That evening, Harry was terrible company for Ron and Hermione. His mind kept going over and over and over the kiss he had shared with Draco, but especially over the knowing words that had been spoken. He had never meant to question Draco's motives, but his brain has short-circuited again, leaving his mouth to do all the work. He knew that whenever that happened, it usually ended in disaster. In his opinion, so it had this time, despite the fact that remembering the kiss made his heart flip-flop.

"Harry, are you alright?"

Startled, the black-haired man let his gaze zoom from infinity to the person opposite of him. Hermione looked at him questioningly.

"I'm fine, Herm, thanks," he said, smiling weakly.

"That's right," Ron said, with his usual cluelessness, yet typical lack of sensitivity. "How was your visit to Hogwarts? Did the git agree to let you lecture?"

"Which git," Hermione asked darkly, with an interested look at Harry.

"Malfoy."

"Draco."

"Since when has he become Draco?!"

"Ron, please," Hermione sighed, before turning her attention to Harry completely. "How did it go?"

"Quite well," Harry said, smiling despite of himself. "He agreed, saying it was a splendid idea and that I should have come to see him about that a lot earlier."

"Are you serious?" the brightest-witch-of-her-age asked, looking genuinely happy.

"Deadly serious."

"Well, great," Ron amended, his mouth full. "Finally the guy's showing some brains. You'd be a thousand times better at teaching Defence against the Dark Arts anyway."

"I would not know about that," Harry said, pondering. "Draco did get more practice in that area, more than we ever did, be it unwillingly or not."

Finally, the redhead seemed to catch on that something was slightly amiss.

"What on earth are you talking about? You talk as if Malfoy never meant to do wrong, never meant to harm anyone… He tried to kill us."

"That was Crabbe, not Draco," Hermione protested.

"Ron," Harry said, somewhat annoyed. "I wish you would leave things for what they are. I did too. Finally."

Harry quickly exchanged a glance with Hermione, something that was not lost on Ron, who frowned.

"What are you two hiding?"

"Nothing!" they exclaimed in unison.

"Right," Ron grinned. "Come on, guys."

"At the moment, I think it's better we do not meddle in this, Ron."

"What do you mean 'we'? Clearly you know what's going on," Ron grunted at Hermione, stabbing at his food as if it was still alive.

"She does not know what is going on," Harry said, covering for Hermione. "As usual, she might have a good guess, but she does not know. Not exactly."

He wasn't lying. Hermione had no idea what had happened earlier that day, nor that Harry had managed to rattle the snake's cage.

"Yeah, well," Ron said, his tone overtly dubious. "I hope you know what you're doing."

"I have no soddin' clue," Harry snickered, feeling a bit hysterical now that he said it out loud.

Hermione patted his hand gently, making him think of Minerva in one of her rare affectionate moods. "You'll do fine. I think you rarely had a real clue of what you were doing, while we were at Hogwarts and everything turned out fine."

"You might be right. There was only one moment when I was fully conscious of what I was doing, preparation, execution and goal all considered."

Harry scratched at his hair, remembering the moment when things had become crystal-clear to him; that he had to sacrifice himself, throw himself at Voldemort's mercy to die. One life in exchange for a thousand others.

This situation with Draco could not be worse than that, could it?

Right.

Then why did it feel a thousand times more difficult?

Perhaps because you do not expect to die now, and know you have to live with the consequences?

Right…