By the time Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy met with the rest of the mismatched players they could get together for an informal game of pickup quidditch, it was dark enough that the lights over the Hogwarts pitch had to be lit. No one had changed the password for the illuminating spell since Harry had been stripped of his captain's position, so he was still able to bring the grounds blazing to life.

Everyone who'd come was dressed for sport, but only those who'd played on the house teams had full uniforms: Harry, Ginny, Ron, Draco, Blaise, and Crabbe and Goyle. Suited up in old padding from the bins of scuffed and damaged equipment in the field house storage room were Pansy, Hermione, and, oddly enough, Lavender Brown, whom Blaise had insisted be invited as their tenth player. She could only be persuaded after Hermione promised to write the introduction and edit all the spelling and grammar for her upcoming charms essay.

For safety's sake, Crabbe and Goyle would be on opposite teams, playing as keepers, where they would have few chances to come in contact with fellow players, and no chances to gang up together on anyone.

Also in the interest of safety, Pansy and Hermione would be seekers to keep them largely out of the fray of flying brooms, bats, and projectiles. It was well known that Pansy was a much better flyer, and unless the snitch materialized in Hermione's pocket so she didn't have to let go of her broom to catch it, Pansy would naturally be the one to find it.

Since the teams were smaller than normal, they agreed to play with one bludger instead of two, which meant playing with one beater instead one two. It demanded a complete departure from typical beater strategies, which was fine since neither Draco nor Ron - the players filling the positions - had ever played as beaters in a game before. But they did know one thing...

"Now, hang on," Ron protested. "It's not bloody likely that Malfoy's going to spy Hermione about to catch the snitch for the other team and smash the bludger at her to knock her off her gourd."

"Well, it will all cancel out since the same could be said about you seeing Pansy about to catch it for your opposing team. Isn't that right?" Draco asked.

Ron was so slow to answer that Pansy stamped her foot and yelled, "Isn't it?"

Ginny, the author of all the arrangements, was cackling madly at her own chaos. She and Harry were on opposite teams as well, playing as chasers. Blaise and Lavender were the other pair of opposing chasers, Lavender looking more and more tense as she realized all the other chasers weren't leisurely players like herself, but school athletes. It didn't relax her at all to notice Blaise's leering at her growing more and more brazen.

Ginny pointed her wand toward the chest where the balls were stored, "Right. Positions everyone. Once we're all up, I'll release them."

Hermione dropped her gym-class-issue broom on her own feet and took Draco by both his hands as best she could whilst he held a beater's bat. "What have you done, Draco? What am I doing out here? How in the world did I let them persuade me to play?"

He shushed her, kissing her cheek. "It's all in fun, darling. No one's going to be at their best." He tapped the end of the bat against the tip of her nose. "I'm not a beater. I'll be rubbish too. So don't fret. No one expects you to do anything, let alone win the game. Just fly up somewhere high and admire the rest of us until it's over."

She was still pouting.

He slipped his arms around her waist and pressed his forehead to hers, murmuring into her face, "Drift above us, like some glorious angel, and wait until it's over. You can do it."

She took a deep breath, inhaling the woodsy, leather smell of him in his quidditch persona. "You look - really nice," she murmured back at him.

"Why thank you - "

"Oi, you two!" Ginny was calling. "Get into position already."

Draco bent to hand Hermione her dropped broom, and then rose into the sky. Obediently, she climbed into the cold night air as high as she dared, wobbling in place, waiting for Ginny to release the balls with a flick of her wand.

As the balls exploded from the chest, Hermione had eyes only for the bludger, flying out of the box and whipping toward her as if it was cursed.

Ron lurched in front of it, batting it away. "Keep moving, Hermione!"

Blaise and Ginny were diving for the quaffle, outnumbering Harry who was completely unsupported by Lavender and quickly shut out of the race for it. Ginny got to it first, wheeling round to chuck it expertly past Crabbe's ear and through the ring.

"Use your arms to block!" Harry called to Crabbe as Ginny's team celebrated. "Your arm - it's like a beater bat only it's made of meat."

"Like this," Draco shouted, showing Crabbe a vulgar gesture he was known to be expert with.

Harry shook his head, his face neutral but fighting back a smile.

As Draco got better and better at neutralizing Blaise with well-aimed bludgers, Harry became able to challenge Ginny for the quaffle. Even without much help from Lavender, he eventually managed to score on Goyle. Lavender and Pansy cheered and swooped in celebration, linking hands and swirling their brooms together in a neat, tight circle.

At the sight of it, Ron cheered as well, in spite of his team giving up a goal.

Blaise watched the girls, his mouth slightly open. "What is that?"

"That, mate," Ron crowed, "is figure flying."

Blaise's stunned look flowered into a smile. "I have got to see more of that."

As the girls on their team celebrated in their own way, Harry glanced at Draco. He'd be pulverized playing in a real match with two bludgers and three highly skilled fellow beaters, but Draco was holding his own in this match, protecting Harry on their unevenly matched teams, making it work. Draco glanced at him in return, politely turning away to smirk at the unspoken gratitude.

Ginny used the short break to soar closer to Hermione. "You alright up there?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Aren't you cold?"

"Not much, thank you."

"Bored then?"

"No, it's all very thrilling," came her tremulous, unconvincing answer.

"Is it? Well have you tried - hunting for the snitch?"

"Oi, Ginny!" Ron was calling, "leave her alone, or you'll get her killed."

But Hermione was properly shamed and followed Ginny closer to the goal posts, nearer the game. Pansy was making a lap of the pitch, sitting up straight on her broom, her back slightly arched, waving tauntingly up at Hermione.

"Don't let her intimidate you," Draco was calling up to her.

Blaise tossed the quaffle back into play, ringing it off Ron's head to jolt him out of ogling Pansy. Ginny snatched the rebound, speeding toward Crabbe as he lurched awkwardly between the rings.

"Steady, Crabbe!" Draco cheered him.

But as the bludger whizzed by Crabbe, he acted on his beater reflexes, turning to deflect it with the end of his broom. It was a soft, loose hit, sending the bludger careening toward his own star chaser, toward Harry.

If he'd been a better beater, Draco would have been able to rush out to meet the bludger with the smack of his bat. As a seeker, his instincts were different, and before he realized what he'd done, Draco had positioned his entire body in front of the bludger, shielding Harry with himself. The thud of the fast, heavy projectile colliding with Draco's side was heard all over the pitch. A collective groan went up from both teams as he sank in a controlled fall toward the pitch.

For the first time in the match, Harry was speaking to him. "Honestly, Malfoy, it's just a pick up match. Don't sacrifice your body for it."

"Got to protect the chasers," he said hissed, smirking, bent over his aching ribs.

The rest of the players were descending to stand with them on the frosty turf. Draco raised his head to note each of their faces as they landed. "Where's my girl?" he asked when everyone but Hermione had arrived.

"I'm here," she said, walking toward them, dragging her broom by one hand, and pinching something small, golden, and twitching between the fingers of her other hand. "I've got this thing. Can we go in now?"

Ginny had lit a fire in the field house stove, and they sat inside, drinking the cocoa Blaise had instructed a troop of house elves to bring out to them. Hermione hadn't drunk any, not so much out of solidarity with the elves, but because she was occupied with daubing the anti-bruise balm the Weasley twins had given her when their telescope blackened her eye onto Draco's ribs. He lay on a bench, his jumper hiked up, most of his torso exposed as she worked.

"Look at him lying there like a Caesar while she ministers to him," Harry growled at Ron. "How am I supposed to like him when he acts like that."

Ron rolled his eyes. "Like what, Harry? Like the bloke who got hurt trying to protect you?"

"He needn't have - "

"That's completely off the point though, isn't it?" Ron said. "He's trying. I reckon he'll always be a git, but you've got to admit he's trying. He got it to work on Hermione, so there's hope for you too."

She had finished with the balm and Draco was sitting up, shifting his clothes back into place, but now he was pulling Hermione to sit on his lap.

"Draco, Harry's not going to feel comfortable talking to us if you're like this," she warned, smoothing his hair.

He sighed and let her go. "Right. I'll get us something to drink."

He crossed the floor to where Blaise stood leering at Lavender.

"Pansy's going full Gryffindor," Blaise said, watching as she applied her plum lipstick to Lavender's lip with the tip of her pinky finger. "First she adopts Weasley, and now she's fraternising with this whole lot."

Draco smirked. "You seem a bit tempted yourself, Blaise."

He sniffed. "What's Brown's blood status?"

"Who cares? Cheers." Draco tipped his mug of cocoa and stepped away.

Ginny still hadn't come back from putting all the borrowed school brooms and padding back in their places in the storage room, leaving Harry on his own, leaning on the wall next to the exit. He was eyeing the storage room door, anxious for Ginny to emerge so they could leave for the castle, for their common room where Slytherins wouldn't follow.

He swore under his breath. Here came Draco, sauntering across the floor.

"Very interesting match, Potter," Draco began. "You know, you might have been a chaser."

Harry drained his cocoa cup. "Might have been. When you join the team in first year, seeker's the only position they'll let a kid have."

Draco smirked, judging it wise not to mention coming on as a seeker himself in second year.

"I'll say it, Malfoy," Harry went on, through gritted teeth. "Ever since you quit the Slytherin team, they've been rubbish."

Draco laughed. "Have they? I hadn't noticed."

Harry nodded. "No, I don't suppose you would have. But it's true."

"I would have much rather been playing quidditch this year than…" He didn't know how to continue.

"Trying to stop a war?" Harry finished for him.

Draco shook his head. "Even if all goes perfectly, we won't be able to stop him. We'll just slow him down long enough to let you and the headmaster - do what only you can do."

Harry shifted on his feet, still hoping to see Ginny coming through the door, but glad for the chance to ask a long-held question. "Tell me, Malfoy. Do you regret it?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Regret it? Yes, most of it. Are you trying to get me to apologize for an itemized list of sins and misdeeds? Because I'll do my best, Potter. Start naming them off - "

"No, no, that's not what I mean," Harry said. "I'm talking about this coming weekend, about your charm - your marriage. It's not - ideal."

Draco looked across the room to where Hermione sat with Ron refusing to answer how it was that she came to catch the snitch, denying she used any magic other than flying, getting loud and getting dragged back into old arguments about other times she bent the rules.

He smiled. "I would have liked to marry Hermione under circumstances other people were able to be happy with. I mean, you should have seen her dad today. Not happy in the least. I feel a bit sorry for them, but not for myself. No, for me, regret doesn't come into this at all."

Ginny was back, draping herself over Harry's shoulder, nuzzling his cheek. "Let's go home," she said, leading him away.

"Nice talking," Harry said as they turned to go. "And thanks for the save."

Near midnight, after the quidditch pitch went dark, as Tim Granger lay awake staring at the ceiling of the enchanted castle, Severus Snape made his return to Malfoy Manor. No one had called him this time, but he had come all the same, feeling uneasy, knowing nighttime was when the Dark Lord was active inside the manor, holding grim audiences in the drawing room, or fretting and scheming with just Wormtail and Bellatrix, livid and hunched over his wounded hand.

Snape had to sneak back to check on Narcissa Malfoy's recovery. It was the Dark Lord's unhinged desperation that drove him to punish her beyond what would normally seem reasonable to him, almost to death. If he had returned to his calculating and coldly rational self, he would now let her recover, and keep to the course he'd set using her to manipulate young Malfoy to infiltrate the castle through the vanishing cabinets. But he could no longer be trusted to be calculating. He was enraged that the Grangers had escaped, and all the while, his hand burned with Hermione's magic.

Snape slipped through the manor's kitchen door, the house yielding to him, letting him enter without the spoken permission of anyone inside. The elves nodded at him with wild, scared eyes but said nothing to alert anyone as he passed among them, tiptoeing along the kitchen stairwell to the bedrooms upstairs.

He disillusioned himself as he moved quietly down the corridor. He would look into Narcissa's bedchamber to see she was sleeping undisturbed by her wicked house guests, and if he was satisfied, he would return to the school without a word. He would have to be alert and awake when Miss Granger came knocking at his study early in the morning to begin composing the incantation for her matrimonial charm. So many people, so many crisscrossed threads...

There was light inside Narcissa's room, a candle burning on the table next to her bed. By its light, he saw movement - shaking and tossing within the sheets.

He stepped closer. Narcissa was in bed but not sleeping. She clutched the blankets beneath her chin, her teeth chattering. "Severus," she said.

He stepped into the dim, orange light. "You are just as I left you, hours ago. No one has been in to care for you since then?"

"No. No one. And I'm dying of cold. Please…"

He felt the bed linens. They were thick and ample, but her cheek was still cold to his touch when he brushed his fingers against it.

She snatched at his hand as he drew it away from her face, pulling it back toward her skin. "So warm."

"As I feared," he said, letting her press his hand against her face. "The transfusion was insufficient. I've come with a blood engorgement potion which you must drink, immediately."

With one arm around her, he raised Narcissa to sitting, offering the vial in his other hand. She took it and drank as best she could through her chattering teeth, keeping her fist clenched in the fabric of his robes, holding herself upright.

"It's not working," she said, her fist tightening.

He set the empty vial aside. "It will, after a short delay."

Her whole body shuddered. "Not short enough. Don't leave, Severus. Wait with me."

"Of course, I will. That's why I've come," he said, summoning a chair to the bedside.

But she kept her grip on his clothing, holding him with both hands now, clinging to the heat of his body. "Stay."

His hands covered her fists. "Madam Malfoy, you must lie back. You're exhausting yourself and growing colder the longer you're uncovered." He moved forward, pushing her back toward the mattress with his movement.

She used all of her strength to keep hold of him. "Don't let go of me, Severus. Lie here beside me until I'm warm again."

He sighed. "Madam, the impropriety - "

"Means nothing," she finished. "My husband, the true lord of this manor, is gone. I am left here as the Dark Lord's pawn, already run my course - utterly insignificant. And now I lie dying - "

"You won't - "

Her voice was high, breathy, near tears. "Please, Severus. Stay with me."

She was losing the strength to cling to him, her head lolling back. He let himself fall with her, onto the mattress. Her face looked up into his, glittering grey eyes pleading.

He slid his shoes off and lay next to her, pulling the blankets over both of them, tucking them around her back as she pressed herself against the front of him. She relaxed into him, her forehead against his chin. Her hair, freshly washed by Ann Granger that morning, smelled of Narcissus flower soap. He breathed in the scent. Narcissa, Lily - pureblood or Muggle-born, so many witches named for flowers.

He had lived like a monk, all these years, since Lily Evans died and he began this lonely life of stern, ascetic atonement.

Against his chest, Narcissa breathed a laugh through her nose. "How did I become so dependent on men?" she said. "Do you remember me at school, Severus? I didn't need anyone's help or rescue then - no husband, no son, no one bound with an unbreakable vow that inevitably involves me. Look at me now." She tilted her head to see his face. "Look at you."

Snape clucked his tongue and tipped her head against his chin again. "You are weathering a violent attack from the most powerful dark wizard of our time, and the only person outside this house who knows what you've suffered happens to be a man. It is no reflection on your abilities."

"You are too kind," she said. "It's alarming to me, how much stronger and safer I feel with you here."

"It's the potion."

"It's not." She was acting on old habits learned during a long marriage, opening her arms to hold them around him, forgetting about the slash on her chest. She hissed and recoiled in pain. "I'd better turn my wound away."

When her back was facing him, her pelvis seated against his, Snape clenched his eyes closed, an old Mitrian incantation in his mind keeping his body from responding to her, but doing nothing to curb the response of his feelings. He felt her shivering beginning to mount again and let his arm cover hers, his hand on the mattress in front of her stomach. The tension in her spine softened, and she nestled into his warmth. Her breaths slowed and deepened as she fell asleep.

He could have gone then, slipped out of the bed and into his shoes, down to the kitchen, and back out into the night. Instead, he tightened his arm around her waist, bowed his face into her hair, let out his breath against her scalp. Even in his atonement, he would allow himself to accept what Narcissa offered - this warmth, this brief reprieve from loneliness before Sunday came and he risked revealing his allegiance to the Dark Lord, and with it, his own destruction. Wandlessly, he extinguished the light.

Sleepy and barely audible, Narcissa whispered, "Severus, thank you."