Author's Note: *Sheepishly posts chapter after ten months and runs away.*

When Draco's father had come to Hogwarts demanding the removal of both Dumbledore and Hagrid, he hadn't bothered to drop by and say hello to him. As a matter of fact, the only reason he even knew that his father had been at Hogwarts was because of the loathsome names Weasley had been sure to call him as a result. Granted, he couldn't care less what Weasley had to say about him, but it still stung a bit that his father couldn't be bothered to stop and talk to him.

Of course, he would never let Weasley be privy to that fact and simply carried on with his life. He could reflect on his tense relationship with his father when his day-to-day life wasn't so hectic. There hadn't been any more petrification attacks but Draco was still uneasy. He couldn't allow himself to relax, not when Azula wasn't fully herself. She kept mentioning having dreams of a strange young man with dark hair and dark eyes. This man, for whatever reason, always spoke in Parseltongue and though Azula had been able to understand the language what seemed to be an eternity ago, she couldn't decipher what he was saying in her dreams.

It was concerning, to say the least, especially since neither him, Azula, nor Astoria were able to predict when the next time Azula lost control of her body would be. He found out after the fact that Astoria had written a letter to Azula's estranged uncle, Iroh Ryland, hoping that the Firinian elder would be able to offer some assistance. She never told him how she got Azula to agree to that, but he had a feeling that the younger Slytherin had appealed to Azula's rare emotional side. Unfortunately, apart from a brief letter explaining that he would help in the best way he knew how, there was no further correspondence from the disgraced Firinian prince.

"Class is dismissed, Mr. Malfoy. You best hurry on to your next class before you're late." The sound of Professor Lockhart's voice brought him out of his thoughts.

Taking a look around him, Draco realized that he was the only student left in the classroom, barring Azula. He met her gaze and she sniffed, looking away. He supposed that she didn't want him getting sentimental at the fact that she'd waited from him. Choosing not to make a big deal out of it, he gathered his things and followed Azula out of the classroom. The two walked in silence through the crowded corridor for a time before Draco spoke up.

"Any news from your uncle?" Draco asked quietly, mindful of the fact that anyone could overhear their conversation.

Azula scoffed.

"Uncle Fuddy Duddy is useless," she frowned. "I still don't know why Astoria thought he'd be of any help to us. It doesn't matter though. The dreams aren't as…visceral as they were before."

Azula didn't have to say it aloud, but Draco knew she was speaking of the recent lack of petrification. Still, he couldn't help but feel unnerved by the fact that her dreams hadn't ceased. He wasn't naïve enough to believe that the absence of possession meant that things were back to normal. Things were never that easy, especially when dealing with the Dark Arts.

"Don't they still bother you though?" Draco pressed. "You don't know who that man in your dreams is, or what he wants from you. For all you know –"

"Mr. Malfoy." Came the distinct drawl of Severus Snape, cutting him off mid-sentence.

Both Draco and Azula stopped walking at the sound of Snape's voice. Azula's lips formed a thin line but she said nothing. Draco supposed that she still held a bit of a grudge over the time Snape wrote a letter to her father. Snape, however, took no notice of the Firinian girl's attitude, instead turning to address Draco.

"You have a visitor," Snape said curtly, his tone indicating that Draco was to follow him.

Looking to Azula in confusion, Draco shrugged. Surely, his father wouldn't be caught dead visiting Hogwarts so soon after ensuring Dumbledore's removal. While it was in a Malfoy's nature to gloat, Draco couldn't bring himself to believe that his father would make the journey to Hogwarts just to brag to him of his success.

"I'll see you later," Draco said, turning to follow Snape in the direction of the Slytherin Dungeons.

Draco considered himself lucky that contrary to Lockhart's belief, he didn't currently have a class to get to. It was his free period and he could only hope that whoever had decided to request his presence was worth it. There were a million things he could be using his free period to do and walking with Snape was not how he wanted to spend his time, godfather or not.

"After you, Draco," Snape gestured for Draco to enter his office first.

Thinking nothing of it, Draco stepped inside and was promptly surprised at who was waiting for him.

"Hello Dragon," Narcissa Malfoy, his mother, smiled widely.

The tips of Draco's ears reddened in embarrassment as he looked over at Snape, who wore a subtle smirk on his face at his mother's term of endearment.

"Mother!" Draco covered his face. "I told you to stop calling me that!"

"Thank you, Severus," Narcissa, ignoring Draco, said with a look of gratitude.

With a curt nod, Snape left the two of them alone in his office. With it now just being the two of them, Draco was brought back to his initial shock at her presence at Hogwarts. Over the course of the two years since he'd started Hogwarts, Draco couldn't remember a single time his mother had made the journey from Wiltshire to Scotland to visit him. Though she always spoke of how much she missed him, Draco didn't think she'd miss him enough to actually visit.

"What're you doing here, mum?" Draco couldn't help but ask.

Narcissa tutted, arms folded across her chest as she pursed her lips.

"Oh Draco, it's so wonderful to see you too darling," Narcissa said casually. "I simply appreciate how happy you are to see the woman who brought you into this world."

Draco rolled his eyes. His mother could be so dramatic sometimes. He walked over to her and gave her a hug, a small smile coming onto his face as she returned his hug tightly. He hadn't realized just how much he'd missed his mother's comforting presence, especially in light of everything that had been going on at school.

"It's not that I'm not happy you're here," Draco explained as he pulled away from her, "but…why are you here? Is everything alright with Father?"

At the mention of Lucius Malfoy, Narcissa sighed deeply but put on a smile, one that must've been for Draco's benefit more than anything. Still, Draco was no fool so he saw right through it. Once she saw that Draco wasn't falling for her happy act, she sighed again.

"Your father is fine. Reckless as usual, but fine," Narcissa pinched the bridge of her nose as if she'd gotten a sudden migraine. "When were you going to tell me about Azula Ryland being possessed by your father's journal?"

Draco's jaw dropped. How in Merlin's name did she find out about that? He was deliberately vague in his letters to his mother because he didn't want to involve her, didn't want her to worry about him.

"Well?" Narcissa persisted.

"How did you –"

"An old friend of your aunt owled me and had quite a lot to say regarding your friend," Narcissa cut him off, shaking her head. "I can't believe Lucius let that bloody journal –"

As if she suddenly realized who she was talking to, Narcissa stopped talking, massaging her temples. Draco took her momentary silence as an opportunity to ask a question.

"I didn't know you kept in touch with Auntie Bella's friends."

Narcissa seemed taken aback for a moment before she schooled her features into a more neutral expression. He didn't understand why his mother looked so surprised. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary about his question but before he could dwell too much on her reaction, she began speaking once more.

"That's not important right now," Narcissa reached into the pocket of her robes as she spoke, placing the contents of her pocket into Draco's hands.

Upon closer inspection, Draco could see what appeared to be a large tooth wrapped in a lot of tissue. He raised an eyebrow at his mother as he turned the tooth over in his hands. He couldn't see what was so spectacular about it. He opened his mouth to ask his mother why she'd brought him the tooth before it dawned on him.

"A basilisk fang," Draco breathed in awe. The pride in his mother's smile was his confirmation. "How did you –"

"It matters not, my love," Narcissa interrupted, clasping his hands with hers over the basilisk fang. "What matters is that you know what you must do with it. If that journal is serving the purpose that I think it's serving, it needs to be destroyed immediately."

Draco pondered his mother's words. He didn't know what she thought the journal was capable of and yet he got the sense that if he asked her, she wouldn't give him a proper answer. If he knew his mother – and in his not-so-humble opinion, he knew her very well – she would only tell him as much as she felt he needed to know to remain safe.

"What exactly am I supposed to do with this?" Draco asked her. He didn't have it in him to ask her questions that she would probably evade. There was too much on his mind for that. "Stab the journal?"

It was the contemplative look on his mother's face that gave him pause and he knew at that moment that whatever she was about to say, he wasn't going to like it.

Malia di Angelo had always considered herself to be of above-average intelligence. She was certain that she would've been Head Girl had her people skills been more…warm…but her status as a Slytherin prefect hadn't been by chance. Needless to say, when she found out that the Mandrakes were ready to cut, she wasted no time in using her free periods to expedite the process. She supposed that if she didn't dwell on the fact that a mature Mandrake's shrieks could easily kill a full-grown witch or wizard, they were actually kind of cute.

As one of the Mandrakes she was currently working with decided it would be funny to spit up all over her robes, she came to the conclusion that they were decidedly not cute.

She considered herself lucky that she couldn't hear the Mandrake's cries through the earmuffs she secured tightly around her ears. She wasn't a person who appreciated much noise, and the cries would only serve to annoy her. A wry smile came to her face as she remembered the time during her second year at Hogwarts that a young Mandrake had knocked Marcus Flint out for several hours.

Served the idiot right for not taking Professor Sprout's warnings seriously.

Shaking her head to regain focus, she continued her work of chopping up the Mandrakes. It wouldn't do her any good to reminisce on the past when there was work to be done. A tap on her shoulder caused her to stiffen, hand reaching towards her wand as she whirled around to face the person who'd disturbed her.

Blaise's curious face came into her line of sight and Malia had to refrain from sighing. Ever since she'd disclosed her feelings for Emilie to Blaise, her younger cousin had taken to following her around at odd hours, checking to see if she was alright. She supposed that his concern was touching, but she couldn't afford to be distracted right now.

Still, she followed her cousin out of the Herbology greenhouse and when they were a safe distance from the shrieking Mandrakes, Malia removed her earmuffs, watching as Blaise followed suit.

"Is there something you needed, Blaise?" Malia asked, keeping her tone even so as not to concern her cousin.

"Why have you been spending all your time here lately?" Blaise ignored her question with one of his own, staring pointedly at the Mandrake station they'd just occupied.

Malia raised an eyebrow. Her cousin was nothing if not transparent, even if he didn't believe himself to be.

"You and I both know that you're very much aware of why I'm here."

Blaise at least had the decency to look sheepish, and cleared his throat to rid himself of the expression. He straightened up and crossed his arms, levelling her with a gaze that she supposed was meant to coax her into talking. When that didn't work, he sighed dramatically.

"You know I don't care that she's a girl, Mali," he said, "but did you have to pick a mud –"

"Do not call her that!" Malia hadn't registered the fact that her voice was raised until she saw Blaise's eyes widened. She took a deep breath to calm herself. "It's offensive."

It was Blaise's turn to raise his eyebrow.

"I've heard you call Flint worse."

There was a part of Malia that wanted to correct him. There was nothing that she could've called Flint that would be worse than being a blatant blood racist but she had to stop and remember where her cousin was coming from. His mother, Sandria Zabini, had always been prejudiced so it was natural for some of her opinions to rub off on Blaise. It's not as if her own mother, Eliana di Angelo, was any different, but her time at Hogwarts had forced her to see the error of that way of thinking.

Meeting Emilie had forced her to change her opinions.

"Listen, Blaise," Malia started sternly before her voice softened a fraction – she always got the best results with him when she was gentle. "There may come a time when you're forced to realize that at the end of the day, we all have the same red blood coursing through our veins, regardless of whether or not we're pureblood."

Malia paused.

"I only hope you learn that lesson sooner than I did."

With that, Malia turned her back on her cousin, placing the earmuffs over her ears once more before striding to the Mandrake station. She'd be a hypocrite to expect Blaise to automatically look favorably upon those who weren't pureblood. It took her years to think of muggleborns, half-bloods, and muggles as equal to purebloods, but she still couldn't help but want better for Blaise.

Shaking her head, she went back to chopping Mandrakes, working astutely until she was once again interrupted by a tap on her shoulder. A quick glance behind her told her that Blaise had followed her into the Herbology greenhouse. He didn't say anything, just reached for a Mandrake and began cutting them in the way Professor Sprout had recently instructed the second year classes.

Malia only shook her head and smiled, returning to her work.

"No, absolutely not," Draco whispered vehemently, staring at Astoria as if she were crazy. "She'll kill us."

Astoria rolled her eyes and leaned further into the couch cushions behind her, making herself comfortable. The two of them were in the Room of Requirement with Azula while the latter was practicing her firebending. Luckily for them, when Azula was focusing on perfecting a technique, she paid little attention to the conversations around her.

"I don't see what's so bad about it," Astoria shrugged casually, as if she'd just proposed something that wasn't insane.

"You want us to spy on Azula of all people." Draco frowned, his tone a bit too loud.

Azula suddenly stopped her firebending exercises and turned to face the two of them, a questioning look on her face. Her eyes narrowed as she appraised the two of them. Draco gave her his best smile while Astoria waved innocently. She stared at the two of them for a little while longer before returning to her exercises, blue flames quickly filling the air. Draco turned back to Astoria.

"This is a stupid idea," he emphasized.

"It's not stupid, it's brilliant, Draco," Astoria rebutted, a gleam in her eyes. "Think about it. We follow her and this way, we get to see what she's really been doing these nights."

"And possibly get ourselves killed?" Draco scoffed. "I don't think so. If that…thing in the dungeons doesn't kill us, Azula definitely will."

Astoria shook her head, reaching over to flick him in the head. Draco winced, levelling a glare at the younger Slytherin, who didn't so much as flinch.

"We're Slytherins," Astoria said firmly, tone unwavering as she continued, "We look after our own and she's our friend. We owe it to her to at least try something new."

Draco found that he didn't have anything to say to that. He couldn't find fault in her words, no matter how reluctant he was to admit it. There was a part of him – the self-preserving part – that wanted to help Azula from a distance. It wasn't that he didn't want to help her – he just didn't want to put himself in danger to do so. Suddenly very much aware of the basilisk fang in his right pocket, he knew he didn't have much of a choice.

"Besides," Astoria continued, "we're purebloods. This creature in the dungeons mainly goes after muggleborns, right?"

"Azula's brother is a pureblood," Draco pointed out.

"But did you see the look on his face? I mean, the one that's frozen on his face now," Astoria said. "He looked upset and that's probably just because he ran into Azula right before his accident."

Draco rolled his eyes.

"And your point is?"

"His petrification was an accident," Astoria insisted. "Purebloods are otherwise safe from this thing, so there's no real danger."

Draco was sure that the look on his face wasn't convinced, and he really shouldn't have been as surprised as he was when Astoria abruptly stood up, tugging his arm.

"Come on," She demanded, pulling on his arm until he stood up.

He protested weakly as Astoria began dragging him out of the Room of Requirement.

"Where are you going?" Azula's voice echoed from across the room and it was only her voice that managed to get Astoria to stop in her tracks.

Astoria whirled around to face the Firinian girl, shrugging. Draco hadn't realized when Azula had stopped her firebending.

"I'm taking Draco to the Hospital Wing so I can make a point," she answered nonchalantly. "Feel free to join if you want. We won't be long anyhow."

Before Draco could get a word in, he was promptly pulled out of the Room of Requirement and towards the Hospital Wing. Finally wrenching his hand out of the younger girl's grasp – after being forced down a flight of stairs – Draco huffed. Still, he kept following her in the relentless pace she set for them.

"You don't have to bring me to the Hospital Wing just to prove a point, Astoria," Draco said, his tone annoyed. "I know that purebloods are historically less likely to be attacked."

Astoria didn't stop walking, however, nor did she look behind her once as she spoke.

"We may as well visit the Hospital Wing anyways now that we're so close," she said and before Draco could say anything, she continued, "Maybe we'll find some new inspiration there."

To his surprise, Draco found that he agreed with her. Sometimes, the most obvious answer to one's problems lied in plain sight.

What he didn't expect was for the said answer to be in the form of a person.

When he and Astoria entered the Hospital Wing, the first thing he noticed was a man sitting at Zuko Ryland's bedside. The man appeared to be softly humming a tune, his back facing the entrance to the Hospital Wing. With Firinian colored robes and graying hair styled in a traditional male topknot, there was no doubt in Draco's mind who he was staring at. The man suddenly looked up, but didn't seem surprised that he now had company. An inviting smile on his face, he looked at a spot somewhere behind Draco.

"Hello, Princess Azula," Iroh Ryland, former Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, greeted.

Draco startled as Azula stepped past both him and Astoria. He hadn't even realized that she'd left the Room of Requirement with them. She stopped in front of her uncle, arms crossed and gaze cold.

"Uncle Iroh," Azula sneered, looking down at him as if he were a speck of dirt. "Was that Leaves from the Vine you were humming? I should've known that even now, when Zuko can't hear you, you'd still be coddling him."

Draco instantly felt uncomfortable. He felt as if he were intruding on what was supposed to be a familial dispute. Even Astoria didn't have anything to say, which was out of character for her. She looked as if she wanted to disappear.

If Iroh took any offense to Azula's words, he didn't show it. His smile never wavered and it was then that Draco realized he had the same eyes as Azula, Zuko, and Ozai. He supposed that their shade of amber came from the Ryland family.

"I apologize for my tardiness. The tea in the Earth Kingdom is very good, but not so good that I would abandon my only niece and nephew in their time of need," Iroh said, eyes crinkling as he studied his niece for what must've been for the first time in a long time. "It has come to my attention that there is a problem here at Hogwarts."

Azula opened her mouth, probably to say something harsh, but Astoria nudged her in the ribs. While the Firinian girl turned to glare at her, Astoria gave Iroh a bright grin, extending her hand to shake his.

"I'm Astoria Greengrass," She introduced herself. "I'm the one who wrote to you."

"I'm regretting letting you do that," Azula scowled. "My dear uncle is only here because it benefits Zuko. He may be able to trick you into believing he cares about me, but I won't be fooled so easily."

Azula didn't wait for anyone to speak before she turned on her heel and stormed out of the Hospital Wing. The silence that followed was one of the most awkward ones he'd ever experienced, and Draco took it upon himself to break it.

"So you're the no-good Gryffindor uncle Azula rarely talks about," Draco sneered. "Such a shame that her family is tainted by traitors."

Draco ignored the voice in his head that reminded him of Sirius Black's existence.

Iroh scrutinized Draco for a moment, the smile never leaving his face. If anything, his eyes seemed to sparkle in recognition.

"You must be Narcissa's son," Iroh didn't offer anything more than those words as he nodded to himself.

Draco frowned, upset at being out of the loop. Why did Iroh Ryland – known blood traitor – know his mother?

"Your aunt always spoke a great deal about your mother," Iroh mused. "Very witty, but also very stubborn."

"Don't talk about my mother!" Draco felt the sudden need to defend his mother from this vile man. Granted, his cheery disposition made him seem almost pleasant but anyone who preferred Zuko over Azula was automatically reprehensible in his eyes. And to think that the man was a blood traitor on top of that! "Why do you know my Aunt Bellatrix?"

Iroh seemed momentarily surprised by his question, scratching his beard in deep thought.

"I don't believe I've ever had the pleasure of meeting Bellatrix."

At this, Draco was stunned. His father was an only child and his mother only had one sister, who was currently serving a life sentence in Azkaban. If not Bellatrix, who would Iroh be talking about? It's not as if either of his parents had any secret siblings that they'd never bothered to tell him about?

Right?

"Azula's possessed and we need help," Astoria's voice brought Draco out of his thoughts. "She likes to pretend that she has everything under control but she doesn't. Just look at what happened to Zuko, and he's not even a muggleborn." At Iroh's wince, Astoria looked contrite. "Sorry."

Iroh let out a pensive sigh, rubbing a weary hand over his face as he took a brief glance at his nephew. Still frozen, with no signs of improvement, Zuko Ryland did not stare back. Iroh turned to look back at Draco and Astoria.

"Perhaps we should discuss this elsewhere."

Draco didn't know who Iroh had charmed into letting him camp out in the Slytherin Common Room but couldn't find it in himself to care as he, Astoria, and Iroh sat in front of the fireplace, discussing the events of the previous months. The elder wizard had cast privacy charms around the common room that not only prevented wandering Slytherins from overhearing their conversations, but also prevented them from noticing them should they enter the common room.

"It sounds to me like a basilisk has been causing all the trouble around here," Iroh murmured contemplatively. "Tell me more about this journal that my niece has become fond of."

Draco still couldn't say that he liked Iroh, but found that he had no choice but to work with him if he wanted to help Azula.

"The journal belonged to my Aunt Bellatrix during the Wizarding War but then my father got a hold of it when she went to Azkaban," Draco admitted reluctantly. "I don't know much about it, but we tried to get rid of it once we found out it was dangerous."

"Tried?" Iroh picked up on the operative word.

"When we tried to dispose of it, this black smoke came from it and went into Azula," Astoria's hands moved wildly in her haste to explain. "She couldn't breathe and then…it stopped."

Just the memory of that day and everything that followed was enough to make Draco shudder. He felt guilty that he hadn't found a way to get that journal out of her possession once he realized it was his father's. If only he'd know how much danger it would've brought about…

"It's not your fault," Astoria said as she placed a hand on his shoulder. "You couldn't have known."

He sent a weak smile her way but said nothing.

"A black smoke, you say?" Iroh questioned suddenly. "Then it appears as if this journal was a horcrux, which means…"

Iroh trailed off, a troubled look on his face. Astoria leaned closer to him.

"Means what?" she questioned quietly.

"The person who made those horcruxes is far from dead," Iroh finished grimly.

In the ensuing silence, Draco had time to think about what he knew of horcruxes. He knew that they were created as some sort of means to immortality. He wasn't too sure of how it worked, but he knew it required killing someone. Since the journal had originally belonged to the Dark Lord, it made sense to Draco to assume that his soul – or, at least, a part of his soul – remained within it. As long as horcruxes existed, the person who made them couldn't die.

Which meant that the Dark Lord wasn't dead after all.

Draco's mind went back to the exchange Azula and Potter had with Quirrell last year. He had overhead Potter say that the Dark Lord had been on the back of Quirrell's head the entire year but Azula hadn't been convinced. Now that he thought about it, it made more sense that the Dark Lord was still alive somewhere than having been killed by an infant. Had he come to this conclusion at any other time, he would've been ecstatic at the potential return of the Dark Lord. Now, in the face of all the danger, he wasn't so sure.

He was just glad that no one could read his mind at that moment.

"Zula, what're you doing awake?" Astoria's voice echoed suddenly across the common room.

Draco turned his gaze to where Astoria's and Iroh's were. There, a few feet away from the three of them, was Azula, a fact that surprised Draco for one main reason: the blankness of her eyes. Draco could see that Azula's eyes were open, yet vacant. Most disturbingly, they were no longer golden, but an eerie shade of red, similar to how they'd been during Lockhart's Valentine's Day fiasco. It was as if she weren't even aware of the fact that she was awake.

Ignoring Astoria, Azula made her way to the entrance of the common room, knocking Draco to the ground as he tried to intercept her. It was as if she weren't in control of her motions. By the time Astoria had helped Draco to his feet, Azula was gone.

"She's possessed again," Astoria breathed out in horror.

"And we need to go after her," Draco made up his mind and immediately followed Azula out of the common room, not bothering to wait for Astoria and Iroh, who he knew would follow him.

Reaching down to grasp the basilisk fang in his pocket, he could only hope for the best.