The weather is undecided as the Hogwarts Express travels north. Rain spatters the windows in a half-hearted way, and the sun makes feeble appearances before clouds drift over it once more. When finally the train begins to slow, there's the usual racket as everyone scrambles to get their luggage and pets assembled, ready for departure. A prefect now, Draco's meant to help supervise this, so he shuffles into the corridor, leaving Crabbe and Goyle to tend to his belongings.

"If Potter can cast a Patronus, -" Theo's suddenly there, his voice hushed, though no one else is in the corridor just yet, "- do you think Granger can too? Do you think she'd teach me?"

Since Cecilia Nott's death, Draco and Theo have been closer than ever. The printed obituary and the funeral eulogy both said Mrs. Nott made an error in her magical garden. Something about plants that shouldn't have been next to each other. Accidental crossbreeding and dire consequences. In truth, Mrs. Nott had begged her husband not to rejoin the Death Eaters, and when he couldn't be convinced, she started making plans. Fake identities for Theo and herself. A new life across the ocean, hiding among Muggles. Treason, according to You-Know-Who. Punishable by death.

Theo hadn't known anything about his mother's plans. Hadn't helped with the arrangements, hadn't kept any secrets. Learning such a thing was underway had shocked him, though obviously not to the same degree as finding his mother's lifeless body. His father told him the truth the night of the funeral. The old man drank himself into a stupor and confessed.

"What do you mean confessed?" Draco had asked.

"It's his fault she's dead. He found the passports, and he told You-Know-Who. Said he thought You-Know-Who would convince her to believe in his cause, persuade her to stay. He said he thought it was what he had to do to keep our family together." Theo had scoffed at that, a sort of sad, disgusted little laugh.

And now Theo's asking him about the Patronus Charm, which sounds like something Voldemort would also find treasonous. But can Draco deny his friend anything at this point?

"How'd you hear about Potter casting that charm? It wasn't in the papers."

Stalling tactic. The train has come to a complete stop now, and the corridors are crowding as their follow students unboard. They won't be able to speak freely much longer. Draco will have more time to think this through.

He left the charmed notebook at Hogwarts over the summer, and he still hasn't decided on a plan moving forward regarding Granger. Is being friends with her too risky? What about helping Theo connect with her in order to learn the Patronus Charm? Or knowing he's learning the charm and not reporting it?

"Heard about it the same way you did, I assume," Theo answers in a hushed way. "Your father has a lot of influence at the Ministry. Heard all the details of Potter's trial, didn't he?"

"He wanted Patronus Potter expelled. Wouldn't stop complaining it didn't work out that way. I take it he complained to your father as well?"

"He did. Such a comfort in these difficult times, your father."

Draco and Theo shoulder their way through the throng of classmates towards the exit, then clamber down the train stairs and onto the platform at Hogsmeade station. They face each other, squinting through the fog and misty rain.

"So do you think Granger knows the charm?" Theo asks. "Will you ask her to teach me?"

"Granger's not too pleased with me just now."

Another stalling tactic, but not a lie. Earlier on the train, Draco gave Potter a hard time about not making prefect. Nothing dramatic, but it seemed to get under Granger's skin more than his usual antics. Probably mad at him for not writing all summer.

Theo grins at this. It's good to see him grin. "How about you tell me what you did to piss her off, I tell you how to fix it, and then you be a good mate and ask her to help me? I know I could ask her myself, but a warm handoff is always preferable."

"You there, prefect!" A lantern swings towards them, and by it's light, Draco sees the prominent chin and severe haircut of Professor Grubbly-Plank, a witch who has covered Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures lessons in the past. "Malfoy, isn't it?" she asks.

"Yes, ma'am. Draco Malfoy."

"I'm told there's a first year, a boy called Euan, refusing to get off the train. Be a dear and fetch him for me, won't you?"

Excellent timing, Professor.

"Of course. Right away."

Draco nods a farewell to Theo, then dashes back onto the train. He passes through his own House's passenger car first, then Ravenclaw's and Hufflepuff's and Gryffindor's, each less crowded than the one before it. Indeed, nearly all of the compartments are empty now, their doors left wide open. Draco enters the last passenger car where first years usually sit. There, in the first compartment, is a downtrodden boy and an older student already at his side.

Hermione Granger, of course.