviously here for a reason."

"I was trying to remove the charm," he said, but the words sounded hollow, and he needed to get out of here, needed to run. Needed to do something to keep Potter from telling anyone that Draco was crying. (As if Potter knowing wasn't bad enough.) Mostly, he just needed to do something, because if he didn't he would start crying again.

Potter stepped towards him, glaring. "That's rubbish, and you know it as well as it do."

Something in the way Potter said that made Draco's blood boil, and now he wasn't scared, he was angry. And he was damn well going to turn this situation around.

"You're far too concerned with my life. You know, I really hate you," he said, taking a step forwards. Potter stepped back, seeming not to realize what he was doing. "Really, really hate you."

He took another step, but Potter didn't step back. They were far too close together now, and Potter was breathing heavily.

He whispered, "I know. I hate you too," and reached up one of his hands to push back Draco's hair, almost reverently.

"I hate you so much," Draco whispered, and closed the distance between them with one more step forward. They were so close together now that he could smell Potter, could hear his ragged breaths, and the only thing that made sense was to lean in and let their lips touch, gently at first, then more firmly as Potter kissed him back.

His hands slipped so that they were around Potter's waist, and Potter still had one hand in his hair, stroking so gently that Draco thought he would fall apart. After a few seconds, he pulled away, shocked at what he had just done.

"I still hate you," he said, before all but running—Malfoys didn't run—out of the classroom.