Chapter 12

The following day, it was clear that Hermione wanted to pretend that the fight hadn't happened. He went along with it – they were almost halfway through the school year now and it was easy to just fall into the motions of the day, the routines that they had finally settled into. Even him being tense and irritable had just become part of their new dynamic. He did sleep better and was doing more of his homework by day now, but that hadn't improved much on his mood. This was mainly because he had recently realized, that this was as good as it was going to get. He had returned to Hogwarts with a knot of tense apprehension in his stomach that had never been there before, but he had reminded himself that sooner or later that feeling had to go away: even if the castle reminded him of all the things he had lost and of how out of place he was there now, sooner or later that claustrophobic and oppressive air would subside. It would once again become the place of wonder, freedom and safety that it had been when he was younger, and he would feel at home again. But it was November now, and he still caught himself walking on tiptoes down the stairs. He kept close to the walls; he sat hunched over his food at meals. Things he hadn't done for years. Things he used to do when he lived with the Dursleys.

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The Gryffindor quidditch team had practice that evening, so Ron, Ginny, Harry and Dean all left dinner early. Hermione had finished eating, but she stayed behind, half listening to Neville's rant about the hybrid plants he was developing.

"They'll probably be useless, but I'm just trying to get the technique right. I read some articles on it, and the theory is that we will be able to breed entirely new magical properties into known magical plants, which could potentially open up for all these new fields of healing…"

Usually she would pay full attention to Neville when he talked about this – it was nice to see how much more confident he had become in his magical abilities and he actually knew quite a lot of interesting things about Herbology – but today she was watching the Slytherins. When Draco Malfoy stood up and left the Great Hall, she watched him until he had passed through the doors, before excusing herself to the other Gryffindors and following him.

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He had gotten a head start, but he was with Pansy Parkinson and they were walking slowly. He was laughing at something Parkinson had said and didn't seem to have noticed her at all.

"Malfoy!" she called when she had almost caught up with them.

He stopped and turned around.

"Granger?"

"What do you want?" said Parkinson coldly.

"I need to talk to you."

She ignored the Slytherin girl and was looking only at Malfoy. Her heart was pounding, but she thought she had managed to sound calm. He regarded her with a cold, unreadable expression and she wondered why it had once been so hard for her to believe that he was a Death Eater.

"Sure," he said, and he sounded bored.

"What's this about, Draco? Do you want me to come?"

"No, it's okay."

Malfoy's gaze didn't leave Hermione. Next to him, Pansy rolled her eyes.

"Fine," she said. "I'll see you downstairs then."

He nodded. She glared at Hermione before heading down the steps to the dungeon. They waited until she was gone and then Hermione pointed to an empty-looking classroom.

"We can go in here."

She pushed the door open and Draco followed her inside.

"What do you want?" he said as soon as the door had closed behind him.

Hermione turned to him with a hard look.

"Stay away from Harry."

Draco raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Did he ask you to tell me that?" he asked, still in that calm, controlled voice.

"Of course not. Harry never realizes it when he's being an idiot."

"Then I don't see what your problem is."

"Just stay away, it's not that hard. Nobody wants you near him.

"If it bothers you that he talks to me then tell him – he's the one you're friends with."

"That's not the point. I don't know what you're up to or what you've told him to make him act like this, but if I see you near him, believe me I won't hesitate to curse you."

Malfoy's lips curled into the tiniest smile.

"He probably won't like it if you do that," he said silkily and reached for the door.

"Stay away from my friends!"

He left and slammed the door behind him.

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Pansy was waiting for him in his dorm when he came back. She was lying on his bed with one of her magazines, and looked up when he came in.

"What did Granger want?"

"She wanted me to stay away from Potter," he said, sitting down across from her by the footboard of the bed.

She laughed.

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Why do you sound all grumpy about it? Is she messing with your advanced master plan?"

He frowned.

"No, I doubt she would talk to me if she had already convinced Potter to stay away."

"Well, no worries, then. It looks like there is absolutely nothing in the way of you becoming Potter's new best friend and being forgiven by the wizardring world, showing me and Blaise and all the others exactly how wrong we were to count you out."

"I never said that was what I was doing."

"It's not like it's a complicated idea, Draco."

"It's not a bad plan."

"It is. I can't believe it's actually working out for you. I honestly never thought Potter was that stupid."

"He's not stupid."

"Yeah he is, otherwise he would have figured out why you're trying to be friends with him."

"He has figured it out."

She looked surprised.

"Really? And he's still going along with it?"

"Apparently. Are you mad at me or something?"

"No, why would I be?"

"I don't know, but you're being all snarky and condescending, and you usually reserve that for people who aren't me."

"Sorry," she said without much conviction. "I'm not mad at you, I'm just waiting for you to get over your stupid guilt trip. I mean, we both know the Potter-thing isn't really the political plot you're pretending it is. If it were, it would have been better planned, better executed and more likely to succeed, because usually you're good at this sort of thing."

"It's not a guilt trip."

"It is! I know you're still agonizing over last year and it isn't enough for you to just lay low until it has blown over. No, you think you need some sort of redemption and that being friends with Potter will make you feel better.

"Maybe it does."

"It shouldn't. You don't need to be his pity-case. We don't need them."

"Don't you feel bad about any of it?"

"No," she said. "It was war. We just did what we had to to survive, exactly like everyone else. That's what you said, remember? We were just surviving, there is nothing for us to be ashamed of."

"I did worse things than you."

"Like what? Taking the mark? You had no choice about that."

He didn't answer her.

"Do you hear me? It's not worth it," she said.

"It's not that bad."

She gave him a long, reproachful look.

"Maybe not for you, but I have to watch, and I hate seeing you sucking up to him. He's not going to forgive you and you don't need him to."

He looked away. She sighed deeply and picked up her magazine again.

"I really hope your brooding silence doesn't mean you're making a quiet resolution to prove me wrong."

"It does not."

"Good," she said.

They sat in silence for a while. She read and he was looking out the window. He usually cared quite a lot about what she thought, but for some reason her aversion to his alliance with Potter didn't bother him. Of course it had been his plan from the beginning to make friends with Potter only as a way of repairing his image, and that was still all there was to it. And even if it did feel a bit like a private redemption, that was just a convenient side effect. Pansy looked up again.

"Is he still dating the Weasley bitch?" she asked.

"No, they broke up."

"How do you know that?"

"I pay attention."

She sighed.

"Right. Of course you do."

She swung her legs over the edge of his bed.

"Well, I'm going to find Tracey. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but I absolutely agree with Granger. You should leave Potter alone."

"Bye, Pansy," he said.

She scoffed at him and left. The door had hardly closed behind her before it was pushed open from the other side and Nott came in. He looked back over his shoulder, then at Draco.

"Well, it's a surprise seeing you here."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Nott shrugged.

"Pansy passed me on the stairs and seemed to be in a perfectly good mood – and lately her temperament after spending time with you has been closer to murderous annoyance. Considering how much you aggravate her, I'm surprised she still spends time with you," he said.

"She loves worrying about me."

"You probably shouldn't stretch her patience too far."

"Are you worried she'll take it out on you?"

"Something like that. By the way, your owl came after you left. She let me have the letter when I said I would bring it up here."

He withdrew a letter from the pocket of his robes and handed it to Draco. Draco took it hesitantly. It had the family crest pressed into the wax seal, so it had to be from his mother, but she must have considered it urgent if she hadn't just waited for the morning owl post. He broke the seal and pulled out the letter. It was very short. Nott was still lingering around the room, flipping through the library books on his bedside table, when Draco had read through it twice. He read it again. A grey feeling was spreading its tendrils in his chest.

"Nott?" he asked, without looking up from the letter in his hands. "Do you remember the name of that 6th year who says he can smuggle anything in?"

"Cameron Boyle, I think."

Draco stood up. Nott's eyes followed the letter as Draco slipped it into his pocket.

"Bad news?" he asked.

"Sort of. Have you heard anything about your father recently?"

"Last I heard was a rumour that they found him dead in Portugal."

"Sorry to hear it."

Nott shrugged. He walked with Draco to the door and down the stairs.

"He might have faked it," he said. "But I won't see him again no matter if he's alive or dead, so it doesn't matter that much to me."

Draco slipped his hand into his pocket, feeling the edge of the envelope.

"That's a good approach. How fast is Boyle with getting things?"

"Depends what you're asking for. He's halfblood, so I've heard he gets things for the muggleborn too and that is supposed to take a while. But if you're not asking for anything too obscure or too illegal, I think about a day or two. Oh, and he can get alcohol pretty much immediately. I'm not sure if he has a stash somewhere or a deal with the house elves, but that should be easy."

Draco noticed but couldn't bring himself to care about the amused tone in Nott's voice.

"Perfect," he said.

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Several floors above the Slytherin dungeons in another part of the castle, Harry and Ron were walking together back up to the common room after practice. Harry was exhausted and quiet, but in a good way. He didn't need to go flying over the forest that night, and he realized how long it had been since he last spent time with Ron without having to fight back annoyance and snappish reactions.

"What's going on with you and Hermione?" asked Ron.

"Did she tell you something?"

"No, but she seems kind of mad at you."

"I suppose she does. We had sort of a… fight yesterday."

Ron nodded.

"She has been kind of off lately."

"No, I think it was mostly my fault."

"Really? What did you fight about?"

"Nothing, really. Just how we should handle being back."

"Did you bring up the duelling club again?"

"No. It wasn't really anything," he lied, "Honestly I'd rather not go over it again."

Ron shrugged.

"Okay, well, whatever happened, I reckon you should apologize to her. She gets much better when you talk to her about things than if she's just left alone. Then she might just explode in your face out of nowhere a week later."

"I know."

"Yeah, I know you do, but you two never fight."

"I'll talk to her."

"Clavis aurea," said Ron to the portrait of the Fat Lady.

It swung open and they climbed through the portrait hole.

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Hermione was sitting in a corner of the common room with a couple of other Gryffindors. Seamus looked up when Ron and Harry came over.

"Is Dean with you?" he asked.

"No, but I think him and Ginny will be up in a second, they were right behind us."

Ron sat down in one of the empty chairs. Harry turned to Hermione.

"Hermione, can I talk to you for a second?" he asked quietly.

"About what?"

"Last night…"

"Oh. We don't have to, it's fine."

"I want to."

She cast a look around their circle of friends who were happily discussing the upcoming match against Slytherin or, in the case of Parvati, happily playing up how exceptionally bored she was with the subject.

"Maybe we should go somewhere else?" she suggested.

He nodded, she stood up and they left the commonroom, promising to be back in a second. Harry walked down the corridor outside the portrait and she followed.

"What did you want to say?" she asked, when he had been quiet for too long.

"Just… sorry about last night, I guess."

"You didn't do anything wrong last night."

"Sorry about the Malfoy thing."

She sighed.

"I don't want you to apologize for it. It's your own business."

"If you think it's better that I don't talk to him-"

"I do. But this isn't me having an issue, so don't make it out like that by apologizing to me. I was worried about you and I wanted to tell you that, and that's it. You should just do whatever you think is best."

She spoke in the calm, rehearsed tone of voice she used in class, and he felt pretty sure she had practised this conversation in her head.

"I don't want to be policing who you spend your time with," she continued. "I just want you to know that your actions have consequences."

He could hear her thinking she was being sensible, hear her deciding in her head that she wasn't lecturing him. And he thought he had been rehearsing sentences in his head too, but they were all gone. He tried to push the irritation back into a corner of his mind, reminded himself that he wanted them to make up.

"Good," he said. "That's fine."

"So I'm not mad at you."

He nodded.

"Do you want to go back to the others?"

"Yeah. But I'm glad we talked."

They turned around and walked back down the corridor the same way they had come.

"Would you mind not telling Ron about it?" he asked.

She sighed.

"I'm not the only one who's going to notice if you keep meeting with him."

"But Ron hasn't noticed yet. And I promise it will stop soon."

She hesitated.

"I don't like it when we keep secrets from each other."
"It's not a secret it's just-"

He was interrupted by a sharp sound of something hitting the glass of the window they had just passed. Both he and Hermione started, in a second they had their wands out. She approached the window carefully.

"Oh," she said. "It's and owl."

She looked quickly back at him, and put her wand away with an embarrassed smile. The owl knocked its beak against the window again and Hermione loosened the latches to let it in. As soon as the window was open, the owl flew inside and Harry stretched out his arm for it to land on.

"Were you expecting a letter from someone?"

"No," he said, trying to loosen the string around the bird's foot with only one hand.

It wasn't a real letter, just a rolled up piece of parchment. When he got it loose, the owl took off out the window and Hermione closed it behind it as he unrolled the note.

I'm getting pissed in the Astronomy Tower. You're welcome to join me if the Gryffindors are boring you. – DM

He didn't recognize the neat handwriting and it seemed such an odd message to receive from anyone at Hogwarts, let alone Draco Malfoy, that it actually took him a few seconds to figure out whose initials they were.

"Who is it from?" asked Hermione.

"Malfoy."

"Oh. What does he want?"

Harry crumpled up the note and put it in his pocket.

"To talk to me. I might go see him later."

"Okay. But you're still going back to the common room now?"

"Sure."

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They re-joined the others, who didn't ask where they had been, so maybe Ron had told them they needed to sort something out. Parvati, Dean and Seamus had gone up to the dormitories, but Ginny had joined the group. Hermione sat down with Ron in his chair. Neville was resting his head on his hand and looked like he was about to fall asleep. Ginny poked hard at him when his eyes fell shut.

"If you're so tired then go to sleep, Longbottom."

"I will," he said and looked towards the stairs. "I just thought I'd wait a bit."

"What, because of Dean and Seamus? Don't you have silencing charms on the beds?"

The others laughed.

"They aren't noisy sleepers," said Harry.

That made them all laugh harder, and Harry wasn't sure he was getting the joke.

"Right," said Ginny. "Because that's what Neville's worried about – that they're sleeping."

Ron disentangled himself from Hermione.

"I'll go up there with you, Neville."

"Maybe we should give them some space?"

"The dorms are for sleeping, they can find space elsewhere. And I'm tired."

He bent down to kiss Hermione's forehead.

"Goodnight," she said.

Hermione turned to the other two.

"I think I'll go up too. Do you want to come, Ginny?"

"I'll stay a bit longer."

Hermione nodded.

"Okay, goodnight," she said, with a quick smile to both of them.

When she had disappeared up the stairs, Ginny turned to Harry.

"So, are you two okay?"

"Yeah," he said. "Yes, definitely. We got it sorted out."

"That's good. She's been a bit bossy recently. And really particular about some things."

"She's always been like that."

"Yeah? I feel like it's been more than usual."

"She's really… the war was hard on her, apparently."

"Not just on her."

"I'm fine," he snapped.

Ginny rolled her eyes.

"I know, Harry. Shit, I'm not trying to make you talk about any of it."

He pushed his glasses up and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Sorry. Hermione wants me to talk; you know how she gets that look in her eyes? And she wants a therapist available at Hogwarts."

"Yeah, well try to be nice to her about it. We're all trying to deal with things our own way. She's just worried about you because she spent all of last year trying to keep you alive. And then you died anyway."

"I didn't die."

"For a little while you did."

Ginny rested her head in her hand as her eyes surveyed the room. She watched the remaining Gryffindors still hanging around, most of them either studying or heading to their dorms.

"Do you sometimes feel like he's still inside your head?" he asked.

She looked at him.

"Do you?"

He shrugged.

"I don't know. I can't speak parseltongue anymore, but sometimes I dream that I can, and I don't know that it's not real until I wake up."

She nodded.

"I have it too. But it's more Tom than Voldemort. He's been there since first year."

"I didn't really feel the connection until 4th."

"Yeah? He never really left my head after he got in the first time. I did really terrible in all of my classes second year – I couldn't take notes or write papers or anything, because whenever I tried to write something I would get all panicky, like I couldn't breathe. It hardly ever happens anymore, but sometimes I think I might be loosing track of time again, and that scares me. It happened a lot last year."

"And then sometimes you can almost hear him in your head, like his thoughts have been mixed in with your own."

She nodded.

"That too."

"I mean, the scar never hurts anymore, but sometimes I worry that the things I feel aren't my own feelings, when they don't really match what's going on. Because I used to be able to feel how he felt"

"Yeah. But it's not real. We're just remembering what it felt like."

"It still sucks."

She grinned and so did he, because it was nice talking to her, and because it felt safe to know that someone else understood that feeling. It could make the heavy words feel lighter. It was nice to know they still needed each other, even if right now it was only to reassure each other that Voldemort wasn't living in either of them anymore.

"I can't believe we have to have him crawling around our heads after he's dead," she said.

"Definitely not fair," said Harry.

"Not at all."

She yawned.

"Sorry, I'm really tired. I think I'll go upstairs and try to get some sleep. But if I get Voldemort-dreams tonight I'm blaming you."

She stood up.

"Don't you think you should get some sleep too?"

"Yeah, I'll go up in a second."

She nodded.

"Fine. By the way, mom asked me to tell you you're spending Christmas with us, and I think she's knitting you another sweater, so you better be there."

"Oh, great. Of course I will."

Her smile was a bit strained..

"I'm not really looking forward to it," she said.

"It'll be fine. And if it isn't then it will be better next year. That's one of the things that will have to get easier the more we do it, right?"

"I hope so. Goodnight Harry. This was nice."

"Yeah, goodnight."

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He listened to the sound of her footsteps as they receded up the stairs to the girl's dormitories. Then he stuck his hand into his pocket and pulled out the note. The Astronomy Tower was pretty far away from Gryffindor tower, and he couldn't even go get his invisibility cloak from his dormitory without risking that one of the other's would ask him where he was going. He looked at the two staircases, the one leading to the girl's dormitories, where Ginny and Hermione had just vanished, and the other that led to the boy's dormitories where Neville, Dean, Ron and Seamus were probably asleep by now.

"I must be going mad," he mumbled, as he got up and left the common room through the portrait hole.