Summary:

The world is supposed to be black and white. Easy. Pettigrew versus Sirius and Lupin. Voldemort versus Dumbledore. Malfoy versus me.

When dutifully avoiding his main priority of obtaining a memory, Harry Potter notices Draco Malfoy noticing Hermione Granger.

Disclaimer: One day I'll invent time travel and write Harry Potter before J.K Rowling.

Prologue

What's the saying? Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer. I think about the offered hand of the heir of one of the so-called Sacred Twenty-Eight often. Especially nowadays. In hindsight, my life would've been easier if I'd just taken it. My enemy would've been close and I wouldn't need to go to extreme measures in order to figure out what misdoings he'd be up to in the near future.

Thanks to my dad, I have an invisibility cloak to make it slightly easier; unfortunately I'm not the kind of person who can just blend into a crowd. Then there's the map (again, my dad, and thanks to Sirius and Lupin, too), so I can follow the little inked name of Draco Malfoy across the school. Malfoy is definitely up to something, despite what Hermione says. I mean, even Ron looks doubtful whenever I bring up an observed suspicious activity. "I dunno, mate, he's only Malfoy," he's always muttered with a shrug.

Only Malfoy. If only it's only Malfoy.

Here's the thing. If Malfoy has been branded with the Dark Mark like I'm positive he is, then it's Malfoy attached to a string puppeteered by Voldemort. Resurrected mass murderer, aspiring wizarding dictator, psychopathic narcissist, more reptilian than that nasty snake of his... So it's not only Malfoy.

I don't understand how my friends are so calm about this. Like our world isn't teetering on the verge of a war. Instead Won-Won wants to stick his tongue down Lavender's throat — of all people — and Hermione wants to sulk about her unrequited crush. Well. Ron definitely fancied her back. Even I could bloody see it. Anyone, in fact, who witnessed the Yule Ball row a couple years back could see it. But I kind of just walked into a brick wall because I'm not sure why he then proceeded to snog another girl in any possible spot around the castle.

Someone is violently chopping something, and I inhale the heady fumes of potions. Blinking myself back to the planet, I peer down at my cauldron. The potion is bubbling magnificently. I grin down at my copy of Advanced Potions Making (I catch Hermione giving it a filthy look in my peripheral vision) and silently sigh. I guess I'm a hypocrite. Dumbledore wants me to retrieve a memory from Slughorn crucial to defeating Voldemort — and I spend all my time doing pretty much everything except for that. Half the time I'm mooning after Ginny Weasley (and I'm glad Ron — her brother — and Dean Thomas — her current boyfriend — can't do Legilimency), then the other half of my waking moments I'm stalking Malfoy.

Speaking of.

Surreptitiously, I look through my lowered eyelashes across the classroom. Look at him. He's underweight. I can tell because his face is pointier than usual. Malfoy never looks like he's getting a good night's sleep, either. And let's be honest: if he's not using his Prefect's badge to bully First Years, and he's skipping Quidditch games, then there is something up with him. I can feel it in my bones.

But I've caught onto something strange in my observations. I've shared a lot of classes with Malfoy but I never really focused on him. Not until he reminded me of his presence like a fly buzzing in my face. Nowadays, though, I'm on a mission, and I've stumbled onto a find I'm rather afraid to dig up.

He's staring at her. She's busy alternating between glaring at her tragic potion and glowering at the Half-Blood Prince's graffitied textbook. I think he's figured that out. He tends to look when she won't notice. He's frowning, one fist clenching a dragon fruit over his ignored chopping board.

It's not the first time I've studied this behaviour, and the pattern makes me wonder how long this has been going on. Is this part of Voldemort's task for him? I scowl heavily at the thought, glancing protectively at Hermione. Over my dead body. She growls slightly when the contents of her cauldron hisses. I snicker unexpectedly, catching her attention. My dark mood momentarily ebbs.

Hermione puts her hands on her hips. That means she's getting ready for a lecture, so I brace myself. "Harry James Potter," she whisper-shouts, voice getting shriller with each syllable, and I have to bite back a grin lest she sends out the canaries, "don't act like your potion is your own stroke of genius." A sudden idea strikes me.

Shoving my hands into my pockets, I stroll over to Hermione's side. Her hair is so wild that it almost touches my face from a foot away; that is until she whips her head around to face me. I lean forward and mutter in her ear, "I'd be gracious enough to allow you to take notes from the Half-Blood Prince if you'd like—" she scoffs like she had to my initial, genuine offer "—but of course, there would be copyright issues to discuss." With seeker-like lightning reflexes Hermione whacks me with her own copy of Advanced Potions Making, but she's also laughing. I chuckle and my eyes land 'accidentally' in Malfoy's direction.

He's gone even paler than usual. Jaw clenched. I glance down to his chopping board and the dragon fruit is nothing but an incorrigible mess in his still balled fist. My stomach drops, and my grin fades.

Merlin.

I return to my potion with a buzzing mind. My enemy's thoughts can't be read from under a cloak or from the ink of a map. If I had accepted his hand in First Year and shook it, perhaps he would've confided in me the little things. For now, I can only speculate. And when I compare the way Malfoy reacted to Hermione and I with the way I'd snapped my quill while glaring at Ginny and Dean in the common room the other night, I don't like it. Not one bit.