Author's Note: I want to thank all of you amazing reviewers! I rushed this one out right away, especially for you!


Snape was in class, surrounded by students and then he rushed off to a meeting with Dumbledore, so I had to wait. But after he left Dumbledore's office, I followed him down to the Dungeons. We were outside his own office, when he turned on me and asked, "Is there a reason you are following me, Mr. Potter?"

"Um," I stammered, caught out. "I wanted to talk to you?"

"Ten points for stalking a teacher. In my office," he said, before turning. With billowing robes, he strode into his office.

I followed him in.

He turned around with a flair of his robes to stand in front of me. Then he lifted his wand arm, aimed towards the door, and cast a few spells to ensure our privacy, including the Half-Blood Prince's Muffliato.

"Now, what is it you want, Mr. Potter?" he asked.

"Um. Draco Malfoy? He said I'm going to kill him. He said he saw it. Can he really see the future?" I asked.

Snape, looking rather put upon, answered, "To a point. The future can change, Mr. Potter."

"How can you be sure? What if he's having me on?"

"There are a number of little things over the years that have convinced me. When he was little, I used to receive owls from him the moment I decided to stop by Malfoy Manor to see his parents; asking me to bring him bilberries or sweets, mostly. When he was three, he told his mother he saw the two of you becoming best friends. He went on about it for years. Then he met you and he came crying to me, asking why you were so mean and violent. I hadn't seen you do anything mean or violent, but he said he could see it. He didn't know what set you off back in first year, but everything about him seemed to make you mad and his predictions started coming true. Then he decided that he wasn't going to take it lying down anymore. If he saw you being mean to him, he was going to get you first. It's illogical, to react before an event happens, but I've given up trying to explain that. To a seer, the things he sees have happened and his pre-reactions to them are not the cause. Non-seers do not think like that. It's not something one can easily make up," Snape said.

"So, I really try to kill him then?" I asked.

"What did he tell you about his death?" Snape asked.

"A bleeding curse that bleeds back through time cast in a girl's bathroom. What would we even be doing in a girl's bathroom?"

"A bleeding curse that bleeds back through time… Do you know such a curse, Mr. Potter?" Snape leveled a firm stare at me with those black eyes of his.

"No. I don't. Do you?"

"No. I have never heard of such a thing. New curses can be invented and old ones rediscovered in ancient textbooks, but I suspect it is not the curse itself that bleeds back through time. I would guess, seeing as it's you we are talking about, you'd be more likely to use a simple slashing hex on him. But Mr. Malfoy was rather insistent that he didn't know the curse, which is why he couldn't tell it to me. Perhaps…perhaps you can think of a rare curse you only learned this year that could result in someone bleeding to death?"

I shook my head, unable to think of any that fit the description. I didn't know the curse. I didn't want to know it, because I didn't want to use it on Draco. "But if the curse doesn't bleed back through time, what is wrong with Malfoy?" I asked.

Snape sighed. "In the professional opinion of the mind healers at St. Mungo's, Draco's affliction is all in his head. He has had trouble healing from wounds inflicted by you before—"

"What?" I interrupted. Surely if he'd been hurt before, he would've played it up and paraded the injury around the entire school for sympathy.

"Quidditch last year. I do recall a certain debacle out on the pitch that Pomfrey was unable to heal…" Snape drawled.

"Oh…" I said. "Was Malfoy really hurt bad?" I'd been too concerned about myself and Fred and the unfair punishment of banning us from Quidditch for the rest of the year, when Draco had started it, to care about how hurt Draco was.

"Nothing out of the ordinary for a schoolyard fight. It just couldn't be healed."

"He seems to have trouble healing. I thought it was a medical condition," I replied.

"It's only with certain people, Mr. Potter. He only has trouble healing from injuries you inflict on him. He got into it with Theo Nott at the beginning of this school term and Pomfrey fixed him right up. Zacharias Smith punched him in the face, same as you, and that was healed too. Any other student is no problem, but injuries inflicted by you, magic cannot heal."

"Oh…" I trailed off, not knowing what to say. "Why me?"

"According to the healers, it is psychological. He believes you are going to kill him, so the injuries you inflict on him are amplified by his own mindset. His own magic is blocking the healing spells, making his predictions more likely to come true."

"I don't want to kill him, maybe I should do the shield potion."

"What shield potion?" Snape asked pointedly.

"Malfoy suggested I help him make a shield potion, sir."

"What sort of shield potion?"

"I don't know. He didn't tell me the details!" I shouted back, cheeks warming in embarrassment. The details Draco told me were not the sort of thing I was about to tell Snape.

"Why are you shouting, Mr. Potter? Ten points from Gryffindor." I swear, taking points was Snape's go-to reaction to everything. Bloody git.

"I don't know!" I shouted back, angry about the points.

"Calm down and perhaps we could discuss shield options. I do not know of a shield potion that would work better than a shield ritual. Of course, shield rituals are permanent, so Mr. Malfoy would have a permanent advantage over you in a fight. That is why most combatants refuse to participate in shield rituals with the enemy and why I push learning shield charms in class."

I calmed down as much as I could and asked, "What do you have in mind?"

Snape pulled out books on shield magic, reading me excerpts from experts purporting the advantages of a shield ritual over shield potions. There was a very powerful ritual that if done before a fight, would stop all magic I cast from hurting Draco. It would protect him from me, even if I lost control and cast something I didn't mean to cast. Not many enemies would agree to cast it on each other before a fight, so it was mostly used by people on the same side of a battle, to prevent stray hexes from turning into friendly fire.

"This is something we could use in the war!" I announced excitedly, thinking that I wouldn't have to worry so much about what I cast, if Ron and Hermione were protected from my stray hexes.

"It has its disadvantages too, Mr. Potter. It is permanent, so if the witch or wizard you shield from yourself changes sides, the protection cannot be lifted. You could end up giving the Dark Lord an easy means to your destruction," Snape warned.

Ron and Hermione wouldn't turn on me—I was sure of it—so there would be no reason not to do this ritual with them. I was going to do it. I would shield Draco, Ron, and Hermione from me, using this ritual. "They could perform the same on me. Then I couldn't hurt them and they couldn't hurt me," I reasoned, not bothering to specify who I was talking about.

"Mr. Malfoy is not likely to agree to perform the same on you. You need to be careful with him, because of who his father is. You don't know where his allegiances lie," Snape warned. As he said the last few words, Draco burst through the door, crying.

"He beats me to death!" Draco announced, gasping for breath in between sobs. "I want to visit my mother!"

Snape sighed. "Go," he said, motioning towards his fireplace. He picked up his wand and lit a fire.

Draco plucked a bit of floo powder from a box on the mantel, as if this was something he did all the time, and was off through the floo, with a call of, "Malfoy Manor."

"I am not going to do it. I don't care what he does to provoke me. I won't hit him," I swore.

"You say that now, Mr. Potter, but you have no idea what he is up to. In the heat of the moment, when you learn the truth, your rage may be uncontrollable," Snape warned.

I nodded. "What is he up to?"

"If I knew that, I would inform the Headmaster, not you. Take this book and go. I need to find a book with magic that can counter Muggle assaults," Snape said, dismissing me.


Author's Note: I think this is one of those times that keeping a little bit of information from Snape, will make a huge difference…

Also the difference between the type of magic Snape wants to do versus the type Draco wants, should give you a hint at what Draco's plan is.

Please Review