A/N: You must be patient! There is an Angry!Lucius, obviously. Those were Draco's I-Wish-You-Know-Who-Didn't-Exist memories. Couldn't fit Lucius' reaction to forgetting about the letter into Ch 9, so now it's here. Must give it time! And thanks, xXbefuddledXx for telling me about the spell. I knew that, I swear I did! xD Edited it. And if you guys see any other errors, please tell me. I usually get it right, but y'know, sometimes I don't. And I know I said the opening would be funny, but, well, er, I decided to start it different. I'm very inconsistent. So… not funny. I keep trying to make my chapters fluffy and sweet, honest! (grumbles) Ah well.

Disclaimer: Each time I write this part, I die a little inside. No, I still don't own any HP characters. Happy?

The crowd surrounded him, each face hidden behind a mask, each body covered with long, black robes, and Draco had never been more terrified in his life. "Draco Lucien Malfoy." He couldn't tell where the voice came from; it boomed from everywhere, making his insides squirm and his outsides shake. "The time has come for you to choose." He stared around, desperate to catch sight of one of his parents, but he couldn't tell which they were, or if they were there at all. Was that his mother in front of him? Was that his father in the crowd? There was no way of knowing. "Draco." How he wished his name wouldn't be mentioned. How he wished he could be away from here, anywhere. Where was here? He couldn't tell. It didn't matter. The crowd seemed to close in on him, silent, all listening to that cold voice. "It is time for you to make your allegiance. Whose side are you on?" He had practised the words, practised his response, countless times, but now nothing came out of his mouth. He was frozen with terror, unable to move his lips or body; the only motion he was capable of was the trembling. "Do you accept this mark to be put upon you?" His lips, his tongue, his throat… all was dry. He couldn't speak even if he had been able to. "Draco? Whose side are you on?" There wasn't much time left to answer. He could feel his freedom slipping away from him with the seconds that passed. "Draco?" His heart thumped madly in his chest, his head swerving frantically, desperate to catch a glimpse of his mother's golden hair, or his father's crystal eyes. "Draco, you leave us no choice." And all simultaneously, like the zombies they were, the Death Eaters lifted their wands and pointed it at him. "Draco." No, no, he was shaking his head, his lips moving now, at lightening speed, but sound was forbidden. It was too late. "Crucio."

Draco gasped and sat up, his body drenched in a cold sweat. That blasted dream again. Ever since Harry had asked that question, this vision haunted him. It hadn't ever happen, it was no memory, but that didn't make it any less scary. He wiped his face and was able to feel how clammy his skin was. His breathing returned to normal and he sighed, rubbing at his eyes. Damn it. Damn it all to sodding hell.

Something made him gasp again, he heard a breath being released, and for a fleeting moment he thought the Death Eaters from his dream had found out about Harry and were now in his room, trying to recruit and torture him earlier than planned.

"D-Draco? You… you okay?"

"Harry!" Draco exclaimed, a pale and still shaking hand making way towards his heart, trying, physically, to stop it from beating so wildly. "Wha- What are you doing in here? It's early." Or late. Draco couldn't tell.

"I- I know. I just, I wanted to ask you something, but I, uhm, are you alright?"

"Just a bad dream. Nothing I won't forget about later."

He squinted his eyes and was able to see a silhouette in the dark, nodding his head. Draco stared for a long time, his mind still on the dream, when Harry spoke again.

"I-I guess I'll go then."

But Draco was desperate not to be alone, afraid that sleep would take him away and make him relive that horrible imaginary scene again. "Wait," he almost cried out, but quickly tried to recover. He wished his voice would be smooth and cool, as it usually was. "What… what did you want to ask me?"

He saw the silhouette flick a wand, and then shock greeted the Slytherin. There stood Harry, taller than he had been the night before, his legs longer than they'd ever been as a child – and the same could be said about his hair. The lanterns were on, but… when had Harry learned magic? The newly dubbed teenager was blushing and fumbling with his sleeve, and Draco repeated the question. "What did you want to ask me?"

Harry bit his lip, his face turning from pink to red gradually. "I, uhm, nevermind. You… you just had a nightmare. Doesn't matter."

"Harry, you've already woken me. Just tell me."

"I would've asked Hermione, but, she's practically my mum, you know. And… And she might have looked at me weird, you know? Might have scolded me, might have been disappointed. I just… Uhm, I didn't mean to. I know I deserve to be scolded, but it's a one time thing! I mean, I didn't want to! S'not like I planned it or anything! I just woke up, and … and I swear I didn't feel it during the night!" Harry was arguing desperately, but with the floor. He still hadn't made eye contact with Draco.

"What are you talking about?"

"I didn't mean to, okay? I just… I woke up and… I mean, I can't ever remember doing it before! I just… Uh…"

"What?" Draco asked, on the verge of panicking now. What could be so bad that Harry would be so red and unable to look at him? Perhaps it was the dream, but the Slytherin's mind was already reeling with terrible things that Harry might have done accidentally in his sleep.

"I… I wet the bed," Harry whispered, his eyes still nowhere near Draco.

And now Draco realised just how Harry was dressed; it couldn't be past four thirty in the morning, and he was already fully robed, not in his pyjamas. His clothes were bigger, and he figured Harry had gotten them during that 'four years of growing' thing. Thirteen years old and wetting the bed. The blond wasn't sure what he was supposed to say to that. Harry waited in silence a bit longer, and then spoke again.

"I really didn't mean to. I woke up and I was all sticky. Could you… could you clean it for me? Just wave your wand? Please? Before… before Hermione sees? I promise it won't happen ever again! I swear it! I'd clean it manually, but I don't want to use the rags from the bathroom – "

"Wait," Draco said, hoping he hadn't heard right. "Sticky?"

"Yeah. It was really uncomfortable. It was all over my sheets and clothes and I'm really sorry!"

Oh Merlin. No. He wasn't this boy's parent! He really shouldn't have to go through with this.

"Was it… a lot?"

"I… don't know. I didn't really look. I bathed and got dressed, but it's still on my bed I think, and I think it'd just be better if you cleaned it with your wand."

"And… it was sticky?"

Harry nodded, peeking through his lashes to look at Draco. Draco could feel his own face heating with what he was about to say. Damnit! He wished the Weasel hadn't still been angry. Then maybe he would have been able to tell Harry this…

"Did you have a… strange dream? Before you woke up?"

Harry's eyes widened and his already red face changed into an impossible shade of rouge. "I… I didn't mean to! I can't… I mean, I wouldn't normally think stuff like that! Honest! I don't… I mean, I couldn't… It was just… just a dream!" He was struggling with what to say, and Draco sighed, knowing full well what he meant, even with all the stuttering and mumbles.

"Harry, shut up. Listen to me. It's perfectly normal for you to have… dreams like that at your age. Hell, I started getting them at ten. And you didn't wet the bed. I mean, not with urine…"

Harry looked confused, but no less embarrassed. "I don't… uhm… get what you mean, exactly."

"Well, you, er, uhm, didn't pee in your bed."

"Then, uhh…"

Oh no. Explaining this was bad enough, but the fact that Harry was so… confused made it so much harder to cope with. Hadn't anyone ever given him The Talk? This would have been much easier for Draco if Harry knew something about, well, sexual things.

"Okay, we'll start from the beginning." The faster this was over, the faster he could forget any of it had ever taken place. Draco began fiddling with the underside of the sheets, feeling very uncomfortable with this, but decided the more teacher-like he acted, the less prone Harry would be to question him. The dream was already begin to slip away from his mind…

"Do you know where babies come from, Harry?"

Harry's head lifted slowly, obviously puzzled by the change of subject. Draco regarded him for a few moments, during which time Harry's blush seemed to fade, just a little, as his mind struggled with an answer. Oh come on. Surely someone had clued him in on that.

"Well? Do you?"

Maybe his tone could have been a bit gentler, but this was hard enough as it was! Harry looked offended, crossed his arms and scowled. That scowl was proof that he had spent time with Slytherins. Gryffindors just didn't scowl that way. " 'Course I know where babies come from! I'm not stupid, Draco!"

"Where do they come from, then?" Draco asked.

"Uhm…" Harry had to stop chewing on his lip; it would become chapped! Didn't he know that? Actually, Draco was going to have to think twice about everything Harry knew. He couldn't know that much if, at thirteen, he didn't know where babies came from… "I do know, Draco. I mean, who doesn't know," the younger teen scoffed, before looking at Draco with an unsure smile. "Could you… could you refresh my memory, though?"

"This is going to take a while," Draco mumbled to himself, before patting the bed beside him. "C'mon, Harry. Sit here. Get comfortable. I have much to tell you."

"Draco? I still don't see how babies have anything to do with me wetting the bed."

"Well, I'm teaching you a lot at once, okay? So, just, don't question me!"

"Why?"

"Because I want to get through this as quickly as possible."

"Why?"

"Because it's embarrassing."

"Why?"

"Because talking about babies and your stupid dreams isn't really something I like doing!"

"Why?"

"Because it's disturbing, that's why!"

"Why?"

"I just told you why!"

"No you didn't."

"Yes I did."

"No you didn't."

"Yes I did."

"No. You didn't."

"Yes I did."

"No, you – "

"You came out of a vagina!"

There. Served him right for trying to be a funny little prat. Childish on his part? Maybe. But Harry started it.

Harry looked momentarily stunned before it sank in; he shrank away, grimacing. "Ugh, what?" He began making gagging noises, his nose wrinkled. Draco smiled at the look of pure disgust on the younger male's face. "That's… ugh. Is that sanitary? I can't fit in a… in a … girl part! You liar! Ew. Don't even joke about that, Draco!"

"I'm not joking," he said in the most haughty tone he could muster. "You do come from there."

"But that's nasty!" Harry cried, a few octaves higher than Draco was used to hearing him. Wow. He hadn't realised until now that Harry's voice had changed from yesterday.

"Yep. But true."

"And all babies come from there?"

"Yep."

"Ew." The teenager began gagging again, and Draco sighed.

"Can I continue?"

"Didn't even know you had started."

Yes, Harry had definitely spent time with Slytherins. Besides his looks, he wasn't at all how he remembered Harry in his third year; maybe that was just because he hadn't really known him then. Or ever. Save for glaring and an exchange of insults, all Draco knew about Harry Potter was what everyone else knew. That was enough, wasn't it? Knowing someone's entire history? Didn't that count as knowing someone?

"Anyway," he murmured, brushing off his thoughts, "Here's how it works."

So, a half hour of complete silence on Harry's part, of Draco's words, of Harry's faces, of Draco's rather crude hand-gestures, had one result: a very disturbed and frightened Boy Who Lived.

Looking rather pale, Harry opened his mouth and closed it over and over again, looking like a gaping fish. Draco nodded in satisfaction, glad his job was done. He got up from his bed and marched towards the bathroom.

"Draco… what does that have to do with the fact that I've wet the bed?"

Leave it to Potter to try and ruin his satisfaction. He turned around, about to point out that this had been a tiring experience, and that maybe he should just go ask someone else – he was going to use the word 'ungrateful' in there somewhere, but he wasn't sure where – when a flustered looking Pansy Parkinson crashed through his door.

"Draco! Draco! I came over, Harry's growing, wanted to see, and the owl followed me!" She took a deep breath, closing her wide eyes momentarily. "Draco, you better hurry down. It's a Howler."

It didn't take half a second for Draco to hop down the stairs, his hands flying for the red scroll. He needed to open it, and quick; it was already smoking at the corners. If it exploded without his opening, the whole school, not to mention Hogsmeade, was bound to hear it. So, his fingers strangely deft at a time of panic, ripped open the waxed Malfoy crest. No sooner did a loud voice he recognised fill the room at a decibel his ears could only barely handle.

"Draco," the voice boomed, and he covered his ears, though that didn't stop him from hearing everything. "What is the meaning of your silence? Your mother and I will not stand for such insolence! We raised you better than that, did we not? Greatly disappointed in you, the both of us. How dare you not want to share your information with us? Be prepared to come home in two weeks time for the holidays. Then you'll see just how important this mission is to us. We will not fail again! Not again! If we have found out that you have shamed the Malfoy name we won't be the worst of your troubles, young man. We don't need a reply to this – we don't need any further explanation. Your refusal to write back tells us everything."

The red parchment became silent and floated onto the table, looking innocent, though Draco was sure the ringing in his ears would never fade.

"What… was that? That paper sounds angry with you, Draco."

What a nice way to put it, Draco thought bitterly.

"Is it because you wasted so many of his brothers and sisters? Is he mad at everyone? I knew even the paper here was magical! Didn't I, Hermione? I told you, I remember. I said 'we shouldn't waste so many papers for nothing'. Nothing in this world is inanimate, I knew it! Well, Draco, I'm sure if you plant a few trees, it'll be happy. Dunno why he was mad that you were quiet with it though. Are we supposed to talk to paper? Do you have a history with that particular sheet of parchment?"

"Harry, hush." Oh great, the Mudblood was there. He wasn't entirely surprised, seeing as the Howler had been quite loud, but he really wished she hadn't heard. He wished it had never happened. He wished he had remembered to write back! "Mal – Draco? Will you be alright?"

"I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite."

"Do you want some tea?"

"Harry has something in his bed he'd like to show you."

Harry's eyes widened and he looked first at Hermione, then at Draco, a glare and betrayal in his eyes.

"That was mean."

"Hey, now she can explain to you the rest of the story."

Harry looked more disgusted than he had during the whole morning, but Draco didn't care. Now that he had gotten those two out of his hair, he wondered what he was going to do. Not go back to Malfoy Manor, that much was certain.

Snape. He needed to talk with Snape. Snape, who had helped him plan everything. Draco had ruined that… Why? Stupid Harry Potter! Ugh, not again, not again. It wasn't his fault, it wasn't; it wasn't anyone's fault. Except Potter's. No, no it wasn't his fault either. Wasn't Pansy's fault, wasn't Harry's fault, wasn't Weasley's fault, wasn't Snape's fault, wasn't his own fault…

He began shaking his head, gripping his hair tightly, painfully. He couldn't go back now. He'd stay here, stay at Hogwarts, forever if he had to. Yes, that was it. It was his last year, wasn't it? He'd beg to become a teacher – Defence Against the Dark Arts, at first. They were always in need of a new DADA teacher – and spend the summer here, sorting out his teaching plan for every year he would teach. A small, rather insane, laughter began bubbling inside him. That wouldn't work! Draco didn't know the first thing about teaching.

He felt trapped, like a caged animal, in his own life. Things were going terribly wrong. He wished someone would obliviate him, make everything go away.

"Draco, love? Are you alright?" Draco turned to Pansy, having forgotten she was there, and smiled at her.

"Yes."

His fingers let go of his blond locks and his arms fell limply at his side.

"You can spend the holidays with us, if you'd like. Mother wouldn't mind."

"It's fine."

"Draco…"

"It's fine. Promise." And his smile got larger, but Pansy was less convinced.

"You look like you're holding a lot in, Draco. You shouldn't – "

"I'm not holding anything in. Father wants me to go back." The truth of it began spilling into his brain and out of his mouth. "I have to go," he murmured, but he didn't feel like he was talking. He felt like someone else was speaking for him, using his lips as a mean to get his point across. "I can't hide from him forever. If I don't go home for the holidays, he'll get me during the summer, and whatever the punishment, it'll be ten times worse."

"But if you came to our house – "

"Don't you see, Pansy?" he asked, his eyes unnaturally watery as another spurt of laughter bubbled out of him. "I'm fucked."

"You're not – "

"So… so I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm going to go home for the holidays. I'm going to reason with them, feed them a fake plan – "

"That's a terribly stupid id– "

"And then I'll come back, see? And I'll figure something out to do before school's over. Maybe I could move in with Snape. He likes me, doesn't he?"

"And the Easter holidays?" she asked, looking rather angry. Draco didn't notice. He just continued on.

"Maybe I could just beg the Dark Lord for forgiveness. Maybe he'll understand. Maybe if I devote the rest of my life to serving him, he won't make me hurt anyone."

"Serving him means hurting people."

Draco blinked once, twice, and his eyes came back to focus, focusing on Pansy.

"What're you going to do?"

"What? I just told you – "

"What are you going to do now?"

The innocent looking sheet of red paper burst into flame.

"You're just going to… ignore this?" Pansy asked, incredulously. "You can't just forget about it!"

"I will. At least until Christmas comes around."

"That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard!"

"Forget it. It's the only way I'll be normal."

"You can't act like nothing's wrong, Draco!"

"I said forget it!"

Her eyes bore into him, and Draco looked down, feeling a bit ashamed. But it was all he could do, wasn't it? There wasn't anything else he could do. He'd forget everything, pretend everything was normal.

Harry and Hermione came down the steps, a dark cloud practically visible over the young male's head.

"And then, once all three of the substances are together, it produces what you have there in your bed. Is flows through the Vas Deferens, and out of the swollen member. Do you remember why it's swollen and erect, Harry?"

" 'Cause of the blood that gets absorbed by the cells."

"Correct! Five points to Gryffindor for paying attention."

Harry blushed at Pansy's surprised stare, and then turned to glare at Draco.

"I hope you're happy," he muttered.

The blond looked at his fellow Slytherin, who looked back at him with disappointment in her eyes. He sighed, but then took his own advice, and tried to forget about everything.

"I am," he said, forcing a smirk. "That's what you get for waking me so early in the morning."

The dream and the Howler thrust out of his mind, Draco walked back up the stairs and got ready for the day.