"So, Harry," Draco said, that day during dinner. They were skipping out on it to have a private talk in the Slytherin Dorm Room – the cold green colors of the beds and the warm chocolate color of the wooden floors made a nice, cool contrast that calmed the atmosphere. Draco could swear that there was some magic involved, but he didn't really mind as long as it wasn't harmful. And it wasn't; it only helped set the mood. Even the air was cool! Not so much that it was bothersome, mind you, but just enough to be on the chilly side. "What is your glorious plan for breaking into Azkaban?"

Harry grimaced, and rubbed his shoulder awkwardly. "I, er… don't really… have any plans?"

Draco blinked, before raising his eyebrows. "And you call me out on acting Gryffindor."

"What? No, I don't," Harry protested, mouth agape.

Draco's expression went flat as he pointed his wand over to his trunk to summon a bunch of parchment. When the small pile floated over, he grabbed it – not once breaking eyecontact with Harry – and started to, deliberately slowly, flip through them.

When he found the piece of parchment he was looking for, he pulled it out and began to read aloud. "You're a Slytherin. I expected you to have some plans. That was very Gryffindor of you, Malfoy. Have you gone soft? Signed, Harry. Yeah, but no, you're obviously not calling me out on acting like a Gryffindor," Draco drawled sarcastically, smirking at the paleness of Harry's face.

"Fine," Harry sighed, and reached up to rub at his face. "Fine. So I called you out on acting like a Gryffindor, and now you're calling me out on it. We're even."

"We're even if you let me help you plan," Draco corrected him sharply.

"As I said, we're even," Harry repeated.

"-oh," said Draco, and straightened his back. "Oh, okay. Well, uh…" He frantically searched his scrambled mind for anything that could help Harry in this. Damn it all, Harry, how and when did you manage to make such a mess out of my thoughts? "Do we know which cell he's in?"

Harry shook his head. "No idea," he said.

"Is there a way to find it out?"

Harry's expression turned perplex, and he shrugged helplessly. "I don't think so. I've already established that we can't send letters to him – they're going to go through five different sets of Aurors, and if they're odd in any kind of way –that includes codes – then he won't see it. Same goes for if he's going to send a letter back to us, again." Harry sighed. "There's no way for us to get in contact with him."

Draco hummed, frowned, and leaned back before crossing his arms. "Well, Azkaban's designed to keep people in, though, right? It shouldn't be that hard to get in."

"What are you suggesting?" Harry asked, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees with an intrigued look about him. "What can we do?"

"Okay, so what if we fake a letter to the Minister – or someone really important – that tells them to come to Azkaban immediately. The import person come along, they open the doors, and I get in with the invisibility cloak. You sneak in through a window or something using your animagus form."

Harry tilted his head this way and that before answering. "Can't I just sneak through a window and open the doors for you?"

Draco crossed his arms and pouted. "You're no fun," he muttered. "I wanted to take the complicated route for the reader's sake."

"The reader's… sake?" Harry puzzled. "Uh. Okay. We're not doing that, Draco. But thanks anyway."

Draco pouted a bit more before softening up again. "Okay, well… what about transport? How do we get to Azkaban? It's not like we can just walk."

There was a mischievous spark in Harry's eye when he answered. "Why, we fly, of course."

Draco very nearly fell of the bed. "What? Are you suggesting we use broomsticks to get to Azkaban?"

"Nope."

"Well then, you expect us to find a Pegasus or two in the forest?"

"Not a Pegasus," Harry grinned. "But its dark shadow."

Draco paled. "Are you – do you mean – oh Merlin, Harry, is this a thing you've done before? Do you know how to control a Thestral?"

"Yup," Harry said, still grinning like a maniac. "I did it in my fifth year. And maybe it's cliché to repeat it like this, but honestly, I don't know why we should waste time and energy to come up with something new when we already have the answer in one shape or another."

"You have a point," Draco grudgingly admitted. "Fine, alright. So we take two thestrals to Azkaban, you sneak in through a window or something to open the doors for me – then what?"

"The patronus is really important at this point," Harry said. "We're doing something really dangerous here, Draco. I can't help you cast a patronus before we're away from the guard's office. Which means-"

"I'll be on my own," Draco interrupted. "Merlin. Alright, fine, I can do that. Just – cast a patronus to guard me. Yup. Good. Fine."

"After I cast the patronus, we'll be walking around trying to find Sirius. If a guard comes, just – play dead or something."

Draco blinked. "Damn, you really don't have any plan."

Harry grimaced. "No, I really don't. I just want to free Sirius. I just want my Godfather," he muttered, looking down at his lap with a vulnerable expression.

Feeling a pang of guilt even though he knew he had nothing to be ashamed of, Draco shuffled a bit closer to wrap an arm around Harry's shoulder and pull him close in an awkward half-hug. "We'll free him, Harry," Draco said, quietly, into Harry's hair. "It's a suicide mission, but I promise you – I'll find him, or die trying."

"Please don't," Harry protested gently. "If the mission goes to hell, get the fuck out of there. Save yourself."

Draco shook his head stubbornly. "Not unless I can save you, too. Do you really think I want to live on here without you? Voldemort's dead. This world is mostly safe, unless Weasel or Dumbledore decides to do something stupid."

"Fine," Harry muttered. "Save me, and then yourself. What I'm saying is, if the mission is a failure, forget about Sirius and just let us get out of there. I want my Godfather back… but I still value our lives more."

Draco hugged him a little bit closer, knowing how much that had hurt to admit. "And if we do find him, and get him out? Where will we keep him?"

"Room of Requirement."

"Wards," Draco reminded him.

"Aren't holding him out. He's not a Death Eater, and he doesn't want to harm a student in this school. It worked in our third year, it will work now, too," Harry countered. "At least I hope so."

"And what if it won't?" Draco said. He needed to know. He needed to make sure that Harry knew.

Harry was silent for a moment, before sighing. "Then… we'll take it from there."

There won't be a next chapter before December, I'm afraid. Why? November is National Novel Writing Month, of course! Before you start complaining that I've still got almost two weeks - well, I'm sorry, but I need some time to work on plot and stuff...

Yeah. I'm really sorry! But DIT will return, okay? It's not lost, so hang in there! We'll be back sometime in December!

Feel free to leave comments, though! I won't be dead the next month, so I'll read them - and answer any possible questions. So, leave a question, a thought, some writer's love, anything at all, really!

I'll see you all in December!