Harry was sick with worry. Father had to play host for a bunch of madmen (the Daily Prophet had their madness on the front page on a daily basis at that point) and Mother was like a servant in her own house. Part of Harry was proud that Mother had never taken the mark, unlike her sister.

After his punishment had been lifted, Harry had more time for homework, Draco and the Gryffindors, who were trying to make him part of their group once Harry had stopped treating them like the riffraff he thought they were. Harry stayed friendly, as it was the Slytherin thing to do, without getting too friendly.

In February, Professor McGonagall approached the boy with an outrageous request.

"Potter," she said and placed a small plate of biscuits in front of the boy she had summoned to her office. "you may, or you may not, have heard rumours that Anthony Noble will move to his uncle´s in Sweden after his parents were killed last week."

Harry nodded. It was the sole topic in Gryffindor.

"Anthony has been playing seeker for Gryffindor for the last two years. So his change of residence leaves us with a problem."

Harry´s eyes went as big as saucers. The witch couldn´t be suggesting what he thought she was. He was a Slytherin! McGonagall saw that differently though.

"You have a broom and Madame Hooch tells me that you are an exceptional flyer. Oliver Wood, the captain, will test your abilities after your last class today. But seeing that we don´t really have an alternative, you may consider yourself Gryffindor´s new seeker."

"But I´m a Slytherin! I won´t play against my own house!"

"You are a Gryffindor, Mr. Potter."

"I´m not! I´m a Slytherin who was moved to Gryffindor by the headmaster. The Hat put me in Slytherin!"

"Be that as it may, you will play for your new house."

"Who says I will do my best?"

McGonagall laughed. "Harry, you may be a lot, but you´re not a fool. Just think about your fellow Gryffindors´ reaction if they thought you hadn´t done your best." The witch had a point. Life would be hell at Gryffindor.

Harry met Oliver Wood in the Entrance Hall after his last lesson. The other boy had brought both their broomsticks and they walked down to the pitch together. Wood seemed not very comfortable with his head of house´s decision, but as there was nobody else, he had to play along.

They mounted their brooms and Harry enjoyed being back in the air. He hadn´t ridden a broom for nearly a year. He soared up and circled the hoops at both ends of the field in turn. Wood let him enjoy being airborne for a while before he challenged Harry to a race. Harry lay low on the broomstick and overtook Wood within just one lenght of the small stadium.

After the race Wood threw small white balls and Harry had to catch them. It was easy. He and Draco had used training snitches from a young age and snitches were faster and less predictable than the small golfballs.

At the end of the training session Wood was rather impressed. He praised Harry´s abilities and pronounced him officially Gryffindor´s new seeker.

-x-

The second Saturday in March saw a very reluctant Harry walk onto the Quidditch pitch in Gryffindor robes. The boy´s knuckles were white, so hard did he grip his broomstick. Worried, he glanced at the Slytherin stands where he had spent two school years giving the Gryffindors a hard time whenever they played.

They were all there. Draco, Vincent, Gregory, Pansy. All of Harry´s Slytherin friends, and they were wearing Hufflepuff colours to cheer Harry´s opponents on.

Harry felt as if he had been slapped, but then he remembered that there was a considerable number of deatheater children in Slytherin. Draco couldn´t afford cheering for Harry. If he did, he´d put Mother and Father in danger.

Harry squared his shoulders and smiled up at the blond lopsidedly.

"Come on, Harry," Fred Weasley encouraged the boy with a slap on his back. The Weasley twins were playing beaters for Gryffindor and Harry had to admit that they were the best pair of beaters at Hogwarts. With a small sigh the boy mounted his broom. He was trapped. He had to do his best or the Gryffindors were going to give him a hard time, but he didn´t want to work against his own house either. So the best was, he decided, to catch the snitch before Gryffindor was able to score too many points.

As soon as Madam Hooch had blown her whistle, Harry went looking for the snitch.

All the practice with Draco paid off. It was the shortest game in Hogwarts´ history. Harry caught the snitch after exactly 74 seconds. (The exact time was determined by using Dumbledore´s pensieve and Madam Hooch´s memory later.)

The Gryffindors were undecided whether to praise their successful seeker or to tell him off for not letting the chasers score. At last Oliver Wood declared "it was a victory after all, so don´t pull long faces" and a party at the Common Room was organised. Harry sent Dobby to the kitchens for some sweets, which convinced the last doubtful Gryffindor of his good intentions.

-x-

Shortly before Easter a note on the board in the Common Room caused excitement. So far there hadn´t been any Hogsmeade weekends this year due to Lord Voldemort´s return, but as the dark wizard seemed to concentrate his organisation´s activities on London and against the ministry, the board of governors had deemed a little excursion to buy Easter goodies safe enough.

Harry went to his godfather grudgingly to have his permission form signed. It wasn´t easy to look the man in the eye and ask for his signature, but – surprisingly for Harry – Black signed without much ado. It was Lupin who objected.

"Sirius, are you sure this is a good idea?"asked the Defense teacher. "Harry is more of a target than any other student."

"You won´t get any chocolates if I can´t shop," Harry pointed out cheekily.

"Nonsense," growled Lupin. "You didn´t go shopping for Christmas either and had your presents. Owl order worked well enough."

"But Easter is different," insisted Harry. "You can´t owl order sweets! That´s no fun!"

"He has a point, Moony," grinned Black and handed the permission form back to Harry. "You do promise, though, to be careful, don´t you?"

"I will take Shamira and Dobby," Harry replied soothingly.

Harry went to Hogsmeade with Thomas, Longbottom and Ronald Weasley. Dobby, invisible, trotted after his master, and Shamira was wrapped around the boy´s arm.

The first stop was Honeyduke´s. Harry bought a big bag of chocolate. The sweets weren´t the quality he´d have liked, but Black had provided him with a ridiculously small amount of Galleons. Of course, Harry had his own vault, which was full of gold as Father had never touched the Potter money, but Black as his godfather refused to permit Harry to spend any on sweets. Instead he insisted on giving Harry pocket money, and the sum was outrageous! One would think that Black was poor!

It was easy to get rid of the Gryffindors. Harry pointed out that a new series of cards had been added to the chocolate frogs and the three boys wandered off to the small display of frogs in a corner of the shop to investigate further. Harry quickly paid for his purchases and ducked out of the shop. He strode over to Gladrags, where he met Draco in the jeans departement.

The two boys chose two pairs of trousers each. Draco asked the shop assistant to charge Father with his purchase and Harry did the same for Sirius Black. If Black didn´t want to buy Harry clothes – so far he hadn´t, Harry was still wearing what Mother had bought for him! – he could still take the money out of Harry´s vault. Clothes weren´t sweets and necessary.

After the jeans, Harry and Draco went for lunch at the Three Broomsticks. Draco paid (Father had never been cheap with pocket money) before they went on to buy ink and parchment.

"I´d better go now," sighed Harry, who had enjoyed the day with his brother immensely. "Black said I had to be back before dusk."

"Spoilsport," sighed Draco, "but better not anger him, or he won´t let you come next time."

Harry agreed. He wouldn´t put it past Black to take away the small privilege for nothing.

The boys walked back towards Hogwarts, fooling around with a fanged frisbee Draco had bought at Zonko´s before they met. Their game was interrupted by the sound of apparition.

Three men in black robes, wearing white deatheater masks, stood on the path, their wands out.

"Well done, Malfoy!" laughed one of them. He summoned the boys´ wands before any of them could even reach for it.

"Done?" Draco´s voice was full of panic. "What did I do? Did you have me under Imperius? Harry, I swear I have no idea!"

Harry could tell by the sound of Draco´s voice that whatever was going on, Draco had no part in it. At least no willing one.

"Step aside, Malfoy," said another man. "We wouldn´t want to anger Bella by killing her nephy-pooh."

Draco squared his shoulders and moved further between the men and Harry instead of out of the way. "Aunt Bella would be livid," he sneered.

"But she would be more angry if we didn´t get Potter," laughed the third man. He cast a spell and Draco was thrown to the side, where he collided with the trunk of a tree with a loud thud. The man laughed again and pointed his wand at Harry. "My reward will be beyond my dreams!" the deatheater cried triumphantly.

There was a crackle and Dobby appeared out of thin air. "You will not hurt Harry Potter!" cried the small elf. He raised his hand and sent a wave of magic at the three deatheaters. Two were thrown back and the third lost his wand.

The wandless one, who was still standing, lunged at Harry, but Shamira was on the watch and sank her fangs into the man´s hand. The deatheater howled with pain and stumbled back. Harry used the opportunity to get to Draco. He wrapped his arms around his brother. "Dobby!" he cried, "Can you get us to Hogwarts?"

Instead of an answer, the elf gripped the boys and apparated. They arrived just inside the gates. "Did Dobby hurt Master Harry?" asked the small creature.

"I´m okay, but Draco is not! Help me!" Harry cried urgently. He tried to lift the blond to carry him up to the castle, but the boy was too heavy. Dobby cast a spell and Draco went floating in midair. All Harry had to do was push him in the right direction.

They had covered about half of the distance to the castle, when Black and Lupin came running towards them.

"Harry!" cried Black. "What happened?"

"Deatheaters!" Harry cried back.

"Deatheaters? Where?"

"About ten minutes´ walk from here! Draco tried to protect me! If it hadn´t been for Dobby, they´d have killed me."

"Are you alright."

"Yes, but Draco is hurt!"

Black and Lupin helped Harry with Draco. The men were stronger and quicker. When they reached the main entrance, Lupin picked Draco up like a ragdoll and ran up the stairs. Black was about to follow him, but Harry caught his sleeve.

"Sirius," he said urgently, "they have our wands!"

-x-

"Accio Harry Potter´s wand!" cried Black holding his own wand up into the air. He turned to his godson. "Now we wait. Let´s hope they were still nearby and I was able to surprise them. If not, I don´t see how we would get it back."

"What about Draco´s wand?" Harry asked urgently.

"They will carry it back to their lair and I´m sure Daddy will send it back."

"Can´t you try?" Harry asked in a small voice. He felt bad about Draco being wandless as a reward for trying to help his brother.

"Do you really think I can surprise them twice? I don´t think so. This will work once, if at all," Black smiled weakly. Harry felt warmed by the hint of regret in the man´s voice.

The man and boy stood in awkward silence and waited. Harry was just going to lose hope, when there was a sound like a whirlwind and his wand flew into Black´s hand.

"Let´s go to my office, I´ll show you how to prevent that in the future."

Harry trotted after the older wizard. "Can I go see Draco first?" he asked in a small voice when they went past the hospital wing. Black sighed dramatically, but allowed it. "Follow me up to my office as soon as possible," he ordered.

Madam Pomfrey was bustling about the hospital wing when Harry entered. Professor Lupin stood beside one of the beds. Harry gasped. Draco looked very pale against the white bedsheets.

"Harry!" Lupin motioned the boy to come nearer. "Madam Pomfrey says he will be alright. He´s just knocked out and two of his ribs are broken. She gave him some dreamless sleep potion. It will be easier for him to sleep through the pain of his ribs healing."

"He will be alright?" Harry asked in a small voice.

"Of course he will, Mr. Potter," confirmed the matron as she stepped beside Harry. "Now go and let him sleep. You can come and see him tomorrow after breakfast. He won´t wake before then anyway."

"If he wakes up before I come, can you tell him I´ll come to see him as soon as possible?"

"Gladly, Mr. Potter. He will be pleased to hear that."

Content, Harry left the hospital wing, oblivious of the worried glances the matron and the Defence teacher exchanged behind his back.

"That was quick," Black greeted Harry when he knocked on the office door. "Come in. What I want to teach you is a little spell to protect your wand. Try to take mine."

Harry reached out obediently to take Black´s wand from the man´s desk. He yelped when his hand stung as soon as he touched the wand.

"Normally I use a stronger curse to protect it," explained Black. "I replaced it with a simple stinging hex to show you. I will put up the original curse later. So don´t even think about taking my wand in the future."

Harry nodded. This sounded extremely useful, but how was it done? If you wanted to cast a spell on an object, you had to point your wand at it. So, how to spell a wand?

Black showed Harry how to hold his hand above the tip of his wand. "The trick is to reflect your magic from your palm back onto the wand. You utter the curse you want to hit a thief with and reflect it onto the wand. Try it with something harmless first. If you don´t reflect it properly, you will hex yourself."

It took Harry more than ten attempts to do it correctly, but then Black sprouted boils on his wrist when he touched the now protected wand.

"Very good," praised the wizard. "Now you can use something stronger. A boil curse won´t stop a dark wizard. Use something painful. You want them to drop your wand so you can get it back."

By the time he left the office, Harry had managed to protect his wand with a nasty toothache curse.

-x-

Draco looked still pale when Harry came to see him the next morning, but he was awake and spooning porridge into his mouth using his left hand.

"What´s wrong with your right?" asked Harry instead of a greeting as he sat on the edge of the hospital bed.

Draco lowered the spoon and stirred his meal awkwardly.

"Draco?"

The boy muttered something under his breath.

"Sorry, I didn´t get that." Harry was starting to feel dread. What was his brother hiding?

"I said," Draco said in a voice so low Harry could barely hear him, "I can´t move it."

"What?"Harry cried. "Pomfrey said you were going to be okay! They said you had only two broken ribs!"

"I guess they didn´t want to scare you."

"So, what´s wrong with your arm?"

"When I hit the tree, my shoulder was badly injured. The joint is ruined." Draco stared down into his breakfast bowl.

"But they can cure you, can´t they?"

"We´ll do our best, Mr. Potter," said the matron who had joined the two boys. "Mr. Malfoy, eat your breakfast! I didn´t bring that bowl for you to play with."

"Yes, Ma´am," Draco muttered and took another spoonful of porridge.

"How bad is his arm?" Harry insisted.

The matron busied herself with making up Draco´s pillows. "It will take some time and therapy," she explained then. "It´s not an injury you can heal with a simple potion. Mr. Malfoy will need to restore the damaged tissue first and then train the new muscles and tendons. It will take a while."

Harry waited for the nurse to finish and return to her office before he spoke.

"I´m sorry you got hurt because of me, Draco," he said in a small voice.

"It wasn´t you fault, and you´d have done the same for me. We are brothers." Draco looked up from his meal to finally meet Harry´s eyes. "It was that madman´s fault. Nobody else´s."

Harry nodded. "I will do anything in my power to help get rid of him!"

"And I will help you, brother," Draco replied equally solemnly.

Neither boy called it a vow, but they both knew it was as good as one.

-x-

Later that day there was a meeting at the headmaster´s office.

Black, Lupin and Harry were there. Harry and the two teachers had to repeat what had happened. The headmaster and Uncle Severus asked a question here and there.

Dobby and Shamira were praised for saving the boys.

Halfway through the meeting Lucius Malfoy burst into the office. "I demand to know what happened to my son!" he roared. As soon as the door had closed on him, he continued in a hushed voice. "He is livid. Don´t you dare send my boy home anytime soon, Dumbledore!" He handed over a wand, which Harry recognized as Draco´s, to the headmaster. As soon as he had done that, Lucius turned to Harry.

"Are you alright, Harry? Dolohov and Crabbe were knocked out, and Carrow was barely coherent enough to bring them back. What happened?"

Harry threw himself at the man and the blond wizard wrapped his arms around the boy.

Black snarled angrily, but Harry couldn´t care less. Eagerly he breathed in Father´s scent. "I missed you so much," he whispered. Lucius kissed Harry´s hair. "I missed you too, Harry," he whispered back.

Harry held onto Father like a drowning man while he told him what had happened. Father listened silently and held the boy close. When Harry had finished his tale, he had to finally let go. As soon as Harry let go of the blond, he turned on his heel. "You keep my boys safe, Dumbledore!" he hissed angrily before he left the office at top speed.

-x-

Harry left the office shortly after Father. The boy hurried down to the hospital wing to see Draco. There was so much to tell!

Draco looked still pale, but what was new was the air of sadness that surrounded the boy.

"Draco!" cried Harry. "Father was here at Hogwarts!"

"I know," Draco answered in a defeated voice that was so unlike him, "he was here. Oh Harry! He said the Lord is livid because I saved you! I can´t go home! Merlin knows what that madman will do to Mother and Father if he can´t get me!"

Harry hung his head. "You should have let them get me."

"No!" Draco stretched his good arm to pull Harry toward the bed. "No! You are my brother! You are as important as Mother and Father. But I´m sad that our family is destroyed. We both can´t go home. We don´t know how Mother and Father are, and they don´t know about us. It´s not fair!"

"Uncle Severus will tell them," Harry said soothingly.

Draco shook his head. "It´s not the same."

"But better than nothing. And we have each other."

Harry spent most of Sunday at the hospital wing, playing Exploding Snap and wizards´ chess with Draco. The blond didn´t have a single visitor all day. That was strange. Usually when one of the Malfoy boys had been ill, the hospital wing had been buzzing with Slytherins.

Shortly before dinner, Dumbledore joined the boys.

"Mr. Malfoy," he said earnestly, "I´ve made arrangements for your future residence. As you´re still unable to use your arm properly, your things have been moved for you."

"Moved?" Draco echoed.

"Well, since you have joined young Harry on Lord Voldemort´s enemy list, you´re no longer safe in Slytherin. You certainly did register your lack of visitors, didn´t you? Therefore I took the liberty to make some changes in order to ensure your safety. You are from now on a proud Gryffindor, Mr. Malfoy."

"What?" shrieked Draco. "No Malfoy has ever been a Gryffindor! How dare you insult my family in that way!"

"What you did for your brother yesterday was quite heroic, Mr. Malfoy. Worthy of a true Gryffindor. The Sorting Hat saw its mistake as soon as I mentioned the incident. You will have dinner here and after your meal, Harry will show you to your new dormitory."

Harry couldn´t but look at the old wizard in disbelief. Gryffindor had given him a hard time although he had returned Ginevra Weasley to her family and although his biological parents had been members of the house. How were they going to treat Draco, a pureblood from a long line of Slytherins?

Draco seemed to think along the same lines for he paled even further at the headmaster´s words.

When the two boys entered the Common Room two hours later, they were greeted by the whole house. Or rather ignored. Every Gryffindor was assembled in the circular tower room, but they all had their backs turned on their new housemate and nobody spoke.

"You´re being unfair. He didn´t choose to come here," Harry said to the room at large.

Nobody moved or spoke.

"Really..." Harry started again, but Draco touched his arm gently. "Leave it, Harry," the blond said. "So, where is that dorm?"

Harry sighed and showed the blond up to the third year boys´ dormitory.